Do not download the app, use the website
idiallo.com
idiallo.com
And for years, it was our most requested feature, by far. We had instructions for how to pin the site to your home screen, and would explain to users how the website does everything an app can do. Still, constant requests for an app. Finally we relented and released one, and very quickly around half our mobile traffic moved to the app without us really trying to nudge people at all.
People just really like apps! I think it suits our mental model of different tools for different uses. We've also found that app users are much more engaged than website users, but of course much of that will be selection bias. Still, I can see how having your app on someone's home screen could provide a significant boost to retention, compared to a website they're liable to forget. For us now, that's the main benefit we see. Certainly don't use any additional data, though I won't argue that other companies don't.
I would say people really hate websites on mobile. The browsers are horrible, the pages are slow and oftentimes broken in some way. You get all these popups everywhere, ads are much more intrusive. It's just bad experience, so of course people would prefer app for something they use.
I avoid the browser on mobile as much as possible and I don't remember ever having a good time using it.
- Banking: Install it on a different android profile because my websites forces me to use the App one way or the other anyway.
- If the site uses an existing open protocol to interact (IndieWeb, Fediverse, etc), use a non-browser/non-electron app that can handle multiple instances of such protocols.
- If not, and it has PWA, is responsive, and I use it at least twice a day, use the PWA (so far I have one).
- If it does not have PWA, but have has nice responsive layout, Firefox Android with uBlock Origin (I use Iornfox).
- For everything else, if I'm outside without a laptop, whine, complain, and use the website in the mobile browser, enable desktop mode if it has a crappy UI.
- If I'm not outside, browse it from my laptop.
I think Apple's core apps that ship with iOS are about the only things that don't annoy me. They work offline and disconnected for days at a time quite happily and generally work as intended. No one else seems to bother with that and rather ships some fat web turd instead that works occasionally and forces you to sign in all the time.
The problem is not just to make your site mobile friendly, it is also that the rest of the web isn't.
Thus mobile is often even a better experience.
Their web app is fundamentally broken in half a dozen ways, and has been for years. A couple examples (not all):
If you are in the middle of typing a comment and switch to another app, when you come back, it will reload the display, losing your comment.
Video shorts load in a way that hides the video after about two seconds. Editing the URL to remove the parameters fixes this.
The layout of comments/posts often breaks, forcing me to switch to "ask for desktop version" to make one feature work, then switch back to "mobile version" to make another feature work. Neither is completely functional.
As I said, there are more. As I said, I don't even remember why I rejected their app, but at this point, if they can't make a mobile web site, why would I trust them to make an app?
This is the rule for a lot of apps and mobile websites now. I don't understand why - we have so much RAM available - but they love to refresh whether there's a reason to or not. And even if there's a reason not to. I can't count the number of times I've tapped on a tab that has a minature version of all the information I want, only for it to be replaced by a loading screen or 404.
A while ago I noticed my battery usage had gone way up. It was because any time I was distracted from my phone (or lost internet connection on a train), I would just leave the display on. Locking the phone meant that I'd lose whatever context I had.
It’s not even that. There are APIs to persist state beyond app termination. Even if your app gets killed due to memory pressure, it should continue where it left off.
Or at least this was my experience working on a mobile PWA a few years ago. I don't even own an apple device, it's just the ios bugs were always the most painful / memorable.
Of the tech companies I've worked for, I can't even imagine how the web team would react if they were instructed to intentionally nerf their website.
I've literally never had that problem. Firefox Mobile + uBlock Origin eliminates ads.
That said, the harder you "nudge" me, the more I want to avoid the app and the whole business. Especially if you have any other dark patterns - I will assume you want me to download your app just so you can abuse me better.
We talked about it on hacker h news awhile back[1]
In short: I do install apps of main platforms and physical shops I frequent. It's usually vastly better than a website, even if it just wraps a webview. But I don't want to install an app for every site I visit, for the same reason I don't want to go on a date with every stranger that smiles at me when I pass them by on the street.
This is the result of the inconsistent user experience to which gatekeepers like Apple have been actively contributing through active sabotage of web apps, such that all profitable apps can be more effectively and reliably taxed through Apple's App Store.
The manufactured perception of the general public then became that web apps are not "real apps" despite offering the exact same features. They have been dragged down by the subtle artificial friction that makes the UX feel subpar.
This reminds me of my own experience of mobile websites when they first emerged. I thought that the desktop version of a website is the "real website" i.e. that there is only one static original website and that its mobile version was some fake substitute, so I always activated the option "show desktop version". Then I learned about responsive web design and it clicked for me. I predict that a similar epiphany will occur among casuals once the active sabotage of web apps stops due to regulations reigning in the anti-competitive business practices of gatekeepers.
I'm sure that some people will still prefer "native" apps for whatever reason. However, if regulators do a proper job and allow web apps to compete on a level playing field, then a lay person wouldn't even be able to differentiate between them. This is even the case today where some developers simply wrap their web app in a WebView and ship it as a "native" app.
If web apps were any good, we'd see a plethora of them on Android. There are none (or very, very, very few).
If web apps were any good, nothing Apple "gatekeeps" would prevent you from building an amazing web app for iOS. The things Apple "gatekeeps" (such as mobile push) would not prevent you from making a smooth fast web app.
And yet here we are.
> if regulators do a proper job and allow web apps to compete on a level playing field
They already are competing on a level playing field. It's not "lack of NFC" or "lack of Bluetooth" or "lack of <another moving goalpost>" that prevent you from having good web apps.
This statement alone is evidence that you didn't understand the crux of the issue. You are also confusing cause and effect. I clearly explained the root causes for that. The reason there are not more web apps is not that they aren't "good" - what does that even mean? what is the criterion for "good" here? If you say that it's because they lack certain features, then you confirmed my point that it's due to active sabotage and denial of equal rights. Be specific, why are they not "good"? There wouldn't be coincidentally a mysterious opposing force that actively prevents developers from improving those aspects, right?
>There are none (or very, very, very few).
X (Twitter) - has PWA
Pinterest - has PWA
Spotify - has PWA
Uber - Hybrid
Starbucks - has PWA
Again, you're confusing cause and effect. It's like actively sabotaging a runner and saying: "See? that runner sucks!!" - Yeah because that runner is being actively sabotaged. You're completely ignoring all the evidence and simply claiming that they are unpopular because they are not "good" when in reality they are unpopular because they have been sabotaged to prevent them from challenging the gatekeeper's taxation funnels.
>If web apps were any good, nothing Apple "gatekeeps" would prevent you from building an amazing web app for iOS. The things Apple "gatekeeps" (such as mobile push) would not prevent you from making a smooth fast web app.
That's not even a coherent argument. Gatekeepers can sabotage competitors in many subtle ways to make the user experience subpar, it's not a 1-dimensional game where only feature parity can be weaponized. It's clear that you are actively refusing to understand the points being made. There is also documented evidence that Apple consistently engaged in practices that made any competing platform a worse experience. Gatekeepers have a conflict of interest and they consistently act in a manner that makes that bias glaring. Gatekeepers are also not morons, they know that it doesn't take much to introduce artificial friction while also maintaining plausible deniability. e.g. see court documents where Apple's engineers admit that they strategically use "scare screens" and that their managers would "definitely like that".
>They already are competing on a level playing field. It's not "lack of NFC" or "lack of Bluetooth" or "lack of <another moving goalpost>" that prevent you from having good web apps.
That's factually incorrect. As previously stated, it's not just a 1-dimensional form of sabotage where only feature parity is being weaponized but any form of artificially introduced friction, while being able to maintain plausible deniability - any of that will get the job done of shutting down any threat to the gatekeeper's taxation funnel. Furthermore, as open-web-advocacy.org states:
- #AppleBrowserBan Apple's ban of third party browsers on iOS is deeply anti-competitive, starves the Safari/WebKit team of funding and has stalled innovation for the past 10 years and prevented Web Apps from taking off on mobile. (https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/apples-browser-engine-ban...)
-Deep System Integration
Web Apps need to become just Apps. Apps built with the free and open web need equal treatment and integration. Closed and heavily taxed proprietary ecosystems should not receive any preference.
- Web App Equality
All artifical barriers placed by gatekeepers must be removed. Web Apps if allowed can offer equivalent functionality with greater privacy and security for demanding use-cases.
I do
> You are also confusing cause and effect.
I don't
> I clearly explained the root causes for that.
You didn't. You went on a rant about "public perception" and your own experience building mobile web sites.
> If you say that it's because they lack certain features, then you confirmed my point that it's due to active sabotage and denial of equal rights.
See. Again with the rant.
> Be specific, why are they not "good"?
E.g. Reddit's mobile web site loads every post in 3+ seconds. And reloads the full page when you click on a subtree in the comments.
When you scroll through Twitter, it will just randomly load a bunch of stuff and replace your content losing your scroll position. Same with going back from a tweet to the timeline.
Most websites take multiple seconds to display text-only information with broken layouts, layout shifts, and multiple loading states.
To quote myself from 3 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34517503
--- start quote ---
Features HN developers think are missing from the web to deliver an experience "as polished as a native app": notifications, prompt banners, link interception, Chrome-only non-standards like bluetooth etc.
Features actual users think are missing from the web to deliver an experience "as polished as a native app": actual native-like experience: responsiveness, smooth animations, polished usable and accesible controls, maintaining scroll position and location in the app, fast scrolling through large lists, no loading states for the simplest actions...
I mean, people people keep bringing up Twitter's objectively bad web app as an example of one of the best PWA apps... Have these people never seen an actual native app?
--- end quote ---
> There wouldn't be coincidentally a mysterious opposing force that actively prevents developers from improving those aspects, right?
There is no such entity. Besides, Google invested hundreds of millions of dollars into PWAs, and there are still so few that people can point to even on Android.
> X (formerly Twitter) - has PWA
Yup.
They work fine performance-wise. The example of Reddit’s website being shit is just pointing out that Reddit’s website is shit.
Google maps web applications also works really well. Both Photopea and Google Maps are far more complex than reddit.
At this point I am sure reddit’s website is shit so people are forced to use their app so they can track users better. Not because of some underlying limitation of web technologies.
>You didn't. You went on a rant about "public perception" and your own experience building mobile web sites.
I have no time to engage in your shallow kind of tit for tat, where I do all of the work and you simply respond with infantile one word responses with zero elaboration or outright denial, misrepresentation or just repetition of already debunked narratives. I will still briefly debunk the parts where you put in at least some minor effort of trying to substantiate.
For a more elaborate analysis:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44694037
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44692287
>> Be specific, why are they not "good"? > E.g. Reddit's mobile web site loads every post in 3+ seconds. And reloads the full page when you click on a subtree in the comments. When you scroll through Twitter, it will just randomly load a bunch of stuff and replace your content losing your scroll position. Same with going back from a tweet to the timeline. Most websites take multiple seconds to display text-only information with broken layouts, layout shifts, and multiple loading states.
Those are some specific apps that have bad implementations, not an inherent limitation of the technology, so it's irrelevant to the bigger picture. I asked you for the specific technology. That's like me saying "Give me a specific reason why electric cars will never be a viable technology as you claimed" then you respond with "This specific brand has an electric car with this specific issue". It's such a transparent strategy of deliberately missing the point.
> --- start quote ---
Features HN developers think are missing from the web to deliver an experience ... --- end quote ---
All of those are issues that have already been fixed, so I don't get why you would bring up your severely outdated comment. It also contains aspects for which I clearly explained why and who is to blame for those.
>There is no such entity. Besides, Google invested hundreds of millions of dollars into PWAs, and there are still so few that people can point to even on Android.
I already responded to this in many different comments:
"Google is the primary champion of PWAs, they have a vested interest in its success. The reason I focused on Apple is because its actions are one of a profit-maximizing gatekeeper actively defending its most lucrative business against an existential threat that is PWA. Every bug, every delayed feature, and every artificial limitation imposed on PWAs on iOS is a calculated strategic move in this defense of its walled garden that makes maximum taxation possible."
That basically already exists on the desktop in the form of Electron apps. Those apps are universally hated because of it.
