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Please don’t use tools like these. Customers want native apps, not thinly-wrapped websites disguised as apps. (If you reply to this thread, insisting that your

Please don’t use tools like these. Customers want native apps, not thinly-wrapped websites disguised as apps. (If you reply to this thread, insisting that your customers don’t care, please tell us what your app is and how what value it provides customers that exceeds the website’s functionality.)

ccouzens 5y ago
Maybe no one wants sites wrapped in an app, but some of us do want to use the site through our web browser. So please keep on building web sites/web apps :)
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
I won’t exhort folks not to write these things, but I write native apps, using Swift, and built-in Cocoa APIs. As a result of using native tech, I can offer a lot of very cool stuff, but I do know that many customers are fine with a far scruffier UX. They just won’t get it from me.
- bsagdiyev 5y ago
  I really am not sure why you got downvoted. It feels like people feel strongly they should write crap web apps and force it on users.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    Yeah...we're an insecure lot. I've learned not to slag others. I've learned not to say something like "X is bad," and, instead say "I don't like X, for myself, and here's why..." A few posts ago, I said something about X Windows that wasn't really a put-down, but was not complimentary, and that was interpreted as a slag. Some of this stuff is really not worth the increased heart rate to argue about. Apple tends to bring out the beast in people. We have some very strong feelings and opinions about it. I do feel like my own approach to Apple is fairly balanced. I've had a lot of time to have the rough bits worn off.
smoldesu 5y ago
No. If Apple values their user experience they shouldn't throw developers under the bus. When they fail to adopt cross-platform standards like Vulkan, this is what happens.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  I wonder if you realize that "cross-platform standard like Vulkan" was announced two years after Apple had already released Metal v1 (after investing significant resources into it)? Why should Apple invest in supporting Vulkan, exactly?
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    That makes no difference. Apple has the resources to support two graphics APIs at once, and the detriment of not doing so has been setting in quite heavily. The game performance through MoltenVK says it all, really: perfectly powerful GPUs get imposed a 50-75% performance penalty when translating to Metal, which is pretty slow compared to similar systems (like DXVK). If they aren't going to make Metal available on other, non-Apple systems, they should make Vulkan available at least. If they want to attract more cross-platform software, they need to start supporting better dev tooling. If Vulkan was available for Macs, most devs could simply set their build for ARMv8, target MacOS and compile their apps the same way they do for Windows, Linux, PS5, Xbox, Switch, Android, and even WASM. As it stands though, maintaining a separate codebase for a fraction of your users isn't very viable from a developer's perspective, which becomes glaringly obvious when you look out on the seemingly infinite graveyard of depreciated MacOS apps and games.
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      > That makes no difference. It makes all the difference > Apple has the resources to support two graphics APIs at once Why should they? > The game performance through MoltenVK says it all, really: perfectly powerful GPUs get imposed a 50-75% performance penalty when translating to Metal, which is pretty slow compared to similar systems Why should Apple care? Their systems are selling like hot cakes, outpacing everyone. > If they aren't going to make Metal available on other, non-Apple systems, they should make Vulkan available at least. Once again, why should they? > If they want to attract more cross-platform software, they need to start supporting better dev tooling. I think they've been quite clear that they don't want more cross-platfrom software. > from a developer's perspective, which becomes glaringly obvious when you look out on the seemingly infinite graveyard of depreciated MacOS apps and games. The lack of games has always been the case, even when OpenGL was the only way to make gaming graphics on MacOS. Apple has never care about gaming on their desktops and laptops. And gaming is doing just fine on the iPhone.
folmar 5y ago
Many things that need to be apps on iOS are fine as PWAs, just Apple's crippling of PWA functionality (no notifications+no background sync mean you can't have your data up to date, all data deleted after a few days if not on the home screen) forces vendors to wrap them as apps. The missing value is offline access to whatever data you need at the moment, for example your schedule for a conference - the cellular networks failing at large events due to overcrowding are common.

ccouzens 5y ago

Maybe no one wants sites wrapped in an app, but some of us do want to use the site through our web browser. So please keep on building web sites/web apps :)

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

I won’t exhort folks not to write these things, but I write native apps, using Swift, and built-in Cocoa APIs. As a result of using native tech, I can offer a lot of very cool stuff, but I do know that many customers are fine with a far scruffier UX. They just won’t get it from me.

bsagdiyev 5y ago
I really am not sure why you got downvoted. It feels like people feel strongly they should write crap web apps and force it on users.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  Yeah...we're an insecure lot. I've learned not to slag others. I've learned not to say something like "X is bad," and, instead say "I don't like X, for myself, and here's why..." A few posts ago, I said something about X Windows that wasn't really a put-down, but was not complimentary, and that was interpreted as a slag. Some of this stuff is really not worth the increased heart rate to argue about. Apple tends to bring out the beast in people. We have some very strong feelings and opinions about it. I do feel like my own approach to Apple is fairly balanced. I've had a lot of time to have the rough bits worn off.

smoldesu 5y ago

No. If Apple values their user experience they shouldn't throw developers under the bus. When they fail to adopt cross-platform standards like Vulkan, this is what happens.

dmitriid 5y ago
I wonder if you realize that "cross-platform standard like Vulkan" was announced two years after Apple had already released Metal v1 (after investing significant resources into it)? Why should Apple invest in supporting Vulkan, exactly?
- smoldesu 5y ago
  That makes no difference. Apple has the resources to support two graphics APIs at once, and the detriment of not doing so has been setting in quite heavily. The game performance through MoltenVK says it all, really: perfectly powerful GPUs get imposed a 50-75% performance penalty when translating to Metal, which is pretty slow compared to similar systems (like DXVK). If they aren't going to make Metal available on other, non-Apple systems, they should make Vulkan available at least. If they want to attract more cross-platform software, they need to start supporting better dev tooling. If Vulkan was available for Macs, most devs could simply set their build for ARMv8, target MacOS and compile their apps the same way they do for Windows, Linux, PS5, Xbox, Switch, Android, and even WASM. As it stands though, maintaining a separate codebase for a fraction of your users isn't very viable from a developer's perspective, which becomes glaringly obvious when you look out on the seemingly infinite graveyard of depreciated MacOS apps and games.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    > That makes no difference. It makes all the difference > Apple has the resources to support two graphics APIs at once Why should they? > The game performance through MoltenVK says it all, really: perfectly powerful GPUs get imposed a 50-75% performance penalty when translating to Metal, which is pretty slow compared to similar systems Why should Apple care? Their systems are selling like hot cakes, outpacing everyone. > If they aren't going to make Metal available on other, non-Apple systems, they should make Vulkan available at least. Once again, why should they? > If they want to attract more cross-platform software, they need to start supporting better dev tooling. I think they've been quite clear that they don't want more cross-platfrom software. > from a developer's perspective, which becomes glaringly obvious when you look out on the seemingly infinite graveyard of depreciated MacOS apps and games. The lack of games has always been the case, even when OpenGL was the only way to make gaming graphics on MacOS. Apple has never care about gaming on their desktops and laptops. And gaming is doing just fine on the iPhone.

folmar 5y ago

Many things that need to be apps on iOS are fine as PWAs, just Apple's crippling of PWA functionality (no notifications+no background sync mean you can't have your data up to date, all data deleted after a few days if not on the home screen) forces vendors to wrap them as apps. The missing value is offline access to whatever data you need at the moment, for example your schedule for a conference - the cellular networks failing at large events due to overcrowding are common.