6 ms·

I really hate the situation where stuff that could be a website, or an offline webapp has become an app instead. All little transportation city schedules aroun

by nextos 11y ago

I really hate the situation where stuff that could be a website, or an offline webapp has become an app instead. All little transportation city schedules around Europe are like this, and it's infuriating for a number of reasons. I can't use any other mobile OS apart from Android (with Google Play) or iOS. Apps are siloes, so no other webservice can reuse their data. It's generally quite insecure. It's a waste.

ant6n 11y ago
For transit, how about using a Transit App that covers those cities.
pbreit 11y ago
I sorta hear you but not the best example since transportation data benefits greatly from geo-locating which works much better in apps.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  There is one good transportation app on Android, it's called Google Maps. It covers 90% of use cases. I absolutely hate that my city decided not to give Google the data (second-hand intel tells that it's because public transport provider signed some exclusivity deal with a local startup, which sole raison d'être is that the data is not on Google Maps). In a perfect world, city transportation data and transport apps would be independent, so that you could use your favourite app in all cities. Generalizing from that, the problem with apps is one of interoperability - everyone tries to lock you in their shitty app gaining little, but taking away huge benefits that could be created by combining data sources from different parties. As it is now, companies are run by control freaks who don't care that great things are created by not trying to capture all the value you create.
  - yoz-y 11y ago
    Sometimes it is not the city's fault. In my town the data is publicly free to use for commercial and non commercial purposes. Google does not give a damn about it though (I live in a fairly large town in France)
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      There's a difference between serving free data (likely in some idiosyncratic format on some idiosyncratic schedule) and doing the Maps integration oneself. I see many French cities at [0]. I doubt that Google has developers assigned to each one. It seems more likely that each one has its own people using a Maps API to keep Maps transit data current. [0] https://www.google.com/landing/transit/cities/index.html https://www.google.com/landing/transit/cities/index.html
- davidbanham 11y ago
  I've never had a problem with browser geolocation via navigator.geolocation. What issues are you seeing?
  - pbreit 11y ago
    On iOS it's substantially clunkier for the user. They have to keep agreeing to the coo popup every time they visit the site. And there's not background geo-locating. It's really not even comparable.
oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
What's really bad is the app that is a carbon-copy of the corresponding website, except slightly better designed in such a way that would be trivial to implement on the damn website itself.
- mahouse 11y ago
  Just some Phonegap shitty app, yes, I get what you mean. Sometimes it's just an iframe so if you get the URL you can just open that on your phone.
- xiaoma 11y ago
  What's worse is when the app is similar to a carbon-copy of the website but actually worse because it messes up content sizing in ipad portrait view. Looking at you, Coursera.
zeveb 11y ago
I agree with you, particularly when the stuff could just be a simple HTML page or collection of pages (e.g. transportation schedules: those were just sheets of paper recently: why should I need a mobile app or a webapp to read a schedule?). But I also hate when something which should be a native app is instead a JavaScriptified webapp.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  There are things that should be apps, and things that shouldn't. The line is blurry, but there are few rules of thumb: - If it can be done off-line, it should be done off-line; hence, an app. Example: public transportation: you shouldn't need an Internet connection to check bus schedules or find a route through your city. Transportation schedules update infrequently, so they should be cached. - If it's just browsing on-line content, it probably should be a website. - If performance matters, it should be native (unless you're writing a game or specialized software, performance probably doesn't matter). - If you're just repackaging your website as an app because apps are hot, please don't do it at all. Sadly, IT reached the state where customer's interest and company's interest are seriously at odds with each other, and so we have a proliferation of bullshit apps that exist only to destroy the interoperable nature of technology in order to capture ad money.
  - taf2 11y ago
    The articles point to your first point is the web and the browser platform provides the tools you should need but apple is not implementing the features into safari required - service workers - webrtc - app manifest

by nextos 11y ago

ant6n 11y ago

For transit, how about using a Transit App that covers those cities.

pbreit 11y ago

I sorta hear you but not the best example since transportation data benefits greatly from geo-locating which works much better in apps.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
There is one good transportation app on Android, it's called Google Maps. It covers 90% of use cases. I absolutely hate that my city decided not to give Google the data (second-hand intel tells that it's because public transport provider signed some exclusivity deal with a local startup, which sole raison d'être is that the data is not on Google Maps). In a perfect world, city transportation data and transport apps would be independent, so that you could use your favourite app in all cities. Generalizing from that, the problem with apps is one of interoperability - everyone tries to lock you in their shitty app gaining little, but taking away huge benefits that could be created by combining data sources from different parties. As it is now, companies are run by control freaks who don't care that great things are created by not trying to capture all the value you create.
- yoz-y 11y ago
  Sometimes it is not the city's fault. In my town the data is publicly free to use for commercial and non commercial purposes. Google does not give a damn about it though (I live in a fairly large town in France)
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    There's a difference between serving free data (likely in some idiosyncratic format on some idiosyncratic schedule) and doing the Maps integration oneself. I see many French cities at [0]. I doubt that Google has developers assigned to each one. It seems more likely that each one has its own people using a Maps API to keep Maps transit data current. [0] https://www.google.com/landing/transit/cities/index.html https://www.google.com/landing/transit/cities/index.html
davidbanham 11y ago
I've never had a problem with browser geolocation via navigator.geolocation. What issues are you seeing?
- pbreit 11y ago
  On iOS it's substantially clunkier for the user. They have to keep agreeing to the coo popup every time they visit the site. And there's not background geo-locating. It's really not even comparable.

oneeyedpigeon 11y ago

What's really bad is the app that is a carbon-copy of the corresponding website, except slightly better designed in such a way that would be trivial to implement on the damn website itself.

mahouse 11y ago
Just some Phonegap shitty app, yes, I get what you mean. Sometimes it's just an iframe so if you get the URL you can just open that on your phone.
xiaoma 11y ago
What's worse is when the app is similar to a carbon-copy of the website but actually worse because it messes up content sizing in ipad portrait view. Looking at you, Coursera.

zeveb 11y ago

I agree with you, particularly when the stuff could just be a simple HTML page or collection of pages (e.g. transportation schedules: those were just sheets of paper recently: why should I need a mobile app or a webapp to read a schedule?). But I also hate when something which should be a native app is instead a JavaScriptified webapp.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
There are things that should be apps, and things that shouldn't. The line is blurry, but there are few rules of thumb: - If it can be done off-line, it should be done off-line; hence, an app. Example: public transportation: you shouldn't need an Internet connection to check bus schedules or find a route through your city. Transportation schedules update infrequently, so they should be cached. - If it's just browsing on-line content, it probably should be a website. - If performance matters, it should be native (unless you're writing a game or specialized software, performance probably doesn't matter). - If you're just repackaging your website as an app because apps are hot, please don't do it at all. Sadly, IT reached the state where customer's interest and company's interest are seriously at odds with each other, and so we have a proliferation of bullshit apps that exist only to destroy the interoperable nature of technology in order to capture ad money.
- taf2 11y ago
  The articles point to your first point is the web and the browser platform provides the tools you should need but apple is not implementing the features into safari required - service workers - webrtc - app manifest