Web technology is not suitable for making applications. It was designed to format text documents and that's all it's really good at. That's why we have the web-framework-of-the-week problem, everyone is desperately trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Web apps are janky, fragile and feel out of place on every OS. It's a 'one size fits no one' solution.
Discord and Visual Studio Code are among the most popular apps on mac, those are electron apps. None of that is relevant to the core issue either way. It's not up to Apple to decide any of that, that's what the market and regulators are for. Apple uses and pushes self-serving and false narratives as pretext to engage in anti-competitive business practices.
>Web technology is not suitable for making applications. It was designed to format text documents and that's all it's really good at.
That statement might have been true in 1995, but today it's categorically false.
> Web apps are janky, fragile and feel out of place on every OS. It's a 'one size fits no one' solution.
I've already debunked this manufactured, reductionist and false narrative above.
You have points, I agree that web technology is well suited in 2025 to make interactive applications. I agree that web apps are being held back from expressing their true potential. And while Electron is largely skewered for being bloated and heavy, the web can be fast and fluid.
But you haven't proven that web apps don't feel janky, fragile, and out of place. Because they just factually do. The native UI elements of each OS that you can tap into from the web is limited, and not enough to create the same UI in a WebView that you can in a native Swift app, for instance. You of course can coerce the web into imitating any appearance you care to recreate, but it won't look that way by default, and it'll now look even more starkly out of place on every other platform besides the single one you targeted. This is all an intentional aspect of the web as a cross-platform platform.
The web's internet-native status means a bad internet connection or a brief crossing through a dead zone will kill almost any web app. Yes, there's strategies around this with web workers nowadays, but those are quite complex to implement for even simple applications and often aren't worth the effort to do anything more than pop up a branded "you're offline" page. An app can be completely cut off from the internet, it doesn't have that base assumption of network connectivity and isn't built from the ground up from network-based parts.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44694037
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44692287
For the rest refer to https://whatpwacando.today
If you don't care to engage with the substance of my points, fine, nobody is owed discussion, but this style of conversation is deeply unproductive and I believe even you are losing track of what you have and haven't said.
The main topic originated through OP's "why some users demand a 'native' app when the web app should be enough" for which I provided explanations as to why web apps haven't lived up to their potential i.e. conflict of interest and the corresponding sabotage by a gatekeeper in contrast to the manufactured narrative of "they are unpopular because they suck". That's a false narrative which I've explained in many comments:
- "A Progressive Web App, if allowed to reach its full, un-sabotaged potential, is the technological manifestation of the Digital Markets Act's goals. So it would be utterly absurd for Apple to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into fighting the DMA, just to let PWAs pass which achieves the exact same goals."
- "The reason I focused on Apple is because its actions are one of a profit-maximizing gatekeeper actively defending its most lucrative business against an existential threat that is PWA. Every bug, every delayed feature, and every artificial limitation imposed on PWAs on iOS is a calculated strategic move in this defense of its walled garden that makes maximum taxation possible."
Since you've stated that "I agree that web apps are being held back from expressing their true potential" you confirmed my thesis. That's why I stated: "I already responded to any of your points that are RELEVANT to the CORE DISCUSSION"
>But you haven't proven that web apps don't feel janky, fragile, and out of place.
That's not even part of the core issue and it has still been explained in my post anyway, which you even confirmed by saying "I agree that web apps are being held back from expressing their true potential" and is also expressed here:
- Apple's ban of third party browsers on iOS is deeply anti-competitive, STARVES the Safari/WebKit team of funding and has STALLED innovation for the past 10 YEARS and PREVENTED Web Apps from taking off on mobile. (https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/apples-browser-engine-ban...)
-Deep System Integration
Web Apps need to become just Apps. Apps built with the free and open web need equal treatment and integration. Closed and heavily taxed proprietary ecosystems should not receive any preference.
- Web App Equality
All artificial barriers placed by gatekeepers must be removed. Web Apps if allowed can offer equivalent functionality with greater privacy and security for demanding use-cases.
These are all factors that have already been mentioned and they fix all the real issues that are not the product of active sabotage.
Furthermore, I'm using many web apps like Discord and Visual Studio Code and they do not feel janky, fragile or out of place, that's your subjective perception. And even if that were an objective fact, which they are not, it would still not be relevant to the core discussion since they are not inherent to the technology but product-management related trade-offs that can be improved and fixed.
>The web's internet-native status means a bad internet connection or a brief crossing through a dead zone will kill almost any web app. Yes, there's strategies around this with web workers nowadays, but those are quite complex to implement for even simple applications and often aren't worth the effort to do anything more than pop up a branded "you're offline" page.
Your first claim is just factually wrong, but you admit that in the following statement which contains another claim that is also wrong. Those are exactly the kind of problems that PWAs solve and the user experience in that regard has been steadily improving (see also https://www.inkandswitch.com/essay/local-first )
>An app can be completely cut off from the internet, it doesn't have that base assumption of network connectivity and isn't built from the ground up from network-based parts.
That's just straight up nonsense. Any native or web app that relies on internet connectivity will be equally affected. Any native or web app developed with a local-first or local-only approach will work perfectly fine without internet. You clearly have outdated knowledge on the matter. (see https://whatpwacando.today)
So I really had addressed your points that were relevant to the core issue, but you just wanted to nitpick details that had already been partially or fully addressed and are also insignificant in the bigger picture of the topic and technological progress in general. Those ones you listed are based on your subjective experience, your outdated knowledge on the tech or simply a transitory state of software that can be easily improved since they are not an inherent technological limitation.
This sounds like a you problem. Web frameworks have improved significantly to handle anything way beyond text and that has been the case for a long time. This is really about corporations trying to exert power over the open web by trying to route around it with apps.
Maybe they are hated by nerds on reddit and hackernews.
I gather most people are just using the apps and have no idea how they’re built.
They may have no idea how they are built, but they do notice how janky and out of place they are. Take for example Microsoft Teams, have you ever met anyone who actually likes that app? It's insane that a simple chat app uses well over a gigabyte of RAM.
It's absurd that one of the biggest software companies in the world can't seem to produce a sleek, native app. It's purely a cost saving measure. They decided mediocrity is good enough for them and they get away with it because the people making the purchase decisions are not the people who have to use it daily.
For their own operating system that they own the APIs and development tools for, no less!
Because people who develop these only care about one thing: ease of development. They couldn't care less about what users say, and if they cared they wouldn't understand users, because users don't use terms like "latency", or "startup time", or "lag".
All of my documents, my spreadsheets, email, chat, and video calling is all done from my browser. I keep Emacs open for scratch just because I can't quit Emacs and I have a terminal open to run some servers. And this has been my working model for at least the last five to six years.
What's remarkable about it is that web apps are doing almost all of the heavy lifting of my work every day. I thought this was worth noting in the context of your comment that web technology is not suitable for making applications.
I hate a few apps on desktop because they're web apps. Because those specific apps should _not_ be webapps. Other webapps I hate on the desktop _because they use electron_ and maintain yet another browser engine running constantly on my PC--not because they choose to write their UI in HTML and CSS. I don't need 15 browsers running on my computer. Give me a native stub for the taskbar and whatever other functionality is needed, and if you _must_ use HTML then render it in whatever browser I feel like opening the app in. I've got several programs that do this, and they're the best of the bunch (Intel driver assistant, cfosspeed) as they don't have an entire chrome process stack running all the time just in case you maybe want to open their interface (I almost never do).
How does that follow?
More generally, do you have any sources for your repeated claims of intentional sabotage? You make accusations of ignoring evidence but you have provided none - unless you're saying that apple has already poisoned the well and anything they do is suspect.
Apple has a 10/10 vested interest in the kneecapping of PWAs - why?
A Progressive Web App, if allowed to reach its full, un-sabotaged potential, is the technological manifestation of the Digital Markets Act's goals. So it would be utterly absurd for Apple to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into fighting the DMA, just to let PWAs pass which achieves the exact same goals.
Many of the DMA's mandates are an existential threat to Apple's business model and the PWA is the DMA in disguise:
- DMA mandates Apple to allow alternative App Stores & sideloading i.e. Force Apple to end its monopoly on app distribution. PWAs are sideloading by nature. A user "installs" a PWA directly from the web. The browser is the app store. The open web is the distribution platform. This completely bypasses the App Store.
- DMA mandates Apple to allow alternative payment systems. Forcing Apple to let developers use their own payment processors and avoid the 15-30% commission. PWAs use Open Web payments. It can use Stripe, PayPal, or any other payment processor with standard web APIs. Apple gets a 0% cut.
- DMA mandates Apple to increase Developer & User Choice. Give developers the freedom to choose their tools and give users the freedom to choose their apps without being locked in. PWAs are the epitome of choice. They are built with the most universal, open technologies on earth (HTML, CSS, JS). They are cross-platform by default and free users from being locked into a single company's hardware/software ecosystem.
Why would Apple have ANY interest in nurturing a technology that would voluntarily subject them to the very conditions they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying and legal fees to fight against?
The answer is: They wouldn't and they don't.
Apple's actions are not those of a company with simply "low interest". They are the actions of a profit-maximizing gatekeeper actively defending its most lucrative business against an existential threat. Every bug, every delayed feature, and every artificial limitation imposed on PWAs on iOS is a calculated strategic move in this defense. The brief, hostile removal of PWA functionality in the EU was not an outlier, it was Apple showing its true face when it thought it could get away with it.
Android also benefits immensely from the store revenue, it's not called a duopoly for no reason.
Google is the primary champion of PWAs, they have a vested interest in its success. The reason I focused on Apple is because its actions are one of a profit-maximizing gatekeeper actively defending its most lucrative business against an existential threat that is PWA. Every bug, every delayed feature, and every artificial limitation imposed on PWAs on iOS is a calculated strategic move in this defense of its walled garden that makes maximum taxation possible.
>PWA's just never took off.
That's just the lazy manufactured and false narrative that I've already thoroughly debunked. I'm not going to repeat it, since you would just ignore it again.
-But it's less pain than trying to turn a generic Android tablet into something more like a kiosk, best I can tell (there are third-party apps that do this, which survives reboots, I'm led to believe, but I'd rather not mess with third-party stuff). I previously made Android apps in Java for the tablets, and while I enjoyed the fragment system it uses, the permissions handling was always a nightmare whenever I wanted to do something neat or experimental -- TTS and mic listening in a PWA makes me much less frustrated than trying to do it via native app (which seems backwards to me), and I can still use the website on any non-Android device.
Whereas on Mac, Meta are keeping their native app presumably because they can't be in the Mac app store with just a web wrapper
But maybe I've just got the exact delusion youre talking about in that I view the app as having more functionality. Maybe they need to free web apps to be on a level playing field as you say
You download a DMG file or something, then you drag and drop some icon into your “applications” folder
It is kind of dumb. I haven’t seen any graphical package manage interface to handle this.
but I understand more. Its more a folder oriented system. kind of
A native app has access to OS information for the same kind of fingerprinting as with browsers, except with more bits of information. The reason, for example, iOS has the “ask app not to track” button is because the tracking could still happen, even more comprehensively than in a browser. Not exactly sure about macOS but I don’t see why it would be different.
Meta is keeping their apps as native presumably because native apps make better spyware. I think they literally do not have any other reason; if web apps made better spyware, Meta would push people to use their web apps, simple as. Meta is a spyware company. Technical decisions about deploying/developing their spyware will be informed primarily by their desire to make it more effective as such.
But they're not real apps, they're webpages. They are two different things, both very useful, but both very different.
It's a very good thing for a user to be aware that there's a real and important difference between a signed binary from the App Store which lives on their device and a blob of minified JS coming down from quite literally anywhere.
And they're correct to feel that way! Apps, when made correctly, feel way better to use! It's a bit surprising to me you attribute this preference for ""native"" apps to "whatever reason". I've always felt the difference was extremely stark and obvious, I couldn't imagine getting them confused. It seems you're a little misinformed with how most native apps are built; it's just not true that any meaningful number of apps you interact with regularly with "simply wrap their web app in a WebView." In fact, if you try to ship an app which does solely this (webpage in a WebView), Apple will reject it. Have you built any mobile apps, kelthuzad?
