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I still, will never understand the need for native "Apps". To this day, I have never seen an "App" that couldn't simply have been a website/webapp. Most of them

I still, will never understand the need for native "Apps". To this day, I have never seen an "App" that couldn't simply have been a website/webapp. Most of them would likely be improved by being a webapp. The only benefits I can see of "Apps", are the developer get's access to private information they really don't need. Yeah, they get to be on the "App Store". But the "App Store" is a totally unnecessary concept introduced by Apple/Google so they could scrape a huge percentage in sales. Web browsers have good (not perfect) sandboxing, costs no fees to "submit" and are accessible to everyone on every phone.

zer0zzz 2y ago
The most basic app, a notepad, I often prefer native. When I go between google keep or notion to apple notes I can tell the difference. If the text is long enough, the web apps just can not load the content. Just to confirm: I dumped all of my notes from my insanely large apple notes (about 16000 lines of text) and pasted them into Google Keep, Notion, Google Docs. With the exception of Google Docs the rest of them flat out froze and I had to kill my browser. Stop trying to tell us that the browser is the answer to everything when most web apps cant do the job of Notepad.exe or vi
- turblety 2y ago
  Sorry, I couldn't recreate this. I just built a tiny texteditor app: https://65cd02a1-8f00-47cb-b1d1-231493de5fc2.paged.net/ https://65cd02a1-8f00-47cb-b1d1-231493de5fc2.paged.net/ Tried putting 20k lines into it. Loaded instantly, allowed me to scroll and edit flawlessly. But I get your point. I'm on a pretty decent 2022 iPhone, and I'm sure at some stage I would run into a performance hit. But not at 20k lines.
  - eknkc 2y ago
    Note taking apps generally do formatting, markdown like stuff or at least linking to urls in the text etc. You cant slap a plain text field and assume that emulates the actual experience in any way.
- esperent 2y ago
  > With the exception of Google Docs So, one out of three webapps that you tested could handle this much text. It suggests that the problem for the other two is their implementation, rather than any limitation of the browser. Of the two that failed, did you also try the app versions to see if they failed too? I really doubt the Notion app could handle 16000 lines of text.
- YetAnotherNick 2y ago
  Now try VSCode in chrome and compare it with apple notes. I use both and VSCode wins hands down in long lines and files.
ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
There are also an increasing number of services which are ONLY available as apps now, including, but not limited to, many financial apps such as Revolut. A big issue with this trend is that unlike the web, the whole Android ecosystem is a walled garden which is strictly controlled by Google. In principle you can run your own custom Android ROM, but in practice this will lock you out from any app which uses Play Integrity API to enforce Google's totalitarian regime which dictates what software YOU are allowed to run on "your" hardware.
- IshKebab 2y ago
  The worst one is the UK's NHS app, which is only available as an app, despite being just a webview wrapper! I have no idea what they were thinking.
  - cyberpunk 2y ago
    Sometimes it’s a compliance thing, e.g we can only show health data if your device passes some security controls first.
  - WesolyKubeczek 2y ago
    What happens when you visit whatever URL is being wrapped?
    - IshKebab 2y ago
      I dunno, I haven't reverse engineered it to find the URL. But I would imagine it gets confused about authentication.
      - donalhunt 2y ago
        Would put money it on it using something like '?device_verified=1'.
    - whstl 2y ago
      IME those apps often have the HTML/JS embedded, so you would have to extract the contents, host them somewhere and proxy the API calls.
xenator 2y ago
During earthquake in Bangkok in Friday Grab (local superior version of Uber) helped me to order taxi and get my kids home. Needless to say that cell phones network collapsed for most of the day. All people want to know what happens and is their family and friends are safe. They definitely have very optimized network layer for poor connections. I bet they can switch to udp or something. I'm glad that it wasn't web app. In many other cases I agree with you.
- PaulRobinson 2y ago
  99% likely they're using a REST API, which is... HTTP. Even if it's gRPC or something more exotic, it'll be over TLS (you best hope it is). You can have a webapp cached locally on your device. PWAs allow developers to create an SPA you can open from your homescreen, and to do that API interaction the same way as a native app. I hope you and your family are well, and it's great that tech helped. But please, don't think that because this tech worked in this instance it can't be made safer and securer.
- YetAnotherNick 2y ago
  Switching to UDP won't magically improve your network connectivity. The overhead of WebRTC over UDP isn't too high as well.
halper 2y ago
For me, there are a lot of applications that I want to be able to load regardless of whether I have a connection to the Internet or not: calendar, notes, mail etc. They can sync/send/whatever whenever I am next online.
- turblety 2y ago
  Ah yeah. While this is mostly implemented terrible, a web app can absolutely do this for you using service workers. So you can install a webapp to your homescreen and use it without an internet connection at all.
  - wruza 2y ago
    Emulate a network layer to serve a pre-packaged bundle. Neat "platform", but as a developer no thanks. While apps are spying etc, making them is usually a no-brainer compared to churning and leaky web stacks. And probably not a single time a webapp loaded for me when I tried it outside standing in the wind trying to figure something out. It was always an app that started and helped and didn't ever scroll horizontally while doing so.
  - ablob 2y ago
    In that case the only difference between a webapp and a normal app would be the permissions, wouldn't it?
    - jspdown 2y ago
      Permissions and performances. But we could argue that if webapps were more used on mobiles, new APIs would have been opened to facilitate cross-app integrations.
  - sgt 2y ago
    You seem to miss the fact that most web app experiences are inferior to that of native app. The disadvantage of native is barrier to install. Once that's done, the experience to the user is simply superior. True native experience, fast and predictable. As a developer it's easier to build those types of apps as well. People who haven't used iOS might not understand this though as they've never seen "how things should be".
baxtr 2y ago
How would you make a video app in a browser? ie taking videos and then editing them afterwards
- psychoslave 2y ago
  Do you mean something like https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:VideoCutTool https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:VideoCutTool ?
  - baxtr 2y ago
    I mean something like CapCut that has access to the phone camera for capturing video.
    - worksonmine 2y ago
