There are not many good example of great PWAs precisely because Apple has been crippling web capabilities on iOS by banning other engines and degrading the experience in Safari for a decade.
> PWAs do not need to be wrapped in a browser engine of their own, they use the installed browser engine.
Ah yes, they don't need a browser engine, they just need a browser engine
> They are not inherently bloated or resource-intensive in any way.
So, let me get it straight. A web app running inside a web browser engine is bloated, slow, and non-performant when it's on desktop. But the moment you put it on mobile it's not?
> There are not many good example of great PWAs precisely because Apple has been crippling web capabilities on iOS by banning other engines
Two notes:
- Which of the features that Apple "crippled" will help web apps not be bloated, non-performant, slow, with bad UI etc.?
Is it the lack of an install banner that makes a web app struggle to display even a static text with any semblance of performance?
Is it the lack of push of notifications that make Google say: okay, we give up, most sites load in over 2.5 seconds now, so we assume anything faster than that is a win [1]?
Is it <the list is frankly endless>...
- Android has been a dominant mobile OS for over a decade with "non-crippled" PWA support. Where are the not inherently bloated non-resource-intensive web apps we've been hearing about? Please say Twitter :))
[1] https://blog.chromium.org/2020/05/the-science-behind-web-vit...
The second one especially stings - Apple might be throwing out a perfectly fine feature that I used a lot. Not everything needs to be on the app store - what exactly can I do now to put an icon on the home screen for a user base of 5 people? Something like this would never pass app review.
> So, let me get it straight. A web app running inside a web browser engine is bloated, slow, and non-performant when it's on desktop. But the moment you put it on mobile it's not?
A web app doesn't require that you bundle an entire Chrome runtime with the app. There's a lot of your "bloated" right there. You've been told this several times, so it seems that you're being deliberately obtuse.
As far as "slow and bloated" as a whole, my (several years old) phone has 64 GB of storage, a hexacore 3.22 Ghz CPU and a quad-core GPU.
I. Just. Don't. Care.
I'm old enough to remember the exact same "slow and bloated" crapola when programs written in C (and, at that time, Pascal) started replacing hand-coded ASM. Now, modern C compilers are pretty whizzy, but at that time coding in C entailed a significant size and speed penalty.
Are you still writing in hand-coded ASM?
Yeah, that's what I thought.
If you don't want to use web apps, or Electron apps, don't use them. No one's forcing you to use them at gunpoint, mang.
Better yet, write your own "fast and slim" apps and take away the market for the "slow and bloated" ones.
I also use "web apps" in the browser. I struggle to find a single one that doesn't fit the description. Well, I know some, but when ask people like you to give examples, there's either silence or some ridiculous thing that only proves my point.
> I. Just. Don't. Care.
Indeed
> I'm old enough to remember the exact same "slow and bloated" crapola when programs written in C
Non-sequitur
> If you don't want to use web apps, or Electron apps, don't use them.
I would if devs like you didn't have your attitude of not caring and shipped other than shit
> Better yet, write your own "fast and slim" apps and take away the market for the "slow and bloated" ones.
What's stopping you from creating such apps? Just your "I don't care we have supercomputers so I'll use the technology that struggles to even display some static text on it"?
it is a responsive website, they do not have native apps, you can still use it on a phone
I just checked you can use it standalone if you want to, I myself choose to use this website from the browser on linux... but I actually "installed" it on android and if I used my mobile more, I might just want to use this "app" this way
every website is a potential web app if written responding to screen sizes correctly
inherently nothing is bloated...
actually, I do not really understand why you hate web apps that much, just do not use them! use them in your favourite browser or whatever
whether a sotware shit or not, depends on the developer, not whether it is c++, java, swift, android-java or js...
> it is a responsive website, they do not have native apps, you can still use it on a phone
I see a largely static site with very little functionality.
During search the site jumps when the progress bar disappears, so you can easily misclick on items in the list (I did at least once).
During checkout it takes a second or so to add additional items to the order (could be long network connectivity, but there's no indication on the page).
I'm supposed to be impressed? You call this an application?
GoDaddy of all sites had all that in mid-2000s. Just checked: they still do, and it's faster, the page doesn't jump around, and additional selections are applied immediately. If something takes time, there's a loading indicator (inline if needed).
Okay, I decided to sign up and see what's there. Literally nothing works, but that's not really important. Here's the sad/funny part:
A static page showing domain details with literally just text on the page and a few icons requires 2.5 megabytes of Javascript.
Yes. This page with almost nothing on it needs 2.5 megabytes of Javascript: https://dmitriid.com/media/6/b/1/f/912c-e91b-4530-af54-09247...
Yes, you said it correctly: "inherently nothing is bloated". You still managed to bloat it. Go and read "Performance Inequality Gap 2024": https://infrequently.org/2024/01/performance-inequality-gap-... (I don't agree with Alex Russel on many things, but his performance analyses are always spot on).
