Comment by bad_user | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bad_user | Hacker News Reader

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On Facebook, I remember a time when the native app was horrible on Android.

In many ways it still is - it requires too many permissions and the list is growing. Recently they're asking for access to my SMS messages and in Android 4.3 I had a bug with my Nexus 4 in regards to location services as the Wifi-network provider was draining my battery and so I had to disable it, so Facebook's app was still requiring it, activating the GPS on each opening of the app and there was no way to turn that off, unless I turned the GPS off globally. Granted this is also a failure of Android's permissions system, but ...

The mobile web interface was and is still there. It doesn't matter if the mobile platform is new or old, it doesn't matter if Facebook's app was developed (and approved) for that platform, the web interface is there and it works, the only requirement being for the user to have a decent JS-enabled browser.

People view Facebook's investment in their mobile web interface as a failure. I view it as competitive advantage.

I suppose in your case you're choosing between two bad options.

The iOS app is an example of how much better a native app can be from the web app - and the new paper app even more so.

I remember the android one being terrible when I had android phones a couple years ago - but I thought that was because it was basically a wrapper around a web app.

You kind of missed the point.

What if history repeats itself? What if iOS will in the end fail in the marketplace, reducing its share to a single digit? What if Apple continues against all odds to develop and support it, like it did with the Mac OS? What if you'll still use it?

Wouldn't you be happy then that there's a web interface available?

And from a developer's perspective - you could say that you want to target iOS users first. That may work out well for you. However, for example, I never, ever tried Instagram because when Instagram was all the rage, it wasn't available for the platform(s) that I'm using. And later the momentum for me was gone. That's a lost opportunity.

In the end, it may work out well for the developer - however, considering that iOS's marketshare is minuscule compared to the people that have access to web browsers, I personally don't see how you can build the next Google or Twitter or Facebook by not targeting the web first.

For another example of companies that failed to do this - WhatsApp Messenger will probably die or get acquired, because Facebook is eating its launch, as Facebook works everywhere and when I send a message to my wife, she either reads it on her phone, or in the browser tab that she keeps open when on her laptop. FB's messaging works on my iPad too, whereas WhatsApp doesn't because WhatsApp is identifying users by their phone number.

Facebook, Twitter, and Google are fair examples, but in each case, what makes these things hard is the server components.

Now consider what it would take to build the next Final Cut Pro. You could try to do it as a web app, and you might even get some casual users who don't need much capabilities. But you are not going to displace existing professional tools on any platform.

Being available everywhere just means you're not better anywhere. Java apps discovered this last decade.

That is a good point and I don't disagree with it.

I suppose mine was more targeting the difference between mobile native applications and mobile web wrappers.

Facebook's web interface for 'real' computers is great and companies that don't have one would probably benefit from one for the reasons you mentioned.

On the mobile side though I still think native applications are worth the investment and that'll be hard to change unless the web apps can actually offer similar design and performance.

I'd love to be wrong though.

The iOS app is an example of how much better a native app can be from the web app

Huh? My perception of the Facebook iOS (iPad) app is that it is badly, badly broken.

It opens links within the app and there is no way to override this behavior.

This means I can't browse Facebook-sourced sites alongside everything else I'm browsing or bookmark those sites in Pinboard. I can't even copy & paste the URL from the Facebook app into mobile Safari.

I uninstalled the Facebook app within minutes of downloading it. The web interface just works better.

Wait, isn't there an option to open in safari?

I use the app Tinfoil for Facebook instead of the official one. It's basically a site browser. Much faster and less intrusive.

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