      Browsers have camera and local file access if the user grants permissions, what do you mean isn't possible with the browser?
      - psychoslave 2y ago
        I think that the name browser is basically just what is putting people in the wrong track of interpretation. They have been fully fledged VM sandboxes, which incidentally happen to also embed html and pdf interpreter natively.
- sph 2y ago
  GP used hyperbole but was not all wrong. The issue is that most native apps could very well have been web apps. I appreciate that on iOS adding a web app to homescreen is possible, albeit obscure and not many use that feature. I hate that Firefox never really supported PWA for some unfathomable reason.
  - baxtr 2y ago
    Exactly. But GP deliberately said all, not most or many. GPs comment is something that people in politics would called sensational. Extreme rhetoric is great for upvotes because it stirs emotions but it’s not rational.
djaychela 2y ago
Working offline?
unethical_ban 2y ago
There is nothing inherently evil about an app, or inherently good about a website - it's only because historically we have allowed crappy app permissions structures and allowing apps to ask for things they don't need. Apps are faster, are more predictable (no auto-reloading or rendering issues) and generally perform better IMO. On the other hand, in reality, you're correct. I think the NYTimes app will collect more data from me than the NYTimes website.
chme 2y ago
I get your point partially. All these apps that companies put out in order to collect and manage shopping tokens or to contact their customer service would have been much better as a website. However I still do like to have apps on my devices that just work offline, without distributing my data across services I do not control. And I also do not want to depend on a internet connection, when I am anywhere. I like my offline Osmand/Organic Maps app to show me the trails when I am somewhere in the woods or mountains. I like my apps that instead on using some third party server, connect directly to my other local devices to share data. IMO all (where possible) apps should be developed offline first, and only require internet when necessary, and those apps that cannot work without internet should be web apps, they do not need to be on my devices.
- oarsinsync 2y ago
  It’s totally possible to distribute a webapp that works offline and stores all your data offline too. Platform owners introduce a bunch of restrictions that create reliability and usability concerns, but the standards already exist to enable a website operator to create a webapp that, after the initial ‘install’, runs entirely offline on the user’s device, and has no need to communicate with the website.
  - layer8 2y ago
    It’s not really possible in practice, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43522667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43522667.
rzz3 2y ago
Im sorry. I really just can’t understand or relate to this at all. Mobile web still feels like such a terrible experience, and apps generally don’t. When’s the last time you tried booking a flight on mobile web? And how do you deal with all of the real estate the browser steals? Having to log in every time when the app can just cache my authentication and FaceID me?
- andelink 2y ago
  Not who you replied to, but I more so do not rely on my phone for anything where I would prefer more screen real estate such as doing comparisons like buying flight tickets. I have never bought flight tickets on my phone, only on my computer. I prefer the bigger screen and keyboard for most things actually
- renegat0x0 2y ago
  Not so sure. There are a ton of bad apps. They also do not work properly often. Besides companies focus on apps, not on web pages. Less money, less focus, therefore worse experience
- wodenokoto 2y ago
  Seriously, booking hotels and flights is so much better on the web. You get multiple windows for easy flight and price comparisons, within and between providers. I don’t understand people who use apps for this. It is such a pain.
  - pasc1878 2y ago
    You are comparing desktops to phones. I do most things on my desktop for the reasons you say but on a phone multiple tabs etc is a pain.
    - wodenokoto 2y ago
      No, I’m saying that the booking.com app, or the Skyscanner app or any of their competitors don’t support multiple tabs. Their websites do (although even on new phones you are at a greater risc of a tab being purged and needing a reload, but still you can multi tab on the mobile website)
nxjx 2y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_economy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_economy Becoming the middle man is the default model that supports scale. No one has come up with anything else to support a world where avg disposable income is close to 0
- hgomersall 2y ago
  > Becoming the middle man is the default model that supports rent extraction FTFY
ezequiel-garzon 2y ago
In the case of termux, by far my favorite app, I have more than 2GB of locally installed packages. How would that work with a browser?
- hk__2 2y ago
  OP talks about apps in general, of course there will always be anecdotic cases like this one (see also https://xkcd.com/1172/ https://xkcd.com/1172/).
setopt 2y ago
> I still, will never understand the need for native "Apps". To this day, I have never seen an "App" that couldn't simply have been a website/webapp. In cases where a native app and web app are both available on iOS, there’s often a huge difference in battery usage and sluggishness. Also, as a sibling poster mentioned, I like having fully “offline” apps as well, for example for maps and notes. I’m not saying that I like how Apple and Google have done this in practice, but I don’t think going webapp-only is the future. For the same reason I won’t replace my real computer with a Chromebook for the foreseeable future.
- wodenokoto 2y ago
  When the iPhone came out, you had full offline access on PC to Gmail and google docs using Google Gears. Google Gears got deprecated because something something move to standard HTMl and browser features and now we don’t really have any offline web apps. The ability to have non sluggish, offline web apps has existed for decades now, but the interest from providers has been declining and the understanding that this is possible is also declining on the consumer side.
- wiseowise 2y ago
  > In cases where a native app and web app are both available on iOS, there’s often a huge difference in battery usage and sluggishness. Yeah, like single native instagram draining battery faster than combination of multiple websites that I visit in Safari. > For the same reason I won’t replace my real computer with a Chromebook for the foreseeable future. > real computer Where most of the modern applications are either web wrappers or Electron apps.
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    > Where most of the modern applications are either web wrappers or Electron apps. Only if you're stuck on a depreciated platform like Linux. If you are on Mac, native applications – real applications – are much more powerful and usable than any web wrapper on Linux. I've noticed Linux users have taken a habit of proposing their broken way of using a computer through the browser for other platforms as well. But on other platforms we are already spoiled with quality software.
