Please Don't Make Me Download Another App | Hacker News Reader

Please Don't Make Me Download Another App

theatlantic.com

101 pointsthunderbong128 comments

Well, the elephant in the room is that an app these days is a packaged version of a website with one twist: notifications. Unless you explicitly disable it via settings, it will try to get a small chunk of your attention every now and then.

- Would you like to enable notifications to see when your EV finishes charging?

- Yes.

(in a couple of days when you're thinking about a completely different topic)

- SPECIAL OFFER! 20% OFF THE FATTY FRIES IF YOU GET A CAR WASH FROM US!!!

And that's everywhere. It pays off due to the scale, just like spam. It costs nothing to send an annoying notification to a horde of users, and even if 1% of the users go for it, it is still 5+ figures of revenue out of a handful of characters pushed to users' devices, and hours of human time wasted dealing with useless annoying distractions.

> one twist: notifications

I’d argue the second twist is data collection, which for an app can be much more invasive than what a web client leaks depending on permissions.

What “private data” can an app leak that a website can’t if you don’t explicitly give it permissions?

> if you don’t explicitly give it permissions

A lot of users don't understand that permissions are optional. They just tap to make the boxes go away. So the app developer stealing your data isn't insulated from being unethical just because they gave you a series of dialog boxes on installation.

So to answer your question: your contact list, location, connected Bluetooth devices, your photos, etc.

And there are now web standards for precise location (has been forever), Bluetooth, battery status, etc

If the implication was that web fingerprinting has gotten really creepy too, then I agree. Unluckily, I don’t think I can do justice to the matrix of “depending on permissions” x mobile OS x valid but overly broad permissions in a comment. Apps can and do take anything you give them, active status, location, other installed apps, battery charge percentage, etc.

Location data is permission based and at least iOS has taken steps that prevent an app from seeing other installed apps.

There is also a battery status API for browsers. Safari doesn’t support it. But Android browsers do.

>Unless you explicitly disable it via settings,

You don't?

I disable notifs like the fucking plague.

Notifs? Yeah, because it's not a question of if; that shit is dead on arrival.

App stores should start treating notification blocks as a signal the app is low quality

One look at the Android and iOS app stores should tell you that Google and Apple do not give a hoot about quality. If it makes money for the platform landlord, it stays.

The problem is when it’s an app that sometimes you want notifications from. I deleted Uber, for example, when it started spamming me.

That should be getting kicked off the store then! Didn’t google implement a solution to this like 10 years ago, notification channels? Does iOS still not having something like that? Is Uber lying about the content of the notification for the channel?

I thought it was against all the app stores rules to spam notifications that the user doesn’t want. Maybe I am mistaken.

Yep! Android packages do have channels. The issue is though, greedy companies jumble their notifications into one channel, so if you want one thing, you get the whole ass-blaster 5000. this is why we can't have nice things

I generally treat computers as less than equal, so only messaging and critical apps get notifications. You [phone] only speak when asked to!

It's not only notifications, it's permissions (that the app won't work until you accept) to track your location, exfiltrate your contact list, and so forth. It's an invasion of privacy. It should not be required to, e.g., order food at a restaurant or configure your headphones.

One under the radar change in iOS 18 is that contacts permissions are now more like photos have worked for a few years now. Instead of having to give the app all your contacts and then pick within the app, there’s now a system picker and you can choose specific contacts to grant permission for.

That’s cool and all but tbh don’t they already have it from the last time I accidentally pressed allow all? And when it’s out there it’s out there… even the FTC agrees: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41688080

At least they can't track changes to your contacts, which is also an important data.

That's really cool with per app contacts lists, like on GrapheneOS. Seeing it's now on iPhone, I hope it will trickle down to Android too.

They've had 14 years to get it. I remember ages ago there was a startup Path who famously justified uploading your contacts without permission (before dialogs were implemented) as it being an industry-norm!

https://techcrunch.com/2012/02/07/path-uploads-your-iphones-...

Yes, if you didn’t want them to already have all your contacts you’d need to have declined that previously

Well behaved apps may not have uploaded or looked at anything they didn't absolutely need to, but the problematic ones would

I have never had an iOS app that won’t work if you don’t give it your location, contact list data, etc except for obvious things like Maps.

McDonald's app won't give you offers if you refuse to give precise location permission. That said other functionality works fine.

