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"I don't think the web is under real threat from mobile native platforms." The main argument against this statement is home screen icons. iOS and Android home

"I don't think the web is under real threat from mobile native platforms." The main argument against this statement is home screen icons. iOS and Android home screens, among others, do not feature, have not featured, and will not for months or possibly years, feature mobile web icons to launch websites in the browser of choice. Most or every icon on these home screens are native apps because mobile websites do not easily allow or make obvious that it's possible to have an app icon on the home screen. Thus, native will always win this battle. When the day comes that it might be easier to see a mixture of native and web apps on the home screen, unless mobile web is faster than it currently is (meaning updating changing best practices, using excellent APIs like SW and designing for offline first access), users will STILL choose native over web when half or more than half the time they do exactly the same thing. Native is here to stay for years to come unless the mobile web can offer a compelling reason to switch to browser based layouts. I'm cheering for the web to provide a better content experience but we're still a long way off and can expect web based layouts to be wrapped with native code and wrappers. Maybe web isn't the place for everything but a universal bytecode for everything is a dream that could be reality as long as progress is made.

phlandis 11y ago
What a great idea.
swsieber 11y ago
I for one will not choose native apps (not as long as they have a half decent app). I choose my banking website over their app anyday. And the same with Facebook. I think for me though, part of the aversion is how invasive apps can be.
- technojunkie 11y ago
  I am not patient enough to wait for poorly developed web pages to load when a native app offers the same functionality at a fraction of the load time. My bank's native app is the only way I can deposit my checks and the web site does not offer this functionality. Thus, it's imperative that I use the native app today. If this changes tomorrow or in the future, I'll be giving it another look in the browser but right now, the bank app I use has similar and better functionality natively than in the browser. Same with FB, it's not tuned to perform well on the browser and takes longer to load. I hate the FB app for privacy reason and would MUCH rather use the browser FB site but it doesn't compare most of the time.

phlandis 11y ago

What a great idea.

swsieber 11y ago

I for one will not choose native apps (not as long as they have a half decent app). I choose my banking website over their app anyday. And the same with Facebook. I think for me though, part of the aversion is how invasive apps can be.

technojunkie 11y ago
I am not patient enough to wait for poorly developed web pages to load when a native app offers the same functionality at a fraction of the load time. My bank's native app is the only way I can deposit my checks and the web site does not offer this functionality. Thus, it's imperative that I use the native app today. If this changes tomorrow or in the future, I'll be giving it another look in the browser but right now, the bank app I use has similar and better functionality natively than in the browser. Same with FB, it's not tuned to perform well on the browser and takes longer to load. I hate the FB app for privacy reason and would MUCH rather use the browser FB site but it doesn't compare most of the time.