5 ms·

I Prefer Safari to Content Apps On The iPad

62 points by cwan 16y ago

Groxx 16y ago
I must ask: As a general rule, how many here don't prefer Safari over web-pages-as-apps? A few exceptional cases aside, I'd be willing to bet Safari is a better browser than whatever "they" can cook up.
- mechanical_fish 16y ago
  The flaw in your question is the word "here", as in "people here on HN". Dangrover made an important point in his currently-on-the-HN-front-page blog post: I made this crazy argument to a friend of mine over beer and he countered "but don't people know what websites are?" It made me think. Well, no, as a matter of fact, not really. The web is messy. Webpages link around to each other and, if you're not tech savvy, you can't really keep track of which one you're on or if it's safe to put your bank password into it. Most people don't know if they should search for them or type them into the URL bar. There is one vital feature of the web-page-as-app: navigation. The "Frypaper" app that I downloaded yesterday is guarsnteed to lead me to Stephen Fry's blog, and not to a phishing site. It will do so in one click. It is helpfully labeled with a big picture of Fry with a silly-looking but eye-catching luminous green glow surrounding him, so that I can't help but find the app when I am looking for it. And once I'm inside the Frypaper app I will see the Fry-endorsed experience. I will not have to wonder whether my oddball browser is rendering his stuff right. I will not have to inform Google of anything I do. The cruel fact is that the first step in web navigation - finding somewhere to start clicking - has terrible usability for non-hackers. People don't understand what URLs are. Even those who understand them can barely read them. Google has made billions of dollars exploiting this fact; even I find things on Wikipedia by tabbing to the search bar, typing a word, then clicking the Wikipedia link on the ensuing Google page. (It is, famously, always there.) The amazing thing is that Apple has made the app install process so seamless that apps have better usability than browser bookmarks. And that's why they are better than plain browsers... At least for people who don't read HN. Having said that: I agree with the OP that all the CD-rommish nonsense that app designers put us through actually detracts from the experience. And I do wish it was possible to install browser enhancements on the iPad that persisted from app-to-app; e.g. if I open up a web page from my Twitter client I want to be able to use 1password in that web page.
  - Groxx 16y ago
    A blog by a VC linked to on HN. I don't think the target demographic is particularly broad.
  - rooshdi 16y ago
    "The amazing thing is that Apple has made the app install process so seamless that apps have better usability than browser bookmarks." Exactly my sentiments. So much so, I decided to start a better navigational tool for browsers at favetop.com. Right now, browser navigation is really a turn-off for some users and I think offering them an easier and more stream-lined process will help them dramatically. Like you stated, this is one of the major reasons native apps have become so appealing to casual users. The ease of the experience is a powerful thing.
- ThomPete 16y ago
  I don't I prefer the apps over Safari as I frankly find the browser experience lagging on a number of areas such as iframes and frames in general.
- frossie 16y ago
  As a general rule, how many here don't prefer Safari over web-pages-as-apps? Don't forget that the iPad is also positioned as a "family" device. While most people here would chiefly check email/twitter/RSS/recipes/etc, their kids want to play games. The majority of kids' websites are flash-based, and so that renders the iPad Safari useless, the only option being to download apps or get the laptop out. Some really impressive apps that I think are hard-to-impossible to emulate in a browser right now are the Formula One Timing and Positioning app (which is amazing if you follow F1 racing). Another are games like Broken Sword. But yeah. I'd rather read Google Reader in a browser than an app. It's all about the nature of the content.
  - Groxx 16y ago
    True, there are the Flash-clones. Hadn't considered those. I know the average just-uses-it user has a use for pages-as-apps, and there's the Flash-clone market, but I'm primarily interested in the geeky crowd here. Personally, I'd probably use the browser 95%+ of the time, largely because I can customize it and it's consistent across sites. I value consistency & integration higher than a click or two, but I know I'm not everyone. Admittedly, I don't have an iPod/Phone/Pad, largely due to being a poor college student. I have plans to nab one and probably make a couple apps, but not quite yet.
- zmmmmm 16y ago
  How about preferring neither? I hate the content apps for exactly all the reasons stated in the article. I feel like I've gone back to 1996 and I'm looking at one of those CD-ROM encyclopedias. But I hate mobile Safari for most of the same reasons as well! Opening new pages is tedious - it takes seconds for a new window to show while it does a pathetic animation dance that uses 2 seconds of my time and achieves nothing (as far as I can tell the new window doesn't even start to load until mobile safari has finished its performance). Flipping back and forward between pages is equally tedious (why oh why didn't Apple use a side swipe gesture, I wonder?). The arbitrary limit of nine of them seems ridiculous. Some of the "cooked" apps with browsers in them are preferable to mobile Safari because at least when they open a new window they do it quickly.
- delackner 16y ago
  If you can deal with never using the back button or new-tab button, Safari does provide a wonderful experience compared to the first generation crap dedicated apps. But in a cruel calculated move I'm sure aimed at forcing us all to buy the second iPad, 256mb is just NOT ENOUGH. Nearly every page I open gets reloaded when I switch back to it, or press the back button. Is there a third party browser yet that does sensible caching of rendered content to "disk"?
stcredzero 16y ago
