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Why did the web take over desktop and not mobile?

• garmaine 5y ago
  …did it? I still use tons of native apps on my laptop, and almost exclusively native apps only on my desktop.
  • snuser 5y ago
    You're thinking about software not apps
    • garmaine 5y ago
      They’re the same thing. “App” is short for “application”, aka installable software.
• pjmlp 5y ago
  Most of the stuff I use on my computer are native apps, and plenty of corporations still based on air gaped networks with native applications. Also despite WebGL, or due to the way it was evolved during the last 10 years, game development for the Web is a failure, hence why everyone is having yet another go at streaming with graphics cards neither WebGL nor WebGPU will ever support. Also nice touch forgetting about PalmOS, Symbian and Windows/PocketPC.
• gubikmic 5y ago
  One word: Apple. Preventing PWAs is detrimental to users and an abuse of their monopoly.
  • wruza 5y ago
    Is android native development still a thing?
    • Hydraulix989 5y ago
      I've only ever seen the NDK used for games
      • mcwhy 5y ago
        and all the packers, protectors and obfuscators that are sold as "must have"
        • pjmlp 5y ago
          Usually people that buy those never heard of IDA Pro and Hex-Rays.
    • dataflow 5y ago
      It's always confusing when people say "native" on Android... you never know if they mean "not a web app" (SDK) or "machine code" (NDK). Do you mean the latter?
      • Asraelite 5y ago
        I'm pretty sure it's "not a web app" in most contexts, but that's an interesting point I hadn't thought of before. What do you mean by "machine code" though? To me, the most native you can get is a Java/C++ app that uses Android APIs directly. Anything lower is systems development, something not generally possible for normal developers.
        • dataflow 5y ago
          > What do you mean by "machine code" though? To me, the most native you can get is a Java/C++ app that uses Android APIs directly. I mean like C/C++ (which compiles to machine code) and not Java (which compiles to bytecode). Same as the distinction the terminology made on desktop: https://stackoverflow.com/a/855774 https://stackoverflow.com/a/855774
          • 5y ago
  • toshk 5y ago
    Its not sufficient of an explanation. For desktop browsers there are also no application launch icons. Probably has most to do with the limits of the UX of a phone. Pulling up a browser and typing in a url, hitting autocomplete is done in 2 seconds. On mobile everything is so much more painful, a lot more desire for one click wonder buttons
    • wruza 5y ago
      Wait, there is sort of speeddial/favorites tab in every browser, desktop and mobile. E.g. a food ordering webapp is my first “wonder button” in safari’s empty tab. I could even put it to the phone home screen (no need for that though).
    • brendoelfrendo 5y ago
      Chrome has the ability to save sites as a desktop shortcut. It even prompts you to do so on some web apps, like Stadia, so you can use it like a more "normal" desktop app. Safari on iOS can do this, too. You can pin a website to your home screen, which is something that I have done for PWAs. It could have easily gone another way where this was the "normal" behavior of the mobile ecosystem.
  • eloisant 5y ago
    You should read the article. To sum it up: the web beat desktop apps because traditional OS were not designed for a networked world. The iPhone however was designed for a networked world so it didn't have all the limitations of desktop OS. The web wasn't designed for a mobile world so it had a lot of limitations: hard to do a good UX, passwords to type on a tiny keyboard, no offline mode (or so complex to use that no dev do), URL vs app icons...
    • radicalbyte 5y ago
      Only that's not how the world works. The world works with power: Apple used their power to make strangle the entire idea of the web on mobile by putting a break on change. Why? Mobile web tech helps their competitors more than it helps them. If Apple's own platform / APIs had had the same rate of change as they effectively forced on the mobile web, then they would be a decade behind Android. This is exactly the same thing as Microsoft did in the 90s with productivity software. They had secret undocumented APIs which made Office a fantastic experience and non-office "meh".
      • radicalbyte 5y ago
        If you look carefully you'll see this tactic all over: throw mud in your opponents eyes to slow their rate of change. See: US banking (in the EU I can transfer cash, instantly, for free to a friend's bank account and have been able to do so for a decade), Fossil fuel vs Climate change, most commercial standard bodies. It's everywhere.
        • lotsofpulp 5y ago
          > US banking (in the EU I can transfer cash, instantly, for free to a friend's bank account and have been able to do so for a decade) This one actually seems like a fault of the US government dragging its feet on making advancements on a nationwide protocol for transferring money and staying stuck on ACH. So much so that, that the biggest banks had to get together and create their own system 10 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelle_(payment_service) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelle_(payment_service) > Launched in April 2011, clearXchange was originally owned by Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo. Supposedly, the US government is finally rolling out a proper system in 2023: https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fednow_about.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fednow_about.h...
  • pjmlp 5y ago
    Mobile Web is enough for like 90% of CRUD stuff, regardless of PWAs. Yet, most business still go native due to the development experience, like not having to turn <div> magically into beautiful dropdown combo boxes with multiple selections via an HTML/CSS/JS soup, that don't feel quite right with the native ones.
  • isodev 5y ago
    I don’t think so - PWAs on Android are also usable at best. It’s hard to twist the web into something it isn’t. So much effort goes into making the web do what native apps already do instead of trying to complement all that towards a better experience.
  • nbzso 5y ago
    Apple is the reason. App store greed. We with our "design and virtue signalling" addiction helped a lot in creation of this monster. As far as I can remember, the real UI/UX innovation was killed fast. Palm/WebOS.
• handrous 5y ago
  Maybe I missed it, but I don't think the article even provides figures for the percentage of time spent in a browser on mobile versus desktop. If it is indeed skewed toward non-browser activities on the phone, that's got to mostly be due to hardware integration for things that don't exist or aren't used the same way on most desktops (camera, voice assistant, GPS) and better notification interfaces (messaging apps, which surely occupy a larger percentage of mobile users' time than desktop). Most of the stuff in the article seems way less relevant than those (e.g. "typing passwords is awkward on a phone"—OK, but I don't type them, they auto-fill, and Safari even generates them for me so many of my passwords I've never typed on any platform, so....)
  • laurent92 5y ago
    > camera, voice assistant, GPS Phones could add APIs for webapps to use those.
    • vbezhenar 5y ago
      Camera and GPS are usable from webapps.
• jjtheblunt 5y ago
  Mobile code can not burn battery on unnecessary cpu use, and certainly not on unnecessary use of power transmitting over a radio link repetitively loading things: desktop gets power plugged into a wall and is therefore less constrained.
  • alpaca128 5y ago
    > unnecessary use of power transmitting over a radio link repetitively loading things Web apps can be installed on the phone. Has been working on Android for a long time, and it won't need to reload anything. I don't see them being much less efficient than "native" Android apps, especially considering their average quality. > desktop gets power plugged into a wall and is therefore less constrained Unless it's a laptop.
