5 ms·

> janky, animations aren't fluid, UI doesn't accurately respond directly to their input, screens "flash funny"... Those were problems in 2013 and 2014. It's n

by joeyspn 10y ago

> janky, animations aren't fluid, UI doesn't accurately respond directly to their input, screens "flash funny"... Those were problems in 2013 and 2014. It's not the current state of things. Our users can't tell the difference from Native apps and we have conducted quite a bit of research... Nowadays those problems simply signal that "you're a mediocre dev" (probably in all platforms). > If you want to trade user experience away to reduce development work, that's fine. This is the reason why some people help to perpetuate "the myth". UX, if you know how to build an app properly, is not affected anymore. Don't believe it? Check apps like this one... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlykw4Z73sA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlykw4Z73sA https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bitpay.checkout&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bitpay.che... Arguably the best UX for bitcoin payments. Not a single complain about flashiness, clunkiness, etc... And the impact in the battery is orders of magnitude smaller than native apps like facebook. It uses cordova like many great bitcoin apps... PS: I'm not affiliated with Bitpay in any way, just very thankful and impressed with their cordova projects.

galistoca 10y ago
Using "WebView" doesn't just mean performance issues. It's a matter of choosing the very stack itself. You're starting out with browser as your base. There are many things that come with that decision. Also that Bitcoin app is a bad example because it's a very simple app. To be clear, I have programmed in both native ios, ionic and native android. I'm primarily a iOS developer so had no idea how Android worked when I first tried building an android app, so when I first tried my "cross platform" app on an android phone I was shocked to find out there are so many details that make it feel NOT native. iOS and Android have very different UI and you need to build for those experiences if you want to really optimize for user experience. It's not just a matter of performance. That's why I learned java to build natively. Lastly, in this and age, why not just learn react native instead of boasting about how still using web browser is good enough? You really have no excuse here if your reasoning is that you want to use web technology to build native apps.
- joeyspn 10y ago
  > You're starting out with browser as your base. There are many things that come with that decision. [...] why not just learn react native instead of boasting about how still using web browser is good enough? Because for instance I can use native HTML APIs like WebRTC without 3rd party libraries and I can reuse many great JS libs, which I'm familiar with. > Also that Bitcoin app is a bad example because it's a very simple app. It's the perfect example because it reflects that it all depends on the use case, and that are use cases that will better fit your company stack. In bitpay's case, they're heavily invested in JS/Node. So it just makes sense (like in many other cases/companies). A good lead (tech, manager, etc) will always pick the proper tool for the task, taking into account many aspects of the project: business decisions, UX, costs, current work force, current stack, available libs, etc... What I'm trying to say is that Hybrid has it's place. It's not all hybrid or all native. It depends.
ryanwaggoner 10y ago
This is such nonsense. I just went to phonegap.com and installed the top showcase app (Localeur). You've got to be kidding If you're going to tell me it's impossible to tell it's not native. Scrolling is janky, taps don't feel as responsive on some elements, weird UI glitches, etc. It's a fine app if you don't care deeply about UX, but certainly not indistinguishable.
- joeyspn 10y ago
  > This is such nonsense. Not going to discuss why picking a random app from a listing doesn't make all the apps built with a similar technology equally bad. Next time, before shouting "nonsense" try something built with Angular2/Ionic2. http://ionicframework.com/docs/v2/components/ http://ionicframework.com/docs/v2/components/
  - weego 10y ago
    Having finished an app using Ionic2 I can tell you that the performance on Android is appalling (outside of like the current Samsung/HTC top of the line or its predecessor). IOS is pretty indistinguishable though baring the odd touch problem that I deemed not worth the trade off in time investment.
    - galistoca 10y ago
      I agree, but I think that's Android's problem. I found that it's janky no matter what you use. I first thought it was the webview thing and built a native java program, but it isn't so much better. I honestly don't understand how most Android users cope with this.
  - germanier 10y ago
    I just downloaded the first two featured apps on that site to my iPhone, Chefsteps and Sworkit. Both are not bad but it's still fairly noticeable even to a non-developer that they don't behave like native apps. Controls look a bit off, animations are different, and some UI bugs here and there.
  - 10y ago
joshka 10y ago
In your first link at 0:02, take a look at how the cursor lags behind the screen moving as the keyboard pops up. I'm not saying that this is a huge bug, but to suggest that UX is never affected is incorrect. Or perhaps this is just an android bug that always happens?
msie 10y ago
> Nowadays those problems simply signal that "you're a mediocre dev" (probably in all platforms). That's not a good way to sell a platform if you have to be a really good developer to use it.