I encourage you to try Google Docs or Youtube from a mobile browser and observe whether you find differences between that and the native experience. I think you'll be surprised :)
It wasn't that long ago that when you used the mobile internet, you would be getting a "fake version" of the site that could render speedily, despite the limited speed of 2G networks.
First it was all about WML[0], which would be processed by a proxy that would deliver the file in a binary format that would be smaller.
And even when mobile phones that could access proper HTML content hit the market, it was often still accessed through the use of an accelerator proxy[1] which would optimize the page (stripping unnecessary parts) that you were trying to access so that it could be downloaded faster.
These technologies are still in use in some places, as I understand it. But it's generally not necessary nowadays for locations with access to 3G or better.
The preference for apps is a learned behavior, not something fundamental. The vast majority of people with real understanding would prefer the web
PWAs are only as good of a user experience as the developer programs it to be. The average local TV news affiliate website spends 5MB-20MB of bandwidth within a minute of downloading 1 page. My last iOS app was only 5MB shipped and only consumes a few KB of bandwidth per session.
There are massive convenience features that native apps support which aren’t available to browser APIs. Auth, payments, notifications, parental controls, power efficiency, and perhaps security and privacy (depending on how prevalent analytics/ tracking/ advertising libraries are on native apps).
A well crafted PWA can compete on most features with a well crafted app, but ultimately the App Store review process means native apps have a decently high floor, whereas PWAs have zero floor.
This is a very strange argument to make, the exact same applies to "native" apps. Every app "is only as good of a user experience as the developer programs it to be". There are countless of "native" apps on iOS like "wallpaper" apps that drain the battery, consume absurd bandwidth and have outright scammy business models which App Store "review" just lets pass (because Apple gets a cut of the scam!).
>There are massive convenience features that native apps support which aren’t available to browser APIs. Auth, payments, notifications, parental controls, power efficiency, and perhaps security and privacy (depending on how prevalent analytics/ tracking/ advertising libraries are on native apps).
Auth? https://whatpwacando.today/authentication
Payments? https://whatpwacando.today/payment
Notifications? https://whatpwacando.today/notifications
Parental Controls? Use Web Content Restrictions.
Power efficiency? If JIT (Just-In-Time) compilation were universally allowed for all web browsers and PWAs on iOS, it would be a complete game-changer, dramatically closing the performance and power efficiency gap with native apps. (see above why Apple actively sabotages PWAs)
Security and Privacy? PWAs benefit from the OS's sandbox and its own sandbox
>A well crafted PWA can compete on most features with a well crafted app, but ultimately the App Store review process means native apps have a decently high floor, whereas PWAs have zero floor.
You can't even compare the App Store review to someone actively going on e.g. Pinterest.com and clicking on install PWA. The user has already reviewed and decided that it's an app worth installing. Finally, the App Store "review process" is a bad joke, not only because it is slow, inefficient and often arbitrary, but because it fails to even filter out the most obvious of scams:
"Apple claims its App Store is carefully curated so that only the best apps get through. The truth is, the App Store is littered with scams" -https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/06/apple-a...
"The widely used Apple App Store has become a minefield of scam apps. While several scam apps have been removed by Apple, it seems they’ve only acted when directly called out on social media. Despite the removal of some scam apps, Apple has not yet acted to ban the guilty app developers from the app store."
https://mccunewright.com/scam-apps-sold-on-the-apple-app-sto...
Which is the point I was making. The parent and gp were making the argument that PWAs were positively better than native apps, which I was pushing back on.
None of your links disagree with my points, except the last one which suffers from survivor bias.
> There are massive convenience features that native apps support which aren’t available to browser APIs. Auth, payments, notifications, parental controls, power efficiency, and perhaps security and privacy...
Bad software is bad software. "Native" apps can be bad too.
Most of the difference you see is intentionally created by Apple, after they pivoted away from using web apps on phones.
Piece by piece all of the app was replaced with web views for the website, and keeping the native tab menu at the bottom. No money was saved, but at least they didn't have to update the native parts of the app as features stopped working because of legacy systems being shut down. They kept the native mobile devs and fired some of the web devs instead to save money. Even though the website now needed a browser version and a slightly modified app-friendly version. No biggie, but it complicated the testing, as the responsibility for most of the app was moved to the web teams.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Every time I grab her phone I get dizzy and lost from the hundreds of apps. When she grabs mine, she wonders how I accomplish anything at all.
I discovered that all our self hosted applications were easily adopted after I added SSO. My wife just wants one account to rule them all.
I got her accustomed to installing web apps by adding all the links in a shared note. She clicks the link, pins the site and uses SSO to log in. Easy.
To a certain extent, I fall in this camp. With privacy in general.
Without dedicating my life to it I won't be able to beat the system I live in, so why not just accept it and take what I can from it?
I do grant that web is likely more up to date. But only because they can ship immediately, without the app store review process. Technically web could also be slower to release, nothing guarantees web freshness.
https://www.androidauthority.com/auto-update-apps-google-pla...
Then, on a worldwide scale, you can see that a lot of people are running unsupported Android versions.
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/android
Yes, there is no guarantee they a web app is more secure or up to date but tge likelyhood is far greater as it's a developer's responsibility and not the end consumer.
Sounds like it would be higher than I expect, but I still claim it can not be more than fractions of a percent. Actively toggling a setting like is definitely esoteric behaviour even for a power user, never mind the large masses of smartphone users.
Unsupported Android version is not related to old app versions, Google Play will still work.
I do grant that web is more likely to be up to date than an app. Me claiming that it depends on the developer was just being pedantic: technically it depends on the developers and their release practices, but likely it's the web version that is more up to date.
A new Capacitor app has a size of 3-5 MB at most.
If such a simple app has 100 MB, they bundle shit like Facebook SDK and such.
This is it. I’ve worked on plenty of projects that have web/iOS/Android, and the reason for offering native apps has always been user demand. All of this “spy on the user” crap literally never even comes up in conversation. We don’t care at all. We care about native apps because users care about native apps.
It you’re talking about the intrusive stuff that gets in the way of you using the website, then the answer to this is pretty simple: they don’t. The sites that do that are comparatively rare. They just appear more numerous than they really are because it’s the really big sites like Reddit that do it. The norm is either a page on the site that tells you about the app, or the banner that appears at the top of a page.
I kept saying they had a website and why would you need an app. She couldn't understand what I was saying.
Seems like indeed the general public really likes apps and even thinks you can't do so many things in the browser.
The dev's ambassador to the common man.
I don’t buy this for one second. The web is well known, and well understood - I’ve never run into anyone, in any age group, with any level of education, who wouldn’t understand what a website is.
Either you’re being overly dramatic and exaggerating here, or you had a very difficult time pronouncing the words you were intending to say.
My friend was trying to explain an app to me. How everyone at his work was amazed at how well it worked compared to their Salesforce solution that they were forced to use.
The app? A website. Not even a web application. It was just a brochure type web catalog that allowed them to show their customer the brands and products they sold.
Other's I've told about ChatGPT or Claude, have trouble finding it. They go into the App Store and search for the apps. They are inundated non-official versions. All with similar titles. Some stop, some install the wrong versions.
Now, you would say that these people (35yo) used to use Facebook (and maybe Google meet) and such on desktop. So they should know that many things can be achieved through a browser. But it seems like when thinking about mobile, people think differently. A website that "does something" other than displaying information (which is a weird and blurry definition) must be an app. I'm absolutely sure my friend has never thought it could be possible to use Facebook on through her mobile browser. If you access something with your mobile, it must be through an app.
While technically competent people might go:
"Oh neat, I don't even need to install an app, if I just put the website icon onto my home screen."
Most users are like: "Oh my god noooo! Not another way to do something! Aaaaa I cannot cope!" and panic.
I am not claiming it is. But it is different from what some people got introduced to. That's enough already to strike fear.
But what do you mean with websites have been neutered? Didn't HTML, CSS, and JS only got more capabilities over time?
They did, but almost all of them are just there so serve developers, to enable them to build even more sophisticated interactive billboards. The web serves marketing and advertising. So do apps, but the web does it better in many ways.
What I meant by websites being neutered, is along the dimension of empowering users. Webapps as tools that provide functionality and play well with others. Composability, interoperability, end-user authonomy. Those are anathema to modern web.
And as I said, apps ain't better. It's really "pick your poison", whether you want to be fighting with your browser sandbox, or with your OS sandbox - and half of the things you need sit on the server-side anyway, out of your reach.
Their mental model of how they LIKE to use them is different from yours though - and that should be ok instead of arousing angst.
I just find apps more practical and convenient than websites in a browser most of the time, on my phone.
But aside from that, even if I had claimed that, it wouldn't imply, that anyone preferring an app must be computer illiterate.
I saw a tweet where some Zoomer was roasting an "Elder Millenial" for switching devices from a mobile phone to a desktop when making a big purchase (airline tickets? I forget).
I didn't feel like wading into that argument (what's the point? like spitting in a campfire), but... yeah.
Some folks say that we are regressing wrt technological proficiency, but it's really just that more people use technology than they used to. Regression to the mean, maybe? Is that the right expression?
I think antifingerprinting means that browsers are constantly re-loading and rerendering tons and tons of resources. The web is much much slower than it could be in theory. If you have an siloed app then you don't need to worry about that and can reuse everything. You open a new tab and nearly everything displays instantly (except the different car or whatever you're displaying)
This would also decrease your network bandwidth load. So a win for you and your customers
Then there’s a measurement element where app installs became an important KPI around the time ad blocking became more popular and interfered with detailed website engagement tracking, creating a self-fulfilling kind of thing.
On top of this I think another factor is that many websites are in terrible shape, super bloated by ten thousand tracking pixels and third party snippets added willy nilly by marketing teams using Tag Manager, so apps benefit from gatekeeping that bloat to a degree.
Of course it’s possible to mess that up, but the default is superior.
Even if each click only takes a second to load or wait, it's annoying for many clicks. Then there are all kinds of usability issues, like the page reloading in the middle of a form or process when scrolling up was misinterpreted as a refresh.
However, I'm not talking about apps that just load a webpage.
Most native apps are some half gig large where even the heaviest website is a few mb. They dont let you highlight text and have other bizarre design choices. Even worse, they request importing contacts list which isnt even an option on the web.
Native apps could be butter but more often than not they are like margarine. Smooth, oily, and not good for you.
Capital One is 435MB...
Garmin Connect is 518MB for some stupid reason, while Strava is half that and Gaia GPS (great app), is under 100.
Bloat like that is usually due to unnecessarily convoluted tech stacks pulling in a list of dependencies that goes out to Mars and back, or for globally targeted apps sometimes it’s translations for everything in the app for hundreds of different languages.
Cross platform frameworks really aren’t the magic wand they’re sold as.
Disagree about UIKit, mainly cause of Autolayout, unless it's gotten reworked in the past 8 years. When I started using RN, I had zero web experience, and still it was way quicker to set up a basic UI than in the UIKit stuff I'd been doing for years. And for all that setup, Autolayout doesn't even seem to future-proof your stuff that well. An abandoned ObjC iPhone app I wrote in high school using C-style macros for layout worked perfectly fine on the newer screen sizes that broke most other apps.
I thought maybe I was stupid, but the other iPhone devs I worked with constantly had problems with Autolayout. Maybe a real expert iPhone dev won't, but it shouldn't take that.
Pure code UIKit using autolayout’s anchors API is quite serviceable, and if you follow recommendations (use safe area and keyboard constraints! They exist for a reason) reasonably futureproof. The iOS apps I’ve worked on have needed very little change year to year for quite some time at this point.
But this is still incredibly ridiculously comically gross. The fact that we can afford it these days is an irrelevant seperate thing. These numbers are just unjustifiable for what most apps actually do.
For a couple examples pulled from my TestFlight list, there’s a social media site reader app that’s 7.6MB and a text editor that’s 697KB. Those sizes aren’t the least bit unreasonable.