    • tommek4077 5y ago
      May I ask for some examples of those web apps? Does this really exist outside some note taking sample apps?
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • jjtheblunt 5y ago
      to your point iOS has had a web view object forever too.
• etaioinshrdlu 5y ago
  I've been writing a big React app for about a year, it runs really well on mobile too, but it is a bit hamstrung by iOS safari due to some errant touch interactions I've not been able to turn off despite much trying: double tapping, pinching in certain random areas can lead to zooming, and there is no good way for the user to undo it. I'm going to agree that the reason is Apple.
  • dadior 5y ago
    Yes, I agree, how selfish
  • dadior 5y ago
    Is this the reason that your app don't work on IOS: https://reactjs.org/blog/2018/05/23/react-v-16-4.html#pointer-events https://reactjs.org/blog/2018/05/23/react-v-16-4.html#pointe... The safari do not support the pointer events.
    • dadior 5y ago
      And there are some polyfill for it: 'If your application depends on pointer events, we recommend using a third-party pointer events polyfill.'
• FpUser 5y ago
  I am not sure in what world. 90% of the applications I use are native desktop apps. Look ma, no web.
  • anfilt 5y ago
    Kinda similar boat here, I kinda hate electron for similar reasons it's just bloated as hell.
  • simonh 5y ago
    You don’t use Gmail, Google Docs and Maps, Outlook, Youtube? My wife uses a transcribing web app called Otter. All the fantasy map authoring tools I’ve used recently (for TTRPG use) are web apps, like Inkarnate. Arguably even Facebook, Reddit and LinkedIn are really more web apps than web sites. On mobile most people would use an app for all of these services, on desktop they’re mostly tabs in a browser.
    • hnbad 5y ago
      Not GP but I don't find their claim implausible. > Gmail, Google Docs Outlook and the Office suite are common desktop apps, especially in certain industries. > [Google] Maps Most people probably use Maps on mobile. Most of my use of Maps outside mobile is definitely just in Google search results. > Outlook I use OWA but long-time Outlook users often still prefer the (extremely legacy) desktop app. > YouTube, Facebook, Reddit Some people primarily consume media on mobile devices. Especially if they have a dedicated work or gaming desktop.
    • FpUser 5y ago
      I do not use Gmail. I have my own domain like since forever and use Thunderbird to read my email. I do not use Google Docs, I use Office Suite from SoftOffice instead. I do use Youtube, Google Maps, Google Translate, Netflix and Amazon store. I do not think they make anywhere close to even 10% of what I use. I do not use Facebook, Reddit and LinkedIn. Well I do have accounts and I used those couple of times to find particular person but that's the extent. On mobile, the only apps I use are offline GPS - OsmAnd and some that control my gizmos like drone. Other than that my phone works strictly as a phone and does not even have data plan.
• lewantmontreal 5y ago
  Two words: Application permissions. Any application I install on the desktop can potentially steal my data and ruin my life. And no, big names like Spotify or Valve don’t offer complete protection either due to supply chain attacks.
  • yobbo 5y ago
    Yes, but normies don't really understand or care. The big difference is the "inviting" experience of installing apps on smartphones. Yes search the name and tap "install app".
    • Silhouette 5y ago
      I believe this is probably the most important difference. Desktop platforms, and particularly Windows, have not historically offered a convenient experience for installing, updating and removing software. Web apps just work. Mobile apps and app stores offer a simpler and much slicker experience than desktops, so there is less need for the easy access that web apps offer.
    • apozem 5y ago
      I think normal users do have a fear of installing software on desktop. There's this fear of "viruses." They know they exist, they don't know how they work, but they know you shouldn't install anything or you'll let them in. They view third-party software like vampires - intruders trying to trick them into opening the door. Which, given the history of adware toolbars and registry bloat on Windows, is maybe warranted. https://www.pcworld.com/article/149951/registry-cleaner.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/149951/registry-cleaner.html
      • dTal 5y ago
        That's the correct default view of software. Where we've gone astray is that people don't treat "apps" the same way.
    • LeonB 5y ago
      We do the same in Windows App Store too. … except it’s unlikely to be the easiest way to get the apps you love and not effective as a means of discovering new apps, plus and because of that they haven’t succeeded at attracting developers to their concept. Why would a developer spend however long making their app available in Windows store unless they were already a big name? And how easy is it if you’re on any one of the now disjointed and incompatible litany of display technologies (forms, wpf, silverlight, uwp, dos, powershell) and pay big platform costs for the privilege. I am in reality hoping to do it ASAP.
• bionade24 5y ago
  I thing one main missed point here is that the web-as-app shift on desktop happened before computers were super-mainstream and daily-used. It happened when most of its users were fine with new techniques to get stuff done.
  • Beldin 5y ago
    Actually, the web itself happened after computers had gone super-mainstream. That led to the dotcom-boom and burst of the late 90s/early 00s. From there, web 2.0 developed. Google started pushing its plugin (Google Gears) to deliver webapps, but uptake was too low and therefore their webapps suffered. Google solved that by building a browser that deliver the JavaScript speed they needed. That led to a proliferation of web apps as the term is understood nowadays.
• shafyy 5y ago
  For me, opening and dealing with the browser and web apps on mobile is more of a hassle than doing the same thing on desktop. On the latter, I have my browser with pinned tabs with the apps I use (email apps, project management apps, etc.) and it just stays there. Trying to do the same thing on mobile is a pain, so it's more convenient to use the mobile apps there.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• anfilt 5y ago
  I think this article misses out on a couple things. First writing a cross platform App for desktops is a lot more work than especially the GUI aspect than a web app. A desktop app is just as capable of using the internet as a phone app. So that point does not make any sense to me. The main reason apps are more popular on phones is first battery usage is gonna be better and the was especially important early on when phone processors were less capable. 2nd there has been a big push particularly from apple so they could capture those purchasing fees. Combine this with the fact they prevent the device users from side-loading unless they find an exploit to jailbreak their device the Apple's incentives are clear. Combine this fact the apple when it comes to implementing standards for browser featuers drags their feet at times. Developers will just often deal with implementing a native app, also combine the fact because users can't side load your only stuck to one browser engine on the iPhone. This bleeds over to android as it's kinda pushed the defacto method of getting apps on a phone being to use a store. Also google is not going to really try to change it either because they are also collecting fees. Although a developers options are certainly more free on that platform, but again to the users if you stray to far from what has become the defacto method getting users will be difficult.
• pmontra 5y ago
  UX, harder to optimize to a small screen. Nowadays phones are huge compared to 10 years ago and native apps got a very early advantage. Connectivity, 2.5G and 3G were slow, bandwidth is capped, no internet at all somewhere. And yes, what can you do on iOS if Apple forces their browser on all their customers? But (Android) I still spend most of my time in a browser. Notable exceptions: WhatsApp, Telegram, K9, Maps, OSMAnd, Camera, Gallery, YouTube / NewPipe. Maybe 1 hour vs all the rest.