I've honestly never had an app that didn't have a VERY good reason to need contacts access actually request it.

WhatsApp insisted on important contacts instead of letting me add them manually.

What's up doesn't start if you don't give it full contact list on Android.

That's the impression I got, though I had a haunting suspicion that there was some other way I wasn't able to find.

It's disgusting.

It works fine on iOS if you say “no”

Pretty much all social media apps request contacts and will auto-recommend your profile(s) to your contacts. Kind of a shitty feature if you want a somewhat private social media profile. I mean, not all social media is Facebook, can we please stop treating it as such?

And you can say “no” and the app still works

Okay. And? I guess I don't have a right to complain because I can just ignore the app's pestering.

With this kind of mentality, you can justify close to anything. I don't think this is sound reasoning.

I mean, in order:

- If I install an app, and if it were to request permissions I don't feel it needs, I decline them

- If it asks again later and provides a justification, I may approve it, if I feel the functionality is worth it. But I may not.

- If I don't and it continues to pester me, I delete the thing and move on.

Frankly I could count on a couple of hands the number of apps that have access to my contacts, and all of them need that access in order to function.

Do you feel the same way about the GDPR imposed cookie banners?

They're not actually imposed in the way we're seeing them. I have a big issue with low-quality software and most companies make very low-quality software.

99% of the time I see the cookie-banner, I will say "well for this type of website this isn't necessary". Either they're collecting suspicious, unnecessary data or they misunderstood the law. Either way it's not a good look for them.

Eventually it reaches an inflection point where it's so prevalent all I can do is complain, not avoid.

> It's not only notifications, it's permissions (that the app won't work until you accept) to track your location, exfiltrate your contact list, and so forth.

My idea of an operating system design (it is intended for desktop and laptop computers, but a variant could also be possible for smartphones and stuff if wanted), that all I/O (including determining the current date and time) must use capabilities (and can be proxy capabilities). The built-in programming language allows users to define new proxy capabilities and configure existing ones, and the C programming language can also be used. This can avoid such invasion of privacy but also is useful for other purposes, e.g. for testing, or to allow programs that expect a camera to work even if you do not have a camera, or to filter or redirect notifications, etc. Therefore, permissions can be as fine and as faked as you intend it to be. And, furthermore, the standard package manager would exclude programs that are designed to be invasion of privacy and other antifeatures like that (users can still install them manually, and the security features of the system still ensure that it would protect against many kind of malware and misfeatures).

> It should not be required to, e.g., order food at a restaurant or configure your headphones.

You shouldn't need a app or a web browser to do either of those things anyways.

I'm extremely confused by your first statement. If I take out all the parenthethicals, I get:

"My idea of an operating system design, that all I/O must use capabilities."

Any OS feature is a capability. Time and date are not I/O. What does capability mean to you?

Then you go on to say that the built in language will allow definition of proxy capabilities "and the C programming language can also be used"

How exactly does the inclusion of C avoid invasion of privacy? What such invasions? How does the conclusion follow?

I am sincere, please help me make sense of what you are saying.

I am sorry if I am being unclear. I will try to answer your questions.

> Time and date are not I/O.

In my system, they are. Anything except deterministic operations on the program's own memory is considered I/O.

> What does capability mean to you?

"Capability" refers to capability-based security. For a program to do any I/O, it must be given an object called a "capability" (which is similar than, but different than, a "file descriptor" in UNIX). There is no ambient authority; to open a file you must already be given a capability to open a file, etc. Capabilities can also be used to give someone else an additional capability.

A "proxy capability" is a capability that a program makes up itself, which can be used to pass messages between itself and another program that the proxy capability is given to. Programs cannot distinguish between a proxy capability and any other capability, therefore ensuring that anything that an application program would know from outside of itself can be overridden by the user. So, if a program wants to track your location, a proxy capability can be used to give fake location data (this is useful for testing as well, and also for other purposes e.g. if your computer cannot determine your location but you want to specify it anyways).

> How exactly does the inclusion of C avoid invasion of privacy?

Avoiding invasion of privacy is independent of what programming language is used.

Uber is the worst about this. I make a point of disabling notification permissions any time I’m not actively hailing a car.

The real elephant in the room is all the apps that are basically packaged web browsers but also want all sorts of absurd permission privileges so it can harvest user data to sell.

