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The question was not whether native apps generally make sense, but whether "the government should also be investing heavily in mobile apps?" And I think that t

by danielh 14y ago

The question was not whether native apps generally make sense, but whether "the government should also be investing heavily in mobile apps?" And I think that the policy to focus on mobile web first is sound for that use case.

potatolicious 14y ago
> "but whether "the government should also be investing heavily in mobile apps?"" And that depends entirely on use case. A generalized "web first before native" seems misguided. If this was, for example, a schedule app for the tube, a weather service, or any such thing that users would can be expected to use daily, then an app IMO makes more sense than a website.
- clicks 14y ago
  I'm still not sure about that, I still tend to equate native apps to native apps as you traditionally saw them on desktop or laptop computers when considering downloading them. People love hoarding things, and downloading them with the "I'm going to be super efficient with this new tool!" thinking when in fact they barely even touch it after having downloaded it. My brother's iphone now has I think 6 full pages of apps... and I'm pretty sure a lot of times he spends more time searching for the app he's looking for than he would have to spend simply opening up chrome and typing in the URL. I'm also worried that if you give these companies access to your phone by going native they're going to continue getting sneakier and sneakier to try to get your attention in artful ways to ultimately sell you stuff (or sell your information to others). The power lies with the user if he sets the boundaries, and indeed, I believe he would be best served by making the decision of keeping the web on the web. My question is: how can we make the web experience better, so it can meet the native experience headway? How much time will it take to get there until the web experience is truly comparable or better than the native experience?
  - rayiner 14y ago
    With bandwidth capped wireless, the push in the future is going to be less web apps and more native apps for things you need to do on a regular basis.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  It would probably be better just to expose weather and tube schedule information as JSON and allow third party developers to use it. AFAIK this already happens to some extent.
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    Sort of. I'm all for open access and government data behind APIs, but it also leads to some level of unfairness. In NYC for example the MTA has opened subway schedules and (on some lines) live arrival estimates via API, which has led to an explosion of commercial applications. So taxpayers have to either pay a private entity for access to public data, or download scummy "free" apps and have it hoover up their private data. Opening up APIs should not preclude the government from building its own frontends, in whatever format makes sense.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      Sure, I didn't mean to suggest that the government should not provide any front end at all. After all outputting a simple HTML page with the same data in addition to a JSON dump should not be a difficult task in any sane web development architecture. However if you want app for your iphone 6 that integrates with the wardrobe planner that tells you what to wear when it is wet outside I think it is reasonable to let that development be funded privately.

by danielh 14y ago

potatolicious 14y ago

> "but whether "the government should also be investing heavily in mobile apps?"" And that depends entirely on use case. A generalized "web first before native" seems misguided. If this was, for example, a schedule app for the tube, a weather service, or any such thing that users would can be expected to use daily, then an app IMO makes more sense than a website.

clicks 14y ago
I'm still not sure about that, I still tend to equate native apps to native apps as you traditionally saw them on desktop or laptop computers when considering downloading them. People love hoarding things, and downloading them with the "I'm going to be super efficient with this new tool!" thinking when in fact they barely even touch it after having downloaded it. My brother's iphone now has I think 6 full pages of apps... and I'm pretty sure a lot of times he spends more time searching for the app he's looking for than he would have to spend simply opening up chrome and typing in the URL. I'm also worried that if you give these companies access to your phone by going native they're going to continue getting sneakier and sneakier to try to get your attention in artful ways to ultimately sell you stuff (or sell your information to others). The power lies with the user if he sets the boundaries, and indeed, I believe he would be best served by making the decision of keeping the web on the web. My question is: how can we make the web experience better, so it can meet the native experience headway? How much time will it take to get there until the web experience is truly comparable or better than the native experience?
- rayiner 14y ago
  With bandwidth capped wireless, the push in the future is going to be less web apps and more native apps for things you need to do on a regular basis.
jiggy2011 14y ago
It would probably be better just to expose weather and tube schedule information as JSON and allow third party developers to use it. AFAIK this already happens to some extent.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  Sort of. I'm all for open access and government data behind APIs, but it also leads to some level of unfairness. In NYC for example the MTA has opened subway schedules and (on some lines) live arrival estimates via API, which has led to an explosion of commercial applications. So taxpayers have to either pay a private entity for access to public data, or download scummy "free" apps and have it hoover up their private data. Opening up APIs should not preclude the government from building its own frontends, in whatever format makes sense.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    Sure, I didn't mean to suggest that the government should not provide any front end at all. After all outputting a simple HTML page with the same data in addition to a JSON dump should not be a difficult task in any sane web development architecture. However if you want app for your iphone 6 that integrates with the wardrobe planner that tells you what to wear when it is wet outside I think it is reasonable to let that development be funded privately.