  • Razengan 5y ago
    Notable exceptions: WhatsApp, Telegram, K9, Maps, OSMAnd, Camera, Gallery, YouTube / NewPipe Why not use the web versions of WhatsApp, Maps, YouTube, Photos etc.?
• hliyan 5y ago
  Lot of potential theories here. Allow me to offer one of my own: it's our physical posture and ergonomics. When on the desktop, you're usually sitting down in front of a desk after deciding to set aside some time for the express purpose of doing something on a computer. A small wait for the UI to render is tolerable. But when you're on a mobile device, it's usually the the thing you're using to kill time while you're waiting for something else. Delays are a lot less tolerable. Another thing: on desktop, the burden of task switching is lower -- you click another tab while the page loads. It's literally just another instantly responsive click back when the thing loads. On mobile, it's a slightly slower, more involved process as you tap and hunt for icons.
  • omegalulw 5y ago
    > A small wait for the UI to render is tolerable. Absolutely not. In fact, I expect more responsiveness from my desktop.
    • AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      Agreed, when using my phone I am very frequently waiting for it to do something. Start Google Maps, wait 5 seconds, click the search bar, wait 3 seconds before the keyboard comes up, type a few letters, wait between 0 and 10 seconds for any letters to show up... It's hilarious when you think about how ludicrously powerful these devices are compared to what we were using 15 years ago that wasn't that sluggish. And of course by hilarious I mean dreadful.
    • hliyan 5y ago
      This is also me, but as an engineer. It's not how the average user's mind works.
  • imbnwa 5y ago
    A difference I haven't seen highlighted in this thread yet is that there are phone apps and then there are tablet apps, and the latter have already made big in-roads with content creators, e.g. amateur/pro musicians, illustrators/artists, etcs. Tablets can provide the ergnomic benefits and the high-level interface for their tasks that a mouse and keyboard can, depending on context, add more complexity to. A lot of the times, you don't need all the power user features at once for your work in the course of creating some art form. Tablets are lighter than laptops generally and are faster to boot up for when the spark of creativity hits. Posture and ergnomics are definitely big wins for mobile as a whole, and lot of comments here are desktop power users speaking strictly of their workflows translating to a phone.
• Barrin92 5y ago
  Because mobile phones' hardware and software are much closer integrated and closed systems than the desktop or the laptop. Bringing the web (or web tech) to phones is both technically more of a challenge and economically in particular Apple opposes it. Ceding control to the open web couldn't really be resisted on desktops. However I'm relatively confident that the web is going to eat mobile regardless, starting with web technology and cross platform JS based frameworks gaining popularity, regulatory action against platforms, and when we're at the point where the web on mobile isn't disadvantaged any more it should be the clear preference.
• dadior 5y ago
  I guess this is because on the mobile device, the manufacturer like Apple, they are more easy to limit the develop of web. Or we can say, on the desktop, the owner of the most popular browser is not the OS maker, imagine we now just have Windows, and IE....
• fulafel 5y ago
  Inertia and path dependence (or in plain language, history). Web started on the desktop and the browser co-evolved with desktop focused web apps. Desktop as a platform is also more hostile to native apps: a lot of users don't have permissions to install native apps, and another slice of users is sufficiently clued about security that they don't want to. These probably make up >50% of your potential users. The same effects exist on mobile too, but in smaller portions.
• sriku 5y ago
  The article appears to see "the web" as "browsers". This is apparent in the "OS within OS" language. The web isn't the browser although that is its facade. If you consider search on the desktop as "where do find X?" And on mobile as "how do I get X done?", Sans the real web the mobile device will be far less useful. From that view, it almost looks like the web already ate mobile .. just that we don't see it .. as made clear in this classic https://xkcd.com/1367/ https://xkcd.com/1367/
  • sriku 5y ago
    And for true blue native apps, the web hasn't quite eaten desktop just yet. Try to get a professional video editor to use a website for production work like movies, or get an audio engineer to use a web based DAE (the latter is getting a little more feasible). You'll find it similarly hard to pry Maya or 3d studio Max from the hands of 3d professionals.
• dehrmann 5y ago
  Managing apps on the desktop is a pain. They get their dirty fingers everywhere and they're a pain to uninstall. For lightweight tasks, the web solved this, though local apps still ran smoother than webapps. App stores solved package management (so did Linux distros), and getting a true webapp to perform as well as a local app is more trouble than it's worth, and that's when you have a good network connection.
• wodenokoto 5y ago
  Early smartphones had poor connectivity and the web at the time had very poor offline support. While Apple initially said that apps would be web apps they never really walked the walk. No html-css frameworks for optimizing sites for the iPhone. No frameworks for offline support. And this was at a time when Apple and Google were good friends and Google were developing their Google Gears for offline support (you could use gmail offline with google gears back then) Apps offered 4 things: a development environment, offline support, a monetization strategy and a cool factor. Make it 5: they also supported things that are more than a glorified webpage.
• bhawks 5y ago
  When iPhone and Android hit the scene the 'rich' web experience was primarily flash, silverlight, and some java applets (taking their last breathe). Input APIs for touch, multitouch and gesture were a mess for many years in the browser. Media queries didn't become a w3c recommendation until 2012 so building a ux that looked pleasant really wasn't possible. The memory, cpu, GPU, storage and battery constraints were unbelievably tight. In short mobile hardware and the iOS and Android SDK environments were consumer + developer ready for practically 10 years before the web was ready for mobile. The real question is how did the web remain relevant while being so far behind this tectonic platform shift? I think major points that kept the web alive: content addressibility (via urls), ease of connectivity between content (via links), vast amounts of information already in the platform, smoother learning curve for developer technology, and the vast amounts of money/influence Google was willing to put in to keep it's search ads property relevant.
  • wiz21c 5y ago
    > content addressibility I'd say the app ecosystem promotes closed content whereas WWW promotes open content.
    • adventured 5y ago
      What open content? Wikipedia? That's <1% of the Web. If we're judging whether the Web promotes open content by the actual results after three decades, the exact opposite is the case: the Web promotes closed content. Netflix, ESPN, Google/Gmail/Maps/News/etc, Microsoft/Bing/Office/mail/etc, NYTimes, Washington Post, USA Today, MSNBC, CNBC, Reuters, AP, CNN, Bloomberg, FoxNews, ABC, CBS, NBC, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, Imgur, eBay, Amazon/Twitch/Prime/etc, Target, Walmart, ETSY, Disney, Viacom, Verizon/Yahoo, Match.com, Quora, PayPal. Along with pretty much all corporate sites and porn sites. Most blogs are privately owned, copyrighted; same with substacks; same with most mailing lists. Most photography on the Web is owned by someone, and captive on a platform. Travel sites/services (Booking, Expedia, etc), review sites/services (Yelp, Trip Advisor, most cooking sites, etc), weather sites, real-estate sites (Realtor.com, Zillow, Apartments.com, etc); ticket sites (Vivid, Stubhub, Ticketmaster, Live Nation) - they're largely in the same box, they're all privately owned, copyrighted content, closed corporate platforms. Now keep going with that list for most of the next 5,000+ largest sites (with few exceptions like Wikipedia or Stack Exchange). Nearly everything on the Web is centralized, closed, privately owned, copyrighted content and or platforms. They're all little walled gardens.
