pride in worksmanship, perhaps...
because 1% is still quite a few users for whom the experience sucks...
or perhaps just plain old empathy...
because not every customer can just replace their device...
or... i dunno... just avoiding someone posting embarrassing screenshots of one's app looking like shit on hacker news?
Mobile first often made the experience suck for desktops.
Tiny screen first just makes the experience suck for everyone.
The author says: Also, I don’t care if the statistics for small devices is less than 1%, it’s just pure respect for those users.
But that's a false dichotomy.
No it doesn’t. iOS’s UI toolkit has numerous tools to allow a design to adapt to screen size. There’s no reason an adjustment for a smaller screen would have any effect on a larger one.
In Russian, there is a saying: To a poor dancer, their own butt gets in the way...
I’d have to argue that poor design work in general is the cause for this. “Mobile first” never meant to neglect the desktop experience - designers who do that are just poor designers to begin with.
Although I would think that this type of experience would steer one away from using the software or recommending it, this eventually reducing the revenue.
But more importantly, it would weigh on my conscience as a developer and reduce the quality of my sleep, which to me is more important than money by a long shot.
The horror!
My mom will for sure delete her local bank’s app if she sees the post showing that the padding is a few pixels off on a phone she doesn’t own.