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Apple store needs to die. We have the web.

hnlmorg 1y ago
Ironically the App Store only exists because of the ridicule Apple received when they announced their new smartphone which then only supported 3rd party applications as web apps. Back then, native apps were considered a “must have” feature for smartphones. How times have changed.
- owebmaster 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - revskill 1y ago
    What does grown up mean ?
    - alt227 1y ago
      [flagged]
  - hnlmorg 1y ago
    Youre making reductive assertions on my comment. I’m neither defending nor explaining Apples actions. Just adding commentary on why the App Store exists. Also you’re getting cause and effect the wrong way around. Plenty of businesses have made 10s of billions based on happy accidents. Just because Apple now makes a mint from the App Store, it doesn’t mean it was part of their original vision for the iPhone.
- alt227 1y ago
  The App store and native apps are not one and the same. OP didnt say that native apps need to die, only the app store. Android ecosystem deals just fine with native apps being distributed in .apk format which can just easily be installed by the user clicking on the file. Why cant this happen on Apple devices too?
  - maccard 1y ago
    If you think the android ecosystem is just fine as it is, why don’t you just use it instead of trying to change one that many other people are happy with?
    - alt227 1y ago
      I do use it, and as far as I am aware I am not trying to change anything?
      - freedomben 1y ago
        I think you've been hit with what I call the "hidden agenda" fallacy, which is something many people seem to commit routinely (or almost non-stop on reddit). It's closely related to (and involves) the Strawman fallacy, but includes some specific flawed reasoning. It basically goes like this: 1. Read the argument 2. Disregard argument and instead try to read the person's mind or guess "what they really meant" to uncover some hidden agenda that you think must exist since it's simply not possible that somebody has a good argument against your pre-supposed belief. 3. Attack what you think they must actually believe rather than what they actually said. You can also gas it up with some emotion too, especially if it's something deeply enmeshed in your identity like religion, politics, or Apple.
        maccard 1y ago
        OP asked: > Why cant this happen on Apple devices too? There are many ways to interpret that question - a hypothetical pondering, or a "why doesn't it work this way?" in the most direct sense. I interpreted it as the latter. > I think you've been hit with what I call the "hidden agenda" fallacy, which is something many people seem to commit routinely (or almost non-stop on reddit). It's closely related to (and involves) the Strawman fallacy, but includes some specific flawed reasoning. Isn't this exactly what you've done to my comment?
        freedomben 1y ago
- nijave 1y ago
  Mobile internet has underwent massive improvements since then. In the U.S. at least, there are places 5G outperforms wired connections. Same goes for mobile compute power (which translates to browser performance)
  - hnlmorg 1y ago
    That’s just the tip of the iceberg too. More and more services have adopted a web-first interface. So the benefits of native applications have dwindled when you’re basically just using web technologies regardless. And then there is the massive abuse of spyware in mobile apps. For that reason alone, I rarely bother with native apps if I can help it.
- Aaargh20318 1y ago
  > How times have changed. They really haven't. 'Web apps' are terrible, both from an end-user and developer perspective. They are a bloated, overcomplicated mess.
  - arghwhat 1y ago
    Bloated and overcomplicated are design issues, not technology issues. Plenty of native apps are bloated and overcomplicated. Making good apps is hard.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - Aaargh20318 1y ago
      > Bloated and overcomplicated are design issues, not technology issues. No, it's very much a technology issue. The overhead just for shipping an entire webbrowser with your app is insane. Building a decent UI in HTML/CSS which were never designed for that purpose, is an absolute disaster. HTML and CSS are for formatting text documents, not for designing user interfaces. There is a reason that there is a framework-of-the-week for webapps. So now you have this massive webbrowser footprint, with the framework-of-the-week on top and then you have to write your app on top of this abomination in one of the most terrible languages ever invented. The whole 'webapp' thing exists solely on the false promise of cost savings. Every kid who made a webpage for their aunt's Etsy business calls themselves a 'web designer', which has resulted in a race to the bottom. Web designer are a dime a dozen (sure, a good one may cost a pretty penny, but that's not what management sees). Now you can hire that cheap 'web designer' and they can build apps too, since that's just web tech, right? And since it all works cross-platform, you only need to build it once. What a cost savings! They will even get an initial version out the door quickly. Look, everything worked out as expected. The problem is that it's quicksand. Your app grows and it gets harder and harder to fix issues and add features, as it's all build on shaky foundations. The more you move, the more difficult it becomes. Soon, you find yourself writing platform-specific code as the cross-platform promise doesn't hold for anything but the simplest functionality. Before you know it, you have this bloated, unmaintainable mess. At the end of the day, it's easier and cheaper to just develop 2 native apps for iOS/Android than it is to build a 'webapp'. You can use nice, modern programming languages with very few footguns (Swift/Kotlin), good tooling, a UI toolkit designed to actually build UIs with, a set of well designed platform APIs. The whole cross-platform web-app thing sounds nice in theory, but it never delivers on its promises.
