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> This is also contrary to the data - people love apps, download and use apps like mad. I just think you and I are talking about way different things... If I

> This is also contrary to the data - people love apps, download and use apps like mad. I just think you and I are talking about way different things... If I look at the HN main page right now, I see these URLs: placebobutton.com talkpythontome.com dice.com aol.com tripwire.com qz.com aracrown.org phys.org spring.io 250bpm.com lornajane.net digitalocean.com phys.org csmonitor.com smartdatacollective.com golgi.io fortune.com ridiculousfish.com lessthunk.com whitehouse.gov thesolutionsproject.org pamelafox.org attentiv.com adp.com linkedin.com I could easily see myself spending 15 minutes reading EACH of those webpages. THERE'S NO FRICKIN WAY I would install apps from each of those places, in order to read their one article on HN this morning. NO WAY.

BuckRogers 11y ago
Right. The web was originally meant for, and is still intended for HTML document sharing. Thankfully, HN is a basic, sensible site that doesn't cause cancer of the eye. Let most web developers around it and it would be. That said, as the parent suggested, when it comes to opening my Gmail via Safari or the app, like everything beyond a simple document- I'm going to pick the app everytime.
- VikingCoder 11y ago
  ...except when I'm on desktop. GMail via web, every time.
  - BuckRogers 11y ago
    That will change soon with Windows 10. If you're on Linux you have no choice. And if you personally had to maintain Gmail on the web, you couldn't do it yourself. Enormous time put into an application such as Gmail. So suggesting you'd build Gmail on the web vs an app is disingenuous to suggest. It's quite an edge case for many reasons.
    - VikingCoder 11y ago
      If I had to personally maintain GMail app, I couldn't do it myself, either. I don't see how this is remotely relevant. I'm not suggesting I'd build GMail one way or another. I'm saying that since GMail web is available to me on my desktop, where I spend the majority of my day, that's how I prefer to use it. It's nice to also have an app, but that's way less percent of my time. And I think reading and typing in GMail is way nice on my desktop. Sure, it's an edge case, but so is Reddit, so is HN, so is G+, so is Facebook, so is CNN, so is Github, so is StackOverflow, so is xkcd, so is news.google.com... I spend way more time on those sites on my desktop than I ever would in their corresponding apps. Add all those edge cases up, not to mention all the websites those things link to, and it's a HUGE part of my day. Apps? Sure. I like em. And sure, when I'm on mobile, any given content is probably nicer in an app. But sharing, mixing, quickly browsing... web wins hand-down for me. I wouldn't even know how to take a page from my CNN app (unless they give me a web URL) and discuss it on my Reddit app. Do you?
      - BuckRogers 11y ago
        Again you're back to what we've already established the web is ideal for. It's original intended purpose- simple document sharing. It's been doing this since the early 90s. While sharing info on Wikipedia is great, where the web fails is competing with native apps. Other than sharing HTML text documents (and there are projects working to replace that too), it doesn't get chosen over native apps. Also, I'd still say that you'd come a lot closer to being able to maintain a Gmail-style app on iOS, than you ever could on the web. As a 1 man operation. Plenty of people actually do personally maintain email native apps alone on mobile. But unless you go with basic HTML or little to no features, I don't think 1 person is keeping a web email client up to date for all browsers, all the time. The reason you prefer using webapps on the desktop, is simply because that's where you are all day. At a desk. If you were in anything but a desk job, it'd be the complete opposite. It's not an issue of superiority, it's a matter of convenience. For most people, that convenience is flipped and the experience is equal or better. Which is why native apps are winning.
        VikingCoder 11y ago
parasubvert 11y ago
for many of those, they're not apps they're websites. Apps are for repeat use of aomething more complicated than reading documents. Usually websites with a lot of JavaScript are better off as apps. LinkedIn I have an app, and it's usually better than the website except for some features they maddeningly haven't carried over. Dice too. The rest I would use a website. This isn't contradictory to my point that apps are the future of how we interact with the web. In effect apps are about a proliferation of user agents - rather than a single hugely popular type of user agent (the browser) and a handful of busy singular agents (the crawler). I am not saying the Web is going away, I'm saying HTML browsers are becoming relatively less important. They're not going away they're just not where the money and growth is.

BuckRogers 11y ago

Right. The web was originally meant for, and is still intended for HTML document sharing. Thankfully, HN is a basic, sensible site that doesn't cause cancer of the eye. Let most web developers around it and it would be. That said, as the parent suggested, when it comes to opening my Gmail via Safari or the app, like everything beyond a simple document- I'm going to pick the app everytime.

VikingCoder 11y ago
...except when I'm on desktop. GMail via web, every time.
- BuckRogers 11y ago
  That will change soon with Windows 10. If you're on Linux you have no choice. And if you personally had to maintain Gmail on the web, you couldn't do it yourself. Enormous time put into an application such as Gmail. So suggesting you'd build Gmail on the web vs an app is disingenuous to suggest. It's quite an edge case for many reasons.
  - VikingCoder 11y ago
    If I had to personally maintain GMail app, I couldn't do it myself, either. I don't see how this is remotely relevant. I'm not suggesting I'd build GMail one way or another. I'm saying that since GMail web is available to me on my desktop, where I spend the majority of my day, that's how I prefer to use it. It's nice to also have an app, but that's way less percent of my time. And I think reading and typing in GMail is way nice on my desktop. Sure, it's an edge case, but so is Reddit, so is HN, so is G+, so is Facebook, so is CNN, so is Github, so is StackOverflow, so is xkcd, so is news.google.com... I spend way more time on those sites on my desktop than I ever would in their corresponding apps. Add all those edge cases up, not to mention all the websites those things link to, and it's a HUGE part of my day. Apps? Sure. I like em. And sure, when I'm on mobile, any given content is probably nicer in an app. But sharing, mixing, quickly browsing... web wins hand-down for me. I wouldn't even know how to take a page from my CNN app (unless they give me a web URL) and discuss it on my Reddit app. Do you?
    - BuckRogers 11y ago
      Again you're back to what we've already established the web is ideal for. It's original intended purpose- simple document sharing. It's been doing this since the early 90s. While sharing info on Wikipedia is great, where the web fails is competing with native apps. Other than sharing HTML text documents (and there are projects working to replace that too), it doesn't get chosen over native apps. Also, I'd still say that you'd come a lot closer to being able to maintain a Gmail-style app on iOS, than you ever could on the web. As a 1 man operation. Plenty of people actually do personally maintain email native apps alone on mobile. But unless you go with basic HTML or little to no features, I don't think 1 person is keeping a web email client up to date for all browsers, all the time. The reason you prefer using webapps on the desktop, is simply because that's where you are all day. At a desk. If you were in anything but a desk job, it'd be the complete opposite. It's not an issue of superiority, it's a matter of convenience. For most people, that convenience is flipped and the experience is equal or better. Which is why native apps are winning.
      - VikingCoder 11y ago

parasubvert 11y ago

for many of those, they're not apps they're websites. Apps are for repeat use of aomething more complicated than reading documents. Usually websites with a lot of JavaScript are better off as apps. LinkedIn I have an app, and it's usually better than the website except for some features they maddeningly haven't carried over. Dice too. The rest I would use a website. This isn't contradictory to my point that apps are the future of how we interact with the web. In effect apps are about a proliferation of user agents - rather than a single hugely popular type of user agent (the browser) and a handful of busy singular agents (the crawler). I am not saying the Web is going away, I'm saying HTML browsers are becoming relatively less important. They're not going away they're just not where the money and growth is.