• k__ 5y ago
  Strange. I use Web apps on mobile whenever I can.
• jollybean 5y ago
  Android and iOS specifically are not keen on creating a more powerful browser experience because it hurts their app revenues. Mobile APIs for apps are fairly modern. The limited nature of Mobile experience + the more modern APIs and integrated build/deployment/storefronts make those a much easier choice than otherwise on mobile. Desktop app frameworks are old and complicated, and there aren't very good options for apps in between 'web' and 'major installs'. Desktop UI generally require a lot more component types and layouts, and frankly there is no framework that has conquered that domain very well. Every single desktop UI framework falls quite short.
• Fragoel2 5y ago
  I found the article really hard to read, the author took a long and convoluted path to expose his ideas. As for the question that the article raises, there are probably many co-occurring reasons, and a lot of comments make good points. However, one that I couldn't find listed is IMHO performance. I still find web apps (and web sites) to feel really sluggish and slow on everything that is not a top-tier phone. Again, many reasons for this (JavaScript bloat, tracking, intermittent connectivity, ...) but the user experience is just not the same.
  • anonu 5y ago
    I enjoyed his prelude with "The Great Oxidation" event... I've always known about it - but not under that term. Yes, a bit convoluted and contrived - but I enjoyed it anyway.
  • jumaro 5y ago
    It's interesting how different one can perceive the same article. I quite enjoyed how he first explained some general ideas in a narrative style. I agree that there are likely different reasons that had an impact. Performance is a good addition and I think also the bad mobile connectivity in the earlier years of the smartphone area is another reason.
  • cdata 5y ago
    I enjoyed the rhetorical journey the author took us on, personally. I wonder if you read the whole article, since the author specifically calls out performance as one of the factors.
  • bonoboTP 5y ago
    It's quite typical in this Malcolm Gladwell-style guru-writing. Start with some obscure non-business-related factoid story that demonstrates how intelligent and widely read you are an then give your opinion on the topic of business and hustling dressed in the aforementioned story. People write entire books where each chapter rehashes this formula.
  • notatoad 5y ago
    >I found the article really hard to read, the author took a long and convoluted path to expose his ideas. aka "the substack style"
• fendy3002 5y ago
  The web took over desktop when browsers functionality approaches those of desktops. Almost every desktop apps are now in web or electron, with some interesting exceptions that I know of: 1. graphic / gpu intensive apps 2. memory / cpu intensive apps 3. background process / push notif apps Both point 1 and 2 can easily be games, which is why most of them are still in native apps. I think (cmiiw) webassembly is trying to tackle this. Now the 3rd point is, IMO the strongest reason that makes browser-based apps cannot penetrate mobile native beside ux, performance and lacking functionality for web in mobile. People in their mobile simply cannot run browser all the time in background for process and push notif. It's far easier with native apps.
• SimeVidas 5y ago
  It will take over mobile too. It’s just a matter of time.
• feanaro 5y ago
  Native phone apps are more invasive and can therefore be used for more extensive tracking and spying, which is good for ad revenue. Remember how all the largest spying products like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter, etc aggressively push you to install their phone apps even though they are (or were) perfectly usable through their mobile websites.
  • forty 5y ago
    Also there is no app store on the web, no 30% fee. So no incentive for mobile platform owners to make it first class citizen.
    • Retric 5y ago
      The web isn’t a first class citizen on desktop as you can’t run new AAA games in one. The real difference is the web is a more limited UI that breaks down when your also forced to use the more limited interface of mobile. For example on desktop the top 10% or so of the screen is taken up by the browsers UI and tabs which is normally fine. On a tablet in keyboard mode your left with ~40% of the screen being useable. Native applications sidestep this by not needing the browsers UI.
      • quonn 5y ago
        This is a very important point. Mobile web apps primarily don‘t feel right because of the browser UI and also because the interaction with scrolling/tapping is never quite as perfect.
      • wffurr 5y ago
        AAA games are a weird example. It's one of the few app categories that really needs full native performance, although a lot of them can also scale nicely to run on older hardware. WebGPU and WebAssembly are getting close to matching the speed and capabilities of older hardware. Tab UI is possible to hide, and has been for some time. You can "app-ify" a web site into a dedicated window with no browser UI. ISTR apps that we doing this >10 years ago. I think the real differences break down to economics. Can't charge an app store fee for web sites or force sites to use your advertising network.
• robotwizard 5y ago
  great article! the fact that the same businesses and applications exist on both web and mobile doesn't mean the "web has to do apps". The flexibility you get on a desktop or a laptop cannot compare to the limited UI of the mobile apps. My guess is they'll both co-exist for a while.
• anonu 5y ago
  Also, what we call "mobile" is actually just 2 nice walled gardens with doors called "App Store" and "Play Store". That's at least another reason why the web is not pervasive on mobile: Apple and Google are quite happy that it's not that way because they can monetize their platforms with far more control than through the browser. The article references app stores pointing out that they reduced user friction in payments and subscriptions around apps. Of course, under the guise of user experience you can focus your development efforts on native tool chains and not invest in the mobile browser experience.
  • andai 5y ago
    That's right. Web standards are spearheaded by Google, while Apple's job is to make sure they don't work on iOS.
    • batty_alex 5y ago
      Tell me, why does Apple need to do exactly what Google does? I thought we liked different ideas and competition ‘round these parts?
      • xiphias2 5y ago
        Apple just doesn't do it in any way. There's no way to permamently store data on Safari. At least Google Chrome has the File writer API (even though it would be good to have permament IndexedDB storage as well).
        • kitsunesoba 5y ago
          IIRC you can permanently store information under iOS Safari if the site is installed as a PWA, which makes some amount of sense. By associating long term storage with the intentional action of adding to Home Screen, sites are prevented from storing things without user permission and the feature's capability as a method of fingerprinting is greatly reduced.
          • 5y ago
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• cblconfederate 5y ago
  Native platforms are just a transitory phase -- because the web people coulnd't make up their minds fast enough about the suitable APIs for mobile. Native mobile apps are basically imitating the web, they even have URLs and links. It's inconvenient, since mostly they take you in and out of web pages. When google's economic interests align again with the web, we ll probably see the end of the native-binary packaging of the web, just like how we experienced the end of CD-ROMs
• jl2718 5y ago
  Safety is the only differentiator. Sun legally controlled sandboxed execution on PCs, while abandoning it. HTML/JS was a poor substitute for iOS/Dalvik, but the only option without legal issues. The linking issue is important, but not present in the mobile alternative. And networking support via XmlHttpRequest is trash compared to native sockets.