Content Apps I use: I use iBooks and the Kindle app a lot. The interface they present is just better for reading books. I can also highlight a word and look it up or see a mention of a book and quickly check it out on a website, so there's no loss of interactivity for me. I much prefer WeatherBug to websites because of response time. Maps is also indispensable, and I think more reliable than a Web App would be. Now Playing also has a superior interface. It's basically a mashup of a Google Maps search for nearby theaters with Rotten Tomatoes ratings. Netflix is indispensable, of course. As for Web apps I use instead of local apps: FlightStats, Google Voice, and Google Reader. Google Voice is only available as a Web App and isn't really a content app, but the other two I've chosen because I think they have a superior interface compared with the other options I tried. Most of the rest of the apps I use frequently are utilities, toys and games. These facts about my App use corroborate Fred's observations. It's about the UX! However you can achieve a superior UX, do it, but remember that you must beat the web. This is harder to do on the more comfortable screen of the iPad. On the iPhone, it's easy, because the screen is cramped. The biggest threats to Apple right now are HTML5 and NaCl. If those are widely accepted, then multitouch tablets will quickly become commodity, just as PCs became a commodity platform to run Windows on.
jteo 16y ago
The vast majority of computer users don't know how the internet and its tubes work.
c1sc0 16y ago
I've had my iPad for only two days and I've only used it as a 'window on the web' : I have apps like ft installed but Almost never use them. After getting the iPad I realized that a 100 dollar slate with ONLY a browser would be enough for me.
- Terretta 16y ago
  For an even better "window on the web" experience, grab the "iCab" browser. For reading Hacker News, switch on the "open links to different domains in background tab" option. In addition to desktop style tabs, it also offers "offline" mode caching (visited pages are saved to a local cache so they work when you tab back to them or re-run the app, even if you've gone offline), ad blocking, and more.
commieneko 16y ago
There are really very few rules or useful generalizations, at least yet. The game is still very new. And much depends not on the properties of a class, which are still _very_ fuzzy, but on the specifics of a particular implementation. For example, the Facebook app for the iphone is in many ways a better experience compared to the web site. This is more of an indictment against the website, which is simply, and unutterably horrible, no matter how useful or fun it might be to many people. (The lesson here would seem to be that killer content/functionality trumps nearly any other consideration.) And for reading the web I often use NetNewsWire, an app that is an RSS reader with its own built in browser. Does that count as an app or as a browser? This is much better than any of the browsers with built in RSS readers. Again, how does that count. edit: When I examine my own usage, I consume books, comics, manga, music, and video in special purpose apps. For mainstream news I usually use a web based aggregator (Google News.) An exception is The New York Times which has a very nice iPhone/iPod Touch app that is great and as a bonus buffers a days content so that I can read when I'm offline. If magazine publishers were looking for a model that app would be a nice place to start. For NewZ (blogs, aggregators, etc.) I use an RSS reader and then a web browser to pick up stuff like Hacker News, Reddit, or Slashdot that would simply bloat an RSS reader. I have tried apps to follow Reddit and Hack News, and on the iPhone/iPod Touch they rock. On the iPad the experience is a mixed bag.
msg 16y ago
4) i don't like the various different user interfaces i have to get to know. i am used to the web browser interface. i know where everything is. if there was one standard magazine app UI and one standard newspaper app UI, i might feel differently. but for now, i can't be bothered learning a new UI for every piece of content i want to consume. I know it's been said many times, but if you agree with this statement about the uniform interface of the browser, you understand the appeal of the one-interface-to-rule-them-all of Emacs.
fleaflicker 16y ago
4) if there was one standard magazine app UI and one standard newspaper app UI, i might feel differently. apple (or somebody else who can nail this UI) should develop these apps and start selling content like the book/itunes stores.
- younata 16y ago
  well, until apple does, all that means to me is that there is a huge market out there for an ipad/iphone/ipod touch app that does news better than safari.
  - Groxx 16y ago
    which contains the massive hurdle of either parsing all news sites through all changes, or getting the newspapers to work with you / produce an API for getting content. Good luck to all who try, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes.
johnrob 16y ago
Is the app store trend finally showing a crack? At some point, devices are going to discover the same thing that PCs already know - web apps are better than native software for most things. Once flash arrives for real this trend will really start setting in.
- Groxx 16y ago
  "most" is definitely debatable. My browser serves for social and searching almost exclusively. Everything else I use an application for, because it runs faster and has significantly better persistent storage.
dpnewman 16y ago
The NPR ipad app is simple, elegant, and fantastic. For me a much better experience than the web site is or could be. I can rip through content at the speed of my mind. So I think the issue is design. Good iPad ux is not a given - designers need to consider that the keys are clarity, organization and speed of access.
- jonknee 16y ago
  I've heard a lot of people rave on the NPR app, but the skinny text column kills it for me. I have a nice big screen, but NPR limits text to about a 3" column. This is true even for stories without an image which is especially maddening (a half empty screen with some silly share content buttons). When I first used it I thought it was a bug, but apparently that's what they want it to look like. I greatly prefer the NY Times app.
  - dpnewman 16y ago
    hmm the text width hadn't bothered me but that's an understandable critique. what i love about the app most is the playlist - so i can queue up any amount of audio and let er roll while i code.

