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Re:In Defense of the Modern Web by naavis on Friday May 15, 2020 @10:38AM (#23192671)
The first thing that comes to mind is that I can use them offline. I don't need the internet to draw or play most games.

EDIT: I do understand you can make web apps that work offline by jumping through enough hoops. But then again, why would you? Why try to unnecessarily shoehorn everything into the web paradigm?

Let's take an iPad drawing app that is super well integrated with Apple Pencil. What benefit would forcing it onto the web bring, considering the performance hit and usage of specialized hardware?

Or a recording app that I might use to take voice notes or record other audio. Why does that need to be a web application?

Re:In Defense of the Modern Web by perilunar on Friday May 15, 2020 @11:54AM (#23193644)
Web apps are:

* platform agnostic

* can't be blocked by a central platform gate-keeper

* generally much smaller (download size) than native apps

* don't take up permanent space on your device (good for things you only use occasionally)

* always up-to-date

Personally I prefer native apps for tools I use frequently. Everything else I prefer the web.

Re:In Defense of the Modern Web by Spivak on Friday May 15, 2020 @12:57PM (#23194416)
* The trade-off is that they're alien to the platform either behave entirely different or at worst poorly emulate platform semantics.

* this is true-ish. It's not that they can't it's that they aren't. If Apple or Google just up and blocked a site in Safari or Chrome it's basically dead. "Technically accessible in Firefox" isn't exactly a selling point. You're also gate-kept by your ability to get a public cert.

* True but download size only really matters on first install. It's absolutely friction but not really something that I've ever seen people care about anymore. Pictures take up almost all of the storage on people's phones now.

* True but the trade-off there is that you have to download it every time. Native apps win in the long run if you use it often.

* Users have never cared about this. This is only a benefit to the very techy.

Re:In Defense of the Modern Web by pseudalopex on Friday May 15, 2020 @02:45PM (#23195775)
iOS can offload unused apps.
Re:In Defense of the Modern Web by onion2k on Friday May 15, 2020 @10:48AM (#23192809)
Web apps can also work offline.