• guerrilla 5y ago
  Regarding the second question, I think the real reason why didn’t the web disrupt mobile is because mobile has been too slow. That "native" performance gets over the last hump and I think that made the difference. The other reasons and observations definitely contributed, but I feel we forgot just how slug slow things were.
• taylodl 5y ago
  The answer is simple. Mobile devices lag behind desktop devices by about 10 years in terms of memory and processing power. When did web applications really start to dominate on the desktop? Think Electron apps and things like that - less than 10 years ago. My prediction? Within 5 years web apps will have taken over in the mobile space.
  • jillesvangurp 5y ago
    There's more going on here. The orginal iphone had no sdk. So the only way to run stuff on it that wasn't built by Apple was via Safari. It ran ajax applications just fine. I actually worked at Nokia Research at the time and a few of my colleagues were responsible for porting webkit to Symbian, that was around 2005; around the time Ajax applications were becoming a thing before the iphone was more than a rumor. For a while, there were many iphone optimized mobile websites. E.g. Google reader had an iphone version. Typically these worked well on the S60 webkit browser as well and looked and functioned much nicer than the typical mobile websites optimized for the much crappier browsers that were common before that. Opera mini became a thing around the same time, which was an actual browser implemented in j2me that you could run on feature phones. Performance was not really an issue with this. That was the problem: it worked a bit too well and you didn't need an iphone to use these websites. Apple fixed it with a native SDK, an appstore, and a by now well established practice of systematically crippling the browser experience on IOS in subtle ways. For a long time you had weird memory restrictions, they never bothered with progressive web apps, and they have very strict policies in the app store that further ensure users and developers focus on building "native" experiences. It would be fairly easy to fix it. But of course there's a rule against third parties doing that too. Safari is the one and only browser that is allowed on the platform. Officially that's because it benefits the user but the obvious actual reason is that Apple does not want people removing obstacles that would allow for a better application experience inside browsers. Flash was banned for the same reasons before the iphone even launched. So were applets and the whole j2me ecosystem that existed at the time. Google on the other hand shipped chrome on a far more open platform. But they make money from ads rather than hardware sales. Which is why the playstore exists and why anyone earning money with apps and ads prefers using native apps as well. The status quo is these two fairly locked down platforms and a few niche platforms that don't seem to move the needle much when it comes to what people build. That might change in the next few years as the Apple/Google duopoly slowly heads for inevitable court cases which might introduce more application stores and platforms. When that happens, web first becomes a cheap strategy to target mobile because testing and building apps for each platform is already getting quite expensive with just two of them. Add wasm to the mix and what's native and browser based becomes kind of blurry in any case. Five years is about right in terms of timeline. But you can bet that Apple will drag their heels with all of this.
• NewEntryHN 5y ago
  - Computers have more CPU than mobile phones. - Standard and easy installation process of Apps. - Apps born with modern UI.
• avnigo 5y ago
  I thought it was because, originally, native apps on mobile were better performant than web apps, which did not need to be optimized for the device they would run on, or efficient in terms of battery usage. Desktop hardware was more powerful and forgiving to unoptimized web apps or poorly performing web engines.
  • Razengan 5y ago
    > native apps on mobile were better performant than web apps, which did not need to be optimized for the device they would run on, or efficient in terms of battery usage. It’s still the case now, desktop or mobile. Not to mention lack of accessibility features.
• mullikine 5y ago
  This is an example of an imaginary web browser to surf the imaginary internet, using OpenAI's Codex. It's built into Pen.el and is completely free as in freedom. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28489942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28489942 I made a post on HN but didn't get enough hits, so crossposting to relevant HN posts such as this. https://semiosis.github.io/posts/the-imaginary-web-with-codex/ https://semiosis.github.io/posts/the-imaginary-web-with-code... - Visit any website you can imagine, even the ones that are not real! - Edit and re-imagine as you go see alternative website realities – change the sentiment of the author! - Peer into the future – read about GPT-5! - Generate relevant URLs (often real, sometimes imaginary) from any text selection - Read an article on anything from your favourite blogger. - … This is the future of the web.
• LeonB 5y ago
  If IE was the only browser allowed on Windows, we could write articles about how native apps on desktop are just so much better than all web-based applications, and I guess it’s just the way things are.
• GTP 5y ago
  "The sandbox made software safe. Installing software on a PC is a risk. When you install an app, it can do anything to your computer, no restrictions. This design choice was enormously generative, and enabled the open-ended evolution of whole new product categories. It also enabled the evolution of viruses. The web was globally networked, and could not assume every link was safe. Code on the web was sandboxed—trapped in a bubble—and it could only interact with your computer through carefully controlled APIs." I don't agree with this paragraph. There are many ways to constrain what a native application can do on a PC and conversely there are many ways a malicious website could harm you using Javascript.
  • eptcyka 5y ago
    Aside from running a native application in a VM, most other sandboxing solutions are escapable, mostly because no mainstream desktop OS was architected with sandboxing in mind. Jails are as good as we got, and even then the kernel is far too insecure IMO. Its very hard to support a POSIX api and then retrofit sandboxing. And with VMs, there are numerous escapes, its just another frontier of security issues, not unlike browsers. But browsers were built with sandboxing as a core part of the design, and if you were to not use the newer, far buggier APIs, like Bluetooth and WebGPU, I'd argue that the browser would be relatively safe for a layperson. And much more practical than a VM.
  • 0xCMP 5y ago
    Only by technical people and with massive tradeoffs. For example the fact that applications could until very recently read any file almost anywhere on the computer that the user could. Even if, clearly, that application had no reason to be able to read that file in particular.
• morpheos137 5y ago
  personally i hate using phone apps. Whenever there is a choice I just use the browser. I think apps are a fad. It is completely possible to just use a browser on or off your smart phone for almost everything you can do with an app.
• cryptica 5y ago
  Because of brainwashing and manipulation by big corporations which made people believe that native mobile apps are superior to web/browser based ones. The reason for this is that big companies didn't want to be sandboxed in a browser, they wanted full access of users devices, sensors and data. It's the same reason why software developers use paid enterprise subscription services instead of open source software. They were successfully brainwashed to believe that the open source software is difficult to operate or doesn't work as well as the enterprise software. Meanwhile enterprise service companies are collecting and monetizing data from all their apps... In addition to recurring revenue. People are suggestible and easy to manipulate, that's why. If you flash some big stacks of cash in front of their faces, they'll believe anything you tell them. You don't even need to give them any cash, just show them you have it. People follow the money like sheep to a slaughterhouse.
  • madmaniak 5y ago
    Appreciate your comment.