elric 2y ago
> The only benefits I can see of "Apps", are the developer get's access to private information they really don't need. That's exactly the point. More developer control, less user control. Can't change cookie settings in an app, can't (easily) block ads, can't use developer tools to remove annoying UI elements, can't disable phone home mechanics, can't prevent the developer from profiling you.
ustad 2y ago
Its funny to read negative replies to your comment on the shortcoming's of web apps. The browsers are controlled and manipulated by the likes of Apple and Google. These companies have a significant influence on the direction of browser features and limitations, often shaping them to suit their business interests. For example, Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome have been criticized for implementing features that reinforce their own ecosystems, such as limiting web push notifications or restricting certain web API functionalities to encourage users toward their native apps. This ultimately means that even in the browser world, the same forces that drive the app store monopolies can still control and restrict what’s possible, even if the web is inherently more open. So while web apps offer more flexibility than native apps in theory, the reality is that Apple and Google’s control over the browsers still limits the true potential of a completely open web.
- jampekka 2y ago
  > The browsers are controlled and manipulated by the likes of Apple and Google. Who do you think controls Android and iOS native APIs? Web standards at least have public forums and specs, with multiple parties involved. And all the major browser engines are open source and apps built for them are relatively cross-compatible.
xxprogamerxy 2y ago
Simple, UX. The reality is, most webapps for mobile just suck. The UX is nowhere near that of a native application. I don't want any text to be selectable. I don't want pull to refresh on every page. I don't want the left-swipe to take me to the previous page. You can probably find workarounds for all these issues. The new Silk library (https://silkhq.co/ https://silkhq.co/) is the first case I've seen that get's very close to a native experience. But even the fact that this is a paid library comes to show how non-trivial this is.
- leipie 2y ago
  As a user I usually want all of those features to work. I regularly get ticked off at apps, because I cannot copy paste like in the browser or the app just closes (and loses all state) because I tried to use the back button. I also encountered apps that just reset, because I dared switch to another app for a second because I wanted to copy paste something into it...
- ffsm8 2y ago
  Mmh, the examples you've listed are actually super easy to do if you're using a framework such as angular with it's plugins for pwa and touch controls. And prolly tailwind for css/disabling selection if you really want to, but I'd call that an anti feature in almost all cases.
  - xg15 2y ago
    In theory. In practice not so much. I've had enough browser apps try that on my phone. Usually they start to lag out and become unbearably slow due to the framework bloat, compared to native apps that have no such issues.
- wiseowise 2y ago
  UX is when you have less features - got it.
- mojuba 2y ago
  To be fair, browser apps do have their advantages: - text is selectable - content is zoomable - you can have an ad/nuisance blocker - page source is open While native apps have their own advantages: - much smoother experience esp. navigation, scrolling, animations, etc. - better overall performance (JavaScript will always lose to the native binary) - access to hardware opens new possibilities; audio, video accelerators etc.; there's a ton of things you can't do in the browser with audio for example - widgets, some of them are nice and useful too - for publishers: an app icon on the home screen is a reminder, a "hook" of sorts; this is the main reason they push apps over web versions
renegat0x0 2y ago
Many things needs to be an app, but so so many do not require. Many apps are apps just because they can collect your data, and create walled gardens. It is harder to create extensions for existing apps, for web pages it is easier.
nottorp 2y ago
Imagine a world in which your smartphone's battery lasted more than a day... ... and ram requirements for good performance went down by 66% ...
- WesolyKubeczek 2y ago
  …but give it one little webview…
xlii 2y ago
Any kind of offline cryptography. Imagine Apple Pay being an app. So all sort of digital signatures, documents, checks, payment codes and vouchers, tickets etc. IMO this is in the range of „why we use machines to transport if we all have legs”. Technically true, but applications do more than only UI. I've heard this argument for the past 30 years (we won’t be using apps, everything will be remote console/terminal/webpage/web). Chromebooks were meant for web-first access, and yet native apps are still alive and kicking.
usrusr 2y ago
Push notification is the big one. Yes, there is web push, but that's hardly scratching the surface of feature completeness. And incentives to change that aren't really there.
- wiseowise 2y ago
  That’s a feature.
HSO 2y ago
> the "App Store" is a totally unnecessary concept introduced by Apple/Google so they could scrape a huge percentage in sales. Actually, when the iPhone was introduced, Apple wanted it to have only a few select native apps (like Maps or Mail) and all the rest to be web apps. They were browbeaten into opening an app store by the developers, who wanted to do native apps, not the other way around like you say.
jb1991 2y ago
This is a bizarre take. Are you also suggesting there’s no reason to have a native app on a laptop? Because it’s essentially the same question. There are many things which a native app can do that a browser just cannot do well, or at all. I don’t know what your needs are, but for example if you’re doing heavy video or audio editing, accessing heavy amounts of RAM or utilizing GPU compute or doing other things on the bare hardware, doing that all from a browser is definitely not there yet.
- nsonha 2y ago
  On desktop you do productive work, your apps need native capabilities. On mobile, apps are primarily consumption, displaying, browsing... no complex interactions.
  - jb1991 2y ago
    Lots of people use iPads for content creation. I think your worldview on this topic is a bit narrow. There have also been multiple feature length movies shot on an iPhone, at least two of them by Oscar winning directors! Those weren’t done on a mobile browser.
    - nsonha 2y ago
      > Lots of people use iPads for content creation. I think your worldview on this topic is a bit narrow Can we stick to "by and large"? Every year many youtubers make that video of trying to use ipad/samsung dex as the productive computer for a day. Last I checked they always end the same way.
    - autoexec 2y ago
      ipads are designed primarily for consumption not creation. I'm sure lots of people manage create something on an ipad anyway but that doesn't mean it's a good tool for the job. Filming a movie on an iphone is just using the camera. I'd be very surprised if anybody making a full length movie with their iphone edited that film on their phone or an ipad.
