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We built https://usebx.com/app https://usebx.com/app as a PWA after having experienced the nightmare of managing multiple native codebases (each with a variety

by osrec 9y ago

We built https://usebx.com/app https://usebx.com/app as a PWA after having experienced the nightmare of managing multiple native codebases (each with a variety of hacks for each target platform). The PWA still has a few hacks for certain Safari quirks, but it's not too bad. We also have the added benefit of a single front end codebase that runs everywhere, regardless of whether it's desktop, tablet or phone. I personally think PWAs will dominate the future, as browsers continue to expose more and more native functionality.

osrec 9y ago
Wanted to add that the development costs are also significantly lower (we find on average about 30%, but YMMV) and iteration times faster. Also, deploying on an intranet is much easier - we build apps for hedge funds and banks through my consulting company, and often, they just want something deployed within their own network. With a PWA, you can just drop it on an internal server and send the relevant audience a link. Job done!
jakebasile 9y ago
Speaking as a dev, the benefits sound great. But as a user, I just don't care. As a user I want these things from an app, in order: 1. It does what it claims to do. 2. It does those things quickly. 3. It looks and works like an app designed for the OS on which it lives. Number 1 is standard, since I won't use your app if it doesn't do something I want. PWAs, in my experience, struggle with #2 and absolutely fall down on #3. For example, and I'm not picking on you here, your app looks like an Android app even when I installed it on my iPhone. I don't want to context switch between visual styles or wait for JS performance delays just so you can save some time in development. This is the primary reason I very much dread apps I depend on deciding to go the PWA route since despite being technically capable of emulating platform look and feel it seems very few do so.
- osrec 9y ago
  Regarding point 3, is that really what we want? That for each platform your app looks and feels different? I sort of like the fact that my app looks the same regardless of whether it's accessed on an iPhone or an Android phone. It kinda provides consistency for my users should they ever switch between platforms. In fact, we actually get a lot of positive feedback on this from our users.
  - LeoNatan25 9y ago
    Yes, that’s what we want. Only web “devs” and lazy designers want something that looks the same.
  - jakebasile 9y ago
    I can of course only speak for myself, but having an app feel at home on my platform is very important to me. Being consistent means I have to spend less time adjusting to your design. The "New" or "Create" button should be in the upper right, "OK"/"Cancel" buttons on dialogs should be in the right order and location. Apple spent quite a lot of time and money creating a design that feels at home on their devices, and I think most developers should defer to their expertise in this regard. More emotionally, I chose iOS in part because I like the design. In general, I don't want any app I use to try to reinvent the wheel with their own design language unless it is very much warranted, and I never want to see material design on any product I use since it was one of the reasons I chose to discontinue using Android.
    - osrec 9y ago
      I think you make a very fair point, and I appreciate your intelligent and measured response. For now, our users are reasonably happy with the look and feel (dare I say, they like it!). Having said that, I am tempted now to develop a library that can render iOS or Android specific components once my budget allows, so that users can select a "skin" they prefer (and we would default to the right one based on the accessing platform). I know we can't always please everyone, but we'll certainly give it our best shot! P.S. This is not meant to sound patronising - I think your points are valid and need addressing in PWAs. I don't think it's insurmountable, but it does need some work.
- coding123 9y ago
  Yeah from my experience I've never cared about 3. If I did I wouldnt be a troll on hn
noir_lord 9y ago
Your PWA is really well done. It felt native on Chrome and Firefox Android (and it worked, lots have minor issues). Mind discussiong the stack you used, it's all very nicely designed, good use of colour and iconography. I added it to my list of references designs :).
- osrec 9y ago
  Thank you :) It's interesting that another comment mentioned the design lacked polish - I guess it's one of those subjective things where you can't please everyone! We wrote everything in VanillaJS using a framework we developed in house (it does rely on jQuery, but only the slim version). I'd compare it to VueJS, with deeper reactivity for certain types of variables, and a novel patching method that circumvents the need for DOM-diffing. The graphics/charts were also an in house product. We're thinking about making both code bases open source in the next few weeks. The UI framework will probably be MIT licensed, but the charting lib will probably have a dual license, much like highcharts.js.
  - noir_lord 9y ago
    Well it's really well done whatever you used, most PWA's fall over with FF Android but yours doesn't. I'm thinking of doing a PWA in the near future for work system so I'll keep an eye out for your stuff :).
    - osrec 9y ago
      Not sure why your comment was down voted, but I guess some people are just negative on PWAs in general. I believe their views will change as browsers improve (and Apple starts embracing the PWA, as they have started with service workers etc). Eventually we will move towards a standardised platform for software on the web, and it's quite likely this platform will emerge from current day web browsers.
      - noir_lord 9y ago
        I hope so, it's a transition period at the moment and there isnt yet a 'standard' way of doing things that just works. The system at work is just a regular web app (that I'm in the process of modernizing), I also have a side project I want to build but I've no idea what I'm going to use, leaning towards Vue/vuex with net core as the backend with the eventual plan been to move more PWA as things settle out and improve. Interesting times.
danpalmer 9y ago
I don't pretend to know your business and what is right for your users, but using your demo I found it to be a long way from as polished as a native app. I still think there's 3+ years before PWAs will be able to compete on experience (I mean having PWAs that are better than the top 10% of native experiences), and it might be even longer if we consider the changes that will be made in the native app ecosystem.
- osrec 9y ago
  I'm genuinely interested in order to improve - what was lacking polish in your opinion?
  - mercutio2 9y ago
    Are you a regular iOS user? Basically nothing about the interaction model/visual layout feels like an iOS app. Starting from the hard to exit (need to find the x at the top right) intro slide series, to the structure of the app having links at the top, to the action dialogs, it feels like a non-iOS app.