• mrfusion 5y ago
  I think web is the consumer preference. I’ll be 100x more likely to use your service if there’s a workable web version. Unfortunately the gatekeepers don’t expose most phone functions to websites.
• andi999 5y ago
  Maybe it is addressed in the article (I find it hard to read), but I always thought it was because internet on computers is/was quite reliable, while on mobile it is either not so reliable or data plans were quite expensive. Like you want to download the app and some data for the app to be able to use it when you are offline.
• lordlic 5y ago
  I like the overall framework of trying to identify asymmetries that web was able to exploit in each epoch. Unfortunately, the details are a real mixed bag: * Why did the web disrupt desktop? It's not even really worth addressing these, because they're all so weak. None of the actual reasons that web was successful are here. And the ones that are there are nonsense. For example, to suggest that security in the browser was a significant factor in the success of the web on the desktop is utterly detached from reality. Even if average people cared (which they didn't) then they'd be better off trusting software bought at the store than going into the wild west of the internet with the shambles that we called browser security back then. * Why didn’t the web disrupt mobile? - the web’s network advantage had evaporated If anything this argues against the thesis that "make anaerobes do photosynthesis" is insufficient. How would apps become successful by merely matching the existing networked nature of the web? At best this item is filler that adds nothing. - The iPhone was a completely new thing Yes, this is actually a good point. New paradigms and new APIs for a new type of device. Makes sense. - The basis of performance shifted from small binaries to smooth interaction What? No. This is silly. There's no way that the web prioritizing download size had a significant impact here. And "smooth interaction" has absolutely nothing to do with binary size, so I have no idea why the author is associating them. - Navigation shifted from keyboard to springboard Kind of a repeat of the smartphone being a new device, but okay, good additional flavor. - Log-in disappeared completely I mean I guess. But if there's any difference, it's more a matter of shared devices not being so much of a thing with phones. Web is perfectly capable of "one-and-done" logins, and many sites do that. And you could easily have a longer session cookie on your mobile site based on the single-user-per-device assumption. - Discovery shifted from search to app store Decent point, but only by accident. "Lowering the friction of software install" is nothing, since web has zero friction in that regard. I don't think that typing-free discovery was really that huge of a deal either. But having a large ecosystem of app developers, with ratings and featured content, was enormously influential. This might have been possible with web technologies but obviously nobody did it well enough to gain critical mass. - Engagement shifted from links to icons You could have single-page applications on web, with shortcuts on your home screen, send notifications through the browser, etc. You can use icons instead of links on web. Behind the pile of buzzwords, this item is nothing. "Deep, branded experiences" really? - Business models expanded to IAP, subscriptions, and app purchase. Yeah I think this is a good point. Having a single payment processor in the play store / app store that knows your payment details did reduce friction. - Security shifted from sandbox to app review No, no, no. Not this again. People don't really care about security, and anyway again, app security was still dogshit by the time it had won on mobile, just like browser security was by the time it had won on the desktop. Apps requesting tons of permissions to spy on users were rampant for years and years, even with apps being reviewed by apple/google. And how does this item even constitute a competitive advantage? You can have a browser remember permission to access your location or camera or whatever. There's nothing here. I feel like this article really dazzled with its introduction tying in business and evolution and setting up the framework for the problem, but then fell to absolute pieces when it came time for the author to actually know anything about technology. Even if there are some good points here, the missteps really undermine their credibility. The analysis of the success of web on desktop is especially lacking, but I don't feel like it's a great analysis on the web vs app section either...
• atatatat 5y ago
  Lot of words to say "Apple's App Store".
• Zababa 5y ago
  There's something I don't understand. I've been hearing about "responsive web design" for years, that you should make sure your websites work well on mobile phones, because they are the majority of the traffic. I know that doesn't mean that the majority of phone usage is spent on the web, but still, mobile users use the web, and they use it a lot.
• hateful 5y ago
  In my first programming job (2000-2004), we mostly used "native" applications (the company was mostly mainframe but the "PC Programming" was done in VB6). Then the .com crash happened and we hired all of these "web developers" that were out of work and all they knew was the web. So the next programs we wrote all of a sudden web based. I remember thinking that they weren't really a good fit since we were doing mostly file processing work. They were slower and needed permissions and required servers. I would imagine something similar happened everywhere. All of a sudden there wasn't many web developer jobs and web developers had to take "regular" programming jobs. And when all you have is a hammer... In the long run, of course the Web grew, but in that short period of time there was definitely a displacement of skills and the rise of "Web Applications". I'm not talking of public applications, but rather internal business applications.
• gennarro 5y ago
  This is one of the least clear and most overwrought articles I’ve seen on HN in some time. The extended comparison to algae is not helpful. Neither system - modern computing or ancient evolution - are simple enough to benefit from a direct comparison.
• api 5y ago
  Mobile platforms deliberately worked to prevent it by making PWAs hard. A secondary reason is that desktops are way faster and have way more RAM than most mobile devices.
• fassssst 5y ago
  Constant authentication dialogs kills it for me.
• madmaniak 5y ago
  I can give some answer: because web pages were artificially throttled on devices (at least iPhone) and mobile applications were promoted with endless stream of money from central banks - if you took any kind of IT subsidy (at least EU) you needed to make mobile app obligatory. Mobile app is much better for malicious and hidden functionality of the app - that's why the transition was needed. Cheers!
• jensensbutton 5y ago
  > Why did the web take over desktop and not mobile? Because the desktop is not portable so your applications still need to move with you. Phones are with you wherever you are so interaction always happens on the same physical hardware.
• known 5y ago
  Aren't Apps taking over the mobile ?
• aj7 5y ago
  “Discovery shifted from search to app store.” No. The App Store is like going to the dentist.
• amw-zero 5y ago
  If you ask me, the number one reason is that Android and iOS have UI libraries that are specifically meant for mobile devices. Yes, you can design a web app for a mobile phone, but there is nothing that guides you or gives you any help in that direction. For example, navigation between screens. On iOS, you have a nav bar at the top of the screen, and when you navigate to a new screen it slides over the current one, animating in a back button back to the previous screen. All apps behave this way, and when you have an iPhone you don't even notice this - it is just the way you interact with all apps. You would have to hand-build that on the web, or use some random library that probably uses CPU animations and looks and feels bad. Compare that with the corresponding iOS app code: self.navigationController?.pushViewController(vc, animated: true) Then add on top of that other platform-specific things like location detection, push notifications, or camera interaction. The web got those, but years later. The native libraries are simply built for the native use case, and it's a huge competitive advantage.
  • IshKebab 5y ago
    That's definitely not the reason. When the iPhone first came out the idea was that all third party apps would be web apps. It was the official way. Of course everyone hated it because performance sucked and interactions weren't smooth and reliable.
    • amw-zero 5y ago
      So mobile web was not enjoyable for users, and native apps (which use the APIs that I attribute their success to) won out. In what way does that go against what I said? (it doesn't)
• Kipters 5y ago
  > The main reason I care about the Web is because it's the world's biggest software platform that isn't owned. And now we live in a world where the web is owned by Chromium and thus Google.