miki123211 2y ago
Yeah, good luck writing a screen reader, a demanding mobile game, a (local) music player, or a warehouse parts lookup app, supporting fully offline use and barcode reading functionality. In 2025? Sure, you can do some (but not all) of that in a browser? In 2010, when those systems were becoming popular? Absolutely not a chance. People forget that Apple initially tried this exact approach. On the first iPhone, that's how you were supposed to do apps. People wanted native so much that they were willing to go the extra mile, jailbreak their device, document the undocumented iPhone SDK and write their own toolchain. The user demand for native was clearly so overwhelming that Apple finally relented and gave in. Even a few years later, Facebook tried hard to have a single, cross-platform HTML5 website instead of bothering with apps. Even then, browsers just weren't there yet, and they probably had the best engineers and resources on that project one could have had for any money.
ErigmolCt 2y ago
So many apps are glorified wrappers around web content anyway, and in those cases, native just adds bloat (and tracking)
roncesvalles 2y ago
It's an advertisement that you see each time you use your phone.
NooneAtAll3 2y ago
...not every app is a worse reddit website? there are games, there are offline programs --- website-as-an-app do needs to be squashed, that's something I do agree with you
dustingetz 2y ago
Zuck: Betting on HTML5 was a mistake (2012) https://www.infoq.com/news/2012/09/Facebook-HTML5-Native/ https://www.infoq.com/news/2012/09/Facebook-HTML5-Native/ https://www.sencha.com/ https://www.sencha.com/, the vendor of the ExtJS framework tried to argue that Facebook was wrong (2012): https://www.infoq.com/news/2012/12/Fastbook/ https://www.infoq.com/news/2012/12/Fastbook/ I worked for a company that used Sencha back in the day and wrote the first React integration over their form/datagrid components in 2013. React ate their lunch
tim333 2y ago
Pokemon Go. You couldn't really do that as a webapp with the VR and stuff. Also with the bank apps I think there's extra security over a webapp - on the iphone they often scan my face.
graemep 2y ago
Maps and navigation apps? Desktop integration and sync apps? That said most of the time you are right. I am fairly convinced that some apps are just wrappers around web apps. The Virgin Money (Uk bank brand) app used to ask for cookie permissions on launch and felt very like their website used to (until it was removed and they went app only).
LtWorf 2y ago
Speed, and from that follows battery life.
immibis 2y ago
In other words, you believe all computers should be Chromebooks, which can only run Chrome and nothing else?
Aachen 2y ago
For one, you couldn't access those webapps without a browser, so that's the need for one app. It would also be a bit annoying if you had to load a webpage when trying to dial a number Or am I not understanding what you mean when you use the quoted name "Apps"?
deleted 2y ago
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dbtc 2y ago
I agree, mostly, but there are definitely some programs I want running on my phone and outside of the default browser. - Timer / alarm clock - Camera - File browser - Offline maps - Another web browser But not 250MB banking app.
miniBill 2y ago
Access to Bluetooth devices is a good reason to have an app. I definitely do not want a Bluetooth API in my browser (although Chrome does have something in that direction, I think it's a bad idea)
impossiblefork 2y ago
It has the potential to be faster, more private and more efficient. Absolute absence of lag, glitches, rendering issues, memory use in the kilobytes etc. is possible with native applications.
dangus 2y ago
So you never use native apps on your desktop? Why should a computing device not be able to run programs? I feel like an actual security-driven design is a lot better than just relegating everything to the browser.
hedora 2y ago
It’s clearly for data collection. Take the yelp web app for example. It used to be much nicer than the native one. Then, they intentionally defeatured it until it was useless. Also, this situation benefits the google-apple duopoly, since it means superior products (remember Windows Phone 8?) or privacy focused devices (FirefoxOS) have no chance of getting a foothold in the marketplace. The objections I see in sibling comments are nonsense. Modern web supports high frame rates, developer control over the UI, etc, etc.
chamomeal 2y ago
To me a mobile app is usually just a shorter web app that you can’t zoom on Edit: and I’ll venture a guess that since mobile apps can’t use things like ad blockers, companies probably prefer them. More control over what you look at.
prinny_ 2y ago
Honestly I wonder the same. App stores have big % cuts for the provider, I believe Apple has a 30% cut? Surely this number is big enough to justify spending the resources for a mobile first site?
dagmx 2y ago
While many native apps could be web apps, you’re ignoring a very large reasons for native apps: 1. Better UX and responsiveness for users, including better offline use. 2. Using native hardware APIs. How are you going to do things that require on device video compression, or realtime graphics that are more advanced than GL ES, etc 3. Battery life and performance. A native app can use less power than a web view for doing its work, and it can also make use of better async/concurrency/threading than a web view allows for.
gtsop 2y ago
Very narrow take, it so far fetched i would consider this a bad faith comment. How could you possibly consider intensive games to be "simply" web apps? How about network apps like vpns, wifi analyzers? Have you really not come across such apps or are we meant to think every app is a TODO application? Both web and native has been driven by the same corporate forces, the argument here should be technical only - what can you do on native that you can't on the web. Mixing this technical matter with corporate policies muddies the waters.
sbierwagen 2y ago
Push notifications. Apps have them on by default, websites have them off by default. 100% of Temu's valuation is because they pester users all the time with nudges to buy stuff, which works. Normies don't turn off notifications. Over the last few years all my relatives have picked up smart watches, (thanks to cell carriers upselling them hard during phone replacements) and in any given conversation at family events they'll be glancing at their wrist every 100 seconds.
- retrac 2y ago
  Registering for push notifications ought to be a protocol much simpler and lightweight, compared to this spinning up a virtual machine and running a downloaded binary for each channel of notification you wish to receive.
autoexec 2y ago
> The only benefits I can see of "Apps", are the developer get's access to private information they really don't need. this is the actual reason why companies push people to install and use their apps instead of their website.
Yhippa 2y ago
This makes me wonder if Google would let rot creep into (or possibly already has) to encourage people to use apps and also encourage developers to build on their platform.