What's worse is when you're forced to use the app.

In my apartment complex we're forced to use an app for laundry (no cash, no card). The fucking app doesn't even sort the rooms (I'm actually impressed. I didn't know you could do any programming without knowing what sort is. Like not even one line of code...). It also has a 30 second load time because it redraws everything during the startup when it tries to connect to the network. Luckily their API got exposed, in May... and someone made all the machines free.

They also wrapped up their sales notification with the one that tells you the laundry is done. So you disable both. Not an issue though because the latter never even worked anyways.

But it's like when people send spam through the same email you send necessary information. Universities pull this shit all the time. Guess what? It all is spam now. And these people wonder why they emails get blocked.

Or when you go to a restaurant and they make you use their app. I'm autistic enough to try hard not to use them but often I give up because people I'm with get upset I'm taking so long (but I'm not the one at fault. It's like yelling at a cashier when corporate increases price on an item. Wrong target, but I get it). I think this is why they get away with it though. Because blame is often targeted at what is right in front of you, and they're often small. But a lot of small things add up. 1 shitty app can be ignored, but a hundred is overwhelming. And I swear, it gets worse every day

Can they actually force this on people?

Why can’t they? You technically have a choice to go elsewhere to do your laundry or to eat. It’s shitty and probably a long term negative but it isn’t anywhere close to illegal.

I guess it's better than the apartments where you phone is your (only) house key.

People should be allowed to set the rules corporations have to agree to to be allowed to do business near them. "Can't require a phone to purchase things" is a perfectly reasonable such rule... And in some states is a real one.

Maybe we should also recognize that "you get what you pay for" and "lowest bidder" are related topics.

So many businesses try so hard to save money that they end up losing a lot.

It depends where you are. Some states have made it illegal to refuse cash.

Yes and no. What do you mean by force. From my comment I use it the everyday way, not literal.

Yes, I can go to the laundry mat a quarter mile away or 3 miles away and pay cash. Both of which I need to be on site the entire time or I can expect my laundry to be taken or someone else to stop my machine and replace my clothes with theirs... But if I want to use the ones that are in the same building or the same complex that I live in, yes, I must use the app. As annoying as it is, there are worse options... It's just that a handful of undergrads could make a better app during a hackathon. Ones who know what a sort function is and maybe even caching!

Once they even tried to steal $20 from me. It double processed. I sent them the log from the app and showed them my bank record. They said they didn't see it. I sent the docs again and threatened a clawback. They said they didn't see it. So yeah, I made a clawback. I wonder how often that strategy works considering who their target customers usually are

I guess there's a third option. As mentioned, the API was exposed. Someone used this in my complex to set all the machines to free (I understand this has happened several places across the country given news and Reddit). I guess I could also send POST requests and pay that way.

There are technically options, but there is no option that is not exceptionally bad. I mean the bar is low to make me happy. We live in a world where my computer can talk to me in a fairly realistic voice while simultaneously to do laundry I have to wait several minutes trying to reload an app to just fucking pay. Something that could be solved with a typical tap to pay (they even have Google and Apple pay in the app! But you gotta prepay in fixed amounts. The machines also have NFC but it's not enabled)

If your washers are LG washers there’s a cheat code in the manual.

> What's worse is when you're forced to use the app.

Yes, especially if you do not have a compatible smartphone (or any smartphone, or any computer) or if it had run out of battery power. But also just in case you don't want to, or if the app is defective, etc.

(I had read on Usenet that there is a German word "Digitalzwang" if you are forced to use computers with specific software.)

> The fucking app doesn't even sort the rooms ... It also has a 30 second load time ...

Yes, also that, that they are badly written and badly designed.

> Or when you go to a restaurant and they make you use their app.

I had only been at one restaurant where this was required, although they provided a iPad for this purpose, to any customers who required it. Furthermore, the restaurant was mismanaged and not such a good quality anyways. I do not intend to go to that restaurant again.

Oh, I used to live in a building where the laundry was operated by a similar app (and unfortunately there were no alternatives nearby). To make matters worse, the laundry room was in the basement, where there is no internet connection (no WiFi and no mobile signal). And you had 30 seconds from the moment you "booked" the washer or dryer. So the workflow was 1) go to the laundry room, load the clothes into the machine and close the door, 2) run upstairs and start the wash cycle via the internet, 3) repeat the process for the dryer. Hated it.