by joeyspn 10y ago

galistoca 10y ago

Using "WebView" doesn't just mean performance issues. It's a matter of choosing the very stack itself. You're starting out with browser as your base. There are many things that come with that decision. Also that Bitcoin app is a bad example because it's a very simple app. To be clear, I have programmed in both native ios, ionic and native android. I'm primarily a iOS developer so had no idea how Android worked when I first tried building an android app, so when I first tried my "cross platform" app on an android phone I was shocked to find out there are so many details that make it feel NOT native. iOS and Android have very different UI and you need to build for those experiences if you want to really optimize for user experience. It's not just a matter of performance. That's why I learned java to build natively. Lastly, in this and age, why not just learn react native instead of boasting about how still using web browser is good enough? You really have no excuse here if your reasoning is that you want to use web technology to build native apps.

joeyspn 10y ago
> You're starting out with browser as your base. There are many things that come with that decision. [...] why not just learn react native instead of boasting about how still using web browser is good enough? Because for instance I can use native HTML APIs like WebRTC without 3rd party libraries and I can reuse many great JS libs, which I'm familiar with. > Also that Bitcoin app is a bad example because it's a very simple app. It's the perfect example because it reflects that it all depends on the use case, and that are use cases that will better fit your company stack. In bitpay's case, they're heavily invested in JS/Node. So it just makes sense (like in many other cases/companies). A good lead (tech, manager, etc) will always pick the proper tool for the task, taking into account many aspects of the project: business decisions, UX, costs, current work force, current stack, available libs, etc... What I'm trying to say is that Hybrid has it's place. It's not all hybrid or all native. It depends.

ryanwaggoner 10y ago

This is such nonsense. I just went to phonegap.com and installed the top showcase app (Localeur). You've got to be kidding If you're going to tell me it's impossible to tell it's not native. Scrolling is janky, taps don't feel as responsive on some elements, weird UI glitches, etc. It's a fine app if you don't care deeply about UX, but certainly not indistinguishable.

joeyspn 10y ago
> This is such nonsense. Not going to discuss why picking a random app from a listing doesn't make all the apps built with a similar technology equally bad. Next time, before shouting "nonsense" try something built with Angular2/Ionic2. http://ionicframework.com/docs/v2/components/ http://ionicframework.com/docs/v2/components/
- weego 10y ago
  Having finished an app using Ionic2 I can tell you that the performance on Android is appalling (outside of like the current Samsung/HTC top of the line or its predecessor). IOS is pretty indistinguishable though baring the odd touch problem that I deemed not worth the trade off in time investment.
  - galistoca 10y ago
    I agree, but I think that's Android's problem. I found that it's janky no matter what you use. I first thought it was the webview thing and built a native java program, but it isn't so much better. I honestly don't understand how most Android users cope with this.
- germanier 10y ago
  I just downloaded the first two featured apps on that site to my iPhone, Chefsteps and Sworkit. Both are not bad but it's still fairly noticeable even to a non-developer that they don't behave like native apps. Controls look a bit off, animations are different, and some UI bugs here and there.
- 10y ago

joshka 10y ago

In your first link at 0:02, take a look at how the cursor lags behind the screen moving as the keyboard pops up. I'm not saying that this is a huge bug, but to suggest that UX is never affected is incorrect. Or perhaps this is just an android bug that always happens?

msie 10y ago

> Nowadays those problems simply signal that "you're a mediocre dev" (probably in all platforms). That's not a good way to sell a platform if you have to be a really good developer to use it.