zer0zzz 2y ago

The most basic app, a notepad, I often prefer native. When I go between google keep or notion to apple notes I can tell the difference. If the text is long enough, the web apps just can not load the content. Just to confirm: I dumped all of my notes from my insanely large apple notes (about 16000 lines of text) and pasted them into Google Keep, Notion, Google Docs. With the exception of Google Docs the rest of them flat out froze and I had to kill my browser. Stop trying to tell us that the browser is the answer to everything when most web apps cant do the job of Notepad.exe or vi

turblety 2y ago
Sorry, I couldn't recreate this. I just built a tiny texteditor app: https://65cd02a1-8f00-47cb-b1d1-231493de5fc2.paged.net/ https://65cd02a1-8f00-47cb-b1d1-231493de5fc2.paged.net/ Tried putting 20k lines into it. Loaded instantly, allowed me to scroll and edit flawlessly. But I get your point. I'm on a pretty decent 2022 iPhone, and I'm sure at some stage I would run into a performance hit. But not at 20k lines.
- eknkc 2y ago
  Note taking apps generally do formatting, markdown like stuff or at least linking to urls in the text etc. You cant slap a plain text field and assume that emulates the actual experience in any way.
esperent 2y ago
> With the exception of Google Docs So, one out of three webapps that you tested could handle this much text. It suggests that the problem for the other two is their implementation, rather than any limitation of the browser. Of the two that failed, did you also try the app versions to see if they failed too? I really doubt the Notion app could handle 16000 lines of text.
YetAnotherNick 2y ago
Now try VSCode in chrome and compare it with apple notes. I use both and VSCode wins hands down in long lines and files.

ulrikrasmussen 2y ago

There are also an increasing number of services which are ONLY available as apps now, including, but not limited to, many financial apps such as Revolut. A big issue with this trend is that unlike the web, the whole Android ecosystem is a walled garden which is strictly controlled by Google. In principle you can run your own custom Android ROM, but in practice this will lock you out from any app which uses Play Integrity API to enforce Google's totalitarian regime which dictates what software YOU are allowed to run on "your" hardware.

IshKebab 2y ago
The worst one is the UK's NHS app, which is only available as an app, despite being just a webview wrapper! I have no idea what they were thinking.
- cyberpunk 2y ago
  Sometimes it’s a compliance thing, e.g we can only show health data if your device passes some security controls first.
- WesolyKubeczek 2y ago
  What happens when you visit whatever URL is being wrapped?
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    I dunno, I haven't reverse engineered it to find the URL. But I would imagine it gets confused about authentication.
    - donalhunt 2y ago
      Would put money it on it using something like '?device_verified=1'.
  - whstl 2y ago
    IME those apps often have the HTML/JS embedded, so you would have to extract the contents, host them somewhere and proxy the API calls.

xenator 2y ago

During earthquake in Bangkok in Friday Grab (local superior version of Uber) helped me to order taxi and get my kids home. Needless to say that cell phones network collapsed for most of the day. All people want to know what happens and is their family and friends are safe. They definitely have very optimized network layer for poor connections. I bet they can switch to udp or something. I'm glad that it wasn't web app. In many other cases I agree with you.

PaulRobinson 2y ago
99% likely they're using a REST API, which is... HTTP. Even if it's gRPC or something more exotic, it'll be over TLS (you best hope it is). You can have a webapp cached locally on your device. PWAs allow developers to create an SPA you can open from your homescreen, and to do that API interaction the same way as a native app. I hope you and your family are well, and it's great that tech helped. But please, don't think that because this tech worked in this instance it can't be made safer and securer.
YetAnotherNick 2y ago
Switching to UDP won't magically improve your network connectivity. The overhead of WebRTC over UDP isn't too high as well.

halper 2y ago

For me, there are a lot of applications that I want to be able to load regardless of whether I have a connection to the Internet or not: calendar, notes, mail etc. They can sync/send/whatever whenever I am next online.

turblety 2y ago
Ah yeah. While this is mostly implemented terrible, a web app can absolutely do this for you using service workers. So you can install a webapp to your homescreen and use it without an internet connection at all.
- wruza 2y ago
  Emulate a network layer to serve a pre-packaged bundle. Neat "platform", but as a developer no thanks. While apps are spying etc, making them is usually a no-brainer compared to churning and leaky web stacks. And probably not a single time a webapp loaded for me when I tried it outside standing in the wind trying to figure something out. It was always an app that started and helped and didn't ever scroll horizontally while doing so.
- ablob 2y ago
  In that case the only difference between a webapp and a normal app would be the permissions, wouldn't it?
  - jspdown 2y ago
    Permissions and performances. But we could argue that if webapps were more used on mobiles, new APIs would have been opened to facilitate cross-app integrations.
- sgt 2y ago
  You seem to miss the fact that most web app experiences are inferior to that of native app. The disadvantage of native is barrier to install. Once that's done, the experience to the user is simply superior. True native experience, fast and predictable. As a developer it's easier to build those types of apps as well. People who haven't used iOS might not understand this though as they've never seen "how things should be".

