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I use native apps only when I need the functionality of a native app: particular performance concerns / notifications / peripheral connectivity / etc. But I tr

I use native apps only when I need the functionality of a native app: particular performance concerns / notifications / peripheral connectivity / etc. But I try my best to not install any apps that I don't consider necessary. I feel everyone wants to push an app for what could be achieved trivially with a website (looking at you Xfinity).

luckylion 4y ago
It's strange when I read about what some companies spend on apps (e.g. some crypto prices + news + educational videos) where they could've gotten away with Wordpress, Youtube and some API for the data. Instead of focusing on content, they spend months of multiple developers building an app, struggle with maintaining it on iOS and Android and have won the ability to ... I don't know, I guess you can now use the gyroscope and accelerometer to suggest shit coins to track? Is "being in the appstore" worth that much because it's starting to be the primary thing people search when they're looking for something instead of Google?
- jstarfish 4y ago
  > I guess you can now use the gyroscope and accelerometer to suggest shit coins to track? No, you build a sizable userbase and sell out to some unscrupulous buyer who backdoors the app in a future update.
  - hgsgm 4y ago
    No you just take money to install unscrupulous libraries.
- toyg 4y ago
  > and have won the ability to ... ... track you a bit better and get paid a bit more easily (if with a hefty tax), but more importantly, they can be on the Home screen of users, which people will look at a billion times per day. Yes you can bookmark a website - and nobody does, it gets buried in some submenu you don't even know how to bring back up. Yes you can pin a bookmark on the Home screen, but people don't know how - and even if they did, they likely wouldn't get a nice icon, and it would launch an irrelevant browser interface around it, and it would all feel a bit crappy. Whereas, people know very well how to install an app. They'll automatically get a nice big logo on their home screen, and when they tap it the magic will happen as it's supposed to be. The big logo will remind them every other minute that they might want to access the service. Etc etc.
  - hgsgm 4y ago
    On Android at least, PWAs look like native apps.
    - dickersnoodle 4y ago
      Does that mean they look equally good or equally bad?
- the_gipsy 4y ago
  Being in the appstore, ratings, mobile singups... all that shit makes great manager objectives.
ejb999 4y ago
I agree - and the additional benefit of lots less opportunities to track you in ways that you don't want to be tracked.
- waboremo 4y ago
  Or it being monetized in weird ways. Mobile apps (especially on iOS) are bizarre. Who is paying these $19/mo fees for a barebones yoga app? Apparently someone out there since every single app on iOS is pushing an extremely high subscription cost.
  - hgsgm 4y ago
    iOS and Yoga are both extremely popular among people for whom $19/mo is to cheap to even notice. Even if it's only 1% of the username, it's millions of users.
  - geysersam 4y ago
    And Apple gets 30% of that! Crazy. For doing a code review and hosting a couple of mb of static data. I find it absurd when people complain about taxes, but it's fine when a company taxes us for profit...
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  And in a better sandbox with fewer avenues to attack security.
kibwen 4y ago
Seconded. I don't care if your website is 10x slower, I'll use a website over a native app any day, and if you only offer a native app for something that could trivially be a website there's a 99.9% chance that I'll tell you to pound sand rather than use your service at all.
zozbot234 4y ago
The ideal is FLOSS native apps, potentially with strong sandboxing, connecting to semantically-rich web-based APIs that provide any needed services. Which is pretty much how the Fediverse works. Web sites are the second best; proprietary apps should be the last resort.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  How are websites not proprietary?
  - throwaway81523 4y ago
    They are proprietary but they don't persist on your computer when you clear cache and close the browser, unlike apps that can linger and spy on you forever, even after you supposedly uninstall. Uber famously got in trouble with Apple over that, but who knows how many are doing it without getting caught.
turtlebits 4y ago
I wish I could do that, but the convenience of FaceID auth for apps generally trumps the hassle of constant web site login-2fa for me, especially for those sites I don’t visit often.
- tomger 4y ago
  The 1Password FaceID integration automates website auth for me.
- dwaite 4y ago
  I'm hopeful this changes with passkeys - whether in-app or on the web, they can just ask you to reauthenticate the same way.
- h0l0cube 4y ago
  Which is the point of the article. This is something that should be available to web apps, but there's no motivation from Apple/Google to make that happen lest they tank their app store profits. Password managers provide a means of autofill with FaceID, which is the next best thing. This is how I log in to most native apps too.
javajosh 4y ago
Xfinity's app is a web wrapper anyway!
gxqoz 4y ago
I bought a new modem over the holidays. Xfinity required me to install the app to activate it. But their login system was broken. It was impossible to talk to a human over the phone because I had to go through the app. Really terrible experience. Had to lie and say I was cancelling to finally get a human on the phone to do this for me. Still can't log into their stupid web wrapper.
- racnid 4y ago
  I thought I was going crazy when their website kept pushing me to the app and I couldn't find an activate modem link. Please, why? Why is this necessary?
  - jareklupinski 4y ago
    they probably do something like switch your device's wifi network to the one that the router broadcasts to set itself up for an app with wifi permissions it's trivial, but there is no API to do this through a browser so we're stuck downloading an app i probably would not grant full network permissions to an app anyway
  - 1over137 4y ago
    Analytics probably.
- pbsb 4y ago
  "Web wrapper". What a great way to summarize the problem. Thank you.