I'm curious: if there was no internet connection at all, how the machine knows it's been booked?

Idk about them, but at my place you just don't get to do laundry.

And you email them and they don't respond. You email your complex manager and they tell you to contact them. Eventually someone yells and it gets fixed. Or someone destroys a machine or in my case, someone hacks them.

I can't remember now, but maybe there was a password-protected WiFi. Or the machine was connected to a controller that was connected by wire. All I know is that there was definitely no network available to the users of the laundry.

No, really it's identification and tracking on a mass scale.

Idk why more people don’t do what I do. I call it notification hygiene, or maybe attention hygiene. If an app has a legitimate reason for notifying me, like it’s a messaging app and a human being has messaged me, then the app gets to notify me, otherwise it does not. The first time an app shows me a notification that is useless to me it gets deleted from my phone if I’m not using it anymore. On the spot. Drop everything I’m doing and delete the app. If I am still using the app I disable notifications for it. I get almost no notifications that aren’t people messaging me.

Cant do that with my banking app, payment app or government apps :(. Unfortunately where I live almost everything requires a phone.

You can’t turn off the notifications?

To be clear I wouldn’t delete my banking app if it showed me a marketing notification, I would go into the app and turn off that kind of notification. I have notifications turned on for my banking app because of 2FA and transaction notifications. In the past I was actually able to stop a fraudulent transaction within minutes because of a transaction notification so I value them.

you can't selectively turn off junk notifications from apps that you need notifications from.. i want to use the peets app to know when my coffees ready but it spams me with pumpkin spice latte deals..

I think this is something I genuinely differ on to most people. If an app doesn’t allow me to selectively choose the notifications then I don’t allow it to notify me. I put a really high value on my attention and I don’t consider that ok behaviour from an app. If I miss something because I don’t get notifications then that’s too bad, the value of not being interrupted is so much higher.

I feel similarly. I hunt for the Unsubscribe button to every email I don’t want and/or mark it spam in my mail app. It makes a real difference after a while.

Unfortunately, companies know most people aren’t like us so they keep pumping out the crap.

Contact the associated app store. Those should be labeled differently and not misused.

> you can't selectively turn off junk notifications from apps that you need notifications from

You can't if it's a junk app. Many reputable apps today have properly described notification channels and you can turn them off selectively (under android at least). That's what I did for my banking and several other apps. Every "marketing" channel was turned off.

My banking app has pretty fined-tuned control over notifications. They also support ulterior notifs, like email and SMS.

I was an Audible subscriber for like five years when they started spamming my notifications with ads. I unsubscribed on the spot and haven't looked back. I couldn't believe it, I had probably given them $1000 by that point but apparently that wasn't good enough. Even if you give a company a significant amount of money they'll still do everything they can to squeeze even more money out of you.

Android kindly has notification channels. Apps can setup whatever categories they want & users can turn individual channels on and off as they like.

Alas it seems like few apps have it implemented. Hiss boo. Wish this was available of Web Push.

>Unless you explicitly disable it via settings, it will try to get a small chunk of your attention every now and then.

It's been opt in on iOS and Android for years

I just have my phone and laptop on do not disturb 247. Works great. I have one chat app open and people who really need to reach me send a message there. Been doing that for 10+ years; it's excellent.

It's becoming obvious operating systems needs to give us more options to control our devices - i.e. firewall, caller and notification filters, etc.

The weird thing is that companies will pay for entirely separate engineering, product and marketing departments for their apps which duplicate their web apps in every way (or usually a bit less), not to mention being under the thumb of the app stores - all for the sake of notifications.

I'm no bean-counter, but that seems very odd to me.

I wish Android would let me filter notifications and add rules to them.

I know that you can switch off certain types of notifications, but thats only if the developer has added those in. For example Revolut uses one notification type and sends payment notifications and marketing through that same channel. So, I just don't use Revolut but it would be good if Android could let me set up keywords to block notifications.

You can do this sort of filtering with third party apps, which is why I'm probably going to be switching to Android pretty soon.

I don't understand why you'd have notifications enabled for any app that you don't need them from?

This is a big gripe of mine with iOS. There is no way for you to filter notifications by contents (e.g. if Wallet says "weekly spending" dismiss the notification [Apple Wallet has two options for notifications: on or off, there is no way to disable weekly spending notifications that I've been able to find]). Android doesn't have it either, but Android allows third party apps to do it. I'm strongly considering switching to Android for this reason alone.

