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I'm gonna play devils advocate here and say web apps aren't as pleasant to use on mobile phones as mobile apps and that's why mobile apps are still a thing. I'

I'm gonna play devils advocate here and say web apps aren't as pleasant to use on mobile phones as mobile apps and that's why mobile apps are still a thing. I'm especially looking at things like touch gestures and native integrations (launcher icons, notifications, "share with" providers, maybe even a home screen widget). I know PWAs are a thing but afaik they don't solve all of the above problems or don't solve them well (for example there are still inconsistencies as to what is a PWA and how PWAs are handled across Firefox and Chrome).

osrec 8y ago
Try https://usebx.com/app https://usebx.com/app - we built it 2 years ago. It's a PWA, and our users find it better than many native alternatives. I think it's all in the execution really.
- t0astbread 8y ago
  That's a cool app but it still launches inside a browser window on 3/4 tested browsers (Firefox on Android/Linux, Chromium on Linux; does launch as a standalone app on Android Chromium). Also (but this is more of a niche problem with more technical users) I wouldn't have noticed it's a PWA if you hadn't told me since I block service workers by default. I would, however, have noticed a banner taking me to an app store of your choice. Still, the app itself is cool though. Maybe you can use touch gestures on the web after all ;)
- theonething 8y ago
  Beautiful app. Do you have a blog post about the development details like tech stack, etc?
  - osrec 8y ago
    Thank you :) Not currently, but it's not a bad idea to write something. As soon as I get a spare few hours, I will put something together. Feel free to drop me an email (see profile) and I'll notify you when it's done.
- graphenus 8y ago
  This is so responsive! What stack do you use?
  - osrec 8y ago
    On the backend it's an async version of PHP (much like nodejs), and on the front end, vanilla js. We didn't use react or Vue as they can be rather restrictive (especially if you want animations), so we wrote our own little framework. Same with our CSS framework - rolled our own, because we wanted it to be really flexible across all devices.
    - graphenus 8y ago
      Impressive, great work!

osrec 8y ago

Try https://usebx.com/app https://usebx.com/app - we built it 2 years ago. It's a PWA, and our users find it better than many native alternatives. I think it's all in the execution really.

t0astbread 8y ago
That's a cool app but it still launches inside a browser window on 3/4 tested browsers (Firefox on Android/Linux, Chromium on Linux; does launch as a standalone app on Android Chromium). Also (but this is more of a niche problem with more technical users) I wouldn't have noticed it's a PWA if you hadn't told me since I block service workers by default. I would, however, have noticed a banner taking me to an app store of your choice. Still, the app itself is cool though. Maybe you can use touch gestures on the web after all ;)
theonething 8y ago
Beautiful app. Do you have a blog post about the development details like tech stack, etc?
- osrec 8y ago
  Thank you :) Not currently, but it's not a bad idea to write something. As soon as I get a spare few hours, I will put something together. Feel free to drop me an email (see profile) and I'll notify you when it's done.
graphenus 8y ago
This is so responsive! What stack do you use?
- osrec 8y ago
  On the backend it's an async version of PHP (much like nodejs), and on the front end, vanilla js. We didn't use react or Vue as they can be rather restrictive (especially if you want animations), so we wrote our own little framework. Same with our CSS framework - rolled our own, because we wanted it to be really flexible across all devices.
  - graphenus 8y ago
    Impressive, great work!