Heck, if you are a world business and the app isn't your core value prop, whats your case for investing anything more than the bare minimum in creating your app?
iOS:
wechat: 740meg
gmail: 672
google chat: 585
uber: 582
tiktok: 572
headspace: 498
instagram: 467
doulingo: 462
bank of america: 456
capital one: 435
expedia: 412
linkedin: 402
doordash: 392
google: 379
facebook: 365
unitied airlines:355
chase: 352
google photos: 348
line: 346
amex: 339
google maps: 336
youtube: 329
booking.com: 320
citi: 319
amazon music: 317
snapchat: 316
lyft: 307
wells fargo: 292
strava: 283
twitch: 279
rotten tomatoes: 262
airbnb: 254
youtube music: 245
whatsapp: 239
mlb: 220
discord: 212
tinder: 202
I am quite surprised at a few apps I know are just a webpage, because I can to go to the webpage and see it's exactly the same, are still 40meg to 80meg. I'd expect them be able to be as small as a few K. Open a webview, navigate to https://mycompany.com. The end
Gmail: 612mb
Facebook: 359mb
YouTube: 303mb
Amex: 365mb
edit: also, I do see Apple's own apps in mine. Music reports 39mb; Photos 791kB (lol?)
my youtube is literally 10gb because I use it a lot, doesnt mean youtube is "bloated" or "heavy"
Not to defend Uber, but there was a post here some time ago where one engineer explained why it's so large (sadly can't find it anymore): it's due to a lot of different implementations for different markets (some masks may have slight differences in different countries) and their choise to re-implement the masks multiple times.
You can find that in the phone storage settings:
iOS: 12 G
Keynote: 498 M
Numbers: 482 M
Pages: 455 M
Clips: 213 M
Maps: 81 M
Watch: 70 M
Find My: 60 M
Music: 38 M
iTunes U: 35 M
Support: 34 M
Podcasts: 32 M
Books: 31 M
iCloud Drive: 30 M
Freeform: 19 M
Fitness: 18 M
Notes: 17 M
Journal: 15 M
Home: 10 M
App Store: 8 M
Weather: 8 M
Mail: 7 M
Files: 4 M
Health: 3 M
Measure: 3 M
Voice Memos: 3 M
Calendar: 2 M
Clock: 2 M
Safari: 2 M
Shortcuts: 2 M
Translate: 2 M
TV: 2 M
Calculator: 1 M
Facetime: 1 M
iTunes Store: 1 M
Tips: 1 M
Wallet: 934 K
Messages: 860 K
Photos: 791 K
Compass: 712 K
Camera: 635 K
Contacts: 598 K
Phone: 570 K
Magnifier: 516 K
Passwords: 213 K
My takeaway from having gone through the list and compared to the various 3rd party apps:
1) Apps can absolutely be smaller. Plenty of stuff in the <200MB range including things like Signal, OBD Fusion and Infuse
2) Games are often big, but there's a surprising number of "simple" apps that are larger than some of the games
3) The largest apps seem to be from companies that you would expect to be doing the most tracking of your data
4) Apple's first party app sizes probably explain a little about why they weren't in a hurry to upgrade storage sizes
Is MapKit considered iOS or Maps?
The former has convenient distribution, but worse performance and other limitations.
The latter can be tricky to keep updated, ensure the environment is the same for everyone and/or cross-platform differences, etc., but significantly better/faster.
But both binaries about the same size. Assuming using something like sokol or SDL3.
Reddit always asks you to use its native app, for example. Why the fuck would I care so much about Reddit that I want it outside of my browser? Same goes for any other website.
But I'll eat my hat before I'll install Reddit's own app. Reddit killing off 3rd party apps is why I post here and not there.
I don't think being nativr is what made 3rd party apps great
Edit: I'm not trying to be rude (it comes naturally). But you just explained "great" as "better, with more". I guess smooth might mean faster, which might be because it isn't doing ads and tracking. It seems to come back to third-party being the crucial difference, and "app" not mattering.
Third party clients could be webapps, too, of course.
I don't think the reddit clients work this way though.
I used Boost. Its ads were not intrusive (and I despise ads) and the UI was written with a small touchscreen in mind. If not for my distaste for phone keyboards, I'd say it was a better experience than the website on a desktop.
Would it be possible for a mobile browser to have a better experience? I don't know. I value my sanity too much to do web development. But Reddit was absolutely determined to make its mobile site unusable and the official Reddit app had a bad reputation (and I wouldn't give those bastards the satisfaction after being nagged so much to install it), so a 3rd party app was the only reasonable solution.
I'm on old.reddit.com too and I use the mobile app (including the 3rd party ones back when they existed) for one primary reason: Two windows I can quickly switch back and forth on. On my phone I use Reddit to look up things. I can have a Reddit thread on one window and a Google search on the other and go back and forth. In a browser switching tabs back and forth is painful, often reloading pages, losing the spot in the browser, having this url bar and top bar taking up tons of screen space.
Native apps make sense when you need to tap in to platform specific features like the Lidar api and such. They don’t make any sense for most websites.
This is an interest of mine, but I’m still fingerprinted per a recent comment. May I ask:
How?
On iOS? Waste of time for anything but simple 2d games.
WAAAAAY too often the 1st party native app is exactly what the other poster said: a browser context with access to some local native API's in order to hoover more data about the user. It is rare that a first-party app actually has some effort put into it to be a quality app. Is in fact so rare, that the sites that actually put in the effort suffer because folks can't believe that a native app for a site could actually be better or worth it.
--- start quote ---
Old Reddit has the advantage of being pretty much static non-interactive content. No video, tiny thumbnails, and barely any JS or styling. Some people like this and some don't, but the end result is a very lean website that performs well out of the box.
https://x.com/jimsimon_/status/1841087335414280571
Suffice to say, I'm on the frontend perf team and we're acutely aware of these problems
https://x.com/jimsimon_/status/1841092341991403974
--- end quote ---
This was in October 2024.
Which is of course a bunch of bullshit when you consider that Reddit's backend returns most data in under 400ms, and it takes Reddit frontend 3+ seconds to render it
It could be that they are just incompetent.
Their new version is incredibly slow, moves me to sub-pages trying to expand comment threads (very disruptive if I saw something in the Google preview snippet and want to control F to it, but whatever comment that was literally isn’t loaded), and sometimes outright fails to load. now I can’t/wont use it.
So screw reddit, it’s a glorified q&a site, with sub forums run by fedora neckbeards, that’s gotten uppity and chosen to be hostile to users. And for some reason Google hasn’t just downranked it to death. The other day there was a thread complaining that their AI responses are reducing websites clicks. I hope that it is very damaging to reddit.
McMaster-Carr begs to differ. Hell even old.reddit is pretty snappy (but deliberately shittily rendered on mobile). Websites can be fast if you don't stuff them with bullshit or degrade then on purpose to drive traffic to the app.
But if they had a native app (do they?) I imagine they would have the wherewithal to build the app natively, with the same stellar navigation of their website, and maybe some native-only features? Imagine if you could use the 3d sensor + camera of an iPhone, and point it at an assembly, and the app would identify the parts it could, and you could order with one click, or integrate with a local ERP or other systems...
[0] Unfortunately, the app I used in the before-time did not implement queuing for submitting comments/posts so that functionality was broken while you were between stations, and videos weren't cached.
It is quite subtle thing in a very small part of the service-worker code but it is not like any random update can brick your app.
On desktop, the browser’s always been the best way to use Reddit — as long as old.reddit still works. If you are on a non-Safari browser, there's also RES.
Same goes for many other sites. Like HN — it’s fine on mobile browser unless I bump the font size, then it pretty much breaks. But I’m not installing an HN app for something the mobile usage time share is barely 5–10%.
Unfortunately, that only ever happens when some third party gets involved, and rarely survives long - but the experience, however brief, is glorious. See: RIF ("Reddit is Fun") on Android; Ripcord (Slack/Discord client) on Windows.
There aren't really any major technical reasons why the mobile site couldn't be as good.
Because they were competently designed. But you could put that same design into a web page and it would work fine.
Back in the early 2000s, I loved desktop applications. My thinking was that there's no way a web app could do what a desktop application could. I loathed slow, proprietary, online-requiring, HTML based web apps .
25 years have passed, and now we DO have some "native" device apps... but they are just HTML web elements bubdled in a freaking custom browser.
Edit: anyone remember the "PortableApps" wave? I loved having that in a usb drive.
What I miss are the days where one could Win32 call a window up, and it looked like every other. Not sugar for me and none for thee.
I cut my teeth programming GUIs, I still like making GUIs - immediate mode guis, event based guis, animated guis and informational guis. I left front-end web dev when every 6 months there was a new framework, a new new, and everyone dropped everything for it. I understand why React ate the world at the time but it’s gotten to the point where it’s no longer standards driven, its ecosystem driven, and even then it’s leaking.
What I love about these hybrid apps though is that from Apache Cordova (PhoneGap) onwards, they’ve all looked really really good. Proving that a normal user can’t tell the difference. Which makes solo-dev or small-dev dev easier. Go with what you know. No need to learn flutter, or SwiftUI, or Kotlin.
I understand why, but I’m not a fan of hybrid apps. I like to do native, which results in much smaller, faster, and more efficient apps. It’s just not as cost-effective, if you want to support multiple platforms.
However, native apps aren’t automatically well-behaved ones. In fact, they usually have access to even more tools for eroding privacy or user agency.
Good behavior is up to the app developers, and that doesn’t seem to be much of a priority, these days.
Especially so in the EU, where on one hand they're annoyed at big tech, and on the other they're forcing citizens to be customers. Even services which are web-based rely on an app for login authentication.
Not nowadays they aren't.
And haven't been for at least a decade!
Another website that asks to Get The App is https://imgur.com/ , every time you open a link to just view that image you instantly got asked to Get The App. It's really annoying!
Basically if you intend it to do something more substantive than comment a series of emojis, they have a bunch of bugs that block you.
I'm guessing someone has made the calculation that being terrible in these ways are more profitable.
Maybe people doom scroll more if the content is vapid?
I'd love to see the user stories. "Brenda is a 52 year old professional who likes commenting "Happy Birthday" to AI generated images of people with cakes. She loves multilevel marketing and buying stuff on Temu. Her husband Greg, reposts memes programmatically generated by content farms using LLMs and topic trackers"
Profile/settings icon/button is rendered half way or fully out of the page.
Chat feature is completely unusable
Social media almost always skews older as it ages, beyond the natural pace of time.
AOL became mostly seniors as did Facebook and Yahoo. Reddit has not only shaken off most of the aging legacy users but had also captured a new generation of effectively children.
I personally don't like what they've done but it's worked.
The younger users view it as an app with a website as opposed to a website with an app
Web browsers were designed by naive, pre surveillance capitalism developers
I personally can't stand apps that stop me from zooming in on things.
My sister complains about the information density of old Reddit being too high but that's exactly what I like about it!
I miss Apollo.
They’re this close to just 100% shutting down the mobile web version.
If you cannot afford the web traffic, just shut down your webservers instead of this bullshit.
Every ~5 years someone makes a new good site, it's great at first, funded from donations. Then they hire people, feature creep, add ads, sellout to VC, enshittyfi, rinse and repeat.
Web apps can ask for your location or microphone the same way native apps can. Just reject it, there’s nothing that says you have to accept on either platform, so to say that’s a negative for native apps is odd.
The biggest downside of native apps is you can’t customize them with extensions or user styles like you can with websites.
Tabs are a big win for mobile web, I agree. I just don't think it outweighs the annoyance of navigating the app in more traditional ways.
Apps break often. They need a lot of support. Everything must be constantly updated. You never know when Samsung or Apple will push an update that breaks things because of some esoteric policy shift or setting change.
But the web? If you do it right, maintenence is much easier. If things do break: users can try different browsers or devices to get around instead of being bricked.
I can't be the only one who _never _ updates software on my phone until I absolutely have to. Everything is so brittle. I'm sick of being gaslit that apps make that better. Despite it's own horrible implementations, the web is far more stable.
