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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

#701

Post by johnnyanmac »

econ wrote: post #451
econ wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is both mysterious and comical how we manage to enshitify every corner of our existence. I can't think of anything unrubbed with the magic poop wand.

Must be hard to understand or something? The scope of the problem is much larger. If there is no "let's not use the app" movement and if there was it wouldn't be big enough to pick up on the radar. We have bigger things to worry about as the shit is oozing out of everything.

They are localized, and not enough to overcome the migration Apathy. Reddit in 2023 was a great example of a high profile boycott that ultimately failed (in terms of impacting revenue. You can definitely argue brain drain).

>We have bigger things to worry about as the shit is oozing out of everything.

Yes, but "Tech bad/greedy" is about as far as we can push on HN before it becomes "too political" and and people/bots try to hide the story. At least I have other sources to discuss those matters.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#702

Post by dumbfounder »

sergiotapia wrote: post #267
dumbfounder wrote: post #261

Let’s look at a few use cases: Bank app: they use apps for increased security. Map apps: of course they need your location. And wow it works way better than web based. TikTok: in yeah they need access to audio to record audio. And wow the UI is smoother. Games: don’t ask for anything. Except more money through in app payments. Weather, uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart: needs location. Streaming apps: actually sometime…

All of those shortcomings were deliberately orchestrated by Google and Apple to keep taxing developers.

Wrong, it was orchestrated by them to tax everyone. That was my whole point.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#703

Post by frollogaston »

llm_nerd wrote: post #620
frollogaston wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apps are normally made semi cross-platform nowadays. Not much point in maintaining a PWA that's effectively an Android-only app. But even aside from Apple's lack of support, the PWA standard seems kinda bad. Weird boilerplate like the serviceworker.js even if all you want is to make it addable to home screen.

>Apps are normally made semi cross-platform nowadays "normally" is carrying a lot of water there. While the back-end is shared, obviously, a large number of orgs have two distinct fully native development projects for the platforms. There are zero empirical metrics I can cite, but in my experience the cross platform thing is a minority. Cross platform tooling is often the talk among the aspirational "One day I'm goin…

React Native is pretty typical now. Of course it's not magic, but it gets you most of the way there.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#704

Post by dostick »

tempestn wrote: post #384

At AutoTempest we resisted making an app for years, because anything that a hypothetical app could do, we could do with the website. And in my opinion, when searching for cars, it's more convenient to be in your browser where you can easily open new tabs, bookmark results, etc. And for years, it was our most requested feature, by far. We had instructions for how to pin the site to your home screen, and would explain…

“On the web you can open multiple tabs” - Interesting how people categorise things as only possible with browser. You can design experience in app to allow having multiple searches or whatever user needs multiple tabs for.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#705

Post by jdiff »

kelthuzad wrote: post #639
jdiff wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still haven't. The whole point of my comment is that you haven't, and I brought up specific points that remain un-addressed by any of your comments in your thread, despite your insistence. Linking to comments that largely consist of the next layer of "I already addressed your points elsewhere!" is not a response. The world exists beyond Apple, and "Apple decrees it" is not a sufficient to explain much of your cla…

>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. The main topic originated through OP's "why some users demand a 'native' app when the web app should be enough" for which I provided expla…

[flagged]

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#706

Post by fugalfervor »

velocity3230 wrote: post #618
fugalfervor wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Android/Graphene, I recommend permanently turning on do not disturb and adding apps to the allowlist. Opt in to notifications, rather than opting out.

Or just disable notifications for the various apps you don't want to hear from.

That's opting out of notificationse which is subtly different. I'm advocating for something a little different. See if your mind feels less scattered if you don't have any notifications at all. Then allow back in the ones that you feel are essential. A lot of the notifications we get feel important, but aren't.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#707

Post by SJC_Hacker »

everyone wrote: post #548

Asking as a software dev, is is better to have a website or an app? I would just assume that a website is better for getting new users cus of the lower bar to entry, theres no install, a lot of peoples phones are full. Also you can go from QRcode or clicking 1 link directly to the app. Whereas with an app, you have a link or QRcode that goes to the correct store, then install on the store, and then open. I get that a…

You can write your app in Flutter and target both at the same time. Even a desktop-native version if you want :-)

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#708

Post by efreak »

card_zero wrote: post #364
spauldo wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine it depends on how you use it. I came to Reddit late and never got into the old interface. I commented a lot on technical subreddits and didn't do much with the doomscrolling ones. I used Boost. Its ads were not intrusive (and I despise ads) and the UI was written with a small touchscreen in mind. If not for my distaste for phone keyboards, I'd say it was a better experience than the website on a desktop. Wo…

I hold phones sideways, then I forget that it's weird to do. People like apps (and mobile versions of sites) because of human hand anatomy, I guess.

Unfortunately, it's getting harder and harder to hold your phone like this and see any useable amount of information. I'd love to have a 3:2 desktop monitor to replace my 16:10, but even 16:10 isn't available for phones. My current phone is 9:19, and I think I've seen 9:21. The wider the phone is, the larger percentage of precious screen space the system UI uses up when horizontal. I can see half a paragraph on my phone in landscape mode, and if it was any wider I'd never even try. As soon as I want to type something, I have to switch to portrait or I lose my view of what I'm looking at. There are terminal apps I simply cannot use because portrait mode isn't wide enough (unless I shrink the font so small I can't read it) and landscape mode I can't see anything at all. This affects some websites as well, due to their insistence on removing UI elements entirely when the device is too narrow (instead of moving them to the bottom) and others that set a ridiculously large minimum width. I far prefer tethering my phone to my tablet for this reason, which I'm lucky enough to have in 16:10 form factor.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#709

Post by WA »

8n4vidtmkvmk wrote: post #687
WA wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Both. I'm a one man shop. Not sure how many customers I've lost for not having an iOS app but I'm not positive it'd be a net ROI either. It is niche but not so niche that I don't have a few competitors. If an app is a must have ... It might be better to lose that customer and focus on the parts that set me apart to win others.

Hmm, hard to tell. On the one hand, Pieter Levels with Nomadlist also never bothered with an app.

I have a B2C app that is in a niche, it started as a web app many years ago, but customer expectation is clearly in having an app. It also comes with the benefit of offline-first and local data storage. I wrote the whole thing with Ionic. So one code base for web, Android and iOS.

In my case, not having an app would’ve been a bad decision financially. The app also unlocked external reviews/comparisons of magazines and such. Basically free marketing.

Re: Do not download the app, use the website

#710

Post by thaumasiotes »

frakt0x90 wrote: post #17
huqedato wrote: post #11

Well good advice... in theory. Most of websites I use regularly are simply not "optimized" for mobile: broken features, display errors, inadequate UI, just unusable on the phone. And it's intentional: they're sabotaging the mobile experience just to push you into downloading their app. I have no option than using their f..g app.

Yelp is one of the worst. So much so that I will do everything in my power to never download their app out of spite.

Apple Jacks used to run a series of commercials that had no message other than "Apple Jacks doesn't taste like apples."

I thought this was so stupid that I determined never to try the cereal.

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