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Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

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Re: Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

#71

Post by jzzskijj »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #67
arrrg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is such a nerdy perspective, totally stuck in the filter bubble. I don’t think that explains the difference at all. I think it’s about convenience. People don’t want to use apps for the diverse things they do on the web all the time. Apps may be convenient if you use them frequently (and then only marginally, especially with improving speeds and more people paying attention to making websites usable on phones),…

poeple especially don't need apps of 150mb+ each, and premium phones come with limited storage forcing costly upgrades on top of an hefty price. the only competitive advantage for apps is push notifications, and the sooner browsers and phones can build that into a standard the better (including opening the right page when clicking on a specific service notification)

The other thing is privacy. I don't want to give every service a "full access" into my phone. At least I have a feeling, that my privacy is in better hands, if I access services using up-to-date mobile browser (or Tinfoil for Facebook) instead of a native app running on my phone.

Looking at the ridiculous number of permissions different apps would require to run on my (Android) phone, using mobile site of the most of the services seems safer choice. Android 6.0 may change this with switchable permissions, tho.

Re: Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

#72

Post by 49531 »

arrrg wrote: post #54
no_gravity wrote: post #6

The difference between web and app is trust. A website has write access to my screen, my speakers and my internet connection. Plus limited read access. To keyboard, mouse, device orientation etc. Other rights can be granted (location, cookies etc). It can do all this only as long as it's "open". An app usually has read/write access to large parts of my device. The whole sd-card, raw internet access, the camera, the m…

That is such a nerdy perspective, totally stuck in the filter bubble. I don’t think that explains the difference at all. I think it’s about convenience. People don’t want to use apps for the diverse things they do on the web all the time. Apps may be convenient if you use them frequently (and then only marginally, especially with improving speeds and more people paying attention to making websites usable on phones),…

I don't think it's a totally unique perspective, but perhaps the average smart phone user would use different terms. If you look at apps as always having new updates, and always using up precious phone storage space you begin to feel like these apps are cumbersome. It might not be what they call trust, but it is a negative experience regardless.

Re: Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

#73

Post by arrrg »

johnhkg wrote: post #57
arrrg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is such a nerdy perspective, totally stuck in the filter bubble. I don’t think that explains the difference at all. I think it’s about convenience. People don’t want to use apps for the diverse things they do on the web all the time. Apps may be convenient if you use them frequently (and then only marginally, especially with improving speeds and more people paying attention to making websites usable on phones),…

I have observed that non-tech people find the App Icons sitting on their home screens to be very convenient to access a service they use, kinda like bookmarks.

Sure, I don't think there is one variable that explains everything. There are a multitude of reasons that lead people to decide to use or not to use apps.

Re: Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

#74

Post by aikah »

nl wrote: post #39
bottled_poe wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>like it did on desktop It's pretty great that this happened. I'm so sick of using these pesky desktop applications. Just remind me, which web apps can I use for the following? -Audio production -3D animation -Video editing -CAD design -Writing/debugging software

Audio production: https://soundation.com/ 3D animation: https://clara.io/ Video Editing: https://www.wevideo.com/ CAD design: https://www.tinkercad.com/ Writing/debugging software: https://codenvy.com/ Now of course I expect we'll here the "but it misses feature X". I'm sure that's true. Next, someone will point out that generally, 80% of people don't need feature X, and the fact that it is online means it is many ti…

> https://soundation.com/

> https://www.wevideo.com/

They are built with flash, which is NOT what I would call using web techs. The fact that you couldn't tell the difference is interesting. Despite all the flash hate, there are valid use cases for it.

Re: Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

#75

Post by Bahamut »

tdkl wrote: post #70
Bahamut wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Native apps can be even worse - they control all behavior to a more powerful degree. The bloat and battery & data drainage is why I install as few mobile apps as possible.

You didn't state on which mobile OS you have this experience ?

Android and iOS

Re: Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

#76

Post by coldtea »

marcosdumay wrote: post #64
dombili wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't so firmly say "not anymore" when only 15% of Android users[1] are on the latest version of Android almost a year after its release. That number probably won't go any higher over time either because Android's update cycle is a mess. [1] https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

> That number probably won't go any higher over time either because Android's update cycle is a mess. What? People don't upgrade to an older phone. That number has nowhere to go but highter. The upgrade cycle being a mess just make this take more time.

>What? People don't upgrade to an older phone.

No, but new phones come out all the time that are STILL using older Android versions. I think it will take around 2-3 years for all new Android phones to come with the latest Android.

Re: Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

#77

Post by thachmai »

bottled_poe wrote: post #17
dbrabera wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all very specialised types of apps for content creation. If those are the only examples that came to your mind, you pretty much proved the point.

So, you really believe that nobody, other than the use cases above, use native software? I only listed the software categories which I personally use...

A counter example:

How many people aside from specialists use the browser as their main "app"?

How many people use webmail, search and read info, use facebook/twitter, order stuff, use online map, look at internet junk?

The browser is the number one app on desktop without a doubt. The flexibility it offers is nothing short of incredible. You can cite specialist apps all you like, it doesn't change the fact that those apps are a niche right now on the desktop.

Re: Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

#78

Post by pjmlp »

pjc50 wrote: post #51
bottled_poe wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be clear - I was never suggesting the the web can't beat native. The op was stating that the days of native are behind us. It is strictly untrue. > Remember when everyone thought web based email couldn't possibly work for them because of feature Z? No, I've always used web-based email clients. Did a software developer really say this?

Back in the early days of webmail, when IE6 was new and we had 28.8k modems, someone almost certainly said that. 20 years ago we used Eudora, PINE, Netscape's mail client, or (if you were really unfortunate) Outlook Express.

Still use Thunderbird. All web clients suck, including Gmail.

Re: Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

#79

Post by chillingeffect »

1971genocide wrote: post #15
bottled_poe wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>like it did on desktop It's pretty great that this happened. I'm so sick of using these pesky desktop applications. Just remind me, which web apps can I use for the following? -Audio production -3D animation -Video editing -CAD design -Writing/debugging software

Also VLC player. The thing is all those things will eventually migrate to the web. Right now the web has so much potential and those pieces of software have a small market and that market is pretty saturated. Once we do everything we can do with the web then we will move into domains that have incumbents I would say Facebook is much more useful to society then Audio Production.

> I would say Facebook is much more useful to society then Audio Production.

That's a bizarre value judgment to make, but social apps have different technical needs from multimedia apps:

Bandwidth to the cloud will never beat bandwidth to the local disk. And RAM.

Re: Mobile browser traffic is 2X bigger than app traffic, and growing faster

#80

Post by kukabynd »

Most popular used apps/platforms nowadays are not related to hardware (Facebook, Twitter, Medium). Chances are, your product isn’t too.

The only thing annoying me in mobile browser experience is the UI. For example, Safari on iOS. Let’s hide URL bar and get rid of back/forwards buttons in favour of using gestures 100%. Then, most of websites will be perceived as apps for majority of users anyway.

By moving to native we officially obey corporations to control our products and it’s surely not the way to go.

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