The main reason is just a single company - Apple. They have been hell bent on nerfing Safari so that they can continue their rent seeking behavior on App Store.
If Spotify has a functional mobile website, they cant take 30% cut from their app. The way Apple does is 2 fold. 1) deliberating not investing $$ into Safari 2) claiming that you'll get malware from internet.
Both are hypocritical.
It's not a defensive argument about "but he did it too"!
That's not how you get to a better solution to the problem at hand.
On iOS there is no effective way to install sideloaded apps, therefore this rent seeking behavior is even more hostile to the user.
And Spotify hasn’t had in app purchasing of subscriptions on iOS for over a decade. Apple has never once said you would get malware by using Safari.
Who do you think is stopping from that happening?
Apple makes no money from the Spotify app being on the iPhone and hadn’t for over a decade.
Music was played by the iTunes process on mobile until 2016, and only a single audio stream at a time. How dare you wanted a fade in/out with less than 3 seconds latency!
And even then Apple was reluctant to implement a correct Promise based Audio API in WebKit, which in turn was incompatible with all other Web Browsers (up until today, btw) and also had very different audio formats supported that were only compatible with iOS due to proprietary patents.
Saying WebKit played music in 2007 is literally a worse experience than a Flash web player doing that.
The question was why did Spotify have to use an app instead of using the web.
But then again, are you really saying that Android users don’t use the app?
But … I don’t?
I download and install Spotify.app on my computer (at least my gf does on hers, I use Apple Music). Maybe I am the weird one? No I am not, I skimmed the Spotify subreddit and most use the app on PC/Mac: It has keyboard shortcuts, people find it nicer being its own program instead some browser tab, it is more lightweight, it provides offline play and crossfading and has (freemium and paid) higher bitrate than web. It is you who are missing out.
right there with you brother
Eh, I'll argue this isn't as true as you think. Browsers are constantly updated these days and have their own fun things that break or mess with experiences.
But that's not the biggest issue with browsers, at least on the PC, it's that the average user seems completely incapable of keeping mal/adware off their device. For those users the app world is an escape from the hell they were in.
For me as a power user apps suck. But they became popular quickly for a reason.
That link was posted two days ago, but it's not unusual news. Phone apps are not an escape from mal/adware.
Web app projects on the other hand always feel some degree of held together by bubblegum and duct tape. Do so much as breathe wrong and they fall apart (which is part of why the industry has become docker-centric). None of the old web projects I have laying around are trivial to get into good enough shape to develop on again, whereas I can pick up and old iOS app that hasn’t been touched in a decade and getting it running in an afternoon.
I will say however that there’s a class of poorly built cross platform mobile app that I’ve come to abhor, because as you say they’re brittle and break easily on top of generally being unpleasant to use.
When you target a higher level abstraction, be it web, or flutter or whatever, you are explicitly choosing not to follow the platform native UX.
It’s more convenient to developers not to have to worry about that.
That’s it.
Web is easy. It’s free.
That doesn’t mean it’s better, or that it’s even possible for it to be as good as a native experience.
You can make a web app that is good; but it is the unavoidable and undeniable reality that web applications have a glass ceiling.
It is. Not. Possible. to write a web app that is as good as the equivalent native application can be. Certainly not a cross browser one.
There are reasons, you can blame Apple and safari or whatever you want, but that’s where it’s at, today.
> The reason I believe the web experience is inferior is because companies put more resources into apps at the expense of the web.
It’s not a falsifiable argument.
“That is not as good because I believe less effort was put into it”.
Ok.
I believe that for the equivalent effort you could create a better web app than a native app. I think you could measure that, and it would be pretty clear.
However, I believe many large native applications could not be implemented using the web platform. I think react native and the disaster that is is a reasonably solid proof that this is true.
They’re worse because web is worse, not because they didn’t bother to put effort in; because it wasn’t possible to do it using the web platform.
Native is always better if you out the effort in. It has capabilities that web doesn’t.
It is impossible for it not to be better.
It's too bad because it's not like the web is incapable of providing a beautiful ux for those products. But then so why do you think these companies employ massive teams of devs, for Android, and then again for iOS, reimplementing their functionality on every platform? All that to provide you with that sweet extra smooth native "feel", 2% nicer than the web could do? No, it's not for you...
This is key. Companies pushing apps is not for your benefit. It's so they can further monetize you right under your nose and with your full permission by accepting their EULA. This is just a furtherance of the if you don't pay for the product you are the product.
This is indeed a short term strategy, but tech companies right now are thinking very short term.
Basically, you rely on goodwill from yester-year and slowly ad in intrusive stuff that users adjust to. Thars enshittification in its raw essence. Admittedly, this mostly works because the general user is not "active" and will not take the time to migrate unless something absolutely scandalous happens. For them, it's easier putting up with ads than trying to log into an ad free substitute.
No one would advertise with Facebook if there was no value from purchasing ad space. The billions of dollars people spend is evidence there is value there for advertisers.
>will not take the time to migrate
Sure, people don't actively seek to maximize the value they receive, but that doesn't mean what they are currently getting value from doesn't have value.
You described the majority of those as being about the perception of value rather than value.
>No one would advertise with Facebook if there was no value from purchasing ad space. The billions of dollars people spend is evidence there is value there for advertisers
No one is disputing that the advertisers are getting value. The pursuit of advertiser value at the expense of users is the complaint.
Which is why they weren't useful to bring up.
A more interesting thought experiment is where that threshold is before the lack of value invigorates the energy needed to migrate. That's part of why I put the boiling frog metaphor there. Rate of change definitely has impact on perceived value.
network effects is the momentum that keeps everyone from stopping the use of the service/product. it takes too much energy to stop, so people just keep using. it also helps there's nothing to replace. any fledgling service that might offer an alternative just gets bought up by the service.
The scope of the problem is much larger. If there is no "let's not use the app" movement and if there was it wouldn't be big enough to pick up on the radar.
We have bigger things to worry about as the shit is oozing out of everything.
>We have bigger things to worry about as the shit is oozing out of everything.
Yes, but "Tech bad/greedy" is about as far as we can push on HN before it becomes "too political" and and people/bots try to hide the story. At least I have other sources to discuss those matters.
I haven't put any effort in writing long well-researched comments since that time. I wouldn't dare put more than 2 references in a comment here. 4 would be pushing it.
As if nothing interesting was written before about anything?
for another, devs are definitely making the web experience subpar which has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread. most websites are just adverts for their apps if they function at all any more. loading a website on mobile is even worse than desktop as they pester you with "it's better in the app" pop ups.
people find browsing an app store much easier than browsing the web. in fact, do people browse the web at all any more. search is shit now, so discovery by search is not what it used to be. click through from search is also plummeting as "search assistant" type responses means no reason to click through to sites.
how many more reasons do you need?
One. Because I don't believe one exists. The reasons you gave of it looking nice and accomplishing something the user wants to do provide value to the user.
It's also worth noting that I have nothing against apps. I use them to read RSS feeds, download podcasts, etc.. Yet those are independent of any particular service and there is enough choice between apps that I can use one that respects my privacy. I am not being limited in any way. If anything, it is more empowering since the developers of a dedicated RSS feed reader is more likely to design an app that is directed towards the needs of its users. In contrast, the Reddit app is directed towards the needs of Reddit.
I’ve never seen a web app I was happy with being a web app. I understand that a lot of people prefer web-based tools but a lot of us cannot stand them and try to get our work out of the browser as much as possible because we dislike the UX of the browser platform.
I prefer the Apple Weather app on desktop and mobile to weather websites, though; and, I prefer the Google Map mobile app to mobile website.
Is this necessary for most commercial projects? Of course not. But many of the programs I consider the nicest to work with today are that way precisely because someone fought back against the call of the network.
"The native app experience for every app noted in the article" doesn't make any sense, the article lists none.
"Lots of people hate Electron apps, which suggests to me that my preference for native apps isn’t unique."
again......what does this have to do with the article at all? Aren't you merely reinforcing the articles point?
" Just reject it, there’s nothing that says you have to accept on either platform, so to say that’s a negative for native apps is odd."
Except that most app's would stop working if anyone confined them to the minimum amount of data required, case in point any scooter app that won't let you rent unless you have google location services turned on vs just regular GPS.
OPs point is that app are a walled garden of functionality that lock users in because of expedience for living life.
At the risk of nitpicking, the second paragraph mentions Reddit, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
I want native programs on my PC, and fewer apps on my phone.
I get all my apps from F-Droid. If I need to use Steam chat or view the menu at Taco Bell, mobile website it is. I am not gonna put their proprietary software on my phone. This also brings up another interesting difference. There is no desktop program for Taco Bell, that would be super weird. I think other comments already addressed that, but a lot of mobile apps are basically just the website.
A game like Luanti or some sort of Tetris is something I'd want native in both places (desktop and mobile). Games in browsers are a mess.
More simply, I don't need an app for every website I visit. a bookmark is much more lightweight than downloading yet another app to clutter my drawer.
I can say with certainty Apple has been hostile to PWAs.
Unlike Google Play and Microsoft Store, iOS App Store doesn't allow publishing PWAs. (You instead have to build a native web view app to load your PWA.) And many of the PWA features just don't work on mobile Safari.
App processes are sorted in order of most recent use, keeping the most relevant ones at hand, and those that aren’t used for a while just silently go away without much fuss.
In comparison browser tabs aren’t organized unless the user does that themselves, and so with each web app tab management overhead increases. Some browsers have an idle tab auto-close feature, but that closes the wrong tab (usually a page with info pertinent to something I’m working on) quite often. “Installing” PWAs can be an ok-ish workaround, but the problem there is that a lot of sites don’t have the little bit of manifest magic that makes saving to home screen “install” a PWA instead of just opening a browser tab.
I've found it to be the opposite. Perhaps if you're heavily involved on Reddit, LinkedIn, etc., then it's more convenient. But I only go to those sites via a search link. Why would I want to spend time and effort installing the app, just to see the same content I just landed on?
It's a huge red flag when websites push their app so intrusively. It means the app has little value and will be just as bad or worse when you use it.
On the other hand, for mobile apps, there is still a device-specific mentality.
Imagine web apps being built with a different flavor for all the major browsers...
I hope that the same level of standardization comes to mobile apps too with the option to use more device-specific features on top of the generic UI.
so using the web is my go-to
i dont have reddit, on my phone for example.
Also, all those app icons are just "advertisement" every time you look at your phone screen... i dont need that.
if you REQUIRE me to use an app, then i'm only using it if i absolutely have to. (there's almost always an alternative)
You wouldn't believe the volume of actual advertisements that show up as push notifications on my wife's phone
Especially when they come from apps you can't delete like your bannking app.
"""Push Notifications must not be required for the app to function, and should not be used to send sensitive personal or confidential information. Push Notifications should not be used for promotions or direct marketing purposes unless customers have explicitly opted in to receive them via consent language displayed in your app’s UI, and you provide a method in your app for a user to opt out from receiving such messages. Abuse of these services may result in revocation of your privileges."""
Of course you can just pass off promotional stuff as not promotional, but same on Android, and you have to be sly about it.
Or if Apple has a movie they really really want to promote
Not all apps do it and some push all notifications through a single channel (and some manufacturers hide the granularity options in advanced settings, I'm looking at you Samsung) but at least it exists.
It’s not JUST marketing either. I don’t want to be interrupted with a reminder to check my lint filter. I do that literally every time I change the laundry. But I can’t disable that pointless alert without disabling ALL alerts (and you can rightly question whether any alerts from a dryer have value, but that’s a different discussion).
Game? Doesn't need notfications, deny, done!
Same goes for every serious app which need to ID you. The app-based 2FA/MFA is becoming the standard for the web access. This is a need or pattern created by availability of a bad solution. Similar to how the cars created sprawling cities in the USA which prohibits you using your legs.
So, telling people to use website instead of app, is the same as telling them to walk to the corner shop instead of using a car. You can't walk to the many other essential places anymore, though.
You can escape from the car if you live a small village that has everything you need. But you can't escape from apps and internet if you need to feel that you exist in this world.