- jillesvangurp 1y ago
  The itunes store predates the iphone. The lack of native apps was resolved within a year of the iphone launch with the second generation. Probably they weren't ready for native developers and freezing APIs. And in fairness, Safari was pretty capable on iphone. I remember regularly using the iphone optimized version of Google Reader on Symbian, which of course had its own webkit based browser. Worked pretty well in 2008. I was working in Nokia Research then. Lots of people experimenting with browser based UIs there at there. Also the S60 webkit port came out of one of the teams there around 2005 or so. Nokia had a full blown browser running on smart phones years before the iphone launched. Incredible how they dropped the ball. I'm pretty sure that influenced the thinking in Apple when they were designing the iphone. Because Webkit of course was their project.
  - hnlmorg 1y ago
    > The itunes store predates the iphone. As does thousands of other online stores but that doesn’t mean they are App Stores too. > The lack of native apps was resolved within a year of the iphone launch with the second generation. Probably they weren't ready for native developers and freezing APIs. You’re basically just reiterating what I said here but in more favourable language. At the end of the day, public demand was for native apps and the App Store was born from that. So all I’m doing is making a throw away comment about how times have changed. > And in fairness, Safari was pretty capable on iphone. Oh it really was. At the time it was heads and shoulders above anything else’s available for portable devices.
- pjc50 1y ago
  Hmm. I'm not sure about this aspect of history. iPhone app store launch was July 2008, Play Store launch was October 2008. Symbian store was actually after this (yes, really) https://venturebeat.com/business/mobile-os-company-symbian-enters-app-store-fray-launches-horizon/ https://venturebeat.com/business/mobile-os-company-symbian-e... Which app stores pre-dated iOS? Now, Symbian and various others had apps, but you had to buy them through the carrier. And carriers were even worse gatekeepers than Apple!
  - hnlmorg 1y ago
    App Stores weren’t but native apps were: > Back then, native apps were considered a “must have” feature for smartphones.

Ironically the App Store only exists because of the ridicule Apple received when they announced their new smartphone which then only supported 3rd party applications as web apps. Back then, native apps were considered a “must have” feature for smartphones. How times have changed.

owebmaster 1y ago
[flagged]
- revskill 1y ago
  What does grown up mean ?
  - alt227 1y ago
    [flagged]
- hnlmorg 1y ago
  Youre making reductive assertions on my comment. I’m neither defending nor explaining Apples actions. Just adding commentary on why the App Store exists. Also you’re getting cause and effect the wrong way around. Plenty of businesses have made 10s of billions based on happy accidents. Just because Apple now makes a mint from the App Store, it doesn’t mean it was part of their original vision for the iPhone.
alt227 1y ago
The App store and native apps are not one and the same. OP didnt say that native apps need to die, only the app store. Android ecosystem deals just fine with native apps being distributed in .apk format which can just easily be installed by the user clicking on the file. Why cant this happen on Apple devices too?
- maccard 1y ago
  If you think the android ecosystem is just fine as it is, why don’t you just use it instead of trying to change one that many other people are happy with?
  - alt227 1y ago
    I do use it, and as far as I am aware I am not trying to change anything?
    - freedomben 1y ago
      I think you've been hit with what I call the "hidden agenda" fallacy, which is something many people seem to commit routinely (or almost non-stop on reddit). It's closely related to (and involves) the Strawman fallacy, but includes some specific flawed reasoning. It basically goes like this: 1. Read the argument 2. Disregard argument and instead try to read the person's mind or guess "what they really meant" to uncover some hidden agenda that you think must exist since it's simply not possible that somebody has a good argument against your pre-supposed belief. 3. Attack what you think they must actually believe rather than what they actually said. You can also gas it up with some emotion too, especially if it's something deeply enmeshed in your identity like religion, politics, or Apple.
