8 ms·

The Mobile Browser Is Dead, Long Live The App

20 points by chiachun 13y ago

manuletroll 13y ago
Awesome, now even more sites will try and force me to download their shitty app when all I want is to read a fucking article! No wonder no one uses the mobile web when every other site does stuff like that.
- andyidsinga 13y ago
  exactly! ..but people making those sites will eventually learn how to make a better web sites that fits into the phone. "performance" advantages of apps vs mobile sites will go away ( imho )
aphexairlines 13y ago
That graph shows 68% of the time in games, facebook, chat, and music/video. The remaining 32% is split between 14% in the browser and 18% in apps. That's not the same thing as the mobile browser being dead.
- erikb 13y ago
  You can also choose between m.fb.com and the FB app. There are also HTML5 games for the phone, you can also use web IRC clients for chat etc. But people just don't! People use the apps, which is exactly what the article is saying, or not?
marknutter 13y ago
So Facebook, Messaging, and Gaming apps make up 58% of mobile usage statistics and suddenly the mobile browser is "dead"? Mobile browsers have never been a strong target for gaming and won't be until Apple allows WebGL to run in Mobile Safari. What I take from this is that Facebook still dominates people's online activities and that most people spend most of their time playing Candy Crush Saga on their phones. This article is link-bait, nothing more.
- diminish 13y ago
  + "Time spent" as a sensible measure of everything was dead long time ago for computing. "Old media" still doesn't get it.
- MrScruff 13y ago
  I'd be surprised if the lack of WebGL is what's holding back mobile browser based games. I would imagine it's the relative difficulty in monetizing them vs the app store.
  - matt_heimer 13y ago
    And I wonder if it is on purpose to keep the lock-in. But strangely in Windows 8.1 (not phone yet) you can make Windows store apps using WebGL and JavaScript. FireFox OS also support WebGL.
fidotron 13y ago
The more damning thing is the web is rapidly becoming poor people and geekland, with apps becoming where the middle and upper classes are consuming, so the value is moving heavily towards appland. It's been clear for a while that monetising apps is easier than the web, though the discovery problem is intense. What I've not seen, and would be interesting, is how different this is for iOS and Android users. i.e. do iOS users spend more time on apps vs in browser than Android users?
- chiachun 13y ago
  One argument caught my attention in the article is that the HTML5 approach of Firefox OS is not working. Actually I prefer the HTML5 approach, but as you said, monetising apps is easier than the web. I believe this is the key issue here.
- unphasable 13y ago
  I'm not sure if iOS users spend more time on apps vs Android, but there are lots of studies showing that iOS users spend significantly more money on apps/in apps than Android users.
ckoglmeier 13y ago
Forbes, as usual, churning out horrendously written and poorly thought through articles. Time spent is a poor way for anyone to evaluate a market or even a single product. It could mean anything from "wow this product is amazing, let me stay on it all day" to "wow this product sucks, and I can't find anything but I need to so I'm going to spend 3 hours on it finding what I need". Its an even worse choice to then extrapolate that metric into high level prognostications about what does/doesn't matter in the space. Mobile Web has a role for consumers and companies. Mobile apps, like packaged software of the past, also have a role for consumers and companies. The value is in understanding why they have different use cases and building software that delivers value to users for what they need right now. But hey, if this poorly written article resonates with you, feel free to listen. And the rest of us will laugh at you all the way to the bank.
erikb 13y ago
I feel the same. As a developer I'd like to just develop HTML5 Apps and be done with it. But as a user I always, ALWAYS, prefer an App over the website, even if both do the same thing. I don't know why but HTML5 Apps don't feel as easy, responsive, fast and integrated as the average Android App. I always feel a little tighten up when being in the browser, even the App is designed exactly for my screen size. Therefore I also decided that if I develop something for the phone it must be a native App.
- smrtinsert 13y ago
  Agreed. I work in visualization and there's no way to really do cool things in the mobile space without dropping into apps. HTML5 simply doesn't perform well enough yet and people want a polished experience - that means app development. I think what people are ignoring is that a lot of what we use has moved from document type sites to application type sites. I browse HN fine with mobile browser, but for almost anything else, I want the app version.
  - erikb 13y ago
    Yes, that's a good additional argument. Reading text is okay (although even there sometimes Kindle App is better than the browser). But most often we want interactive experiences and that is where responsiveness and look&feel are quite important.
- scrumper 13y ago