And to login into my work, I need to first login into my laptop and then enter into a very elaborate way of login into VPN or company WiFi. VPN/WiFi login requires you to first login into company app on your mobile to get a temp password. The company app need to work with other auth apps in a very complex way, making you hop through multiple ID checks. It is very likely that one of these apps might not like your speed of response and block you, requiring you create an incident ticket which itself requires logging into your account first. Since you can't create the ticket, you will call help desk and wait for half-day as they keep shifting your ticket across support queues.
This is not true in Sweden. I use three different banks in Sweden, and they all offer equal or more functionality on their mobile version websites.
This wasn’t always the case, though. In the early 2010s, I remember a bank blocking mobile user agents and referring to their app instead, due to “security”. I’m glad there has been some progress in the right direction since then.
Things are the other way in Finland, where each bank has its own identification app, and many official sites require you to use one for identifying yourself.
I wouldn’t care, except they require it for payments and in 2024 they auto-enrolled us in “paperless”. Fixable - by using the EHR systems configuration (needs a mobile app to access) back to mailed bills.
Major issue is though, I was sending their voluminous useless survey emails to spam, as they do not allow patients to unenroll their email address (it’s the primary key essentially), and their unsubscribe is essentially useless, and so I did not see repeated requests for payment.
This resulted in a $90 copay *going to collections*. Which of course sent me a paper bill, thankfully, and I got to it before it impacted our ability to access credit.
German: https://appzwang.de
I don't know if they're affiliated but I recently came across one after already knowing of the other. The name means something like "app compulsion" in both languages, as in being forced to use apps. Very much in line with the submitted article above
Is there such a resource for English already? A place or movement we can link to
It's a good initiative, and I hope (non-tech) people realize more about this.
If you have a website, everyone with a browser should be able to use it.
They've never had my trust, and never will.
I don't need or want their data. It's a liability. They pay a monthly subscription. I want their money. Not their data.
By refusing to provide a (superfluous) app, not only do you spare yourself the dev (and continued maintenance) costs, you also are not even as exposed to the data protection argument.
I did maintain the Apple account for a previous place where I worked though, and holy hell that sucks. Not so much the day to day work, but being from the Scotish part of Denmark, it hurt my soul to pay them money (it wasn't even mine) to use their platform. Not sure if Google is as shit, never tried their store from the developer side.
I also work for a large company and we can't keep all the apps in sync even with thousands of employees. It's just dumb.
https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#min...
4.2 Minimum Functionality
Your app should include features, content, and UI that elevate it beyond a repackaged website.
There's a Web app for turning your web app into an Android app. The hardest part is jumping through all the play store hoops.
I have a B2C app that is in a niche, it started as a web app many years ago, but customer expectation is clearly in having an app. It also comes with the benefit of offline-first and local data storage. I wrote the whole thing with Ionic. So one code base for web, Android and iOS.
In my case, not having an app would’ve been a bad decision financially. The app also unlocked external reviews/comparisons of magazines and such. Basically free marketing.
Whether or not most people are aware of this ability is another question, I guess.
The one that gets me is Uber. For several minutes a month while traveling, I really want their notifications. But once a day when I don't, they use it to send advertisements for services I can't even use (no Uber or Uber Eats service where I live). I used to turn off notifications the first ad I got after getting home (usually within a day), but then realized it's easier just to delete the app each time. And if Lyft hasn't advertised at me by the next time I'm traveling, and they're still installed, well, they're the ones getting my dollars, since who has time to download an app each use?
At least for now there are no ads there.
But presumably developers have more control over app notification look & feel vs browser notifications?
Let me explain. Say you order food online — you’d want a notification to update you, instead of having to manually refresh a webpage. So you prefer using the app. But what’s the guarantee the company won’t also send you marketing notifications? You give contact permission to access just one contact, but what’s stopping the app from uploading your whole contact list to their servers? You allow location for one check-in, but they start logging your GPS every minute? Every permission asked & given for right purpose end up as consent-full data siphons.
And honestly, if the app world hadn’t taken off, the web would have invented its own version of permission systems. So yeah, I dis/agree with the article’s title — web can do everything apps can; including the shady data siphoning.
Some people might argue that they need excessive data to serve right ads, make money and keep the app free — the only way. But I don't think so, even if you pay for the app, they will need excessive data to ensure you keep renewing.
Browsers have a notification feature where websites can send you notifications, and it's usually enabled by default.
Until you do. Then it is too late
I love that this post is pushing back on the norm. Maybe, just maybe, we can start a movement to make the web usable again. Or at least make “No, thanks” actually mean “No, thanks.”
(Yes, in theory, I could open another browser window for it instead of another tab. In practice, Chromium will pick the wrong window to remember the tabs from when it’s restarted, so I try to stick to one window.)
This is the shortcut for “undo close tab” on most non-macOS web browsers. Command-Shift-T for macOS, W instead of T for undo close window.
That said, I built my first mobile app 15 years ago, and to this day, building for mobile remains the most frustrating part of my programming life.
In the Netherlands we have a system called DigiD to login into to most government websites like your taxes and city, etc.
When I contracted for the city of Amsterdam I learned they’ve been pushing hard for the DigiD app to two factor authenticate instead of text message, because of contracts Digid charges a lot per text message validation and none for app.
There are also just some things you cannot realistically do in the browser (or over SMS) without having to ship specialised hardware to 18 million people, like reading the NFC chip of your passport. This is needed for DigiD Substantieel and Hoog, which are mandated by the eIDAS regulations.
[1] https://github.com/MinBZK/woo-besluit-broncode-digid-app/
It is also far less likely to be phished, and there is nothing transmitted.
TOTP is the modern WPA2 of security - it's just not good enough when better alternatives exist.
What password?
For example with bankID (sweden, and I think the norway version does the same) when you need to authenticate you either scan a QR code with the bankID app or select "on the same device" and then the website will interact with the bankID API to auth.
Either way you don't need your own app to get proper auth working with this sort of government login.
(With bankID the app devs still pay a per-auth price, but that is not due to any technical reason, just because its made by a profit-driven semi-monopoly)
I would also use Yubikey for banking, but I am scared as f. what happens if I lose it while traveling abroad.
Otherwise, yeah... Passkey it is
I even have a personal anecdote. My wife "lost" her phone in Iceland. I make her login to find-my-phone with her google account, and 2fa was needed. Thankfully she had her Yubikey in her keychain (plus, we enrolled each other's key), so she was able to login. Push notification or TOTP/SMS were all not an option.
I like how we went full-circle to Passkeys which are basically a "remember me FOREVER" button, implemented kinda like SSH keys. Should call it that too, and also ditch the like 4 prompts it gives you first.
Here's a better idea: just use openssh or at least openssh's key formats since none of the big companies can manage anything better.
I would like to use only the browser, but unfortunately for some use cases it isn't really possible.
Banking happens to be the one where I do keep the app for each bank/brokerage that I have an account with. Some of the features like mobile deposit work better. And the biometric login on Android is convenient when I'm looking up things quickly.
(I use the banking websites too, and for those prefer hardware passkey where supported, and if not everything else is in bitwarden).
A very silly threshold, since this would knock out probably 95% of the app store, including games, since "websites" are extremely capable these days, with full 3d graphics, etc. Then, each time safari added a new modern browser feature, more would get knocked out.
Good example is Discord. Complex app, only really difference for native is something about push-to-talk.
And that little asterisk would end up getting abused by pretty much everyone. After all, we wouldn't be able to add the same functionality to the website because the developers we employ for this are only proficient in `<native language here>`.
By-intent, it would definitely be a big chunk of the apps out there, but I would argue that's a good thing. I don't want an App for every brand I interact with, especially since I know what they're doing (harvesting my data to sell to brokers to make a fraction of a penny more per transaction).
Android has long had PWA support. Almost no one uses it at all. In fact iOS users have long had significantly high web browser usage than their Android compatriots.
"It's because iOS doesn't support it...somehow. Despite entirely separate bases that could be served in entirely different ways, it's actually Apple's fault"
A couple of years ago Apple pretty much fully supported PWAs, including push notifications. Still negligible uptake on either iOS or Android. It turns out that it was the PWAs vs the Apps all along, and had nothing to do with Apple. The web and the average web technology stack has turned so toxic -- those enormous frameworks that yield an atrocious user experience -- that people prefer the app.
Still though, somehow Apple's fault. Increasingly such adherents have to reach to successively more niche weird Google additions to Chrome to justify why somehow Apple is to blame. Because Apple doesn't support the new half-baked AdBlastNoBlock3000 API that Google jammed into Chrome. Etc.
It's just weird. At some point people need to be a bit more honest with themselves about why apps are preferred over PWAs or even just basic websites when an app is avialable.
But even aside from Apple's lack of support, the PWA standard seems kinda bad. Weird boilerplate like the serviceworker.js even if all you want is to make it addable to home screen.
Idk about iOS
"normally" is carrying a lot of water there. While the back-end is shared, obviously, a large number of orgs have two distinct fully native development projects for the platforms. There are zero empirical metrics I can cite, but in my experience the cross platform thing is a minority. Cross platform tooling is often the talk among the aspirational "One day I'm going to write a novel, and then a hit app" sorts, but it just doesn't dominate in the actual industry.
But if it did, Flutter dominates the cross-platform world, and what do you know, Flutter can generate PWA apps.
>But even aside from Apple's lack of support
Apple has supported PWA for a couple of years. It was a lazy excuse by cheerleaders who had nothing factual, but Apple supporting PWAs didn't move the needle at all. Because it turns out that a billion Android devices not being targeted with PWAs had literally nothing to do with Apple.
Yes. Because if you're making a mobile app you want to target the two major platforms. If IOS's PWA's suck, you're not going to try and make a PWA for android. So it's a negative feedback loop.
>Despite entirely separate bases that could be served in entirely different ways,
differnt ways costs money. So often it isn't done. They pick a framework that launches to all targets and deviate as little as possible. We're long past the days of having two dedicated teams trying to appeal to android users vs ios users. They are all simply "users".
>A couple of years ago Apple pretty much fully supported PWAs, including push notifications.
They pretended to while changing a bunch of develop terms to make it hard to actually use the PWA's. They "fully supported" PWAs the same way they "complied" with the DMA.
Besides, adoption takes a few years. You can't make a half-hearted update and expect changes overnight.it takes a few years to really see the results.
Um... bluetooth? USB? Sensors? Basically anything dealing with external hardware is a huge hole. I can configure and flash my QMK keyboard from my phone or laptop just by following a shortened URL.
I mean, sure. "Web Sites" work great on Safari! But Apple cares deeply that "Apps" have broader capabilities than the browser, and it does it by crippling progress with PWAs.
Ah yes, the 0.001% of apps. That's clearly why PWAs have made zero inroads, even on Android where Google keeps tossing in poorly considered, completely non-standard APIs.
A small fraction of WEB PAGES, not "apps". Like half the apps installed on my phone have some behavior not purely connected to internet communication!
You just don't think that's a problem and like installing apps from the store and using iOS as your only gateway to the world and think "browsers" are crufty and silly. But that's a taste issue not a technical one. "Because I don't personally like it" makes an extremely poor argument against the embrace of open standards.
Basically you're the person in 1998 arguing for Win32 apps everywhere and that the HTML/JS/Java platforms were inherently inferior. How'd that philosophy work out?
No, apps. The vast majority of my apps do not read from sensors or do anything directly with bluetooth. The vast majority. Another strawman, which is par for the course on this topic. There is always just one more "but wait...what if the PWA could do {X}, and that is why no one uses it, even for markets where {X} has utterly zero relevance!" canard, though.
>and think "browsers" are crufty and silly
*NOWHERE* did I say anything remotely of the sort. What a ridiculous reframing. This discussion is embarrassing. You have absolutely no idea of my history in this industry, but let's say that it makes your contention so outrageously wrong that you should feel embarrassed. But you won't.
PWAs -- usually as a reflection of the way they are built -- are almost always garbage compared to comparable native apps. This has literally NOTHING to do with "web browsers being silly" (again, iOS users use web browsers doing web stuff far more than Android users do), however ridiculous so many have to strawman this.