• jbverschoor 5y ago
  Because it's slow, requires a connection, because it behaves weird (rubberband, scrolling, selecting text, etc, etc), no discovery (app store), etc.
• 0xbadcafebee 5y ago
  Because it's the best fit. They're both unique complex systems which leads to different use cases and pros/cons. Mobile is best taken advantage of via native. It has a rock solid distribution system, which sort of doubles as a marketing platform? It's more portable. There's lots of system features exposed to native apps. Your app can be on always, collecting telemetry and pushing notifications. The net connection is not always great. Desktop is best taken advantage of via the web. Portability is a pain for native desktop, and there's no unified distribution system. You don't need background apps to be on all the time, people spend more time with their phones anyway. There isn't as much unique hw/sw functionality. But you have the fastest net access.
• indymike 5y ago
  Short version: Browsers evolved as desktops evolved. In 2008 when mobile was new, an iPhone (600mhz 32 bit CPU, 256MB RAM) or TMobile G4 (528Mhz, 192MB RAM), were pretty puny compared to the desktop machines of the time (1Ghz +, 4-16GB RAM). As a result, if you wanted to do something meaningful, you had to compile. Originally, Apple said that iPhone apps would be Javascript and web view based. Palm bet the farm on Javascript + webviews for WebOs. Apple changed course quickly, and WebOS just didn't get enough traction.
• hakutsuru 5y ago
  Constraints. More memory requires more power and weight, but portability and features restrict battery size. Non-native languages use garbage collection, which implies 6x memory or limited performance. It is possible to emulate manual memory management, but this does not seem a common practice. Hence, if developers write apps the standard way using web technologies, they will perform poorly on mobile devices compared with native apps. This is primarily about ios though. Android is a different world, since it seems apps primarily use the Java ecosystem.
• eyelidlessness 5y ago
  I think there’s a lot of good insight in the article, but it may be overthought. When I saw the question in the title, the answer that immediately came to mind was: 1. Switching apps on mobile is significantly less friction than switching browser tabs. (And it’s somewhat less friction for many people than switching apps on desktop.) 2. There’s significantly more investment in quality, mostly native, apps on mobile platforms.
• streamofdigits 5y ago
  the biological analogy is not really fitting. there is no natural ecosystem that is as concentrated a monoculture as the technology sector. in nature, if your carefully nurtured monoculture (don't call me Microsoft) failed, your field would normally grow a dozen types of weeds, not another monoculture. the different tech epochs feel more like the passing of the "torch" from one dominant entity to the next rather than any broad based competition for survival of the fittest. this structure has as much to do with the political / regulatory systems of those eras as any intrinsic aspects of digital technology. but on the substance of the future of the "web" (=the future of non-owned computing) its rough outlines are already there and they are beautiful: it will break the confines of the "browser" (the OS becomes the browser), and break the confines of the http protocol. mobile will be just another form factor in "convergent computing", offering another UI into both self-sovereign data spaces and federated interaction platforms mark my words, the era now on its final legs will be remembered with disdain as a stagnant cash-cow period that had no moral scruples and exploited any and all human behavioral failings to turn users into exploitable idiots.
• QuadrupleA 5y ago
  Is it true that the web on mobile is dying or dead? I'm using HN here on mobile. At least half the visitors on most sites I build are on are on mobile. My most oft-used app is by far the browser. And like others have said, often mobile apps are just thin containers around an embedded web app. Facebook etc. apps are hugely popular, but the web is still very alive.
• killjoywashere 5y ago
  > I’ll offer my sense of the landscape in part 2, next week. God. Fucking. Damn. It. Just wait and publish the whole thing. There's no Netflix for the web. I don't want to subscribe, I just want the next episode when it comes available. Not the next 100 episodes. One of the great things about the current video systems (HBO, Apple TV, etc) is that these shows accumulate a few seasons before they catch fire. And then you can watch an episode. And then maybe another episode. Or not. You don't have to wait for next Thursday's episode of Friends.
• brundolf 5y ago
  Installation threshold is my guess. To install an app on mobile you go to a specific place, find it, peruse screenshots and reviews if you want to, hit one standardized button, and it's installed in seconds. On desktop, you Google it. You hope the first link is the right one and not malware. You poke through a few pages until you find some sort of download button. Your OS asks you where you want to save it. You save it and then go find the file and open it. Then some kind of installer usually runs that may ask you further questions. It's probably going to dump some clutter in various places and will hopefully give you an icon that you can use to run it without searching for the install location. For companies trying to ratchet-up conversions, this friction matters a whole lot These days there's also the developer experience, but I think developer experience for desktop apps tanked because marketshare tanked, not the other way around
• dfdz 5y ago
  After a long discussion of sea algae the author makes several good points. Here is a short summary to save others time. On Mobile: > The basis of performance shifted from small binaries to smooth interaction. > Log-in disappeared completely. The web’s de facto identity system is designed for a world of keyboards. Thumb-typing usernames and passwords is excruciating. But native app log-in is one-and-done. > Discovery shifted from search to app store. > Engagement shifted from links to icons. > Business models expanded to IAP, subscriptions, and app purchase. Security shifted from sandbox to app review.
• dleslie 5y ago
  For many people wireless connectivity is spotty at best; particularly rural USA, most of Canada, and much of the non-western world. Whereas home internet connections tend to be fairly reliable. Anecdotally, I don't rely on web apps because the terrible network reliability that I have means that they are frustratingly slow and frequently outright break. Native mobile apps work just fine.
  • brundolf 5y ago
    Properly-written PWAs can keep code and data locally cached to avoid this problem. Of course most companies just don't bother implementing that stuff
    • dleslie 5y ago
      If most of the business logic is on a server then caching doesn't help; there's too many misses. Besides, major draws for building web apps includes control of user data and keeping business logic behind an API.
      • brundolf 5y ago
        There's nothing technical that stops you from putting business logic in the web client any more than on native (except I guess working with local files, but not many mobile apps do that these days anyway). I'm just saying, if the key benefit is not having to download the app every time you open it, and instead only downloading the actual data as needed (to save on bandwidth), PWAs can serve that usecase (if they're designed to).
        • adrianmonk 5y ago
          I think this is technically viable, but I wonder if a lot of projects fail (from a performance perspective) because teams don't realize the limitations of mobile networks early enough. So they develop everything on wifi, and it seems OK, and they make certain design choices. Then after they launch, performance is terrible when people try to use it on cell networks. By then it's too late to fix performance because they'd have to re-architect the whole thing. The lesson they could take away from it -- the one that would be most accurate -- is, "We should have designed our mobile web client differently." But the subtlety is lost and the message everyone learns is more like, "Last time, when we did a mobile web client approach, it was a disaster. Let's never do that again. From now on, it's native apps."