  This might be heresy round here, but I make the same argument for desktop as well. For one example, my native apps use a consistent application menu framework provided by my OS, yet every time I'm in a browser app I get a completely different experience, with no commonality between different vendors. There's poor integration of copy/paste; no integration with the file system; a 'back' button that nukes the whole app; keyboard shortcuts that kinda sorta work, but only if they don't step on the browser's own... It's like using DOS applications all over again. Until web apps can run in a first-class embedded Javascript runtime with equal access to the OS's native frameworks, web apps are going to continue being second class citizens. Part of me thinks they're only popular now because developers like working on them.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
ilbe 13y ago
Can we just discontinue submissions from forbes, wsj, bloomberg, theguardian, wired, and techcrunch?
- Dirlewanger 13y ago
  Then we're left with 90% shitty blog posts that are a variation of "Why I do X and you should too", 10% actually interesting stuff from other sources.
  - ilbe 13y ago
    Good point, I held back on mentioning such blogs, I'd definitely support filtering those out too.
perlpimp 13y ago
thing is that mobile web has not yet integrated into mobile platform per-se. Apps have access to far more features of the OS than web pages. I think if browsers would be able to expose and integrate web-apps something that can be a blend of an app and webservice then one will see how limited and stupid using isolated app is. Open services promote integration and availability of things you want to do.. for example I can't instapaper an article in my safari browser, I am sure I could've fixed that if there'd been a layer of script language between OS apps and web apps. It is only a sliver but it has been annoying me quite a bit. If the mobile ecosystem will be scriptable and integratable then one can make web be a first class citizen on the mobile. For now browser is a pretty crummy way to do web on a mobile device. Screen is too small, value added features are only available to apps only. Maybe for a good reason - technological one, battery and security(those are the problems to solve). Yet I would like to program my alarm clock from the web and have it send me some news for the time when I got up ... something like that (I am brain storming here) 2c
- smrtinsert 13y ago
  App interoperability is also huge in Android thanks to Intents. No such feature exists in the web space and none are anywhere on the horizon - the app experience is simply the better experience.
- Iftheshoefits 13y ago
  What you're talking about isn't "a sliver." Given the underlying architecture of the various mobile OSes (FireFox OS excluded, perhaps--I don't know enough about it to say), it's actually quite probably a very big task. I'm sure there are masochistic people who write code for browsers who'd love to maintain the browser-API abstraction over N OS API implementations. I'm not so sure there is a sufficient number of them to get such a task off the ground. It's not some trivial matter of simply implementing something like an HTTP-based API.
jpswade 13y ago
Apps are great right now because they are better than most of the web apps. However, they aren't the future, because: - Web apps are always up-to-date, no updating necessary - Web apps are stored in the cloud, not on your device - Web apps work on any device/platform, apps need to be written for each - Web apps are there on demand, instantly, while vendors cannot expect you to download an app for every website, company and product. Look at what Google is doing with the Chromebook and look at devices like the Synology where the best feature is the Web app interface served from the device itself. This is the future, the "Internet of Things".
- matt_heimer 13y ago
  Not really a compelling argument. If I invert your benefits they still read like benefits. Mobile Apps are the future because: - Mobile apps allow you to keep the version you have, updating when desired - Mobile apps are stored on your device - Mobile apps are customized to your device and can take advantage of all its features - Mobile devices provide a browser for things that shouldn't ever be an app to being with. I hope web based apps are the future but I think it will be for different reasons. - The promise of Java, they won't be written in Java but just like Java the idea that you can write portable applications is very powerful - Not being locked into an app store. App stores will still exist for discovery and monetization reasons but being able to run an app by visiting a URL will allow for all the things that companies like Apple won't allow.
  - liotier 13y ago
    > Mobile apps allow you to keep the version you have, updating when desired Do you really believe that the user is actually in control of the upgrades ? > Mobile apps are customized to your device and can take advantage of all its features Having to code specifically for each device sounds like a benefit to you ?
    - MrScruff 13y ago
      Do you really believe that the user is actually in control of the upgrades ? On iOS at least, it's (by default) a manual process to update an app. Having to code specifically for each device sounds like a benefit to you ? Benefit for the user, yes.
borplk 13y ago
Ah, these articles really make me feel uneasy. I prefer this mindset instead: http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/