>"Because I don't personally like it"
Amazing. There is close to negligible uptake of PWAs. Sorry to burst your bubble, but the world didn't make that choice because "I don't personally like it". Android has almost completely domination in many countries, and again their app ecosystem is overwhelmingly native apps. This constant laughably fictional rhetoric spouted on HN is just self-deluding pablum.
>Basically you're the person in 1998 arguing for Win32 apps everywhere and that the HTML/JS/Java platforms were inherently inferior.
Beyond ridiculous.
All that stuff works in a browser everywhere else but iOS. Your argument isn't that it's useless, because you clearly use it and love it. You just don't think the rest of us should have it. Which is great if you're Tim Cook, I guess. But I doubt you are.
Listing possible examples does not prove your point.
>All that stuff works in a browser everywhere else but iOS.
Ah neat, so Android users all don't use the play store and their bank apps and robot apps and car apps all are PWAs, right? Something something No It's Actually Apple's Fault. Good god.
>You just don't think the rest of us should have it.
I have repeatedly observed the actual market here in actual reality. You have repeatedly somehow made it personal.
This clearly is a futile discussion. Have a nice day.
It disproves yours that the "vast majority" of apps don't use functionality exposed as PWA APIs.
> Something something No It's Actually Apple's Fault
It's indeed Apple's fault that those PWA APIs don't work in Safari, yes. I didn't think this was a disputed point. And again I repeat: your objection isn't technical, you just don't like the idea of portable web apps working on iOS.
I take it you're not a stats major.
> It's indeed Apple's fault that those PWA APIs don't work in Safari
A tiny percentage of apps use features that aren't available in Safari, ergo ipso sum, 100% of apps cannot use PWAs on any platform. Do you understand how utterly nonsensical this noise is?
I understand this thread is overwhelmingly dominated by rhetorics, seemingly by people who have zero experience in the industry, so have your nonsense.
> your objection isn't technical, you just don't like the idea of portable web apps working on iOS.
Your take is laughably nonsensical.
Engagement and real estate.
Keeping the users up to date is way easier with push notifications, especially with younger audiences who are less likely to read email.
And the app sits there on the Home Screen and advertises itself without having to do anything, while a web page relies on the user remembering its name and go there.
You know. Every developer you know.
I know many devs who in fact expliticly do not think that at all, quite the opposite at a minimum.
An ad show on a native mobile app pays between 5x to 10x more than the same ad in a webpage.
Advertiser's also get way more data from the mobile app than the data they can get from a webpage.
The company I work for makes 75% of their revenue from showing ads and they pushed very aggressively to install their app.
HN is a good example of an SSR web experience done right. How often do you hear members complaining about lack of official hacker news apps? I think the biggest reason is because the site is so simple and fast. There is zero jank to run away from. I can participate on the site just fine even if I'm on the edge of no signal in the desert. I don't need a fancy offline client side model. I need it to be tight enough to fit across a shitty pipe before it disappears.
UI/UX is one of the hardest things you can do, but when done well you can make it work in any medium. Native "feel" is not an excuse in my book. Safari feels pretty damn native to me right now.
I think if people realized how much data they can get from your iPhone with simple permissions like WiFi they’d think twice about giving so many apps access
This technique was discovered, makes me wonder how many undiscovered techniques are still in use.
Also my bad, been a while since I installed an app believe it or not - also possible I saw this in android, but the general point stands
Now in 2025 my biggest app-pain is being in the already useless live support chat for a phone co or utility company and they keep insisting that I'll get actual support if I download their stupid app. Again, they can't cite a reason - it's just "better." For data-brokering, sure - for the user, barely ever.
The better solution is do not use a phone. Using a phone requires using a mobile browser. One of the worst "apps" of them all. If it is Firefox, then one needs to block a ton of telemetry. It is constantly trying to determine if it can reach the internet and then trying to access "location.services.mozilla.org" amongst numerous other domains. Mozilla partners with Google. They share data.
Not true. Sent from desktop Firefox on my GNU/Linux phone.
For example, via the Termux app or "HTTP Shortcuts" app from F-Droid or Github.
Sometimes corporate apps use resources from their public websites, not a dedicated "endpoint" set up for the app. For example, a weather app that uses pages under a folder called "widgets" from its website, or a grocery app that sources product images from an images folder its website's www subdomain. In testing I have accessed such resources outside the app, outside the mobile OS, from another computer, using any software.
But Termux and HTTP shortcuts are apps, and subject to all the corporate mobile OS restrictions.
There is no sysctl, nftables, iptables, tcpdump, etc. on the "phone".
The kernel is generally not under the control of the phone's owner.
As such, _for me_ the corporate mobile OS even coupled with impressive phone hardware, is inferior to a computer that it's owner, who is not working for a so-called "tech" company selling ad services, can control, by compiling and installing their OS of choice. That includes the kernel.
Using Termux, I could submit this reply to HN from a phone using the 59-line shell script I normally use on a computer. It's possible. But I prefer the computer with the kernel I compiled myself.
If I'm going to use a website instead of an app, I would prefer to do it on that computer, not a "phone".
Why leave out an incredibly egregious offender here in good old google? I'd been relatively on the fence google wise until they started consistently and repeatedly asking me to install their bullshit app. Why on earth would I ever want to install your app when all I want to do is run a fucking search query and leave you again?
If the site takes off, I think we will have to build a mobile app even though we don't want to. Non-tech users don't care about web.
As someone who pushed everyone I know to use Firefox with uBlock on Android, I am disappointed
But as someone who uses old.reddit.com on mobile, I am not surprised
1. Original iPhone aimed for that. No AppStore. But developers especially when web stack was poor, wanted native access. It did make sense back then to ideas like WhatsApp or some audio and video apps.
2. Then Apple understood they can get a cut if they operate the AppStore.
3. Then companies understood they can benefit from more data….
I’ve recently moved country and that’s real lame. Almost any supermarket or restaurant here wants me to become a “member” and enforce me to download their app (no web!). I’ve ended up creating another Apple account since those apps weren’t available in my origin country AppStore.
Most of those apps can pretty much be web apps (they actually are :) ) but insist of me downloading something with more data.
Also the entire tech industry is almost surviving on the promise of surveillance state and economy as if looked carefully there aren't that many success stories of the tech outside of the very obvious financial and automation industries. And that can serve only upto a certain level, but the hype of tech is way beyond that. To match that, they are desperate to break any law and all morals.
Also a glance at our own investment portfolio will tell us that it's our collective quest for wealth growth is the actual driving force of this 'everything financial' tech industry.
With the web, we have:
- Translation
- Read outloud
- Plugins for dark mode
- Ad blocking
Apps are enshitification.
The (non-scientific) impression I have is that people don't tend to use porn apps, they stick with porn websites.
Therefore, do people basically know apps aren't well behaved with their data and yet in other scenarios they turn a blind eye?
And Facebook. I swear they intentionally make the website as bad as possible for mobile browsers. Explicitly disabled sending messages a few years ago. Do they really think someone who resisted their push to apps for 10+ years would submit one day?
Fortunately, Redlib exists: https://github.com/redlib-org/redlib
Bloated web apps with megabytes worth of JavaScript and CSS, crappy rendering performance, etc. are all too common. Far too many web apps are unusable or broken if you have any content/ad blockers enabled, which are almost a necessity in order to use the modern web.
Conversely, you download a native app once, and update it infrequently. Load times can be instantaneous. Offline support is far more robust.
To completely write off native apps just because some of those apps abuse the trust of users seems silly. Plenty of web apps have piles and piles of invasive ads and trackers as well.
Works like a charm.
I'd argue that a this task can be taken up by the mobile browser itself: i.e., to offer to install a shortcut icon that'll launch the page within an app container/sandbox. The common resistance to using website directly--and thus the preference to use the app, other than for performance reasons--stems from the inconvenience of typing and navigating on a small screen. If the browser helpfully offers to bypass that step (you've to do that at most once), a large number of apps would suddenly lose their pull.
I uninstalled the app, almost immediately. Because it poisoned my web experience, destroyed my ability to see where I was navigating on the web.
But still Chrome shows GitHub links as "open I'm app". Even though the app is uninstalled, even though Chrome will open them, even though all I want and all that would be meaningful would be to show me a URL.
It's beyond my imagining how toxically bad apps are. How the OS would prefer to poison us with a zero dimensional facimile of useful information, to shunt us away from useful experiences to route us into the awful bad no good low information indistinct app world. Apps suck so bad. The OS does nothing to make apps any good. There's no principles, no backbone, no nothing outside the web: just co-opting and exploiting users, offering low power low information experiences to people who know no power, have no agency, on and on.
navigator.mediaSession.metadata = new MediaMetadata({
title: song.name,
album: song.category,
artwork: [{src: song.imagePath, type: 'image/jpg'}]
})
navigator.mediaSession.setActionHandler('play', player.play)
navigator.mediaSession.setActionHandler('pause', player.pause)
navigator.mediaSession.setActionHandler('nexttrack', player.nextTrack)
navigator.mediaSession.setActionHandler('previoustrack', player.prevTrack)
// song and player are instances of state
Try using Spotify's mobile web app for an example. Works great.
Browser or native doesn't matter, both have this issue. Heck, this is Google's own software that gets killed: the utility that submits the string to it is still there when I unlock the screen. It's probably just me but I really miss the Android 4 which I had customised to death so it would only run the things I wanted (no bloat): the battery still lasts weeks (the device is >10 years old!) if you don't ask it to do anything because nothing runs in the background. However, when I choose to run an app and don't turn it off before locking the screen, it'd just keep running
But yea, that wouldn't work for the general public
Meaning the Web App experience is actually better than the native app
1. Persistence: while websites are very easy to close, deleting an app is much more difficult and usually requires pressing on some “red buttons” and scary dialogs. It also makes sure the user now has a button for your app on their Home Screen which makes it a lot more accessible.
2. Notifications: while they exist for websites too, they are much less popular and turned off by default. Notifications are maybe the best way to get the user to use your app.
And while I hate the dark patterns some companies use (Meta, AliExpress, etc), I do understand why installing the app worth so much to them.
I have several apps on my phone where I am interested in receiving notifications.
1. Airline app. While traveling I need to know about gate changes, flight time changes, etc. etc. 2. Credit card app. I have turned on notifications for all changes above $10. 3. Bank app. I have turned on notifications for all transfers. 4. Moen water meter app. If there is a water leak at my house, I need to know. 5. Server monitor app. If my website goes down, I need to know right away. 6. Google smoke detector. If there is smoke in my house, I need to know right away. 7. Tesla app. If I didn't close the door properly and walked away, the app lets me know. 8. Security camera app. If there is unexpected movement at my home or office, I get an alert. 9. WhatsApp and other messaging apps. When someone sends me a message, I get an alert.
And those are only the things that immediately come to mind. If you were a developer of some of these apps, would you be able to provide these same functions in a user friendly way with a web app? Genuinely curious.
- when an app abuses data it doesn't need
- when it's slow or the app download size is too big
- when it has hostile user interface patterns: like forced upsells, forced ad interstitials
- poor security practices
Instead, McDonalds kept trying to pop up and demand my location, even after I put a zipcode and started my order. This repeats 3 times throughout my small order. Then I get to checkout and somehow I pop right back up to the map screen, where I am once again asked for location permissions. this was some 2 minutes into choosing a restaurant and picking my order.
I just uninstalled at that point and chose another eatery. Apps can get every bit as aggressive with permissions as they can with ads if their incentives really align with gaining them. That was a bizarre experience, but not the only one where I was badgered for permissions that the app really didn't need.
I would just assume that a website is better for getting new users cus of the lower bar to entry, theres no install, a lot of peoples phones are full. Also you can go from QRcode or clicking 1 link directly to the app.
Whereas with an app, you have a link or QRcode that goes to the correct store, then install on the store, and then open.
I get that an app would be better for retention, as they could put the icon on their desktop (or whatever it's called) But I assume a site would be better for getting initial visitors cus of much lower barrier to entry.
