Apps bad. Web good.

Why did we let mobile go down the one-app-per-website path?

When iPhone came out the sentiment was clearly opposite. The “sweet solution” was ridiculed and workarounds found. When web caught up, it was plagued with self inflicted performance issues. And eventually Apple decided to not invest in good PWA support.

I was an app advocate for a long time, now I made a PWA and it’s maybe 90% there. But you still get behaviors that you can not fix.

IMO the worst however is products that have a fully functional website, but refuse to let you use it (e.g.: Instagram)

	▲	didntcheck 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes. It's improved now, but the mobile web was bad for a long time. The early days of Android experienced a "web-first" ecosystem by force, as lazy businesses just threw a webview around their site, and it was awful

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willtemperley 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Web is much better when the data should be public. Apps are much better when any kind of data privacy is required.

The trouble is, market forces always try and push things the other way.

The Reddit App for example is totally unnecessary. It's just public web content and should be a website.

SaaS on the other hand shouldn't really be a thing at all. I have no idea why anyone thinks it's a good idea for their private data and app state to be on a cloud somewhere they don't control.

Note that this does not preclude the use of cloud services that users can control e.g. by specifiying trusted endpoints. I'm trying to build the idea of "data locality first" software. I.e. you know where your data are and where they aren't.

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microtonal 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I strongly prefer apps. The thing that goes wrong here is: Duopoly bad. Competition good.

Since app distribution is not a fair market anymore, it needs to be regulated. Either the fees have to go down close to cost or alternative app stores should be allowed. And not the malicious compliance version of it (as Apple is trying in the EU).

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8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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troupo 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Why did we let mobile go down the one-app-per-website path?

Because the web is still barely usable for anything more complex than showing a few lines of static text and an image?

Because for almost as long as (modern) mobile apps exist the web was even less usable?

Because even now you can whip up a fast complex mobile app with 60fps animations and native behaviours probably in minutes? While on the web you're lucky if you can figure out which state/animation/routing library du jour isn't broken beyond all hope?

	▲	vlod 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I might be in the minority but I have a really hard time using iOS and their apps in general (I use Android). I struggle (and mostly curse) to figure out what swipe gesture to use to get simple stuff to just work. Not super sure all the 60fps animations and wizz-bang behaviours are being used the way you think they are. #include<"old-man-yells-at-clould-meme">