- sehr 13y ago
  Rdio & Google Maps would be absolute blasts to work with if that's how they were built.
  - borplk 13y ago
    Google Maps are for Googles to build. The problem arises when every one wants to build fancy applications that serve no real purpose. I prefer to see some "utilitarianism" in the web.
    - sehr 13y ago
      Agreed, I just took your comment as an all or nothing approach mybad.
  - Kiro 13y ago
    How would that even work?
    - sehr 13y ago
      It wouldn't, that's the point.
- bambax 13y ago
  > "Good design is as little design as possible." - some German motherfucker Love that quote, and the signature even more!!
bbuffone 13y ago
My opinion is there has been a failure of IT to realize that mobile is completely different from everything else and we continue to leverage desktop technology in the mobile world. Apps work best because they do not carry baggage of the desktop world with them. People have the freedom to build specifically for mobile with mobile tools. There are no two bigger movements that contribute to this than: Responsive Design and the Mobile first. Responsive Design implies that mobile is just different from desktop based on the display size and that you can design a single interface that can work for both. Both of these ideas are completely wrong. Mobile First implies designing for mobile and then desktop is the best approach but this can never work as both platforms will suffer from inferior implementations. ---- Setting the ship back on course would take us building "Mobile Only" with mobile only frameworks, by dropping the ones that were created in the desktop era.
iLoch 13y ago
I disagree; web apps are just warming up. Native apps are still the go-to for a seamless experience, but I think that will change. As devices develop greater fragmentation continues (now seeping into the iOS echo system by the looks of it) apps will need to get better at being responsive. Web apps have already figured out a lot of the challenges surrounding responsive design, and will continue to do so. Once devices become powerful enough that there's no significant difference between web and mobile things will change dramatically. I see Google being the next to adopt native HTML5 and JS (after Microsoft's lesser known adoption in Windows Phone and Windows 8). Google's support for native web apps will put pressure on Apple and they'll go the same way.
- cnaut 13y ago
  I can definitely see Google merging Chrome OS with Android
  - chinpokomon 13y ago
    They're under the same umbrella now too. I personally think that will be a central theme in Android 5. Imaging how you'll be able to run Chrome packaged apps on you PC, tablet, phone, and Chromebook, with the same application and data stored in the cloud, synchronized everywhere. You only have to look at the changes they made in KitKat to see that Android is destined to become ChromeOS for mobile devices.
bnolsen 13y ago
The reason: web pages suck, and they increasingly suck worse and worse with more and more javascript and crap getting thrown in. I wish the simplification required to make a web app that is usable on mobile would find its way back into the web pages themselves. mobile versions of websites are pretty much a joke. I can't stand what amazon does when I try to visit with opera (forces it to mobile). Makes it pretty unusable.
shmerl 13y ago
I think the author didn't exactly understand what Marc Dillon meant by saying: > but I understand the utility of having applications. But they contribute to a tunnel vision of what a smartphone can do. They provide a good user experience, but poor integration. A smartphone is smart if it helps users day to day He didn't mean it to contrast native applications vs browser based ones. He meant it to contrast standalone / non integrated native applications vs integrated experience where the user doesn't see it as "working with application A", but sees it as "doing task A". Native vs Web wise, Jolla's Sailfish is actually heavy on the native side. > The methodology of Android and iOS is the dominant viewpoint. It's a not a reason to copycat it and to be a follower rather than a disruptor. Sailfish and FirefoxOS don't follow a lot of aspects of the established iOS and Android approaches and it's a good, not a bad thing.
zabraxias 13y ago
I love these article titles especially since I love getting my tech news from forbes the way I love my mechanic's baked goods. Apps have their place and the browser is not going away. If anything "The browser is dead...long live the mobile OS". I would cite reasons why I think this but I'll claim the same opinion piece rights media seems to enjoy lately.
cnaut 13y ago
One of the biggest reasons that native apps are getting more usage than mobile web apps is the existence of an app store. There is no central distribution center for web apps making discovery difficult. The process of getting a mobile web app pinned is not easy enough compared to a native app.
jonbeebe 13y ago
Why can’t the “future” be one with both web apps and native apps? (e.g. like how it is now) They both have their up-sides and down-sides, but which is best usually depends on the context in which they are being used, and if nothing else, user preference. I don’t see why one has to “win” per-say … it seems to me like the future is big enough for both to thrive :)