baxtr 2y ago

How would you make a video app in a browser? ie taking videos and then editing them afterwards

psychoslave 2y ago
Do you mean something like https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:VideoCutTool https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:VideoCutTool ?
- baxtr 2y ago
  I mean something like CapCut that has access to the phone camera for capturing video.
  - worksonmine 2y ago
    Browsers have camera and local file access if the user grants permissions, what do you mean isn't possible with the browser?
    - psychoslave 2y ago
      I think that the name browser is basically just what is putting people in the wrong track of interpretation. They have been fully fledged VM sandboxes, which incidentally happen to also embed html and pdf interpreter natively.
sph 2y ago
GP used hyperbole but was not all wrong. The issue is that most native apps could very well have been web apps. I appreciate that on iOS adding a web app to homescreen is possible, albeit obscure and not many use that feature. I hate that Firefox never really supported PWA for some unfathomable reason.
- baxtr 2y ago
  Exactly. But GP deliberately said all, not most or many. GPs comment is something that people in politics would called sensational. Extreme rhetoric is great for upvotes because it stirs emotions but it’s not rational.

djaychela 2y ago

Working offline?

unethical_ban 2y ago

There is nothing inherently evil about an app, or inherently good about a website - it's only because historically we have allowed crappy app permissions structures and allowing apps to ask for things they don't need. Apps are faster, are more predictable (no auto-reloading or rendering issues) and generally perform better IMO. On the other hand, in reality, you're correct. I think the NYTimes app will collect more data from me than the NYTimes website.

chme 2y ago

I get your point partially. All these apps that companies put out in order to collect and manage shopping tokens or to contact their customer service would have been much better as a website. However I still do like to have apps on my devices that just work offline, without distributing my data across services I do not control. And I also do not want to depend on a internet connection, when I am anywhere. I like my offline Osmand/Organic Maps app to show me the trails when I am somewhere in the woods or mountains. I like my apps that instead on using some third party server, connect directly to my other local devices to share data. IMO all (where possible) apps should be developed offline first, and only require internet when necessary, and those apps that cannot work without internet should be web apps, they do not need to be on my devices.

oarsinsync 2y ago
It’s totally possible to distribute a webapp that works offline and stores all your data offline too. Platform owners introduce a bunch of restrictions that create reliability and usability concerns, but the standards already exist to enable a website operator to create a webapp that, after the initial ‘install’, runs entirely offline on the user’s device, and has no need to communicate with the website.
- layer8 2y ago
  It’s not really possible in practice, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43522667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43522667.

rzz3 2y ago

Im sorry. I really just can’t understand or relate to this at all. Mobile web still feels like such a terrible experience, and apps generally don’t. When’s the last time you tried booking a flight on mobile web? And how do you deal with all of the real estate the browser steals? Having to log in every time when the app can just cache my authentication and FaceID me?

andelink 2y ago
Not who you replied to, but I more so do not rely on my phone for anything where I would prefer more screen real estate such as doing comparisons like buying flight tickets. I have never bought flight tickets on my phone, only on my computer. I prefer the bigger screen and keyboard for most things actually
renegat0x0 2y ago
Not so sure. There are a ton of bad apps. They also do not work properly often. Besides companies focus on apps, not on web pages. Less money, less focus, therefore worse experience
wodenokoto 2y ago
Seriously, booking hotels and flights is so much better on the web. You get multiple windows for easy flight and price comparisons, within and between providers. I don’t understand people who use apps for this. It is such a pain.
- pasc1878 2y ago
  You are comparing desktops to phones. I do most things on my desktop for the reasons you say but on a phone multiple tabs etc is a pain.
  - wodenokoto 2y ago
    No, I’m saying that the booking.com app, or the Skyscanner app or any of their competitors don’t support multiple tabs. Their websites do (although even on new phones you are at a greater risc of a tab being purged and needing a reload, but still you can multi tab on the mobile website)

nxjx 2y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_economy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_economy Becoming the middle man is the default model that supports scale. No one has come up with anything else to support a world where avg disposable income is close to 0

hgomersall 2y ago
> Becoming the middle man is the default model that supports rent extraction FTFY

ezequiel-garzon 2y ago

In the case of termux, by far my favorite app, I have more than 2GB of locally installed packages. How would that work with a browser?

hk__2 2y ago
OP talks about apps in general, of course there will always be anecdotic cases like this one (see also https://xkcd.com/1172/ https://xkcd.com/1172/).

setopt 2y ago

> I still, will never understand the need for native "Apps". To this day, I have never seen an "App" that couldn't simply have been a website/webapp. In cases where a native app and web app are both available on iOS, there’s often a huge difference in battery usage and sluggishness. Also, as a sibling poster mentioned, I like having fully “offline” apps as well, for example for maps and notes. I’m not saying that I like how Apple and Google have done this in practice, but I don’t think going webapp-only is the future. For the same reason I won’t replace my real computer with a Chromebook for the foreseeable future.

wodenokoto 2y ago
When the iPhone came out, you had full offline access on PC to Gmail and google docs using Google Gears. Google Gears got deprecated because something something move to standard HTMl and browser features and now we don’t really have any offline web apps. The ability to have non sluggish, offline web apps has existed for decades now, but the interest from providers has been declining and the understanding that this is possible is also declining on the consumer side.
wiseowise 2y ago
> In cases where a native app and web app are both available on iOS, there’s often a huge difference in battery usage and sluggishness. Yeah, like single native instagram draining battery faster than combination of multiple websites that I visit in Safari. > For the same reason I won’t replace my real computer with a Chromebook for the foreseeable future. > real computer Where most of the modern applications are either web wrappers or Electron apps.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  > Where most of the modern applications are either web wrappers or Electron apps. Only if you're stuck on a depreciated platform like Linux. If you are on Mac, native applications – real applications – are much more powerful and usable than any web wrapper on Linux. I've noticed Linux users have taken a habit of proposing their broken way of using a computer through the browser for other platforms as well. But on other platforms we are already spoiled with quality software.

elric 2y ago

> The only benefits I can see of "Apps", are the developer get's access to private information they really don't need. That's exactly the point. More developer control, less user control. Can't change cookie settings in an app, can't (easily) block ads, can't use developer tools to remove annoying UI elements, can't disable phone home mechanics, can't prevent the developer from profiling you.

