4 ms·

The only reason why I would install native application is if it's the only way of distribution and I absolutely NEED to use it (banking, government, etc.), for

The only reason why I would install native application is if it's the only way of distribution and I absolutely NEED to use it (banking, government, etc.), for everything else if it's not in a browser - it doesn't exist to me. Native applications might offer marginal performance boost, but given how optimized modern web is and how powerful are devices that I use - that's not an argument to me unless I do something computing intensive. I don't know how incredibly self-centered and obtuse you might be to think that your specific crud #383835 is not like all those other™ crud apps and absolutely requires a native application. In a browser I can: * Freely select ANY text(unless for some reason some special snowflake website thinks that it needs to disable text selection) * Bookmark, add tags, sort, organize websites how I want * Sync all of my information and access it on all platforms, not platforms that vendor decided to lock me in * Add plugins that allow me to modify and work with content how I see fit * Prohibit JS, ads or any sorts of tracking And probably at least another 10 things if I think longer than 2 minutes about it. All of this is just from perspective of a user. If I were to write from perspective of a developer, that would take a whole blogpost to explain how native applications are relic of the past and should just roll over and die.

szasamasa 3y ago
totally agree in the end, freedom of choice, diversity and innovation would make every service find its optimal incarnation (native or web) in addition, web security is actually so robust via sandboxing that I feel more secure in a top browser on any web domains than downloading stuff from app stores native apps have a built in "layer" of bot security, however... a website has to implement security itself because even a smart fridge can make GET requests :) but I just play the devil's lawyer... I think 999 out of 1000 "standalone UX" better off delivered from the web
rubymamis 3y ago
I highly disagree. Web apps are notoriously slow. I'm developing a Notion alternative in Qt C++ that load large text files on my 2017 MacBook Air while on my friend's 2021 M1 Pro, the fastest web based block editor (MarkText) takes around 11x longer to load the same file. So, essentialy, my 2017 MacBook Air is FASTER just due to more efficient software. Why are we allowing this degradation of software? Each time I think about opening Spotify (Electron) on my desktop, I dread the loading time and the RAM it would use. For very simple apps, frameworks like Tauri should do the job. But for complex applications, let's please not lose our benchmarking standards. My app: https://www.get-plume.com/ https://www.get-plume.com/
- szasamasa 3y ago
  you should not generalize cherry picking examples does not mean the web MUST be slow, maybe the web apps were programmed badly... I can write even worse native apps than these web apps and it will not prove anything did you ever try compile c++ code to webassembly and check out the performance "degradation"? it still can be true that for this special task, a native app is the better choice and people would buy it from the App Store even if 30% more expensive I mean nobody will and wants to take away the choice of using native tech. The degradation is on sooo many levels is not a necessity or consequense. Web apps are not replacements, they are a choice, an addition. I really do not understan these kinds of comments that frame web apps as a compulsory security nightmare or replacing superior native with inferior web... Safari stays, native stays, you and every developer can choose. It may move better developers towards the web stack but then faster and better web apps follow. They will make use of web capabilities and technologies (like better js, multi core, web assemly, optimizations etc). Chill! No self respecting company will publish inferior web apps if native is so much better in their special use case!
  - rubymamis 3y ago
    > Chill! No self respecting company will publish inferior web apps if native is so much better in their special use case! Slack, Spotify, Teams, Notion... Why do I need to buy the top of the line M3 MacBook Pro to run these apps with a sane performance? What tells you that these same bloated apps won't be even more bloated in the future? There's something fundamentally broken with web apps. It's no wonder the Zed team (that originally created Electron for Atom) has moved completely away from it to develop their own native GUI toolkit.
    - fauigerzigerk 3y ago
      >There's something fundamentally broken with web apps. While the web stack may be somewhat slower in the extreme, I think the reason why big bloated apps like Teams are slow is not down to technology at all. I think the causality works the other way around. Big corporations with large teams that are systemically incapable of paying attention to detail (including performance) choose web technologies because web tech allows them to churn out features faster and gain access to a large pool of easily replaceable developers.
polynomial 3y ago
Based on your preference profile, it seems like a PWA in standalone mode would not be as good as if it used one of the other browser based modes?

szasamasa 3y ago

totally agree in the end, freedom of choice, diversity and innovation would make every service find its optimal incarnation (native or web) in addition, web security is actually so robust via sandboxing that I feel more secure in a top browser on any web domains than downloading stuff from app stores native apps have a built in "layer" of bot security, however... a website has to implement security itself because even a smart fridge can make GET requests :) but I just play the devil's lawyer... I think 999 out of 1000 "standalone UX" better off delivered from the web

rubymamis 3y ago

I highly disagree. Web apps are notoriously slow. I'm developing a Notion alternative in Qt C++ that load large text files on my 2017 MacBook Air while on my friend's 2021 M1 Pro, the fastest web based block editor (MarkText) takes around 11x longer to load the same file. So, essentialy, my 2017 MacBook Air is FASTER just due to more efficient software. Why are we allowing this degradation of software? Each time I think about opening Spotify (Electron) on my desktop, I dread the loading time and the RAM it would use. For very simple apps, frameworks like Tauri should do the job. But for complex applications, let's please not lose our benchmarking standards. My app: https://www.get-plume.com/ https://www.get-plume.com/

szasamasa 3y ago
you should not generalize cherry picking examples does not mean the web MUST be slow, maybe the web apps were programmed badly... I can write even worse native apps than these web apps and it will not prove anything did you ever try compile c++ code to webassembly and check out the performance "degradation"? it still can be true that for this special task, a native app is the better choice and people would buy it from the App Store even if 30% more expensive I mean nobody will and wants to take away the choice of using native tech. The degradation is on sooo many levels is not a necessity or consequense. Web apps are not replacements, they are a choice, an addition. I really do not understan these kinds of comments that frame web apps as a compulsory security nightmare or replacing superior native with inferior web... Safari stays, native stays, you and every developer can choose. It may move better developers towards the web stack but then faster and better web apps follow. They will make use of web capabilities and technologies (like better js, multi core, web assemly, optimizations etc). Chill! No self respecting company will publish inferior web apps if native is so much better in their special use case!
- rubymamis 3y ago
  > Chill! No self respecting company will publish inferior web apps if native is so much better in their special use case! Slack, Spotify, Teams, Notion... Why do I need to buy the top of the line M3 MacBook Pro to run these apps with a sane performance? What tells you that these same bloated apps won't be even more bloated in the future? There's something fundamentally broken with web apps. It's no wonder the Zed team (that originally created Electron for Atom) has moved completely away from it to develop their own native GUI toolkit.
  - fauigerzigerk 3y ago
    >There's something fundamentally broken with web apps. While the web stack may be somewhat slower in the extreme, I think the reason why big bloated apps like Teams are slow is not down to technology at all. I think the causality works the other way around. Big corporations with large teams that are systemically incapable of paying attention to detail (including performance) choose web technologies because web tech allows them to churn out features faster and gain access to a large pool of easily replaceable developers.

polynomial 3y ago

Based on your preference profile, it seems like a PWA in standalone mode would not be as good as if it used one of the other browser based modes?