I still do not understand the popularity of this approach. It seems to crazy increase bounce rates. You would think that negative user behavior would already make these undesirable without Google being explicit?
I was shocked to learn how effective interstitial popup subscription requests are: http://optinmonster.com/3-reasons-lightbox-popups-capture-mo...
It only works for certain scenarios and cases, but at the end of the day, there's significant data to show that they work.
I certainly can't argue that it does yield positive business results under certain scenarios, but for the average user it seems to injure common web experiences.
For eCommerce, this type of interstitial is a no-brainer: users have an easier time feeling more secure purchasing through an app vs. Safari or some other mobile browser. (Especially if it's Apple Pay enabled!)
For content heavy sites, it might be that the opposite is true: faster access to content can be used to hook the user. If you own one of these sites, you still need to design a method to get the user to come back repeatedly after you post updates. Email subscription modals do a good job at this, but people hate giving their email - especially on mobile.
Considering the security of most of the "apps" out there this is really depressing.
The Hotwire Android app was the first one I noticed doing this, raising notifications unrelated to actual use of the app (e.g. for bookings). If they have a general promotion, like "fall sale" or something, they push a notification to a targeted subset of users. In their case there isn't even an option in the app settings to opt out of the notification spam. Yelp was the second app I found doing this, but they at least have an opt-out in their settings menu. For apps that don't, you can entirely revoke their notification privileges in the central Android settings, but I doubt the average user knows how to do that.
My dislike for playing whack-a-mole with this kind of nonsense is why I don't install apps anymore (outside a few trusted exceptions, like Wikipedia's app), and just use mobile websites.
Don't give a fuck. If I wanted your shitty app, I would have gone to the Play store and installed it. If I want to go to your website, then I want to fucking go to your website. Don't be a bag of rancid dicks and redirect me.
> 2) It's a solid retention strategy.
[Citation Needed]
We could choose to drop the interstitial as a matter of principal or on the assumption that the difficult-to-quantify long-term benefit will pay off later, but we'd have to make that decision not in the absence of data, but actually in opposition to the data.
Or let Google make the decision for us...
Can you provide an example of an app that is infinitely better than its mobile website?
If you can just provide one example, and not any of the tech giants. One example where there's a "mobile web experience" as you put it, and a native app.