• The_rationalist 5y ago
  Ionic makes native development obscolete, it's just a matter of time before people realize it, progress always has inertia
• eh9 5y ago
  Apps
• unnouinceput 5y ago
  Let's agree to disagree. Web didn't take over anything, it found its own niche. Native apps, web apps and mobile apps they all live in this together. Before mobile billions of people could not afford a computer, to have desktop at their disposal. Nowadays an inexpensive Android (like $20) with enough power to run WhatsApp can be found in hands of dirt poor rural Indians. Hence why mobile devices are more numerous. But they didn't ate anything from dekstop. Same with web, it found a place to exists. Do you want a truly "great oxidation event"? That would be a headband activated by Alpha/Beta/whatever brain waves so you can wear your computer on your head and command it using your thoughts. That's gonna be a true device, that will disrupt both desktop and mobile altogether. Until then the next "wave" is gonna be IoT where you'd play Doom on your coffee maker. Nothing disruptive about IoT either, just another gizmo for us to play with.
• tgtweak 5y ago
  Is it hard to see? App stores and the motivations of the companies governing them. Nothing else than that is needed to explain it.
• karaterobot 5y ago
  I remember native mobile apps disrupting the web, rather than the other way around. The reason native apps disrupted web apps was because they were (all else equal) more performant, and had access to more of the device, and because companies drove users to using their apps because they could get more value out of them that way. My take on it at the time was that native apps gave companies a way to reset their relationships with web users, and bring them into an environment where users had less control, and companies had more.
• Ginden 5y ago
  - Because desktops wasn't limiting web capabilities. Apple does. - Because PWAs started working on iOS in 2018. - Because native solutions are faster than JavaScript and HTML. - Headstart for development tools.
• heavyset_go 5y ago
  Because of anticompetitive actions taken by the companies that dominate the mobile operating systems market in order to dominate the mobile app distribution market, as well as the mobile app payments market. Those companies made billions of dollars each year through their anticompetitive behavior.
  • srcreigh 5y ago
    If iOS mobile web supported push notifications and permanent app links on the phone, I don't know if we would be asking this question.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
• irrational 5y ago
  Apple. It is as simple as that. If another browser could run on iOS (not having to use safari under the hood), then things could be different.
• softwaredoug 5y ago
  Did it? I almost exclusively use the mobile browser and don’t like installing lots of apps. They’re intrusive, they always want to collect things like location data, drain the battery, take up space, and spam me with notifications. The app is often built to steal more of my attention by being faster and shinier… For example, no matter how hobbled the Reddit web experience is, I don’t want their annoying app. I’d rather sandbox it to iPhone safari and protect my sanity.
  • johannes1234321 5y ago
    And apps are worse. When looking at news sites, HN, ... my way of using those is that i open interesting articles in background tabs and then go through them. With an app I constantly have to go back and forth between front page and article. Especially annoying with longer reads.
• KKKKkkkk1 5y ago
  So the Google suite of web apps has a feature called "Create shortcut" that turns a web app into a desktop app sitting in your launcher. Even with that feature, it's a subpar experience compared to macOS's native apps. So I wouldn't be so quick to claim that web took over desktop.
• jamil7 5y ago
  Why do we as a community feel that one technology has to “take over” another all the time? Native apps continue to exist on desktop alongside web apps and that’s fine, as the capabilities of PWAs increase we might see more coexisting with native apps on mobile. With web assembly and projects like wasmer the lines are likely to become blurry anyway.
• rastafang 5y ago
  Because of the duopoly that pushed native apps way harder then the web, mostly.
• rythie 5y ago
  I think the main reason is distribution. Desktop apps were/are difficult to distribute. To get an desktop app into organisation, you either needed to tell people to install something, and they need disk space, RAM, different versions of Windows, might not work on Mac, almost never on Linux. Then they need to update the app regularly somehow, still not solved for all apps. Bigger orgs have managed distribution, but then smaller groups can’t install things without going through IT. Then you’ve got servers, which require someone to setup, maintain and have their own lead time. Webapps, especially free ones, have none of these issues an individual can just start using it. Webapps mean everyone using the latest version straight away. Phone apps seem to be modelled on webapps, typically the server is run by the app maker, installs are easy and updates are automatic. Additionally, phone apps automatically go on the home screen and have notifications, which means you’ll open them more often.
  • rythie 5y ago
    Additionally, in the 2000s we had IE-only webapps, meaning that when companies only cared about Windows clients, they still thought making webapp was a better way to reach their customers than a Win32 app.
• nijave 5y ago
  Cell networks were also really terrible when smart phones hit the scene. I remember outside of big metro areas 2G with 20+ second latency, at times (yes, seconds) It's pretty hard to use traditional responsive web apps over such an abysmal network Native apps can offer a layer of insulation with prepulled assets and more advanced network handling (you can change pages and even close a native app with outstanding requests and it's usually fine--it'll handle changes asynchronously when the network is available)
• boopmaster 5y ago
  Because internet explorer? Mobile web was very bad until a few short years ago. LTE and Chrome have been changing the narrative. Even when webs app are fine and readily available, I prefer installed apps for some such as ms office at work, slack, discord on desktop. Push notifications require local installation on mobile or desktop, unless yours like to live a tab open. It’s often the mobile messages that bring the human back to the desktop nowadays? Sensors such as iBeacon and NFC require local installs and no guarantee of a camera or scanner on a desktop.
• LAC-Tech 5y ago
  I hope the web takes over mobile. So sick of being nagged at to install apps.
• hamburgerwah 5y ago
  Mobile was built as a spyware platform down to the roots. You can make a lot of money with spyware. It's that simple.
• deburo 5y ago
  I'd like to add that web performance in Android was terrible, last time I had a Nexus 2. Collapsing threads on Hackner News was terribly slow. Any Discourse forum site was almost unusable. Then I switched to an iPhone and it was much better. Anyway, I just mean that "modern" mobile sites couldn't have taken over native apps on Android. Its web engine is just not performing well enough.
• j45 5y ago
  Palm’s webos was likely 10 years ahead of its time. It was one of the few devices where web based technologies were first class citizens. Applications and the entire UI were built in JavaScript and HTML. iOS and Android were, and are not as able to express via web interactions. It was difficult to even compile web apps as mobile apps for the iOS web store. The desktop didn’t belong to anyone and was reasonably open from an app perspective. So was the web. Maybe webos or something like it will emerge in the future and let us see what tightly managed mobile environments we live with.
• cyberpsybin 5y ago
  Ads and privacy and horrendous in native apps. User has zero control over what they can do to enhance their experience. Of course the web will never take over in mobile.
• p0nce 5y ago
  Apple contributed hugely to kill Flash and Java on the Desktop (let alone things like Silverlight). ALso non-native code is still 2x slower all things considered.
• ___j___ 5y ago
  o