      - maccard 1y ago
        OP asked: > Why cant this happen on Apple devices too? There are many ways to interpret that question - a hypothetical pondering, or a "why doesn't it work this way?" in the most direct sense. I interpreted it as the latter. > I think you've been hit with what I call the "hidden agenda" fallacy, which is something many people seem to commit routinely (or almost non-stop on reddit). It's closely related to (and involves) the Strawman fallacy, but includes some specific flawed reasoning. Isn't this exactly what you've done to my comment?
        freedomben 1y ago
nijave 1y ago
Mobile internet has underwent massive improvements since then. In the U.S. at least, there are places 5G outperforms wired connections. Same goes for mobile compute power (which translates to browser performance)
- hnlmorg 1y ago
  That’s just the tip of the iceberg too. More and more services have adopted a web-first interface. So the benefits of native applications have dwindled when you’re basically just using web technologies regardless. And then there is the massive abuse of spyware in mobile apps. For that reason alone, I rarely bother with native apps if I can help it.
Aaargh20318 1y ago
> How times have changed. They really haven't. 'Web apps' are terrible, both from an end-user and developer perspective. They are a bloated, overcomplicated mess.
- arghwhat 1y ago
  Bloated and overcomplicated are design issues, not technology issues. Plenty of native apps are bloated and overcomplicated. Making good apps is hard.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - Aaargh20318 1y ago
    > Bloated and overcomplicated are design issues, not technology issues. No, it's very much a technology issue. The overhead just for shipping an entire webbrowser with your app is insane. Building a decent UI in HTML/CSS which were never designed for that purpose, is an absolute disaster. HTML and CSS are for formatting text documents, not for designing user interfaces. There is a reason that there is a framework-of-the-week for webapps. So now you have this massive webbrowser footprint, with the framework-of-the-week on top and then you have to write your app on top of this abomination in one of the most terrible languages ever invented. The whole 'webapp' thing exists solely on the false promise of cost savings. Every kid who made a webpage for their aunt's Etsy business calls themselves a 'web designer', which has resulted in a race to the bottom. Web designer are a dime a dozen (sure, a good one may cost a pretty penny, but that's not what management sees). Now you can hire that cheap 'web designer' and they can build apps too, since that's just web tech, right? And since it all works cross-platform, you only need to build it once. What a cost savings! They will even get an initial version out the door quickly. Look, everything worked out as expected. The problem is that it's quicksand. Your app grows and it gets harder and harder to fix issues and add features, as it's all build on shaky foundations. The more you move, the more difficult it becomes. Soon, you find yourself writing platform-specific code as the cross-platform promise doesn't hold for anything but the simplest functionality. Before you know it, you have this bloated, unmaintainable mess. At the end of the day, it's easier and cheaper to just develop 2 native apps for iOS/Android than it is to build a 'webapp'. You can use nice, modern programming languages with very few footguns (Swift/Kotlin), good tooling, a UI toolkit designed to actually build UIs with, a set of well designed platform APIs. The whole cross-platform web-app thing sounds nice in theory, but it never delivers on its promises.
jillesvangurp 1y ago
The itunes store predates the iphone. The lack of native apps was resolved within a year of the iphone launch with the second generation. Probably they weren't ready for native developers and freezing APIs. And in fairness, Safari was pretty capable on iphone. I remember regularly using the iphone optimized version of Google Reader on Symbian, which of course had its own webkit based browser. Worked pretty well in 2008. I was working in Nokia Research then. Lots of people experimenting with browser based UIs there at there. Also the S60 webkit port came out of one of the teams there around 2005 or so. Nokia had a full blown browser running on smart phones years before the iphone launched. Incredible how they dropped the ball. I'm pretty sure that influenced the thinking in Apple when they were designing the iphone. Because Webkit of course was their project.
- hnlmorg 1y ago
  > The itunes store predates the iphone. As does thousands of other online stores but that doesn’t mean they are App Stores too. > The lack of native apps was resolved within a year of the iphone launch with the second generation. Probably they weren't ready for native developers and freezing APIs. You’re basically just reiterating what I said here but in more favourable language. At the end of the day, public demand was for native apps and the App Store was born from that. So all I’m doing is making a throw away comment about how times have changed. > And in fairness, Safari was pretty capable on iphone. Oh it really was. At the time it was heads and shoulders above anything else’s available for portable devices.
pjc50 1y ago
Hmm. I'm not sure about this aspect of history. iPhone app store launch was July 2008, Play Store launch was October 2008. Symbian store was actually after this (yes, really) https://venturebeat.com/business/mobile-os-company-symbian-enters-app-store-fray-launches-horizon/ https://venturebeat.com/business/mobile-os-company-symbian-e... Which app stores pre-dated iOS? Now, Symbian and various others had apps, but you had to buy them through the carrier. And carriers were even worse gatekeepers than Apple!
- hnlmorg 1y ago
  App Stores weren’t but native apps were: > Back then, native apps were considered a “must have” feature for smartphones.