by osrec 9y ago

osrec 9y ago

Wanted to add that the development costs are also significantly lower (we find on average about 30%, but YMMV) and iteration times faster. Also, deploying on an intranet is much easier - we build apps for hedge funds and banks through my consulting company, and often, they just want something deployed within their own network. With a PWA, you can just drop it on an internal server and send the relevant audience a link. Job done!

jakebasile 9y ago

Speaking as a dev, the benefits sound great. But as a user, I just don't care. As a user I want these things from an app, in order: 1. It does what it claims to do. 2. It does those things quickly. 3. It looks and works like an app designed for the OS on which it lives. Number 1 is standard, since I won't use your app if it doesn't do something I want. PWAs, in my experience, struggle with #2 and absolutely fall down on #3. For example, and I'm not picking on you here, your app looks like an Android app even when I installed it on my iPhone. I don't want to context switch between visual styles or wait for JS performance delays just so you can save some time in development. This is the primary reason I very much dread apps I depend on deciding to go the PWA route since despite being technically capable of emulating platform look and feel it seems very few do so.

osrec 9y ago
Regarding point 3, is that really what we want? That for each platform your app looks and feels different? I sort of like the fact that my app looks the same regardless of whether it's accessed on an iPhone or an Android phone. It kinda provides consistency for my users should they ever switch between platforms. In fact, we actually get a lot of positive feedback on this from our users.
- LeoNatan25 9y ago
  Yes, that’s what we want. Only web “devs” and lazy designers want something that looks the same.
- jakebasile 9y ago
  I can of course only speak for myself, but having an app feel at home on my platform is very important to me. Being consistent means I have to spend less time adjusting to your design. The "New" or "Create" button should be in the upper right, "OK"/"Cancel" buttons on dialogs should be in the right order and location. Apple spent quite a lot of time and money creating a design that feels at home on their devices, and I think most developers should defer to their expertise in this regard. More emotionally, I chose iOS in part because I like the design. In general, I don't want any app I use to try to reinvent the wheel with their own design language unless it is very much warranted, and I never want to see material design on any product I use since it was one of the reasons I chose to discontinue using Android.
  - osrec 9y ago
    I think you make a very fair point, and I appreciate your intelligent and measured response. For now, our users are reasonably happy with the look and feel (dare I say, they like it!). Having said that, I am tempted now to develop a library that can render iOS or Android specific components once my budget allows, so that users can select a "skin" they prefer (and we would default to the right one based on the accessing platform). I know we can't always please everyone, but we'll certainly give it our best shot! P.S. This is not meant to sound patronising - I think your points are valid and need addressing in PWAs. I don't think it's insurmountable, but it does need some work.
coding123 9y ago
Yeah from my experience I've never cared about 3. If I did I wouldnt be a troll on hn

noir_lord 9y ago

Your PWA is really well done. It felt native on Chrome and Firefox Android (and it worked, lots have minor issues). Mind discussiong the stack you used, it's all very nicely designed, good use of colour and iconography. I added it to my list of references designs :).

osrec 9y ago
Thank you :) It's interesting that another comment mentioned the design lacked polish - I guess it's one of those subjective things where you can't please everyone! We wrote everything in VanillaJS using a framework we developed in house (it does rely on jQuery, but only the slim version). I'd compare it to VueJS, with deeper reactivity for certain types of variables, and a novel patching method that circumvents the need for DOM-diffing. The graphics/charts were also an in house product. We're thinking about making both code bases open source in the next few weeks. The UI framework will probably be MIT licensed, but the charting lib will probably have a dual license, much like highcharts.js.
- noir_lord 9y ago
  Well it's really well done whatever you used, most PWA's fall over with FF Android but yours doesn't. I'm thinking of doing a PWA in the near future for work system so I'll keep an eye out for your stuff :).
  - osrec 9y ago
    Not sure why your comment was down voted, but I guess some people are just negative on PWAs in general. I believe their views will change as browsers improve (and Apple starts embracing the PWA, as they have started with service workers etc). Eventually we will move towards a standardised platform for software on the web, and it's quite likely this platform will emerge from current day web browsers.
    - noir_lord 9y ago
      I hope so, it's a transition period at the moment and there isnt yet a 'standard' way of doing things that just works. The system at work is just a regular web app (that I'm in the process of modernizing), I also have a side project I want to build but I've no idea what I'm going to use, leaning towards Vue/vuex with net core as the backend with the eventual plan been to move more PWA as things settle out and improve. Interesting times.

danpalmer 9y ago

I don't pretend to know your business and what is right for your users, but using your demo I found it to be a long way from as polished as a native app. I still think there's 3+ years before PWAs will be able to compete on experience (I mean having PWAs that are better than the top 10% of native experiences), and it might be even longer if we consider the changes that will be made in the native app ecosystem.

osrec 9y ago
I'm genuinely interested in order to improve - what was lacking polish in your opinion?
- mercutio2 9y ago
  Are you a regular iOS user? Basically nothing about the interaction model/visual layout feels like an iOS app. Starting from the hard to exit (need to find the x at the top right) intro slide series, to the structure of the app having links at the top, to the action dialogs, it feels like a non-iOS app.