I have never once experienced a WebView app that I would say had “a really good experience.”
A while ago saw a blog link on HN that explained how Apple uses it everywhere and we never notice it because they are done well. Of course I can’t find that link now, I summon the HN gods…
(In the context of "Apple has a private CSS property to add Liquid Glass effects to web content")
There's some jump from _a property exists_ to _it must be used_, but a massive one from _a property exists_ to _Apple uses it everywhere and we never notice it because they are done well_.
Aside from Apple’s apps (which imo are noticeably worse than the old ones, but that’s beside the point), what are some good WebView apps on iOS right now?
It doesn't look native but who even cares. I think when a UI sucks or is unintuitive or buggy then "it's not native" is a sort of catchall easy complaint. Native is a crutch. Sometimes it's a good crutch (accessibility etc). But that's more about developer efficiency and bare minimums of polish.
A webview app is by design bad. Webviews were made for one thing - web views.
I thought it was some legal thing about App Store competition.
On mobile the webview app experience is crap and it's immediately obvious that an app is not native. Simply nobody asks customers how they like it. The management assumes that as long as nobody complains and the users don't leave in droves, the experience must be impeccable.
> Definitely every one of these is sluggish at best on a very modern machine but they are also full of UI annoyances.
Done well as in: laggy, non-performant, break OS conventions and you can see elements load with the naked eye?
See App Store as an example: https://grumpy.website/post/0RsaxCu3P or Apple Arcade: https://grumpy.website/618 or...
I would be interested in any links to Webview apps that run really well, I’ve never seen one that I’m aware of but so many that I am aware of and are bad!
And between average native and average web view - it is night and day.
99% of web apps in desktop browser are laggy. And on mobile it feels like crap.
Sure if you are an expert in top1% you can probably get it working really good. But this is true only for 1 in 100 if not less.
In case you're interested, the app is named "QuickÖV" - not relevant to anyone outside Switzerland, but just for trying it out: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.billhillap...
This kinda shows you how much effort and experience goes into getting an UI framework right, and the long tail quirks (of which there are a zillion) matter for UX, and while I appreciate they took on the task of breaking away from the browser, it's understandable why someone wants to ship an app on time and budget goes with a web based solution.
https://github.com/aeharding/voyager
The app uses Ionic’s Capacitor, which to my rudimentary understanding is the webview-based upgrade of Cordova. I’ve had far fewer issues with this app than the likes of Bluesky (react native) and Discord (I think also react native but not sure).
The webview approach seems to be the only way for a one-person team to feasible provide a cross-platform app with an app-store presence. Another promising alternative to Capacitor is Tauri Mobile which does essentially the same thing, but mobile doesn’t seem to be a high priority for them.
- there's no touch feedback (ripple) on many of clickable components. Some that do have it look non-native, inconsistent and sometimes gets stuck
- the search bar on top app bar in `search` tab looks very non-native and non-standard (it's elevated on top of elevated app bar already)
- the lists look iOS-y, especially settings
- the settings list item has weird glitch where it loses background after touching (but not clicking)
- collapsing comments is pretty choppy (on a Samsung S25 so a pretty powerful phone)
- can't swipe down a bottom sheet (with post options/actions)
- it's just not android-y — the navigation is weird, the design is all over the place,
It's not unusable and it's a good tradeoff for a small team I guess. But this is nowhere near the experience a native app can provide, and has lots of small papercuts that would make for at least a slightly frustrating experience. It is a decent app don't get me wrong, but it's clearly not native
It does seem that many RN apps do React (not native) components when they need to do something custom, which may explain my sub-par, non-native experience with the RN apps I have used.