Take look at this app (I know, one mora app to install :) )

https://www.minimalistphone.com

Every time I see an app do this, I go to the App Store and give a one-star rating with a comment that this is why (app is using notifications for spam). I feel like using that method is more likely to be seen by the right people than complaining another way.

Don’t forget, you can read this article in the Atlantic’s official iOS app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-atlantic-magazine/id397599...

You can criticize something and be a part of it.

I built an iOS app that was on the App Store’s top ten paid apps list for a hot minute in 2008, and much of my career over the past 16 years has been focused on iOS app development.

Would you rather have a publication that gags its journalists from criticizing its business practices?

But you don't have to.

Not downloaded that app, but does it deliver exactly the same features as the web app but just look a bit different? If so, I wonder whether anyone working in the respective web and app departments sometimes wonders why their company maintains two separate apps that do the same thing. I know I did.

Edit: Oh, offline mode. Towering profits?

Too true, I was looking at solar charge controllers and after rejecting yet another otherwise nice looking one boldly advertising it's bluetooth communications my thoughts were viscerally negative.

"I don't want bluetooth and an app, I want rs485 and a specification"

I agree, I also don't want bluetooth (nor other wireless communication) and an app, I want RS-485 and a specification (that is hopefully not too complicated).

That is just about everything. No matter how compelling some product is, if I see something it is app-controlled, I just move on.

Silly things. A heated coffee mug (app-controlled). An air purifier (app-controlled). A home generator (app-controlled). sigh.

At costco the other day, there were gift cards for two movie chains ($50 for $39). One was just "take this card to the register", the other one was an app/website and more mess (and a hard pass)

If it requires a smartphone app, no thank you. But if it’s “smarts” are really just Matter/Thread the app is an optional front-end, I’m more willing to take the leap.

I see new apartment buildings with advertisements about app-controlled HVAC, and as a gift, an app-controlled coffee maker, and I think "nope, not for me."

> "I don't want bluetooth and an app,"

Me neither

> "I want rs485 and a specification”

I want ethernet and a well-documented API. Put the thing in its own network segment which does not connect to the outside world and you get to have an the advantages of a network-connected device without any of the disadvantages. No automatic updates taking away functionality, no chance for bad actors to hijack your devices but still all the possibilities offered by having direct network access.

But reading your description, it looks like you actually want rs485.

I want an open source firmware based around a popular rtos. Sell me the product, provide ok software gratis.

Framework's AMD laptops notably have a Zephyr based embedded controller. Good stuff.

There's definitely some strong OpenBMC efforts ongoing right now in server space. AMD says they're going to replace (closed) AGESA bring-up code with OpenSIL, so consumers might even have access to firmware it yourself too, sometime this decade.

All of this is… whatever. I think we make compromises.

What kills me is I cannot… CANNOT view Instagram content on my phone without the app. I tried to actually send a link to my Instagram page to someone today and I literally could not obtain a link to my page anywhere in the web app. It simply would not allow me to do that. I could be missing something but every time I was in a logged in state on the web it was railroading me into the app. I almost deleted my account for that. I might still.

There is a way to get a link, my wife sends me Instagram links all the time. Unfortunately I don't know how to do it because I don't use Instagram.

It’s not whatever it’s bullshit pushed onto those who have the least power to change things, driven by greed for money, attention and data.

You probably need to hit a share button and then there is usually an option for a link. If not, choosing message or email will throw a link in there. I haven’t used the Instagram app in years, but that’s usually how it goes.

If you don’t have the app installed, and aren’t logged in, there is about a 60/40 chance that the person on the other end will be able to see what is sent. And if it’s a video, they’ll miss the first bit of audio, because it defaults to muted, and it doesn’t let the user replay the video. They employs a lot of aggressive dark patterns to get people to create accounts, login, and use the app.

Of course you can. I'm doing it for years now.

There are a couple benign exceptions, but I've generally accepted the policy of only having first-party apps on my phone and using the browser to access anything else (even triggering desktop mode if I have to).

Is this possibly the first pushback against "app culture" ever?? Then it's a long time coming. "App" has been my most hated word in the English language for at least 5 or 6 years.