20 points by chiachun 13y ago

Awesome, now even more sites will try and force me to download their shitty app when all I want is to read a fucking article! No wonder no one uses the mobile web when every other site does stuff like that.

andyidsinga 13y ago
exactly! ..but people making those sites will eventually learn how to make a better web sites that fits into the phone. "performance" advantages of apps vs mobile sites will go away ( imho )

aphexairlines 13y ago

That graph shows 68% of the time in games, facebook, chat, and music/video. The remaining 32% is split between 14% in the browser and 18% in apps. That's not the same thing as the mobile browser being dead.

erikb 13y ago
You can also choose between m.fb.com and the FB app. There are also HTML5 games for the phone, you can also use web IRC clients for chat etc. But people just don't! People use the apps, which is exactly what the article is saying, or not?

marknutter 13y ago

So Facebook, Messaging, and Gaming apps make up 58% of mobile usage statistics and suddenly the mobile browser is "dead"? Mobile browsers have never been a strong target for gaming and won't be until Apple allows WebGL to run in Mobile Safari. What I take from this is that Facebook still dominates people's online activities and that most people spend most of their time playing Candy Crush Saga on their phones. This article is link-bait, nothing more.

diminish 13y ago
+ "Time spent" as a sensible measure of everything was dead long time ago for computing. "Old media" still doesn't get it.
MrScruff 13y ago
I'd be surprised if the lack of WebGL is what's holding back mobile browser based games. I would imagine it's the relative difficulty in monetizing them vs the app store.
- matt_heimer 13y ago
  And I wonder if it is on purpose to keep the lock-in. But strangely in Windows 8.1 (not phone yet) you can make Windows store apps using WebGL and JavaScript. FireFox OS also support WebGL.

fidotron 13y ago

The more damning thing is the web is rapidly becoming poor people and geekland, with apps becoming where the middle and upper classes are consuming, so the value is moving heavily towards appland. It's been clear for a while that monetising apps is easier than the web, though the discovery problem is intense. What I've not seen, and would be interesting, is how different this is for iOS and Android users. i.e. do iOS users spend more time on apps vs in browser than Android users?

chiachun 13y ago
One argument caught my attention in the article is that the HTML5 approach of Firefox OS is not working. Actually I prefer the HTML5 approach, but as you said, monetising apps is easier than the web. I believe this is the key issue here.
unphasable 13y ago
I'm not sure if iOS users spend more time on apps vs Android, but there are lots of studies showing that iOS users spend significantly more money on apps/in apps than Android users.

ckoglmeier 13y ago

Forbes, as usual, churning out horrendously written and poorly thought through articles. Time spent is a poor way for anyone to evaluate a market or even a single product. It could mean anything from "wow this product is amazing, let me stay on it all day" to "wow this product sucks, and I can't find anything but I need to so I'm going to spend 3 hours on it finding what I need". Its an even worse choice to then extrapolate that metric into high level prognostications about what does/doesn't matter in the space. Mobile Web has a role for consumers and companies. Mobile apps, like packaged software of the past, also have a role for consumers and companies. The value is in understanding why they have different use cases and building software that delivers value to users for what they need right now. But hey, if this poorly written article resonates with you, feel free to listen. And the rest of us will laugh at you all the way to the bank.

erikb 13y ago

I feel the same. As a developer I'd like to just develop HTML5 Apps and be done with it. But as a user I always, ALWAYS, prefer an App over the website, even if both do the same thing. I don't know why but HTML5 Apps don't feel as easy, responsive, fast and integrated as the average Android App. I always feel a little tighten up when being in the browser, even the App is designed exactly for my screen size. Therefore I also decided that if I develop something for the phone it must be a native App.