I do. I also, without exception, read and make sure that I understand every single word of every piece of legalese that I’m presented with to agree to and/or sign. My wife sometimes jokes that she married me so that I could become her in-house attorney. I digress…
You should regularly review and reevaluate all of your devices’ configurations/settings from a privacy and security perspective (I do so at least once every two weeks).
Most of us over use (or are addicted to) our phones and especially to social media. Every barrier you can put in you way to prevent opening it is an improvement.
Opening safari and then having to type in the site name is a better barrier than just opening an app. Logging out every time is a barrier. Putting timers on websites through screen time is a barrier. All these tools help us fight against tech controlling us instead of us controlling the tech.
> Apps, on the other hand, are a different beast entirely.
Then the article mentions how it can collect user's location, contacts, etc. But some of those information can be tracked by linking the google tracker (and various other trackers) to the website visitor's identity. It's harder but it can still be done (privacy badger and other methods can help i think).
Specifically with offline first scenarios, you'll end up with lots of JS and client side shapes that need local persistence and sent back to server.
So while view transitions should be first consideration for always online apps such as ticketng system, price comparison, classified portals etc but they aren't probably that suitable for offline first scenarios that keep operating even in face of few days of Internet outage.
[ DOWNLOAD APP NOW ]
[continue with chrome like a scrub]
But now I get prompted to log in again and so I’d rather not take up the space for the app on my phone.
Uber Eats is 500MB and should be a web site only app. Etc etc
Even when the experience is otherwise basically identical, I've found that login sessions in a browser are sometimes measured in days, where in the app sessions never expire.
Which feels like app install metric juicing to me.
To make web app experience poor so devs will sign up for paid dev accounts, give Apple editorial control, give Apple 30% of gross, use Apple payment system, use Apple advertising, etc...
Although what sucks with websites is to always see the address bar and often having little to no settings nor notification support.
Until the early 2010s this wasn't the case and people were educating themselves on how to use websites properly.
If traffic laws can exist, then there must also be international app laws to educate people.
I have an iOS app that could easily be a PWA. I don't collect any data. My advertising budget is $0.
I would never be able to get anywhere near the amount of paid customers I have if I have offered the same service through a website instead.
Switching to a standalone app helps me avoid that — fewer distractions, less wasted time. I’ve tried breaking the habit, but this is one reason I still prefer desktop version of the website.
Most of websites I use regularly are simply not "optimized" for mobile: broken features, display errors, inadequate UI, just unusable on the phone. And it's intentional: they're sabotaging the mobile experience just to push you into downloading their app.
I have no option than using their f..g app.
I thought this was so stupid that I determined never to try the cereal.
Bank app: they use apps for increased security.
Map apps: of course they need your location. And wow it works way better than web based.
TikTok: in yeah they need access to audio to record audio. And wow the UI is smoother.
Games: don’t ask for anything. Except more money through in app payments.
Weather, uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart: needs location.
Streaming apps: actually sometimes need location to prevent you from streaming outside the jurisdiction. And it’s a better experience.
Lots of other apps: don’t ask for anything.
Does anyone let an app have access to their contacts? (Ok maybe just us nerds don’t)
So, no. It’s not usually about data. Sure, some of it is. But this is the wrong thread to pull on. It isn’t why they all force us to use apps.
The reason is that Apple has hampered the web experience to push everyone to apps. All of these problems are solvable with a web browsers, if it worked better. We have the technology. But Apple does not have an incentive to make the web work as well as apps. It destroys their revenue streams. They lose control. The problem is Apple, not all these apps that are trying to find their way in the walled Apple garden.
Of course this isn’t true for everything. But it is true enough. Why would they kill the golden goose?
I can't use Zelle on my bank's web page any more, they just redirect to their app which is literally just their website in an app.
...or it is just a dump data grab
Link: https://trackmonk.app
Having the app installed makes the initial load instant - big dopamine rush!
Seeing their logo on the home screen, before you even open your browser, means you might forget your big plan to search for alternatives. “Oh! Airbnb! I’ll just look there!”
Mobile apps are great, but it does not mean you need one
I don't get it at all, to me apps are sort of borderline comparable to having a stranger sleep in your closet, but it is what it is.
And companies love it.
This is it for reddit. They changed the Best sort to use general engagement metrics rather than upvotes (which are just one metric) back in 2021 [1], and this means that a lot of their metrics (time spent in comments, number of comments up/down voted, number of comments left on a post, etc.) benefit greatly from their app, which can track that with precision.
This is (IMO) responsible for reddit's degenerated current form, as it prioritizes gossip subs, AITA type Jerry Springer subs, etc., but that's a whole different conversation.
1: https://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/o5tjcn/evolving_the_b...
- make your website not suck
- provide an app too, for offline usage or when your website has become unavailableThe whole ecosystem is compromised. We need new protocols.
Collecting that data sounds creepy and nefarious, but if i think about what Experian and everyone else already knows about me, I don't know what information my phone's location would actually add that has enough value to build a massive telemetry engine.
But perhaps I am insufficiently paranoid.
On an individual level who gives a shit, but with large enough datasets you can essentially A/B test your way to psychologically manipulating people into more sales.
Access my data = high creepiness, low value
Aggregate all the data = lower creepiness, high commercial value
The big fat caveat to the first is if I’m a target of a nation state, or the police attempt to use circumstantial location data to pin something on me. Which is very real, and more so now than ever.
But man. PWAs copy app behavior. And app behavior is garbage! The web has my back: I have forward/back buttons, urls, history, tabs, extensions, and so many other excellent amazing web things. The PWA is a vast improvement over apps, but it still misses 75% of what is so so good about the web, is still a place where you have only what the app developer grants you. The web is quite clearly better, is such a fairer shake, and it's so sad to lower oneself to an app experience, even if it is a "progressive web" app. It's a regressively sadly native apps, an RSNA. Boo that; give me the capable can do web instead please.
I do think there's a lot of successes for PWA. It's on offer in a lot of places and a far better far safer option than native. But it's so curious to me that PWA was a thing, given that it has always felt like such a remarkable downgrade going from web to app, always. Appealing only to Stockholm Syndrome sufferers. Why? Why do worse?
What’s even more annoying lately is the whole “scan this QR code” or “click this button to open in-app browser” flow. You try to log in, get sent an email, and when you click the link, the session’s already gone in the in-app browser. It’s a mess.
So yeah… just use the web version. It’s simpler, more flexible, and honestly more reliable in most cases.
Applies to apps too. The point was, you trust you whole disk to apps, in addition to this.
Article’s claim that websites have same capabilities largely defeats its own argument that websites have less capacity to collect tracking data. Either can be used nefariously if isolation is leaky, and both can be secure if done properly. But sometimes apps are a better default: I would rather not have notes, audio/video recordings, and chats to automatically go to out of device unless I consciously opt in.
Even when privacy is not a concern, there are still plenty of cases when I don’t want the website over the app. I don’t want ebooks reader, music app, bodyweight scale reader, vacuum robot and smart home controls, games to be on the web.
Sure there are plenty of apps that shouldn’t exist, but just as annoying is relentless push for web/cloud tech everywhere just so they can lock you in on a subscription, mine your data behind the scenes, and risk mass leaking all to hackers.
Always use website is a shortsighted advice that doesn’t consider the full picture.
- videos load much slower
- you can’t reply to stories questions
- if you click to see the comments on a video and go back, it will scroll to the top of your feed and rewind the video to the start.
- you can’t go back and forward in a video
- the icons such as like are tiny and take around 4 seconds plus to update without feedback while loading.
If you are one to carefully curate your contacts book to contain addresses, emails, birthdays for your own convenience and productivity, you have now provided a veritable goldmine of information for these companies to plunder, and betray the confidence of your acquaintances. I really despise this, and I've been looking for a solution but none thus far have seemed satisfactory.
I know of apps (at least on Android) like Bouncer and alternatives from F-Droid that can temporarily grant access to certain permissions like Location for a few minutes at a time, while giving the apps the illusion of full access.
However, save for using a Private Space or different user profile (both similarly require provisioning basically an extra instance of Google Play and everything) I haven't yet found a way to feed some sort of dummy contacts book to these greedy apps. If anyone knows of such a solution that is more convenient than setting up a new profile then please enlighten us.
I don't see anybody in the comments mentioning it.
The scheme is administered by Brighte. I signed up on their website. Everything going well for 6 months or so.
Then out of the blue, an email from them: "We just launched our app". Yeah, no, not interested.
A few weeks later, another "You should use our app, it's so convenient!". No, the website works fine. Can I unsubscribe from these notices? Customer service says no.
A few weeks after that: "Switch to our app. We are removing the website".
I email them to complain: I don't want or need their app, just let me use the website. No,they say, it's definitely being removed. I ask how people who don't want to or can't use their app are supposed to interact with them now? "you can always call us instead".
The idea of removing a perfectly functional website just to force everyone onto an app is insane.
But agreed the push to apps sucks, I just assume in these cases it's so they can spam you with notifications about "new products" they're offering, like my bank likes to regularly offer me loans at terrible interest rates
Yeah I'm assuming it's because they want to sell me more.
I'm probably not earning them much with the no-interest scheme. But their approach has guaranteed I won't use them for anything else - I was looking at financing the solar and battery system but this just put me off.
They responded to the criticism of people leaving their platform because the feed was all garbage and no friend updates by making a friends only feed feature you could only enable in the app.
follow
Reels
People you may know
join
Facebook has "content preferences" as an option, but you can't put "don't show Reels" in it
Reels are listed 3 at a time so what is "hide this" even doing?
It's kind of the same with Youtube Shorts. Show less of? Okay, very good, we'll just ignore that setting next time
These companies need some serious goddamn competition, there should be real consequences for just ignoring your userbase
I read news sites I pay for by scrolling through the home page and opening stories I want to read in new tabs, and then slowly reading and closing them throughout the day. Your app can't do that. Your app doesn't support tabs. It also doesn't support basic things like letting me zoom in on an image. And sometimes it crashes when I try to load comments.
I'm a paid subscriber, and I still get constant nagging every single day to use the app instead that is worse in every way.
And I don't even know why. They're just news sites. They don't ask for any permissions to slurp up my data. I honestly don't have the slightest idea why they keep pushing the app.
I think its just nature of ecosystem
However, it isn’t just greed. Native apps still have advantages the article glosses over: offline support, richer push‑notification APIs and OS‑level integration all contribute to better retention and engagement – the first HN commenter notes that their mobile traffic shifted to the app almost immediately after they released one, despite offering the same functionality on the web. Users also perceive mobile browsers as slow and bloated, which is partly because platform gatekeepers have dragged their feet on enabling powerful web features (service workers, better APIs) and have financial incentives to collect their 30% cut via app stores. Regulation like the EU’s Digital Markets Act may help level the playing field, but today the trade‑off is real: if you want privacy and control, stick with the website – just remember that websites can track you too.
lol downvoted but undisputed.
And 'privacy' is a horrible argument to prefer websites over apps. For the average person (not a privacy obsessed techie) - the web is just as bad if not worse from a privacy perspective than native apps.
I do agree that not everything needs an app - websites have their place. But when I go to browse HN on my phone, I don't do it through the web, I do it through Octal (which is open source).
Frankly I am tired of privacy-obsessed techies ruining tech for everyone else. Let's face it - 99% of the things you're worried about are simply going to let companies....show you ads that are more relevant to your life. The horror!
The one actual selling point a Microsoft Surface has over an iPad at this point is that you get to use real web browsers on it.
I have started to think this is the real reason why so many apps have a messaging and voice chat features, not so they can orifice this services to you, but so you'll grant the access so they can spy on you and sell it to advertisers.
I randomly decided to try my hand at pottery using clay I've dug up from my yard. Talked about this in person with a few people, but hadn't posted anywhere online about it. Suddenly, Amazon is suggesting pottery equipment and supplies to me.
But nobody in that ecosystem deserves the benefit of the doubt.
haha, that was a funny autocorrect (or diction) error, or maybe an even funnier Freudian slip!
If an app attempts to use the microphone in the background, it’ll appear similarly to a phone call, but orange or red in colour.