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That's true. I have started getting a militant attitude towards web apps and I really shouldn't think like that. I use web apps every day (JIRA, CircleCI, Slac

That's true. I have started getting a militant attitude towards web apps and I really shouldn't think like that. I use web apps every day (JIRA, CircleCI, Slack, Google Docs). And reflecting on it, Google Docs has always been pretty damn good. But I get irked every single time I try to do something like paste an image, or drag-and-drop, or lookup in the system dictionary and it just fails or works weirdly. I let those annoyances blind me to the value that these web apps provide. I want the web to continue as a modern and relevant platform. But I don't see the point of trying to "escape" the browser chrome, or trying to copy the look and feel of native apps. If web apps are going to be cross-platform then they should embrace not being truly integrated with any native platform. The article we are commenting on feels focused on making web apps "more like" native apps. I do not like that direction at all. I don't need, or want, to pretend my web apps are just like native apps. Because they never will be, and putting them side-by-side on my home screen with launch images will just increase my expectations of them to behave natively, and my annoyance with them when they fail to do so.

dccoolgai 9y ago
" ...I don't see the point of trying to "escape" the browser chrome, or trying to copy the look and feel of native apps. If web apps are going to be cross-platform then they should embrace not being truly integrated with any native platform." I kinda feel you on that one - and to be honest, I'm not sure how you would "turn that off" but if memory serves I think it only happens if you opt to "add to home screen" which Chrome only prompts for things you visit a lot.
kristiandupont 9y ago
I had an idea for a tiny app a while ago. It didn't have business potential and was certainly not something I would bother putting in the App Store (let alone trying to figure out how to make the equivalent in Java and submit to Play Store). I could easily have made it in HTML and JS except it required access to the camera which Mobile Safari doesn't (well didn't, I think maybe it has changed now) allow. So I ended up doing nothing. Now, that's obviously just an anecdote and the world is at worst one useless app down but I think it makes for a good example as to why arguing against these improvements is silly: it's not in order to make websites more app-like, it's to allow things that would otherwise not exist. Yes, we should all write everything natively if we could, but sometimes that will just mean that things won't be developed at all.

dccoolgai 9y ago

" ...I don't see the point of trying to "escape" the browser chrome, or trying to copy the look and feel of native apps. If web apps are going to be cross-platform then they should embrace not being truly integrated with any native platform." I kinda feel you on that one - and to be honest, I'm not sure how you would "turn that off" but if memory serves I think it only happens if you opt to "add to home screen" which Chrome only prompts for things you visit a lot.

kristiandupont 9y ago

I had an idea for a tiny app a while ago. It didn't have business potential and was certainly not something I would bother putting in the App Store (let alone trying to figure out how to make the equivalent in Java and submit to Play Store). I could easily have made it in HTML and JS except it required access to the camera which Mobile Safari doesn't (well didn't, I think maybe it has changed now) allow. So I ended up doing nothing. Now, that's obviously just an anecdote and the world is at worst one useless app down but I think it makes for a good example as to why arguing against these improvements is silly: it's not in order to make websites more app-like, it's to allow things that would otherwise not exist. Yes, we should all write everything natively if we could, but sometimes that will just mean that things won't be developed at all.