62 points by cwan 16y ago

Groxx 16y ago

I must ask: As a general rule, how many here don't prefer Safari over web-pages-as-apps? A few exceptional cases aside, I'd be willing to bet Safari is a better browser than whatever "they" can cook up.

mechanical_fish 16y ago
The flaw in your question is the word "here", as in "people here on HN". Dangrover made an important point in his currently-on-the-HN-front-page blog post: I made this crazy argument to a friend of mine over beer and he countered "but don't people know what websites are?" It made me think. Well, no, as a matter of fact, not really. The web is messy. Webpages link around to each other and, if you're not tech savvy, you can't really keep track of which one you're on or if it's safe to put your bank password into it. Most people don't know if they should search for them or type them into the URL bar. There is one vital feature of the web-page-as-app: navigation. The "Frypaper" app that I downloaded yesterday is guarsnteed to lead me to Stephen Fry's blog, and not to a phishing site. It will do so in one click. It is helpfully labeled with a big picture of Fry with a silly-looking but eye-catching luminous green glow surrounding him, so that I can't help but find the app when I am looking for it. And once I'm inside the Frypaper app I will see the Fry-endorsed experience. I will not have to wonder whether my oddball browser is rendering his stuff right. I will not have to inform Google of anything I do. The cruel fact is that the first step in web navigation - finding somewhere to start clicking - has terrible usability for non-hackers. People don't understand what URLs are. Even those who understand them can barely read them. Google has made billions of dollars exploiting this fact; even I find things on Wikipedia by tabbing to the search bar, typing a word, then clicking the Wikipedia link on the ensuing Google page. (It is, famously, always there.) The amazing thing is that Apple has made the app install process so seamless that apps have better usability than browser bookmarks. And that's why they are better than plain browsers... At least for people who don't read HN. Having said that: I agree with the OP that all the CD-rommish nonsense that app designers put us through actually detracts from the experience. And I do wish it was possible to install browser enhancements on the iPad that persisted from app-to-app; e.g. if I open up a web page from my Twitter client I want to be able to use 1password in that web page.
- Groxx 16y ago
  A blog by a VC linked to on HN. I don't think the target demographic is particularly broad.
- rooshdi 16y ago
  "The amazing thing is that Apple has made the app install process so seamless that apps have better usability than browser bookmarks." Exactly my sentiments. So much so, I decided to start a better navigational tool for browsers at favetop.com. Right now, browser navigation is really a turn-off for some users and I think offering them an easier and more stream-lined process will help them dramatically. Like you stated, this is one of the major reasons native apps have become so appealing to casual users. The ease of the experience is a powerful thing.
ThomPete 16y ago
I don't I prefer the apps over Safari as I frankly find the browser experience lagging on a number of areas such as iframes and frames in general.
frossie 16y ago
As a general rule, how many here don't prefer Safari over web-pages-as-apps? Don't forget that the iPad is also positioned as a "family" device. While most people here would chiefly check email/twitter/RSS/recipes/etc, their kids want to play games. The majority of kids' websites are flash-based, and so that renders the iPad Safari useless, the only option being to download apps or get the laptop out. Some really impressive apps that I think are hard-to-impossible to emulate in a browser right now are the Formula One Timing and Positioning app (which is amazing if you follow F1 racing). Another are games like Broken Sword. But yeah. I'd rather read Google Reader in a browser than an app. It's all about the nature of the content.