luckylion 4y ago

It's strange when I read about what some companies spend on apps (e.g. some crypto prices + news + educational videos) where they could've gotten away with Wordpress, Youtube and some API for the data. Instead of focusing on content, they spend months of multiple developers building an app, struggle with maintaining it on iOS and Android and have won the ability to ... I don't know, I guess you can now use the gyroscope and accelerometer to suggest shit coins to track? Is "being in the appstore" worth that much because it's starting to be the primary thing people search when they're looking for something instead of Google?

jstarfish 4y ago
> I guess you can now use the gyroscope and accelerometer to suggest shit coins to track? No, you build a sizable userbase and sell out to some unscrupulous buyer who backdoors the app in a future update.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  No you just take money to install unscrupulous libraries.
toyg 4y ago
> and have won the ability to ... ... track you a bit better and get paid a bit more easily (if with a hefty tax), but more importantly, they can be on the Home screen of users, which people will look at a billion times per day. Yes you can bookmark a website - and nobody does, it gets buried in some submenu you don't even know how to bring back up. Yes you can pin a bookmark on the Home screen, but people don't know how - and even if they did, they likely wouldn't get a nice icon, and it would launch an irrelevant browser interface around it, and it would all feel a bit crappy. Whereas, people know very well how to install an app. They'll automatically get a nice big logo on their home screen, and when they tap it the magic will happen as it's supposed to be. The big logo will remind them every other minute that they might want to access the service. Etc etc.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  On Android at least, PWAs look like native apps.
  - dickersnoodle 4y ago
    Does that mean they look equally good or equally bad?
the_gipsy 4y ago
Being in the appstore, ratings, mobile singups... all that shit makes great manager objectives.

ejb999 4y ago

I agree - and the additional benefit of lots less opportunities to track you in ways that you don't want to be tracked.

waboremo 4y ago
Or it being monetized in weird ways. Mobile apps (especially on iOS) are bizarre. Who is paying these $19/mo fees for a barebones yoga app? Apparently someone out there since every single app on iOS is pushing an extremely high subscription cost.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  iOS and Yoga are both extremely popular among people for whom $19/mo is to cheap to even notice. Even if it's only 1% of the username, it's millions of users.
- geysersam 4y ago
  And Apple gets 30% of that! Crazy. For doing a code review and hosting a couple of mb of static data. I find it absurd when people complain about taxes, but it's fine when a company taxes us for profit...
stjohnswarts 4y ago
And in a better sandbox with fewer avenues to attack security.

kibwen 4y ago

Seconded. I don't care if your website is 10x slower, I'll use a website over a native app any day, and if you only offer a native app for something that could trivially be a website there's a 99.9% chance that I'll tell you to pound sand rather than use your service at all.

zozbot234 4y ago

The ideal is FLOSS native apps, potentially with strong sandboxing, connecting to semantically-rich web-based APIs that provide any needed services. Which is pretty much how the Fediverse works. Web sites are the second best; proprietary apps should be the last resort.

hgsgm 4y ago
How are websites not proprietary?
- throwaway81523 4y ago
  They are proprietary but they don't persist on your computer when you clear cache and close the browser, unlike apps that can linger and spy on you forever, even after you supposedly uninstall. Uber famously got in trouble with Apple over that, but who knows how many are doing it without getting caught.

turtlebits 4y ago

I wish I could do that, but the convenience of FaceID auth for apps generally trumps the hassle of constant web site login-2fa for me, especially for those sites I don’t visit often.

tomger 4y ago
The 1Password FaceID integration automates website auth for me.
dwaite 4y ago
I'm hopeful this changes with passkeys - whether in-app or on the web, they can just ask you to reauthenticate the same way.
h0l0cube 4y ago
Which is the point of the article. This is something that should be available to web apps, but there's no motivation from Apple/Google to make that happen lest they tank their app store profits. Password managers provide a means of autofill with FaceID, which is the next best thing. This is how I log in to most native apps too.

javajosh 4y ago

Xfinity's app is a web wrapper anyway!

gxqoz 4y ago

I bought a new modem over the holidays. Xfinity required me to install the app to activate it. But their login system was broken. It was impossible to talk to a human over the phone because I had to go through the app. Really terrible experience. Had to lie and say I was cancelling to finally get a human on the phone to do this for me. Still can't log into their stupid web wrapper.

racnid 4y ago
I thought I was going crazy when their website kept pushing me to the app and I couldn't find an activate modem link. Please, why? Why is this necessary?
- jareklupinski 4y ago
  they probably do something like switch your device's wifi network to the one that the router broadcasts to set itself up for an app with wifi permissions it's trivial, but there is no API to do this through a browser so we're stuck downloading an app i probably would not grant full network permissions to an app anyway
- 1over137 4y ago
  Analytics probably.
pbsb 4y ago
"Web wrapper". What a great way to summarize the problem. Thank you.