smrtinsert 13y ago
Agreed. I work in visualization and there's no way to really do cool things in the mobile space without dropping into apps. HTML5 simply doesn't perform well enough yet and people want a polished experience - that means app development. I think what people are ignoring is that a lot of what we use has moved from document type sites to application type sites. I browse HN fine with mobile browser, but for almost anything else, I want the app version.
- erikb 13y ago
  Yes, that's a good additional argument. Reading text is okay (although even there sometimes Kindle App is better than the browser). But most often we want interactive experiences and that is where responsiveness and look&feel are quite important.
scrumper 13y ago
This might be heresy round here, but I make the same argument for desktop as well. For one example, my native apps use a consistent application menu framework provided by my OS, yet every time I'm in a browser app I get a completely different experience, with no commonality between different vendors. There's poor integration of copy/paste; no integration with the file system; a 'back' button that nukes the whole app; keyboard shortcuts that kinda sorta work, but only if they don't step on the browser's own... It's like using DOS applications all over again. Until web apps can run in a first-class embedded Javascript runtime with equal access to the OS's native frameworks, web apps are going to continue being second class citizens. Part of me thinks they're only popular now because developers like working on them.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

ilbe 13y ago

Can we just discontinue submissions from forbes, wsj, bloomberg, theguardian, wired, and techcrunch?

Dirlewanger 13y ago
Then we're left with 90% shitty blog posts that are a variation of "Why I do X and you should too", 10% actually interesting stuff from other sources.
- ilbe 13y ago
  Good point, I held back on mentioning such blogs, I'd definitely support filtering those out too.

perlpimp 13y ago

thing is that mobile web has not yet integrated into mobile platform per-se. Apps have access to far more features of the OS than web pages. I think if browsers would be able to expose and integrate web-apps something that can be a blend of an app and webservice then one will see how limited and stupid using isolated app is. Open services promote integration and availability of things you want to do.. for example I can't instapaper an article in my safari browser, I am sure I could've fixed that if there'd been a layer of script language between OS apps and web apps. It is only a sliver but it has been annoying me quite a bit. If the mobile ecosystem will be scriptable and integratable then one can make web be a first class citizen on the mobile. For now browser is a pretty crummy way to do web on a mobile device. Screen is too small, value added features are only available to apps only. Maybe for a good reason - technological one, battery and security(those are the problems to solve). Yet I would like to program my alarm clock from the web and have it send me some news for the time when I got up ... something like that (I am brain storming here) 2c

smrtinsert 13y ago
App interoperability is also huge in Android thanks to Intents. No such feature exists in the web space and none are anywhere on the horizon - the app experience is simply the better experience.
Iftheshoefits 13y ago
What you're talking about isn't "a sliver." Given the underlying architecture of the various mobile OSes (FireFox OS excluded, perhaps--I don't know enough about it to say), it's actually quite probably a very big task. I'm sure there are masochistic people who write code for browsers who'd love to maintain the browser-API abstraction over N OS API implementations. I'm not so sure there is a sufficient number of them to get such a task off the ground. It's not some trivial matter of simply implementing something like an HTTP-based API.

jpswade 13y ago

Apps are great right now because they are better than most of the web apps. However, they aren't the future, because: - Web apps are always up-to-date, no updating necessary - Web apps are stored in the cloud, not on your device - Web apps work on any device/platform, apps need to be written for each - Web apps are there on demand, instantly, while vendors cannot expect you to download an app for every website, company and product. Look at what Google is doing with the Chromebook and look at devices like the Synology where the best feature is the Web app interface served from the device itself. This is the future, the "Internet of Things".

matt_heimer 13y ago
Not really a compelling argument. If I invert your benefits they still read like benefits. Mobile Apps are the future because: - Mobile apps allow you to keep the version you have, updating when desired - Mobile apps are stored on your device - Mobile apps are customized to your device and can take advantage of all its features - Mobile devices provide a browser for things that shouldn't ever be an app to being with. I hope web based apps are the future but I think it will be for different reasons. - The promise of Java, they won't be written in Java but just like Java the idea that you can write portable applications is very powerful - Not being locked into an app store. App stores will still exist for discovery and monetization reasons but being able to run an app by visiting a URL will allow for all the things that companies like Apple won't allow.
- liotier 13y ago
  > Mobile apps allow you to keep the version you have, updating when desired Do you really believe that the user is actually in control of the upgrades ? > Mobile apps are customized to your device and can take advantage of all its features Having to code specifically for each device sounds like a benefit to you ?
  - MrScruff 13y ago
    Do you really believe that the user is actually in control of the upgrades ? On iOS at least, it's (by default) a manual process to update an app. Having to code specifically for each device sounds like a benefit to you ? Benefit for the user, yes.

