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Do not download the app, use the website

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Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#691

Post by cjk »

The author makes some good points, but native apps can absolutely provide a better experience than web apps in certain scenarios.

Bloated web apps with megabytes worth of JavaScript and CSS, crappy rendering performance, etc. are all too common. Far too many web apps are unusable or broken if you have any content/ad blockers enabled, which are almost a necessity in order to use the modern web.

Conversely, you download a native app once, and update it infrequently. Load times can be instantaneous. Offline support is far more robust.

To completely write off native apps just because some of those apps abuse the trust of users seems silly. Plenty of web apps have piles and piles of invasive ads and trackers as well.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#692

Post by threatofrain »

kelthuzad wrote: post #677
threatofrain wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By saying we're all web devs here, I mean you should've already expected that we have an impression of job posts, Reddit, Hacker News, Google Search¹ trends, Github ecosystem, or even npm download trends. We start the argument there. > That's just the lazy manufactured and false narrative that I've already thoroughly debunked. I'm not going to repeat it, since you would just ignore it again. But of course you've brou…

>By saying we're all web devs here, I mean you should've already expected that we have an impression of job posts, Reddit, Hacker News, Google Search¹ trends, Github ecosystem, or even npm download trends. We start the argument there. I can't tell if you're just accidentally incoherent or if you're just using some generated slop that makes no sense in the flow of the discussion. You claimed that the web ecosystem is…

Ok, my apologies, it really doesn't show up in your history. Your user page doesn't show anything fresher than 16 hours. Next time I should scrape the page more carefully to check for your replies in other threads.

However, I looked through all the posts you just linked. I still have nothing quantitative on whether "PWAs never took off". It's so much analysis on Apple.

> There isn't just Apple, there's also Google which is a big promoter of PWA's, and in fact they popularized the term. PWA's just never took off.

I just want to know what's popular, and I care about Android. You can care about why Apple is the reason everything is happening.

> That's just the lazy manufactured and false narrative that I've already thoroughly debunked. I'm not going to repeat it, since you would just ignore it again.

This is how you replied to me. You say "ignore it again" but this is the first time we spoke and all I can see is up-thread. That's what I mean by prejudice.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#693

Post by tonymet »

I try to encourage better app quality by giving 1 star reviews ...

- when an app abuses data it doesn't need

- when it's slow or the app download size is too big

- when it has hostile user interface patterns: like forced upsells, forced ad interstitials

- poor security practices

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#694

Post by zem »

Sophira wrote: post #589
kelthuzad wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We had instructions for how to pin the site to your home screen, and would explain to users how the website does everything an app can do. Still, constant requests for an app. This is the result of the inconsistent user experience to which gatekeepers like Apple have been actively contributing through active sabotage of web apps, such that all profitable apps can be more effectively and reliably taxed through Apple'…

> I thought that the desktop version of a website is the "real website" i.e. that there is only one static original website and that its mobile version was some fake substitute, so I always activated the option "show desktop version". It wasn't that long ago that when you used the mobile internet, you would be getting a "fake version" of the site that could render speedily, despite the limited speed of 2G networks. F…

heck, if I use the mobile version of facebook I still get a fake site that won't open direct messages, pushing me to install the messenger app instead. with the desktop version the messages open without any issues.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#695

Post by kenny239 »

> Think about it this way. What can a website on your browser really get from you?

> Apps, on the other hand, are a different beast entirely.

Then the article mentions how it can collect user's location, contacts, etc. But some of those information can be tracked by linking the google tracker (and various other trackers) to the website visitor's identity. It's harder but it can still be done (privacy badger and other methods can help i think).

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#696

Post by efreak »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #482
kelthuzad wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If web apps were any good, we'd see a plethora of them on Android. There are none (or very, very, very few). This statement alone is evidence that you didn't understand the crux of the issue. You are also confusing cause and effect. I clearly explained the root causes for that. The reason there are not more web apps is not that they aren't "good" - what does that even mean? what is the criterion for "good" here? If…

> Web Apps need to become just Apps. Apps built with the free and open web need equal treatment and integration. Closed and heavily taxed proprietary ecosystems should not receive any preference. That basically already exists on the desktop in the form of Electron apps. Those apps are universally hated because of it. Web technology is not suitable for making applications. It was designed to format text documents and…

> That basically already exists on the desktop in the form of Electron apps. Those apps are universally hated because of it.

I hate a few apps on desktop because they're web apps. Because those specific apps should _not_ be webapps. Other webapps I hate on the desktop _because they use electron_ and maintain yet another browser engine running constantly on my PC--not because they choose to write their UI in HTML and CSS. I don't need 15 browsers running on my computer. Give me a native stub for the taskbar and whatever other functionality is needed, and if you _must_ use HTML then render it in whatever browser I feel like opening the app in. I've got several programs that do this, and they're the best of the bunch (Intel driver assistant, cfosspeed) as they don't have an entire chrome process stack running all the time just in case you maybe want to open their interface (I almost never do).

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#697

Post by [deleted] »

kldg wrote: post #680
threatofrain wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't just Apple, there's also Google which is a big promoter of PWA's, and in fact they popularized the term. PWA's just never took off.

I use PWAs for my home websites (things like calendars and thermostat) running on tablets. They're a bit awkward, or I'm just ignorant of The Correct Way. I have to set metadata in a file for some reason I don't understand (most importantly, it must have a dedicated icon to display because ???). Then whenever tablet is restarted, I have to tap the website icon to launch it, then push up from bottom of screen to top a…

[deleted]

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#698

Post by Gigachad »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #474
Gigachad wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does an app for Reddit make sense? It’s an image and text platform. There’s no weird hardware apis required. Native apps make sense when you need to tap in to platform specific features like the Lidar api and such. They don’t make any sense for most websites.

Simply because native UI is faster and more functional and better integrated and better thought out than anything webdevs of any company can put together even if they cared to do it well. Sites like Reddit, or platforms like Slack or Discord, are perfect use cases for native clients, because there's a lot of space to make them better and more streamlined than the webapp. Unfortunately, that only ever happens when som…

It’s a website for showing text and pictures. I know I’m being a bit reductive, but there is absolutely no reason why reddits functionality couldn’t be extremely performant in a browser. In fact the Reddit mobile site actually is very snappy, it’s just full of nagware trying to push you on to the app.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#699

Post by Gigachad »

chasing0entropy wrote: post #295
galangalalgol wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't even a need for JavaScript for reddit though it does seem to require it. I posted this without JavaScript enabled so it obviously would be fine for reddit too. Using an app for reddit doesn't make any sense to me at all. Banking apps make sense, they are doing some crazy device finger-printing to avoid id theft. But when the goal is to convey information use html and css. If you are taking payments then y…

Reddit is in full in AI data hoarding mode. Try to load their website with fingerprinting entirely mitigated and you'll be greeted by impossible are you a robot validation

If you’re on a VPN it straight up blocks you with no captcha until you log in.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#700

Post by johnnyanmac »

charcircuit wrote: post #684
thfuran wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the difference between value and perceived value was pretty much their point.

I see perceived values as more of a multiplier. If an app had 0 value, 0 times anything is still 0. You can't take hostages over something with no value. If people didn't value their life it wouldn't work, similarly if people saw 0 value in an app they wouldn't use it.

My argument was about how value is decreasing. No one is arguing that these websites have zero value to begin with.

A more interesting thought experiment is where that threshold is before the lack of value invigorates the energy needed to migrate. That's part of why I put the boiling frog metaphor there. Rate of change definitely has impact on perceived value.

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