- Groxx 16y ago
  True, there are the Flash-clones. Hadn't considered those. I know the average just-uses-it user has a use for pages-as-apps, and there's the Flash-clone market, but I'm primarily interested in the geeky crowd here. Personally, I'd probably use the browser 95%+ of the time, largely because I can customize it and it's consistent across sites. I value consistency & integration higher than a click or two, but I know I'm not everyone. Admittedly, I don't have an iPod/Phone/Pad, largely due to being a poor college student. I have plans to nab one and probably make a couple apps, but not quite yet.
zmmmmm 16y ago
How about preferring neither? I hate the content apps for exactly all the reasons stated in the article. I feel like I've gone back to 1996 and I'm looking at one of those CD-ROM encyclopedias. But I hate mobile Safari for most of the same reasons as well! Opening new pages is tedious - it takes seconds for a new window to show while it does a pathetic animation dance that uses 2 seconds of my time and achieves nothing (as far as I can tell the new window doesn't even start to load until mobile safari has finished its performance). Flipping back and forward between pages is equally tedious (why oh why didn't Apple use a side swipe gesture, I wonder?). The arbitrary limit of nine of them seems ridiculous. Some of the "cooked" apps with browsers in them are preferable to mobile Safari because at least when they open a new window they do it quickly.
delackner 16y ago
If you can deal with never using the back button or new-tab button, Safari does provide a wonderful experience compared to the first generation crap dedicated apps. But in a cruel calculated move I'm sure aimed at forcing us all to buy the second iPad, 256mb is just NOT ENOUGH. Nearly every page I open gets reloaded when I switch back to it, or press the back button. Is there a third party browser yet that does sensible caching of rendered content to "disk"?

stcredzero 16y ago

Content Apps I use: I use iBooks and the Kindle app a lot. The interface they present is just better for reading books. I can also highlight a word and look it up or see a mention of a book and quickly check it out on a website, so there's no loss of interactivity for me. I much prefer WeatherBug to websites because of response time. Maps is also indispensable, and I think more reliable than a Web App would be. Now Playing also has a superior interface. It's basically a mashup of a Google Maps search for nearby theaters with Rotten Tomatoes ratings. Netflix is indispensable, of course. As for Web apps I use instead of local apps: FlightStats, Google Voice, and Google Reader. Google Voice is only available as a Web App and isn't really a content app, but the other two I've chosen because I think they have a superior interface compared with the other options I tried. Most of the rest of the apps I use frequently are utilities, toys and games. These facts about my App use corroborate Fred's observations. It's about the UX! However you can achieve a superior UX, do it, but remember that you must beat the web. This is harder to do on the more comfortable screen of the iPad. On the iPhone, it's easy, because the screen is cramped. The biggest threats to Apple right now are HTML5 and NaCl. If those are widely accepted, then multitouch tablets will quickly become commodity, just as PCs became a commodity platform to run Windows on.

jteo 16y ago

The vast majority of computer users don't know how the internet and its tubes work.

c1sc0 16y ago

I've had my iPad for only two days and I've only used it as a 'window on the web' : I have apps like ft installed but Almost never use them. After getting the iPad I realized that a 100 dollar slate with ONLY a browser would be enough for me.