Myself, I never fell into the trap of using them, living in a rural enough area that the lifestyle doesn't require it. And if a company or service does require it, i.e. doesn't offer a web-based equivalent, I move on.

Would love to see some deep dive reporting on what happens to the data after it's collected and how much money I'm actually worth to companies if I succumbed.

You are not alone. I am also in a rural area and have never found a compelling need for an app. I use the phone for making calls and texting. If the phone required even one more millisecond of my time it would go in the hydraulic press. If anything I've gone the other direction. If I can't go into a building and talk face to face with real people then I am not interested in doing business. The exception at the moment is Amazon as local stores do not carry things I need but I have stocked up so I can nix that requirement soon. Even in that case I browse Amazon from a Linux desktop, not the phone. I have never browsed a site from my phone.

So don’t. I can’t fathom what you’d need an IKEA app for. If you need an app for something brief but specific, delete it after you’re done.

On the other hand, apps frequently work better with less clutter than the mobile website. It’s wild how many websites clearly aren’t tested on real mobile devices — usually just by shrinking a browser window and saying “looks good on mobile” then moving on.

And just as maddening is that it goes both ways. So many websites (including technical blogs made by people who post here and should know better!!!) are the width of a damn phone screen, even if you view it on desktop. Lazy website development abounds, sadly.

Those websites would probably be better of the resources, time, and budget from the app were spent on the website.

> If you need an app for something brief but specific, delete it after you’re done

Amusingly, you've just described a web browser.

Recently had to download an app to pay for parking at a public transit center. It made me really grumpy—fortunately I arrived early enough that I could figure that all out, but if the app download rigamarole caused me to miss my train.

Not an app, but I also had to use my phone to check my luggage curbside at the airport. This was frustrating because I had to use a small screen to enter the details that were on my phone.

I’m more concerned about needing apps to configure appliances. Or your Wi-Fi router. Or even a KVM (https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2024/09/29/1900). How many of those apps are going to be maintained for, say, five years?

I "love" that almost everything I want to see in a browser (content, shops) wants me to install an app, and almost everything I want to have as an app (tools, editors, email... MS Office is the biggest offender here in my books) wants me to be in a browser or is just a bloated packaged website with subpar UX.

The apps also don’t let you turn stuff off like the web does. I can disable shorts in most apps that have them. The app is a massive downgrade in functionality for me.

All the llm providers are rushing to create desktop apps while File > Add to Dock is superior - you can change font size, pinch to zoom, cmd+f to search, your extensions work, you can open multiple windows...

Both implementations somehow manage to suck up 100% of cpu when rendering fucking text tho.

It's wild to me that such a safe, pro-user-agency, extensible system is hated by so many for delivering rich experiences.

I get that there are plenty of bad webapps too, that performance can be bad. And there's not enough highly visible open source efforts on local first & off-main-thread javascript to form the backbone of knowledge to inform mainstream webdev how to stay fast, responsive, adaptable, yet (I thought we would be so much further along at using these amazing capabilities by now!). But wow, it's still so wild to me that apps are so beloved by some.

PWAs are also wild to me because they are "just" the web but without half the web's superpowers. No extensions, address bar, history, bookmarks, tabs (unless built specifically for it; wildly weird.

The nadir for me was a barbershop that required me to download an app to get a haircut. I told them they lost me as a customer and left.

Oh man, the idea that they might only drop that after the haircut is done makes me cringe. What’s worked for me when businesses are insistent is saying something like “I only have my work phone and the security policy doesn’t allow me to install apps without contacting IT” That’s not true of course but if you’re going to play dirty so can I

I wish I could use internet banking to replace bank apps. The banks are slowly shutting down their internet banking or requiring their app to perform face recognition. This is probably because online gambling and scammers were running automation on the website to move money quickly. The scammers moved on to cracking the mobile apps and instead of adding verifications the banks just start cracking down on debugging techniques like blocking VPN and debugging (or sometimes having Developer Option is enough to trip the block).

https://archive.ph/ggHxr

Most of this is the fault of apple and google. We could have native style apps that load in and out like webpages, and have them load in as parts that come in and out too! If we were using objective C, they might even be smaller to load than an equivalent web page.

But we don't due to the app model being profitable as a choke point for the os makers. Web GUIs are worse on mobile than the equivalent app, and there are many things that just gated off that you don't get in the web guis, and thus everything stays as an app, while many apps would work fine as this kind of dynamically loaded native app without any 'store' you would need to go to, just a url you load. The android activity model especially lends itself to acting this way too.

