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Do not download the app, use the website

idiallo.com

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Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#591

Post by kelthuzad »

jdiff wrote: post #574
kelthuzad wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That basically already exists on the desktop in the form of Electron apps. Those apps are universally hated because of it. Discord and Visual Studio Code are among the most popular apps on mac, those are electron apps. None of that is relevant to the core issue either way. It's not up to Apple to decide any of that, that's what the market and regulators are for. Apple uses and pushes self-serving and false narrative…

You really haven't. You are up and down this thread saying these things, but you haven't already proven them or even addressed them. You have points, I agree that web technology is well suited in 2025 to make interactive applications. I agree that web apps are being held back from expressing their true potential. And while Electron is largely skewered for being bloated and heavy, the web can be fast and fluid. But yo…

I already responded to any of your points that are relevant to the core discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44694037

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44692287

For the rest refer to https://whatpwacando.today

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#592

Post by aiisjustanif »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #264
montroser wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is not contesting that the app experience is better. Yeah, the web experience is worse -- because the product people are treating the entire web presence as a _marketing surface_ for the app. So, the web version is basically an ad for the app. This is true of Reddit, Yelp, and others. How could it not be worse? It's too bad because it's not like the web is incapable of providing a beautiful ux for those pr…

> It's too bad because it's not like the web is incapable of providing a beautiful ux for those products. I’ve never seen a web app I was happy with being a web app. I understand that a lot of people prefer web-based tools but a lot of us cannot stand them and try to get our work out of the browser as much as possible because we dislike the UX of the browser platform.

How about Google Flights as an example?

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#594

Post by aiisjustanif »

WA wrote: post #555
8n4vidtmkvmk wrote: post #294

I don't offer a native app for my business. We have a PWA. It works great on mobile. Yet users keep asking for an app. They're so conditioned to look in the app store now. I keep having to tell them to just pin the website to their desktop. Just a couple taps. All good. I don't need or want their data. It's a liability. They pay a monthly subscription. I want their money. Not their data.

Are you leaving money on the table or is your business in such a niche that people will jump through hoops for the results?

I feel like this is the point of the original post, it is not jumping through hoops to use a website.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#596

Post by sprinkly-dust »

My biggest peeve with the forced push towards apps is that you're often forced to fork over permissions to access valuable data that they couldn't otherwise gleam glean from a browser. Chief amongst this is the Contacts permission.

If you are one to carefully curate your contacts book to contain addresses, emails, birthdays for your own convenience and productivity, you have now provided a veritable goldmine of information for these companies to plunder, and betray the confidence of your acquaintances. I really despise this, and I've been looking for a solution but none thus far have seemed satisfactory.

I know of apps (at least on Android) like Bouncer and alternatives from F-Droid that can temporarily grant access to certain permissions like Location for a few minutes at a time, while giving the apps the illusion of full access.

However, save for using a Private Space or different user profile (both similarly require provisioning basically an extra instance of Google Play and everything) I haven't yet found a way to feed some sort of dummy contacts book to these greedy apps. If anyone knows of such a solution that is more convenient than setting up a new profile then please enlighten us.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#599

Post by retropragma »

phillipseamore wrote: post #83
i80and wrote: post #4

I 100% agree with this, but a significant way that mobile websites often decay the experience compared to the app is with very short-lived login sessions. Even when the experience is otherwise basically identical, I've found that login sessions in a browser are sometimes measured in days, where in the app sessions never expire. Which feels like app install metric juicing to me.

Note that Safari will remove storage for a site if it hasn't been accessed in 7 days.

That doesn't sound right. Have you seen documentation on this?

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#600

Post by fsflover »

dontlaugh wrote: post #588
fsflover wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sort of the opposite: Developer have to shrink the websites' functionality to obey this rule.

Usually they don’t, though. They add one iOS feature instead.

Which could work fine in PWA.
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