4 ms·

yep. you are in the minority. This whole thread reeks of web devs hating on native mobile for no reason other than being web devs. the only website I use regula

yep. you are in the minority. This whole thread reeks of web devs hating on native mobile for no reason other than being web devs. the only website I use regularly in the browser is reddit and that is because I don't like any of the native solutions.

increment_i 12y ago
>> "web devs hating on native mobile for no reason other than being web devs." Well I'm not a web guy, but I can imagine at least one reason: having to learn and work with a slew of proprietary software stacks to deploy the same thing over multiple platforms - the web finally looked like the solution to this problem until about 5-6 years ago.
- thesimpsons1022 12y ago
  i'm not saying web dev isn't easier to deploy for multiple platforms. I'm saying native is much better to use from a user side.
zhte415 12y ago
Please educate me why. I'm not being funny, I truly don't understand. I understand some cases: * Need for offline; * Need to work like an IM (instant updates pushed from a server, like a telephone / IM / email service); * Need to avoid latency in user experience (a native game, vs a web-based flash-style game). But I don't understand any others, and really would like to know.
- thesimpsons1022 12y ago
  1. you can do much more with interfaces and processing power in native mobile. Even simple apps like piazza or quora, I can't see being implemented nearly as nicely in the web. People think it is all about animations, but it isn't. A small example is how the entire web page has to be loaded each time you click a link on the hacker news mobile site or hit the back button or anything. A mobile app on the other hand would load all the links when you first open the app and when you hit the back button from looking at a link, you'd be met with zero latency.(not to mention persistent settings) 2. With my iPhone at least, I enjoy the predictable user interface that comes with doing stuff inside IOS. 3. I'll be honest. I don't like typing in URLS on my phone, and typing in passwords. It is a real pain when alternatively I could just click an app. 4. I really hate the mobile sites for some companies. The mobile site for my school is awful and always redirects you to some ugly main menus from the page you actually wanted. I would much rather just have the regular website.
  - throwaway41597 12y ago
    Re (1), doing full-page rendering on the server is not up to the current state of mobile apps. You can already partially update a page. Zero latency is on par as well on the mobile web, as a web app can load its code on the first render, store some data for offline (though this is a lot more work than it is on native because of the bad state of web databases implementations) and request data to the server when it doesn't fit on a phone's memory (surely, the native Quora app doesn't store its terabytes of data on every phone) (2) is bit hand-wavy in my opinion (3) is spot on, bookmarking to homescreen is something people don't know about; typing a password is okay if it's only once I think (4) is about prioritizing resources to the most popular platform: a website on desktop, a native app on mobile
  - zhte415 12y ago
    Thanks. I very much appreciate your response. :)
  - tootie 12y ago
    1) Is the result of shops putting all their dev effort into apps. Performant and high-quality mobile sites is easily achievable if you put in the effort. Native obviously has some advantages that can't be replicated in browser, but in-browser is repeatable across platforms and prevents lock-in (for both site creators and consumers) 2) To each his own. I've never really figured out what a native look and feel was since every app looks different. And it's not like non-native slowed down adoption of the WWW for desktops. 3) Bookmarks. Android at least lets you put a URL bookmark on your desktop too. 4) Same as 1.
- rquirk 12y ago
  One example - I use the ebay app on Android over the web site. It's miles better due to native integration. It remembers my login better than websites do (probably a security risk, but my phone's encrypted), it integrates photo-taking direct into the app which is handy for selling and buying e.g. buying: if you have a minor dispute with a seller you can just blast off a photo in the built-in messaging system. It sends notifications for watched items. The UI is also better than the mobile site - the click targets are nice and big and the lists scroll quickly - but that could possibly be improved in the site. The native integration is mostly what makes it nice.

increment_i 12y ago

>> "web devs hating on native mobile for no reason other than being web devs." Well I'm not a web guy, but I can imagine at least one reason: having to learn and work with a slew of proprietary software stacks to deploy the same thing over multiple platforms - the web finally looked like the solution to this problem until about 5-6 years ago.

thesimpsons1022 12y ago
i'm not saying web dev isn't easier to deploy for multiple platforms. I'm saying native is much better to use from a user side.

zhte415 12y ago

Please educate me why. I'm not being funny, I truly don't understand. I understand some cases: * Need for offline; * Need to work like an IM (instant updates pushed from a server, like a telephone / IM / email service); * Need to avoid latency in user experience (a native game, vs a web-based flash-style game). But I don't understand any others, and really would like to know.

thesimpsons1022 12y ago
1. you can do much more with interfaces and processing power in native mobile. Even simple apps like piazza or quora, I can't see being implemented nearly as nicely in the web. People think it is all about animations, but it isn't. A small example is how the entire web page has to be loaded each time you click a link on the hacker news mobile site or hit the back button or anything. A mobile app on the other hand would load all the links when you first open the app and when you hit the back button from looking at a link, you'd be met with zero latency.(not to mention persistent settings) 2. With my iPhone at least, I enjoy the predictable user interface that comes with doing stuff inside IOS. 3. I'll be honest. I don't like typing in URLS on my phone, and typing in passwords. It is a real pain when alternatively I could just click an app. 4. I really hate the mobile sites for some companies. The mobile site for my school is awful and always redirects you to some ugly main menus from the page you actually wanted. I would much rather just have the regular website.
- throwaway41597 12y ago
  Re (1), doing full-page rendering on the server is not up to the current state of mobile apps. You can already partially update a page. Zero latency is on par as well on the mobile web, as a web app can load its code on the first render, store some data for offline (though this is a lot more work than it is on native because of the bad state of web databases implementations) and request data to the server when it doesn't fit on a phone's memory (surely, the native Quora app doesn't store its terabytes of data on every phone) (2) is bit hand-wavy in my opinion (3) is spot on, bookmarking to homescreen is something people don't know about; typing a password is okay if it's only once I think (4) is about prioritizing resources to the most popular platform: a website on desktop, a native app on mobile
- zhte415 12y ago
  Thanks. I very much appreciate your response. :)
- tootie 12y ago
  1) Is the result of shops putting all their dev effort into apps. Performant and high-quality mobile sites is easily achievable if you put in the effort. Native obviously has some advantages that can't be replicated in browser, but in-browser is repeatable across platforms and prevents lock-in (for both site creators and consumers) 2) To each his own. I've never really figured out what a native look and feel was since every app looks different. And it's not like non-native slowed down adoption of the WWW for desktops. 3) Bookmarks. Android at least lets you put a URL bookmark on your desktop too. 4) Same as 1.
rquirk 12y ago
One example - I use the ebay app on Android over the web site. It's miles better due to native integration. It remembers my login better than websites do (probably a security risk, but my phone's encrypted), it integrates photo-taking direct into the app which is handy for selling and buying e.g. buying: if you have a minor dispute with a seller you can just blast off a photo in the built-in messaging system. It sends notifications for watched items. The UI is also better than the mobile site - the click targets are nice and big and the lists scroll quickly - but that could possibly be improved in the site. The native integration is mostly what makes it nice.