> every website is a potential web app if written responding to screen sizes correctly
Honestly, web people should leave their bubble at least for a nanosecond from time to time. No, a site displaying a few hundred lines of text and a minimally functional checkout (and still doing a rather poor job of it) is not an application.
Having a responsive design does not make a website into an application.
> I do not really understand why you hate web apps that much, just do not use them! use them in your favourite browser or whatever
Because I'm forced to use them as they are the cheapest fastest way to make stuff for people who wouldn't know a good UI/UX (and good apps, and good programming practices) if it stared them in the face. And who cannot even design a text page without requiring enough resources to power a small town.
> whether a sotware shit or not, depends on the developer, not whether it is c++, java, swift, android-java or js...
And yet, the shittiest software is somehow still made for the web, en masse.
but here I am, the reply is: hover is a minimalistic usability example, I will not show my website yet, but I know it is totally possible for good or very-good programmers to write in application style, using web tech
try this one: https://web.telegram.org/k/
the writers are mathematicians I guess, russian minimalists... I remember I checked their site and it did not seem to use bloated stuff
compiled native UX code may be less kb than minimized js but actually I have never seen comparisons and I do not know much about UX programming in java, c++, android-java or swift or the like
however, a website can dynamically load (can, 99% do not make use of it) just in time what you need (or as a compromise, preload the next possible steps)... UX code, app code anything
you can make the client download always the very necessary code on its user journey... even UX code, app code...
what I find better in native is the built in bot protection :)
I do not use and know good web apps in the application sense, in plenty of comments I argued it is the tech of the future because web designers are mainly not real programmers and hence bad in app programming.
I mentioned hover (I did not write it) as an example that was in my mind that they asked us years back whether we needed a mobile app or is it enough to have responsive website.
I am the opposite of power user of mobiles, I do everything on linux desktop, I hate 99% of websites. So now I "installed" hover again on my phone because I already de-installed it. It was 5 sec, I got a button, I pressed it, and signed in with my pass manager, having an authenticator app activated it was still a breeze. Most websites would have already lost me...
There I have a feeling of a website but I see everything clearly and I can use it effectively, change things, pay things etc. One thing that was annoying in the 2 minute test of mine is that a seemingly button like thing did not work, you had to click on the text which I smiled at.
For usability it was 8/10 for me which is great because most sites are 0-4...
This site demonstrates not that it is a web app in the greatness sense but that there are so many things you do not need a native mobile app for, thanks to the web which can deliver usable standalone UX even from traditional web designers (hover engineers seem to be clever minimalistic web designers, not really modern web app programmers).
What I can tell you, that good web programming is totally possible, it is a question of modern js, modern web api (so that you do not have to write things in js just call c++ or rust code that is implemented by very capable native app engineers), V8 optimization, most importantly good future web programmers vs. bad current web designers.
Yes, hover makes 70 requests, 5 mb on first load, it is an old school website but still works for me, even on mobile. It is not a bombastic app but capable to become a standalone UX on mobile (aka app) where I can easily use it for the use cases there are in the web domain management domain of services :)
Sorry but I do not really know actually what your point is. In a year or so you can take a look at my site, it will be the best web app you have ever seen. It is totally possible. If you wish I write you a c++ app that you want to die after using it and it will so bloated importing 10 million libraries that I actually never use that the compiler needs over a minute :) Still great performant c++ apps are possible.
Tell me your angle. Are you a native app developer for mobile and you fear learning new things? Even if you invested a lot in coding in a language, I think 95% what your actual market value or knowledge is not the concrete language skill but years of programming experience.
In addition, you can use webassembly for c++ code, on the backend you can use normal strongly typed native languages, the web is beautiful, complex but beautiful. What you see on current websites is a horror. In a way on hover.com too but usability is ok.
Literally nothing about this is old school. Not single thing. It's a simple page with text information on it. It needs exactly three requests: HTML, CSS, and a few kilobytes of Javascript for the minor interactive functionality it has.
Because yes "inherently nothing is bloated". An yet this website requires 2.5 megabytes of Javascript to display a few kilobytes of text, and you offer this as an example of "minimalist website that is not bloated" or something.
> What I can tell you, that good web programming is totally possible
Yes, it's possible. And yet everywhere you turn you see bloated websites.
> Sorry but I do not really know actually what your point is
I think I've stated it loud and clear, and didn't hide behind several pages of demagoguery about the state of the world and possibilities and what not.
> Tell me your angle. Are you a native app developer for mobile and you fear learning new things?
1. What does this have to do with my questions?
2. What exactly in my questions prompted you to stoop down to ad hominem?
> good web programming is totally possible
> modern js, modern web api, V8 optimization
> you can use webassembly for c++ code
> What you see on current websites is a horror
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