ustad 2y ago

Its funny to read negative replies to your comment on the shortcoming's of web apps. The browsers are controlled and manipulated by the likes of Apple and Google. These companies have a significant influence on the direction of browser features and limitations, often shaping them to suit their business interests. For example, Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome have been criticized for implementing features that reinforce their own ecosystems, such as limiting web push notifications or restricting certain web API functionalities to encourage users toward their native apps. This ultimately means that even in the browser world, the same forces that drive the app store monopolies can still control and restrict what’s possible, even if the web is inherently more open. So while web apps offer more flexibility than native apps in theory, the reality is that Apple and Google’s control over the browsers still limits the true potential of a completely open web.

jampekka 2y ago
> The browsers are controlled and manipulated by the likes of Apple and Google. Who do you think controls Android and iOS native APIs? Web standards at least have public forums and specs, with multiple parties involved. And all the major browser engines are open source and apps built for them are relatively cross-compatible.

xxprogamerxy 2y ago

Simple, UX. The reality is, most webapps for mobile just suck. The UX is nowhere near that of a native application. I don't want any text to be selectable. I don't want pull to refresh on every page. I don't want the left-swipe to take me to the previous page. You can probably find workarounds for all these issues. The new Silk library (https://silkhq.co/ https://silkhq.co/) is the first case I've seen that get's very close to a native experience. But even the fact that this is a paid library comes to show how non-trivial this is.

leipie 2y ago
As a user I usually want all of those features to work. I regularly get ticked off at apps, because I cannot copy paste like in the browser or the app just closes (and loses all state) because I tried to use the back button. I also encountered apps that just reset, because I dared switch to another app for a second because I wanted to copy paste something into it...
ffsm8 2y ago
Mmh, the examples you've listed are actually super easy to do if you're using a framework such as angular with it's plugins for pwa and touch controls. And prolly tailwind for css/disabling selection if you really want to, but I'd call that an anti feature in almost all cases.
- xg15 2y ago
  In theory. In practice not so much. I've had enough browser apps try that on my phone. Usually they start to lag out and become unbearably slow due to the framework bloat, compared to native apps that have no such issues.
wiseowise 2y ago
UX is when you have less features - got it.
mojuba 2y ago
To be fair, browser apps do have their advantages: - text is selectable - content is zoomable - you can have an ad/nuisance blocker - page source is open While native apps have their own advantages: - much smoother experience esp. navigation, scrolling, animations, etc. - better overall performance (JavaScript will always lose to the native binary) - access to hardware opens new possibilities; audio, video accelerators etc.; there's a ton of things you can't do in the browser with audio for example - widgets, some of them are nice and useful too - for publishers: an app icon on the home screen is a reminder, a "hook" of sorts; this is the main reason they push apps over web versions

renegat0x0 2y ago

Many things needs to be an app, but so so many do not require. Many apps are apps just because they can collect your data, and create walled gardens. It is harder to create extensions for existing apps, for web pages it is easier.

nottorp 2y ago

Imagine a world in which your smartphone's battery lasted more than a day... ... and ram requirements for good performance went down by 66% ...

WesolyKubeczek 2y ago
…but give it one little webview…

xlii 2y ago

Any kind of offline cryptography. Imagine Apple Pay being an app. So all sort of digital signatures, documents, checks, payment codes and vouchers, tickets etc. IMO this is in the range of „why we use machines to transport if we all have legs”. Technically true, but applications do more than only UI. I've heard this argument for the past 30 years (we won’t be using apps, everything will be remote console/terminal/webpage/web). Chromebooks were meant for web-first access, and yet native apps are still alive and kicking.

usrusr 2y ago

Push notification is the big one. Yes, there is web push, but that's hardly scratching the surface of feature completeness. And incentives to change that aren't really there.

wiseowise 2y ago
That’s a feature.

HSO 2y ago

> the "App Store" is a totally unnecessary concept introduced by Apple/Google so they could scrape a huge percentage in sales. Actually, when the iPhone was introduced, Apple wanted it to have only a few select native apps (like Maps or Mail) and all the rest to be web apps. They were browbeaten into opening an app store by the developers, who wanted to do native apps, not the other way around like you say.

jb1991 2y ago

This is a bizarre take. Are you also suggesting there’s no reason to have a native app on a laptop? Because it’s essentially the same question. There are many things which a native app can do that a browser just cannot do well, or at all. I don’t know what your needs are, but for example if you’re doing heavy video or audio editing, accessing heavy amounts of RAM or utilizing GPU compute or doing other things on the bare hardware, doing that all from a browser is definitely not there yet.

nsonha 2y ago
On desktop you do productive work, your apps need native capabilities. On mobile, apps are primarily consumption, displaying, browsing... no complex interactions.
- jb1991 2y ago
  Lots of people use iPads for content creation. I think your worldview on this topic is a bit narrow. There have also been multiple feature length movies shot on an iPhone, at least two of them by Oscar winning directors! Those weren’t done on a mobile browser.
  - nsonha 2y ago
    > Lots of people use iPads for content creation. I think your worldview on this topic is a bit narrow Can we stick to "by and large"? Every year many youtubers make that video of trying to use ipad/samsung dex as the productive computer for a day. Last I checked they always end the same way.
  - autoexec 2y ago
    ipads are designed primarily for consumption not creation. I'm sure lots of people manage create something on an ipad anyway but that doesn't mean it's a good tool for the job. Filming a movie on an iphone is just using the camera. I'd be very surprised if anybody making a full length movie with their iphone edited that film on their phone or an ipad.

miki123211 2y ago

Yeah, good luck writing a screen reader, a demanding mobile game, a (local) music player, or a warehouse parts lookup app, supporting fully offline use and barcode reading functionality. In 2025? Sure, you can do some (but not all) of that in a browser? In 2010, when those systems were becoming popular? Absolutely not a chance. People forget that Apple initially tried this exact approach. On the first iPhone, that's how you were supposed to do apps. People wanted native so much that they were willing to go the extra mile, jailbreak their device, document the undocumented iPhone SDK and write their own toolchain. The user demand for native was clearly so overwhelming that Apple finally relented and gave in. Even a few years later, Facebook tried hard to have a single, cross-platform HTML5 website instead of bothering with apps. Even then, browsers just weren't there yet, and they probably had the best engineers and resources on that project one could have had for any money.

