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Comment by ohitsdom | Hacker News Reader

Alternate title: 50% of smartphone users continue to click "X" when prompted to install a specific app when visiting a website.

Is it too much to hope that companies get the hint and fully embrace the mobile web?

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Yelp is so annoying on this front. Click on a review and you have to scroll past a full page suggestion to open it in their app. Then to read reviews they have a "Read more reviews" button, but if you click that it takes you to the app store to install their app. If you click "close" you can actually read reviews.

Yelp is now in the position where I won't even visit their site, but only scan previews from maps/google/etc. So they went from showing me an apparently low value web ad to showing me no ads.

Yes, it is horrible. I have started to populate and use Google Reviews for this reason. If I am desperate enough to need to read Yelp reviews on my phone, I enable 'Desktop Mode' and then Yelp shows the reviews without trying to coerce me into installing their app. So sad.

News sites in particular are big offenders. I don't need a new app for every two-bit small town newspaper. I have a couple of major ones (WSJ, FT), but if you think I'm going to install the app for your minor newspaper because Google News linked it ...

These are definitely some of the worst. Small-time news sites all push some wretched app they bought off a CDN, and any niche tech news site feels unimportant if it doesn't push an app on every visitor.

Meanwhile I have BBC's rather pleasant news app, and consume my other news in-browser or off-phone.

So, while I agree with you: do they care I you read the article? They probably don't make any money off of you at all: you are just a waste of their resources. Actual local customers might be slightly more interested in their app, and the app may be something that massively ups their revenue in some indirect way.

I have to wonder if it's worthwhile though. Aren't they also chasing away a lot of potential local readers? If there's two or three local news options in my locality, I'm going to settle on the one that's least annoying. I don't disagree with your proposed logic, but I think they're mistaken in believing that only non locals will bounce.

They probably don't care about the locals who bounce either. Readers who won't pay and who won't even download an app are just parasites.

But how else are they going to push-notify you about their new Local Deals section comprised of ads?

You get what you pay for!

Similarly, the recent-ish trend of "open in app" buttons that obscure the content drive me crazy. Imgur does this. It's already open in my app, I prefer my browser as the "app", thanks.

My personal favourite is facebook chat. Mobile site? "You have to use the app!" Request desktop site? Well well well, it appear to work just fine. Supremely annoying the one time a month I need to reply to someone's message...

Even if it's a little bit primitive, the facebook chat at mbasic.facebook.com still works when you need it.

I just hit the aforementioned "Request desktop site", which works fine as well.

Extra irritating because it offers that app on every mobile browser, including those run on an OS they don't have an app for.

The mobile web isn't a good ux. The reason I use Facebook's mobile web interface is that the Facebook app is too intrusive. The value of Facebook's best ux isn't high enough to justify granting all the app permissions it wants.

Make apps. Make them nice and useful, and not spyware.

I'm not sure the average native app is better than the average Web app.

Perhaps not, but who cares about the 'average' app? There are millions of apps and almost all of them are terrible.

The only ones that matter are the best ones.

Because some of those would be fine as occasional use websites. Yet they just have to force a stupid popup telling you to install their app.

In a theoretical world where I only ever need anything from services that have best-in-class applications, perhaps.

Here is a hopefully more useful open-source app for Facebook: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.indywidualni... . I use it on my tablet running Cyanogenmod with no Google Play and it works well for most features.

Seriously. I don't want to download some garbage app for every website I just want to browse for 3 minutes. Screw Soundcloud in particular.

Imagine if every album required you to use an app specifically for that album. It's basically that annoying. Actually, I probably shouldn't say that; I don't want to give the music industry any ideas.

There have already been multiple "album" apps from popular artists.[0] Luckily it didn't seem to catch on.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/appsblog/2012/nov/07/...

I've never used the soundcloud website from mobile, but I do really love the app.

Retention is very valuable. Having a user install your app is more valuable letting him use mobile web and then be at Google's mercy to see him again.

I have several niche apps that are installed by only 12% of people who visit the mobile page but those 12% people generate much more revenue than the 100% of mobile web.

I don't hate the option for niche apps - I'm sure there's valuable demand from people with uncommon usage habits.

But I resent try-the-app popups every time I visit a site, and I'm certainly not about to declare low clickthrough rates an industry catastrophe.

It's important to consider then that it has nothing to do with the 'app' per say - it's the 'icon', i.e. home screen real-estate.

Mobile web doesn't give you interactions with the device like notifications, geofencing, background refresh, etc.

Yes, all reasons why I prefer the mobile web for many things.

We neither want nor need these.

Bit of a stretch to say "we" here, no? Are you speaking for the population of mobile users?

Well. The article you are commenting on says that 50% of all smartphone users don't want or need these features

> iOS web doesn't give you interactions with the device like notifications, geofencing, background refresh, etc. - FTFY

Obligatory XKCD:

https://xkcd.com/1174/

> Is it too much to hope that companies get the hint and fully embrace the mobile web?

It's cute you think the mobile web doesn't have spam on it. Also, companies don't embrace the mobile web because nobody uses the mobile web. It's too slow and unresponsive compared to native apps.

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