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Comment by pradn | Hacker News Reader

Hardly any app is designed for subway riders. If they were, we'd have widespread preloading (like half an hour of tweets pre-loaded), seamless delayed posting (sending a new post when the internet comes back online), and visibility into what's downloading and uploading so users can make informed choices. As with all accessibility affordances, this will help people beyond the targeted group - like air travelers, folks living in rural areas, or those out of the country without service. They say wifi coverage in trains is going take another 25 years in the NYC subway system. Until then, I hope we pay more attention to users with intermittent internet access.

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I dunno, a number of apps I use on the subway are designed for such uses, including audiobook apps, podcast apps and many news apps (e.g. The Economist). But yes, other apps that could be designed that way may not work as well as they should. But even Netflix and YouTube can suggest downloads in advance now. Some apps will never be fully updated - for example, while the standard Mail app works great offline (it's getting it to connect sometimes that seems to take forever), the Gmail app always wants to upload a photo fully to the cloud before sending an email and this trips me up every time, because it never shows a progress indicator and it doesn't allow the email to be sent in the background before attachments upload. It's amazing how in 2023, we have all these engineering resources and lessons that can be learned from apps like WhatsApp, but we still build apps that assume always-on connectivity. It makes sense - even my local subway system is getting cellular service these days - but it's still doubly irritating if in an area with poor signal. (The signals poor, plus the app doesn't work or requires a re-launch, or... etc. etc.)

Love The Economist. They silently download the newest edition in the background, even when the app isn't open. I think a year ago the download was only triggered once you opened the page and went to "Weekly." Possible, but easy to forget.

I'm with you - a lot of them are, but too many are not. I personally use the NYT and FT news apps in the subway quite a bit.

In terms of pain points, the biggest is Safari. It gets rid of website state pretty quickly. I have tons of disk storage on my phone, why not serialize to disk? It could even be a "frozen" mode that still lets you scroll saved articles. It wouldn't be so useful for web apps, of course.'

It's the subway where you are that's not designed for apps.

On Korean subways I stream video at max res throughout the ride.

Same in taiwan. I think they must have cellphone antennas underground

One of the deep level lines on the London Underground (Jubilee line) has 4G. It’s proved by a “leaky feeder” apparently.

I know subway in Warsaw does have them.

The infrastructure of Asian capitals is the best in the world, that's exactly the point - 99% of the world experiences deteriorated network (see comments in this thread to that point). It's frustrating when software isn't built in ways that are resilient to that.

Most western European and all Australian cities I've traveled in had perfectly fine connectivity on underground trains.

We're always going to have situations with intermittent network connections. It's best to design for that from the first. An offline-first experience is good even if you have a good network connection: lower latency (read from disk) and lower energy (the phone radio will be on for less time).

That comes at the cost of increased unnecessary bandwidth and battery usage though.

As a developer I'm much more interested in optimising for that than accommodating a minor improvement to the experience when experiencing connectivity issues.

I'm not surprised that this is the case (I've made that same decision myself). But there are some apps that I just done understand: airline ticketing apps, theme park apps, etc. How is handling offline usage not ofne of the first requirements.

Gmail does not cache email attachments so ticket attachments are always iffy at busy venues. I usually just screenshot the ticket QR code now so I have it no matter the network situation at a crowded event.

If you have Youtube's paid version, you can have the app automatically preload content it thinks you'd like.

This has saved my ass plenty of times when my ADHD brain needed content in places where I didn't have internet.

That sounds like paying a subscription for a crack dealer in a rehab centre :p

I need that CONTENT! :<

you can also just download some videos from youtube you know you want to watch and save yourself the cash

The game metro is unsurprisingly good. Turn based games work well.

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