ErigmolCt 2y ago

So many apps are glorified wrappers around web content anyway, and in those cases, native just adds bloat (and tracking)

roncesvalles 2y ago

It's an advertisement that you see each time you use your phone.

NooneAtAll3 2y ago

...not every app is a worse reddit website? there are games, there are offline programs --- website-as-an-app do needs to be squashed, that's something I do agree with you

dustingetz 2y ago

Zuck: Betting on HTML5 was a mistake (2012) https://www.infoq.com/news/2012/09/Facebook-HTML5-Native/ https://www.infoq.com/news/2012/09/Facebook-HTML5-Native/ https://www.sencha.com/ https://www.sencha.com/, the vendor of the ExtJS framework tried to argue that Facebook was wrong (2012): https://www.infoq.com/news/2012/12/Fastbook/ https://www.infoq.com/news/2012/12/Fastbook/ I worked for a company that used Sencha back in the day and wrote the first React integration over their form/datagrid components in 2013. React ate their lunch

tim333 2y ago

Pokemon Go. You couldn't really do that as a webapp with the VR and stuff. Also with the bank apps I think there's extra security over a webapp - on the iphone they often scan my face.

graemep 2y ago

Maps and navigation apps? Desktop integration and sync apps? That said most of the time you are right. I am fairly convinced that some apps are just wrappers around web apps. The Virgin Money (Uk bank brand) app used to ask for cookie permissions on launch and felt very like their website used to (until it was removed and they went app only).

LtWorf 2y ago

Speed, and from that follows battery life.

immibis 2y ago

In other words, you believe all computers should be Chromebooks, which can only run Chrome and nothing else?

Aachen 2y ago

For one, you couldn't access those webapps without a browser, so that's the need for one app. It would also be a bit annoying if you had to load a webpage when trying to dial a number Or am I not understanding what you mean when you use the quoted name "Apps"?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

dbtc 2y ago

I agree, mostly, but there are definitely some programs I want running on my phone and outside of the default browser. - Timer / alarm clock - Camera - File browser - Offline maps - Another web browser But not 250MB banking app.

miniBill 2y ago

Access to Bluetooth devices is a good reason to have an app. I definitely do not want a Bluetooth API in my browser (although Chrome does have something in that direction, I think it's a bad idea)

impossiblefork 2y ago

It has the potential to be faster, more private and more efficient. Absolute absence of lag, glitches, rendering issues, memory use in the kilobytes etc. is possible with native applications.

dangus 2y ago

So you never use native apps on your desktop? Why should a computing device not be able to run programs? I feel like an actual security-driven design is a lot better than just relegating everything to the browser.

hedora 2y ago

It’s clearly for data collection. Take the yelp web app for example. It used to be much nicer than the native one. Then, they intentionally defeatured it until it was useless. Also, this situation benefits the google-apple duopoly, since it means superior products (remember Windows Phone 8?) or privacy focused devices (FirefoxOS) have no chance of getting a foothold in the marketplace. The objections I see in sibling comments are nonsense. Modern web supports high frame rates, developer control over the UI, etc, etc.

chamomeal 2y ago

To me a mobile app is usually just a shorter web app that you can’t zoom on Edit: and I’ll venture a guess that since mobile apps can’t use things like ad blockers, companies probably prefer them. More control over what you look at.

prinny_ 2y ago

Honestly I wonder the same. App stores have big % cuts for the provider, I believe Apple has a 30% cut? Surely this number is big enough to justify spending the resources for a mobile first site?

dagmx 2y ago

While many native apps could be web apps, you’re ignoring a very large reasons for native apps: 1. Better UX and responsiveness for users, including better offline use. 2. Using native hardware APIs. How are you going to do things that require on device video compression, or realtime graphics that are more advanced than GL ES, etc 3. Battery life and performance. A native app can use less power than a web view for doing its work, and it can also make use of better async/concurrency/threading than a web view allows for.

gtsop 2y ago

Very narrow take, it so far fetched i would consider this a bad faith comment. How could you possibly consider intensive games to be "simply" web apps? How about network apps like vpns, wifi analyzers? Have you really not come across such apps or are we meant to think every app is a TODO application? Both web and native has been driven by the same corporate forces, the argument here should be technical only - what can you do on native that you can't on the web. Mixing this technical matter with corporate policies muddies the waters.

sbierwagen 2y ago

Push notifications. Apps have them on by default, websites have them off by default. 100% of Temu's valuation is because they pester users all the time with nudges to buy stuff, which works. Normies don't turn off notifications. Over the last few years all my relatives have picked up smart watches, (thanks to cell carriers upselling them hard during phone replacements) and in any given conversation at family events they'll be glancing at their wrist every 100 seconds.

retrac 2y ago
Registering for push notifications ought to be a protocol much simpler and lightweight, compared to this spinning up a virtual machine and running a downloaded binary for each channel of notification you wish to receive.

autoexec 2y ago

> The only benefits I can see of "Apps", are the developer get's access to private information they really don't need. this is the actual reason why companies push people to install and use their apps instead of their website.

Yhippa 2y ago

This makes me wonder if Google would let rot creep into (or possibly already has) to encourage people to use apps and also encourage developers to build on their platform.