Re:The End Is Near for Mobile Apps?
by TeMPOraL on Monday November 05, 2018 @08:24AM
(#18382104)
I agree with GP's reasons, but not the conclusion. Native apps are going away, which is a shame, because web apps are bad.
> For a webapp the installation is "Add to homescreen" on a webpage. It then behaves like a native app, no address bar.
Only as long as you have an open Internet connection. Maybe a properly made web app will cache itself somehow, but that process is relatively obscure and (from the user's POV) pretty unreliable. Whereas a native app is an executable on the phone, it will run whether or not you're on a network.
> They do everything the same way a native app does.
Only slower and worse. Between basic UI functions being (poorly) reimplemented one abstraction layer and extra VM level higher, and random 404 screens because oops, you briefly lost connectivity, it takes lots of extra work to get a web app to native level of quality - at which point one might want to consider why they didn't write it native in the first place?
> How do you think FB and other popular content consuming apps work nowadays? You are basically looking at webapps rendered in a shell that provides the few APIs a browser doesnt yet have, like share button and contact/calendar integration, to get/set data specific to/on your device.
Yes, I can tell, by the frequency with which it breaks in unexpected ways, and shows its internals - by e.g. giving you a web error page instead of the app-specific one, or just giving you a blank screen.
Webapps are just "worse is better" in action. Gross.
> For a webapp the installation is "Add to homescreen" on a webpage. It then behaves like a native app, no address bar.
Only as long as you have an open Internet connection. Maybe a properly made web app will cache itself somehow, but that process is relatively obscure and (from the user's POV) pretty unreliable. Whereas a native app is an executable on the phone, it will run whether or not you're on a network.
> They do everything the same way a native app does.
Only slower and worse. Between basic UI functions being (poorly) reimplemented one abstraction layer and extra VM level higher, and random 404 screens because oops, you briefly lost connectivity, it takes lots of extra work to get a web app to native level of quality - at which point one might want to consider why they didn't write it native in the first place?
> How do you think FB and other popular content consuming apps work nowadays? You are basically looking at webapps rendered in a shell that provides the few APIs a browser doesnt yet have, like share button and contact/calendar integration, to get/set data specific to/on your device.
Yes, I can tell, by the frequency with which it breaks in unexpected ways, and shows its internals - by e.g. giving you a web error page instead of the app-specific one, or just giving you a blank screen.
Webapps are just "worse is better" in action. Gross.