OP is talking about apps that are basically links to websites.
They design the website entirely, but it’s not available through a web browser – only the app. But fundamentally, it’s a website that a browser would be able to run.
I know that; when you develop a website, you typically design mobile-first and then design the desktop version afterwards. If you’re just building it as an application you can skip a whole lot of CSS and design nonsense that would go into that process.
I’m torn - apps are brutal for privacy but I really like the isolation from browser and all other sites. I typically clear browser cache on every exit so for apps that I use regularly, I am forced to sign in every time if going in through browser.
Wish browser apps had better isolation for multiple sessions.
I have it and use it. It’s great (works for most sites). My point is actually the opposite - there are certain sites/services that become very unpleasant to use if you have to log in everytime you open the browser.
The advantage of apps is that for those particular services you don’t have to reauthenticate each time you open them (the trade off being insecurity.
Using websites would be great if I could have a separate (isolated) instance per site. That way I could kill browse history for general browsing.
(The absolute worst are the apps that hop out to the browser (especially when they hard code Chrome, which I avoid where possible on Android.))
On the PC (by way of example), edge and chrome have web applications that are handy (think YouTube and YouTube music) but… they share credentials! I keep a separate login for YT vs YTM (because google completely misunderstood the reason people keep videos separate from music when they killed the excellent Google Play Music). So… When I log into one, flips the default login for the other. Now, if they were separate apps, like on Android, the sessions are separated - as they ought to be!
I will say that Duck Duck Go’s App Tracking protection is a fantastic way to tackle the way apps ‘phone home’ so much, however, since it leverages a full tunnel (yet local) VPN technique, you have to disable it if you want to connect to another VPN service.
(Bottom line - website based services are great, but, for goodness sake, I wish one had the option to persist various sites, but in isolation.)
FWIW, I’ve been using lemmy in a browser exclusively, not even a PWA and it works fine.
I’m not aware of a PWA implementation that supports multiple tabs either.
I got it at the end of 2020, before any vaccinations. It fcked me up good, made me struggle to cycle 2 minutes to the supermarket in the following weeks. At some point I mostly recovered, but not totally. My nose was almost completely closed, which also caused ear problems and a sore throat. I had a surgery done, which did open it up somewhat but didn’t fully solve the issue. I’m still having issues now. My nose is almost always very dry, sometimes painful, and also quite often not as open as I’d like. This also still causes ear and throat issues regularly, especially with cold dry air. Luckily my second run-in with covid (after vaccination) was only a temporary pain in the ass and went away without any issues after suffering for a week.
My wife and I had very different experiences. I had one bad day in bed and was fine after. She was sick for at least a week and lost her since of smell (and much of taste) for about 6 months with another 6 months recovering.
I got it towards the end of 2020 and was hospitalized for a week with pneumonia and a collapsed lung. The acute infection had me sick for a month. My last day with a fever was exactly 4 weeks after the first day I felt symptoms. I had lingering symptoms for about 6 months after.
As far as taste, I got that back quickly. I lost my taste within the first 2-3 days. I heard from someone that spicy food helps so I ate the spiciest food I could find. My lips were burning, my hair was tingling and I was sweating so I knew it was hot. I could almost feel like I was tasting spice, but the sensation would quickly go away. The next day I was able to taste a little bit and within 24-48 it was mostly back. By the time I was hospitalized, I had fully regained taste. I didn’t get my sense of smell back for probably another 3 weeks after that.
I built an app like that. It uses a WebView, although all the HTML is self-contained and it only accesses the internet to make API calls.
Mobile app development really sucks, as a developer. The frameworks, the build tools, the specialised languages that can't be used anywhere else - it's a hot mess. Making an 'app' using that method is much quicker and easier for me because I get to use HTML, CSS and JavaScript, which I already know and have the tools for.
But why make it at all? If you want to use HTML, CSS and JavaScript you can do that, and not even have to build and deliver the pointless box that you put the content in, because everybody has Safari, Chrome, or another browser on their device.
Yes, I have built it as a website app also and that is the primary UI. The mobile app is just a read-only viewer for quick access to the information people need on the go. It's not entirely pointless.
A lot of people don't know how to install a PWA (which I also provide, if they want it) and have never done so. They also just expect there to be an app in the app store and when they hear about a tool someone else is using that's their first port of call.