borplk 13y ago

Ah, these articles really make me feel uneasy. I prefer this mindset instead: http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/

sehr 13y ago
Rdio & Google Maps would be absolute blasts to work with if that's how they were built.
- borplk 13y ago
  Google Maps are for Googles to build. The problem arises when every one wants to build fancy applications that serve no real purpose. I prefer to see some "utilitarianism" in the web.
  - sehr 13y ago
    Agreed, I just took your comment as an all or nothing approach mybad.
- Kiro 13y ago
  How would that even work?
  - sehr 13y ago
    It wouldn't, that's the point.
bambax 13y ago
> "Good design is as little design as possible." - some German motherfucker Love that quote, and the signature even more!!

bbuffone 13y ago

My opinion is there has been a failure of IT to realize that mobile is completely different from everything else and we continue to leverage desktop technology in the mobile world. Apps work best because they do not carry baggage of the desktop world with them. People have the freedom to build specifically for mobile with mobile tools. There are no two bigger movements that contribute to this than: Responsive Design and the Mobile first. Responsive Design implies that mobile is just different from desktop based on the display size and that you can design a single interface that can work for both. Both of these ideas are completely wrong. Mobile First implies designing for mobile and then desktop is the best approach but this can never work as both platforms will suffer from inferior implementations. ---- Setting the ship back on course would take us building "Mobile Only" with mobile only frameworks, by dropping the ones that were created in the desktop era.

iLoch 13y ago

I disagree; web apps are just warming up. Native apps are still the go-to for a seamless experience, but I think that will change. As devices develop greater fragmentation continues (now seeping into the iOS echo system by the looks of it) apps will need to get better at being responsive. Web apps have already figured out a lot of the challenges surrounding responsive design, and will continue to do so. Once devices become powerful enough that there's no significant difference between web and mobile things will change dramatically. I see Google being the next to adopt native HTML5 and JS (after Microsoft's lesser known adoption in Windows Phone and Windows 8). Google's support for native web apps will put pressure on Apple and they'll go the same way.

cnaut 13y ago
I can definitely see Google merging Chrome OS with Android
- chinpokomon 13y ago
  They're under the same umbrella now too. I personally think that will be a central theme in Android 5. Imaging how you'll be able to run Chrome packaged apps on you PC, tablet, phone, and Chromebook, with the same application and data stored in the cloud, synchronized everywhere. You only have to look at the changes they made in KitKat to see that Android is destined to become ChromeOS for mobile devices.

bnolsen 13y ago

The reason: web pages suck, and they increasingly suck worse and worse with more and more javascript and crap getting thrown in. I wish the simplification required to make a web app that is usable on mobile would find its way back into the web pages themselves. mobile versions of websites are pretty much a joke. I can't stand what amazon does when I try to visit with opera (forces it to mobile). Makes it pretty unusable.

shmerl 13y ago

I think the author didn't exactly understand what Marc Dillon meant by saying: > but I understand the utility of having applications. But they contribute to a tunnel vision of what a smartphone can do. They provide a good user experience, but poor integration. A smartphone is smart if it helps users day to day He didn't mean it to contrast native applications vs browser based ones. He meant it to contrast standalone / non integrated native applications vs integrated experience where the user doesn't see it as "working with application A", but sees it as "doing task A". Native vs Web wise, Jolla's Sailfish is actually heavy on the native side. > The methodology of Android and iOS is the dominant viewpoint. It's a not a reason to copycat it and to be a follower rather than a disruptor. Sailfish and FirefoxOS don't follow a lot of aspects of the established iOS and Android approaches and it's a good, not a bad thing.

zabraxias 13y ago

I love these article titles especially since I love getting my tech news from forbes the way I love my mechanic's baked goods. Apps have their place and the browser is not going away. If anything "The browser is dead...long live the mobile OS". I would cite reasons why I think this but I'll claim the same opinion piece rights media seems to enjoy lately.

cnaut 13y ago

One of the biggest reasons that native apps are getting more usage than mobile web apps is the existence of an app store. There is no central distribution center for web apps making discovery difficult. The process of getting a mobile web app pinned is not easy enough compared to a native app.

jonbeebe 13y ago

Why can’t the “future” be one with both web apps and native apps? (e.g. like how it is now) They both have their up-sides and down-sides, but which is best usually depends on the context in which they are being used, and if nothing else, user preference. I don’t see why one has to “win” per-say … it seems to me like the future is big enough for both to thrive :)