Terretta 16y ago
For an even better "window on the web" experience, grab the "iCab" browser. For reading Hacker News, switch on the "open links to different domains in background tab" option. In addition to desktop style tabs, it also offers "offline" mode caching (visited pages are saved to a local cache so they work when you tab back to them or re-run the app, even if you've gone offline), ad blocking, and more.

commieneko 16y ago

There are really very few rules or useful generalizations, at least yet. The game is still very new. And much depends not on the properties of a class, which are still _very_ fuzzy, but on the specifics of a particular implementation. For example, the Facebook app for the iphone is in many ways a better experience compared to the web site. This is more of an indictment against the website, which is simply, and unutterably horrible, no matter how useful or fun it might be to many people. (The lesson here would seem to be that killer content/functionality trumps nearly any other consideration.) And for reading the web I often use NetNewsWire, an app that is an RSS reader with its own built in browser. Does that count as an app or as a browser? This is much better than any of the browsers with built in RSS readers. Again, how does that count. edit: When I examine my own usage, I consume books, comics, manga, music, and video in special purpose apps. For mainstream news I usually use a web based aggregator (Google News.) An exception is The New York Times which has a very nice iPhone/iPod Touch app that is great and as a bonus buffers a days content so that I can read when I'm offline. If magazine publishers were looking for a model that app would be a nice place to start. For NewZ (blogs, aggregators, etc.) I use an RSS reader and then a web browser to pick up stuff like Hacker News, Reddit, or Slashdot that would simply bloat an RSS reader. I have tried apps to follow Reddit and Hack News, and on the iPhone/iPod Touch they rock. On the iPad the experience is a mixed bag.

msg 16y ago

4) i don't like the various different user interfaces i have to get to know. i am used to the web browser interface. i know where everything is. if there was one standard magazine app UI and one standard newspaper app UI, i might feel differently. but for now, i can't be bothered learning a new UI for every piece of content i want to consume. I know it's been said many times, but if you agree with this statement about the uniform interface of the browser, you understand the appeal of the one-interface-to-rule-them-all of Emacs.

fleaflicker 16y ago

4) if there was one standard magazine app UI and one standard newspaper app UI, i might feel differently. apple (or somebody else who can nail this UI) should develop these apps and start selling content like the book/itunes stores.

younata 16y ago
well, until apple does, all that means to me is that there is a huge market out there for an ipad/iphone/ipod touch app that does news better than safari.
- Groxx 16y ago
  which contains the massive hurdle of either parsing all news sites through all changes, or getting the newspapers to work with you / produce an API for getting content. Good luck to all who try, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes.

johnrob 16y ago

Is the app store trend finally showing a crack? At some point, devices are going to discover the same thing that PCs already know - web apps are better than native software for most things. Once flash arrives for real this trend will really start setting in.

Groxx 16y ago
"most" is definitely debatable. My browser serves for social and searching almost exclusively. Everything else I use an application for, because it runs faster and has significantly better persistent storage.

dpnewman 16y ago

The NPR ipad app is simple, elegant, and fantastic. For me a much better experience than the web site is or could be. I can rip through content at the speed of my mind. So I think the issue is design. Good iPad ux is not a given - designers need to consider that the keys are clarity, organization and speed of access.

jonknee 16y ago
I've heard a lot of people rave on the NPR app, but the skinny text column kills it for me. I have a nice big screen, but NPR limits text to about a 3" column. This is true even for stories without an image which is especially maddening (a half empty screen with some silly share content buttons). When I first used it I thought it was a bug, but apparently that's what they want it to look like. I greatly prefer the NY Times app.
- dpnewman 16y ago
  hmm the text width hadn't bothered me but that's an understandable critique. what i love about the app most is the playlist - so i can queue up any amount of audio and let er roll while i code.