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And in fact, a significant subset of users will pester you to make an app, even if your website can and does do everything an app could do.

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There are actually apps which will "appify" webpages/websites for Android, or were the last time I needed one. They've been aroubd a long time. I assume they still exist.

The functionality is literally built into both Android and iOS. For example, I've got some of my self-hosted services linked on my home screen. On Firefox for Android you just browse to the site, click the 3 dots, and then under more its "Add to Home screen", Chrome works similarly.

Ah no, I meant there are apps which will create an APK file. I think they use node.js or something.

That's so opposite to my preferences that I'd be really interested in the results of someone studying that group of users.

I do like local native software, preferably using the native UI toolkit, filesystem and features of the device hardware not necessarily available to the browser. That doesn't describe most commercial mobile apps in 2026.

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