This is definitely part of it. The company I work for sells a service to companies, that their employees need to use. We built a web app, it works perfectly fine. However, people ask for ‘an app’ because they want to install it from their phone’s app store instead of opening the website once through a link in their email and creating a bookmark.
So we added a PWA manifest and clear instructions on how to ‘install’ our web app (it’s literally the same thing otherwise, no added functionality). Yet the users still complain that they want an app…
I’m surprised users find the app store that compelling for a one-time “install” with updates not a factor. Do they cite any other reasons for wanting a different approach?
For certain things it makes sense to have an app imo, for instance music streaming services the desktop experience just has more features, plays better with my preamp/headphones and so on.
For something like Netflix it’s extremely irritating that they either intentionally gimp the experience of using the service on many browsers (IIRC Netflix is capped at 720p in Firefox still) or try to force users into using the app (see YouTube attempting to automatically redirect you to the app anytime you try to watch a video in the browser).
There’s no one single answer to this. Some have been mentioned in other comments, but it’s a combination of a few different things:
Control: They have much more control over your experience as a native app than a web app.
Ad revenue: It’s significantly harder to block ads coming through the built in web views, and/or they can just build them in natively which is even harder.
Integration: it’s easier to do IAPs or subscriptions through native controls, which means less resistance, which means people are more likely to end up doing it.
Data: it’s easier to hoover up user data via native APIs than through the browser. There’s way more accessible, especially if you can ask for a bunch of permissions and people don’t notice/care. This makes any user tracking they do way more effective and any data they sell way more valuable.
Notifications: Recently browsers have started adding support for this but it’s not as effective. Push notifications are a huge boon to user engagement and this is a huge money maker. Having native notifications is a huge sell in this equation.
Persistence: If you have your app on a user’s phone, it ends up in the list of apps, meaning they pass by it very frequently. It’s basically free advertising and living in their head without them even noticing. This is especially true on iOS where basically all of your apps are in your face all of the time.
Performance: Native apps run way better and can look way better than web sites. If you just use web views this is mostly moot but still may make a small difference.
I’m sure I’m forgetting a few but you get the idea.
Websites are basically just inferior versions of native apps, and even if you use a hybrid/web view approach, you get many of the benefits and have the option to “upgrade” to a real native app later.
That being said, I fucking hate this shit. I don’t agree that companies should do this, but it hands down does make financial sense. In a society entirely driven by capital and profit, it makes sense, but from a consumer perspective, it fucking sucks. I don’t want to have to install the Facebook app to see some small businesses “web site” that’s really just a Facebook page. I don’t want to install reddits shitty native app to read more than 2 comments off a post about a solution to my problem.
It’s legitimately consumer hostile, but company profits are more important than people in our society.
This is spot on. We recently had to do this to one of our products and I didn’t want to at all, but we could do push notifications reliably that worked for both Android and iOS.
I think there’s a big one that you’ve missed and it’s that most people are not like most people here. Believe it or not there are many people out there whose first instinct is to search their app store for what they want. They walk among us.
If I’m McDonald’s, and a significant number of my customers search for me and instead get KFC and Burger King as top results with no McDonald’s app in sight, it’s seen as a marketing problem.
We have a website application and we don’t have a mobile app. At least once a week we get a support ticket from someone asking why we don’t have an app.
We reply that the site is fully responsive and to just use the site through their mobile browser. But people don’t like this. They want an app.
People are morons but some non technical ones seem to genuinely prefer an “app” even if it is just a web view hybrid one.
We’ll probably have to cave and provide it eventually.
The number I’ve seen floating around a few places is that app users are, on average seven times more profitable than web users. Reasons include:
The app being on the device acts as a reminder to the user to interact more
It’s easier for an app to send notifications to get users to open it and interact more (Android has reduced this by requiring permission; browsers required it long before)
There are more limited options for blocking ads in an app
There are more opportunities to collect data in an app
Are there any good reasons for it, too? Security, maybe?
Security for the user? Probably not. “Security” for the developer in that they can prevent people from using the app in ways that aren’t profitable? Likely.
To spam you with ads and steal more of your data of course! Look at the insane permissions on these apps: There’s no reason for them to have access to your contact list, text messages, app manifest, etc. The vast majority of apps have wildly unnecessary permissions because it gets the companies more of your data.
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