But app clips and google play features you may say. They are too restrictive and clunky, and google play features still need a base app to work.

To be fair, it was the users and developers who asked for this when the original iPhone launched. Apple’s plan was to have web apps be the way forward for accessing anything outside of the pre-installed apps.

App designers try too hard to be simple (or whatever it is they're trying to do), and the widgets are often useless or not the ones you want. I don't trust app developers to choose sane options, because they're trying to make an 'experience' or something.

My homescreen has more links to webpages than apps, because they can give me info faster than apps/widgets. I don't have to see the news/ads/videos or 'what's new' modal windows like I usually have to with popular apps. (That said, open source apps tend to be far more sensible. F-Droid has got a lot of hidden gems.)

Loyalty cards and apps are awful. They're just a way for companies collect our data and 'segment' pricing aka discrimination which muddies those 'pricing signal' things hardcore capitalists like to mention when they talk about free market efficiency.

To get the normal price now you have no choice but to hand over your data and dignity. These mechanisms should be banned.

My rule is never to download apps to my iPhone.

Wasn’t this supposed to be solve by App Clips? [0] I used this only once or twice, and the idea kinda seems abandoned.

[0]: https://developer.apple.com/app-clips/

If Apple would play nice with PWAs we could effectively use that for 90% of apps.

…But then that would mean they can’t take a chunk of companies’ profits so not likely to happen anytime soon

Dear Mr President, there are too many apps nowadays. Please eliminate three. I am not a crackpot.

It's so boring to read comments on here about how everything could be a text displaying webpage. Internet everywhere in your pocket is a waste for toilet reading.

But it's also frustrating how the ecosystem of Google and Apple, has stifled creativity in the space. We went to the moon with less computing power than a crappy PC in the 90s. People copying Google's model of basic functionally but with ads and Apple's overly protective but nearly useless permission model has ruined a technology that should be more revolutionary than it is.

Some of it needs to be solved legislatively. I absolutely should be able to have my entire contacts list read by a random game app, and the only consequence be that I found all my friends who also play the game, with steep penalties for collecting and selling that data. But I should also be able to vet and use my mobile computer to put anything on it I want.

What is the vision you’re seeing that would be revolutionary from what we have today, with similar hardware?

Cut the App Crap! If it can't be done on the web it's probably not worth doing.

Yet again we see that Steve Jobs’ user interface instincts were right: he hated the idea of apps and fought putting them on the iPhone.

Counter view: Steve Jobs instincts were about owning everything. Any app should (must) be bought from apple, as a subscription, while holding your data hostage, at their price.

That’s not how the iPhone worked. All the apps were pre-installed when the phone was purchased. There were no additional downloads or subscription (other than phone service).

You're not seriously suggesting the multiple apple subscription services were brought in because 3rd party apps became a thing?

The original iphone had zero market share on release. First one is free. Just like Appletv, applemusic, icloud storage, apple games subs....

If you think apple's approach has ever been anything else but abusing market power to maximise revenue I've got a bridge for you with microsoft written on the side. (MS are all like "We'd have been crucified for that, well not anymore!" And the race to the bottom of your wallet continues apace.)

You said it was Steve Jobs’ instincts. He’s been out of the picture for 13 years, before most, if not all the subscriptions you mentioned. Those were Tim Cook looking to make up for the iPhone reaching market saturation.

I was pointing out that Jobs’ instinct on the iPhone was web apps, because that’s what it launched with. The App Store was a response to customer demand and people hacking stuff onto it anyway. And of course, they looked to make money on it, as they are a business and it requires money to build and maintain the platform.

As far as their approach only ever being abuse of market dominance, that simply doesn’t make sense. In the late 90s and early 2000s they didn’t have much of a market to speak of. There was no market to abuse. Apple has been around for decades with pretty famous ups and downs.

Stand down everyone. Stand down. There's no gun to the authors head. Nobody "makes" them do anything. They install apps out of their own volition. As you were.

Many services do "make" you use an app if you want to get something done.

For example, I parked in some part of Dallas the other day. I HAD to download an app to pay, there was no other way to pay.

Then do not use their service and move over to another one. The vast majority of service are (still) replaceable.

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