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I understand and empathize with the author's aggravation. But cheaper? Really? So iOs and Android are more than 90% of the market. You are telling me that it i

I understand and empathize with the author's aggravation. But cheaper? Really? So iOs and Android are more than 90% of the market. You are telling me that it is cheaper to build and maintain 2 separate apps and pass on the remaining part of the market than have one app that covers everything? Android device support is supposed to be a nightmare - there are so many versions to contend with, each device manufacturer can customize things. iOS is easier to support but fighting with Apple can be quite the ordeal. Using the web means you bypass these other issues but have to contend with the ones cited in the article. It sounds like pick your poison. I could conceive that after the initial cost of building 2 separate apps, for iOS and Android, that perhaps it is less aggravating and costly to maintain them, as opposed to dealing with the web. However how complicated is the UI for the web apps? Can't you keep it simple? Unless you can show numbers I cannot in my wildest dreams believe that building and maintain 1 web app is more than twice the cost of building and maintaining 2 separate native apps. What are you building that requires building a 2016 Web app with every new feature? Maybe that is your problem.

AndrewKemendo 10y ago
Using the web means you bypass these other issues Not really. If you are doing anything that relies on device hardware, camera, microphone etc... then device type absolutely matters - and it's even worse on mobile web because you can't get close to the metal.
- padseeker 10y ago
  I would agree, the native interface with hardware would be easier with native than the web. But the testing issues across all android devices is still an issue that the web should not have to contend with. And the Apple store issue is hard to quantify. You just don't know if they are going to let you in. The web means you don't have to get the user to install the app. Of course if you use cordova or phone gap you still have to do deal with those issues. I still cannot conceive when 2 separate apps are cheaper to maintain than one.
  - rimantas 10y ago
    > You just don't know if they are going to let you in. You do know.
    - padseeker 10y ago
      You won't know until AFTER you apply. You'll find out after. There are numerous HN posts where founders have submitted their app to Apple and have been forced to wait or resubmit. I can only shake my head at the venom being reserved for this post.
  - st3v3r 10y ago
    "But the testing issues across all android devices is still an issue that the web should not have to contend with." And yet, it is. "And the Apple store issue is hard to quantify. You just don't know if they are going to let you in." Yeah, you do. It's pretty easy to read the rules. And things being flat out denied, rather than told they need to fix something, is really rare.
    - padseeker 10y ago
      The number of permutations for testing scenarios across android versions as well as hardware manufacturers is significantly bigger than the number of available browsers. The difference between browsers is well documented and as far as I'm concerned finite. How many versions of Android are worth supporting? What about the differences between manufacturers. Browser differences are generally known and well documented. Can you say the same for Android? There are many scenarios where I agree it is significantly harder to create a user experience building a web app that can compare with the native experience. But the premise of the article is that it is cheaper to build on 2 separate native platforms than it is to build web app? The part that gets me is the author complains about things like multiple line ellipses and autocomplete text boxes. Here's a better question - why are multiple line ellipses core to your business? What value does a multiple line ellipse do for the app?
padseeker 10y ago
Wow so this post has been 'reported' already? The hacker news justice squad is swift.
legulere 10y ago
> So iOs and Android are more than 90% of the market. 98.4% http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3215217 http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3215217 I think it's pretty reasonable to pass on the remaining 1.6%, especially as those probably aren't your target audience anyway.
- padseeker 10y ago
  The 90% was based on a previous post. I was too lazy to search for the total market share of iOS + Android.
fixermark 10y ago
If you're building a web app (of more than trivial complexity, where you need to do things like profile for performance or access the user's hardware), you are building four apps: Chrome, IE, Firefox, and Safari. I mean, there are other browsers, but let's not kid ourselves. ;) You are, in fact, also building those four apps on five different architectures: Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and iOS. There are others, but again, let's not kid ourselves. Your complexity surface is the product of your feature-set, the quirks of each of those browsers as they silently version-up for your users, and the quirks of each of those browsers on each OS platform as they also vary in version. If you're building a trivial web app, it's a web page and by all means build it directly in the browser. But when you start to bust out the profiler to figure out why this one interaction is butter-smooth in Chrome and runs like crap in Firefox from versions X to Y, except on Linux where it's X to Z... Two mobile platforms is fewer than 4 browser platforms.
padseeker 10y ago
I forgot why I stopped posting on HN for a while. And then with this post I remembered. Thanks for reminding me.

AndrewKemendo 10y ago

Using the web means you bypass these other issues Not really. If you are doing anything that relies on device hardware, camera, microphone etc... then device type absolutely matters - and it's even worse on mobile web because you can't get close to the metal.

padseeker 10y ago
I would agree, the native interface with hardware would be easier with native than the web. But the testing issues across all android devices is still an issue that the web should not have to contend with. And the Apple store issue is hard to quantify. You just don't know if they are going to let you in. The web means you don't have to get the user to install the app. Of course if you use cordova or phone gap you still have to do deal with those issues. I still cannot conceive when 2 separate apps are cheaper to maintain than one.
- rimantas 10y ago
  > You just don't know if they are going to let you in. You do know.
  - padseeker 10y ago
    You won't know until AFTER you apply. You'll find out after. There are numerous HN posts where founders have submitted their app to Apple and have been forced to wait or resubmit. I can only shake my head at the venom being reserved for this post.
- st3v3r 10y ago
  "But the testing issues across all android devices is still an issue that the web should not have to contend with." And yet, it is. "And the Apple store issue is hard to quantify. You just don't know if they are going to let you in." Yeah, you do. It's pretty easy to read the rules. And things being flat out denied, rather than told they need to fix something, is really rare.
  - padseeker 10y ago
    The number of permutations for testing scenarios across android versions as well as hardware manufacturers is significantly bigger than the number of available browsers. The difference between browsers is well documented and as far as I'm concerned finite. How many versions of Android are worth supporting? What about the differences between manufacturers. Browser differences are generally known and well documented. Can you say the same for Android? There are many scenarios where I agree it is significantly harder to create a user experience building a web app that can compare with the native experience. But the premise of the article is that it is cheaper to build on 2 separate native platforms than it is to build web app? The part that gets me is the author complains about things like multiple line ellipses and autocomplete text boxes. Here's a better question - why are multiple line ellipses core to your business? What value does a multiple line ellipse do for the app?

padseeker 10y ago

Wow so this post has been 'reported' already? The hacker news justice squad is swift.

legulere 10y ago

> So iOs and Android are more than 90% of the market. 98.4% http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3215217 http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3215217 I think it's pretty reasonable to pass on the remaining 1.6%, especially as those probably aren't your target audience anyway.

padseeker 10y ago
The 90% was based on a previous post. I was too lazy to search for the total market share of iOS + Android.

fixermark 10y ago

If you're building a web app (of more than trivial complexity, where you need to do things like profile for performance or access the user's hardware), you are building four apps: Chrome, IE, Firefox, and Safari. I mean, there are other browsers, but let's not kid ourselves. ;) You are, in fact, also building those four apps on five different architectures: Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and iOS. There are others, but again, let's not kid ourselves. Your complexity surface is the product of your feature-set, the quirks of each of those browsers as they silently version-up for your users, and the quirks of each of those browsers on each OS platform as they also vary in version. If you're building a trivial web app, it's a web page and by all means build it directly in the browser. But when you start to bust out the profiler to figure out why this one interaction is butter-smooth in Chrome and runs like crap in Firefox from versions X to Y, except on Linux where it's X to Z... Two mobile platforms is fewer than 4 browser platforms.

padseeker 10y ago

I forgot why I stopped posting on HN for a while. And then with this post I remembered. Thanks for reminding me.