Comment by criley2
9 years ago
I completely disagree, to be frank.
Why do I need a native binary, tens of thousands of lines of code, an app with a massive permissions access to my device...
To read a news article?
To book a flight?
To comment on an internet post?
Adding a few more "app features" to light web pages sounds a whole lot more attractive than banishing all useful functionality into the den of apps, where only larger teams and more experienced developers can roll out even basic functionality.
Why do I need a native binary, tens of thousands of lines of code, an app with a massive permissions access to my device...
You don't – but why do you need loading screens, push notifications, or any of that other stuff either?
The web is great in concept for document-oriented information and some application uses. Mobile applications are greater for richer user interfaces and more device integration. They both have their strengths, and I think it's okay to accept that.
> loading screens, push notifications
You seem to be laser-focused on this one tiny part of PWAs. There's way more too it than that, like offline support, background sync, etc. Imagine if you could press a button on the page to save that article you're reading for later, and have it available offline next time you need it.
Or what if you could write a comment while offline, and have it be automatically posted next time you have a connection. (Or optionally, have a notification pop-up next time you're online asking if you still want to post it.)
PWAs are just flat out _better_ than existing web apps. It's remarkable to me that so many people seem to be against these incredibly useful features just because the app they're using is web-based rather than native.
> Imagine if you could press a button on the page to save that article you're reading for later, and have it available offline next time you need it.
This is available on Safari, the same browser the author is bashing and comparing to IE.
And it's synced across macOS and iOS. It's called "reading list". It works with airplane mode and everything.
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PWAs are just flat out _better_ than existing web apps. It's remarkable to me that so many people seem to be against these incredibly useful features just because the app they're using is web-based rather than native.
I think that's where we'll have to disagree in some sense.
Adding features to the web platform will of course mean that web applications have access to more features. Some of those are great – I'm really glad we have geolocation, for example.
The trade-off is that every feature added to the platform incurs cost and complexity. Trading these off is important; what is the point in web apps that do everything native apps do, but in a somewhat less good way?
There are obviously pros and cons here, and I'm not convinced that the use cases for more complexity are beneficial enough to justify it.
"You seem to be laser-focused on this one tiny part of PWAs."
We're laser focused on the annoying parts that we know will be abused to death.
"Imagine if you could press a button on the page to save that article you're reading for later, and have it available offline next time you need it."
Most browsers already do this.
"PWAs are just flat out _better_ than existing web apps. It's remarkable to me that so many people seem to be against these incredibly useful features just because the app they're using is web-based rather than native."
Because we already have native apps to do these things. I don't want websites to do these things. I want a website to be a website.
I get plenty of push notifications from native apps that I find useful: e-mail, twitter, calendar events, chat. I can block those I don't want. That developers can't write a web app if they want as much as the option is ridiculous.
Well, actually they can, as Twitter has shown. It looks like Apple is trying to pull an Internet Explorer on us though.
I don't agree with this.
Web applications are fine, and have their place. I'd argue that place is not as frequently-used, heavily interactive applications; native apps exist for that, and are better in most ways.
This is the thing – some publishers insist on using their stupid application when all I want to do is browse some content. Other publishers insist I use their shitty JS-HTML-Hybrid nonsense because they are too stingy to develop proper applications. I wish we could learn to more effective use technologies in the right places.
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Wouldn't you at least consider this a useful use case: Purchase a flight online on a website, but then get a push notification if there is a flight change? Why should we force a user to download an app to support that use case.
Why not just use SMS instead? It's timely, and it works even if the target device is in an overcrowded airport and can't get mobile data.
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I think we agree in some sense.
> To read a news article?
I refuse to use a native app for this (e.g., Apple News, Flipboard). I love reading my news on the web. In a browser. Where the page is the content and the browser is the convenience. Even better is having Safari's "Reader Mode" enabled constantly so every article is consistently and nicely formatted and I get just the text and links.
> To book a flight?
Same thing for booking a flight, last time I did that was on a web site. With some forms and a few "Next" links to go to the next page until I was done.
It was nice to get the boarding pass in Apple Wallet though and then use that to board.
> To comment on an internet post?
I'm commenting on this post right here in Safari. I wouldn't ever want to use an app for it.
I don't need more "app features" on light web pages. Especially not the ones mentioned in the article.
Now imagine if you could do all of that faster and offline, while still avoiding the need to install a native app. That's something PWAs would enable.
On reading news articles: I can do that offline and fast right now. I add things to my reading list as I browse the web and Safari downloads them in the background. Then I can read articles when I'm offline (like on a flight). I'm a pretty voracious user of the Reading List and Reader Mode features of Safari.
On booking a flight: I'm not sure how doing this offline helps? Last time I did it, I did have to wait for pages to load after clicking links but it was on the order of seconds or less. And not anything frustrating.
On commenting on an Internet post: Doing it offline is not really interesting to me, and I'm not sure how that would work (which is why I'm happy to do it in a browser). Hacker News is more than fast enough. It's really minimal.
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PWAs would enable me to book a flight and comment on an internet post offline?
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Why on earth do you need loading screens, push notifications, home screen icons, etc for any of that?
I booked the holiday I'm currently on to China almost entirely on an iPad, I could easily have done all of it that way, with none of these features.
But when everything is pushed to the web the same argument applies to your browser.
> Why do I need a web app, tens of millions of lines of code, a website with massive permissions to my browser.
> To read a news article?
> ...
Because the web app is portable across OS'es to start with.
A lot of the time web apps aren't even portable across different browsers...so...YMMV in regards to the whole portability thing.
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There is that, and then there are performance intensive apps, and everything in between.
Apple is ensuring that most of its ecosystem is fast and pleasant.
Fast and pleasant are useful tools to Apple's goal of making a lot of money, which is not bad per se.
The author got it right:
> Apple treats web apps like second class citizens because they don’t generate money like native apps in the app store.
There won't be good support for web apps unless they find a way to make money out of them. If the day comes that native apps don't make money anymore, maybe because everybody gives them for free as front end to services paid outside the Apple Store (think Slack), then Apple could improve Safari and live only with revenues from the hardware.
It's going to be a hard fight because the goals of Apple and the goals of developers (and maybe also the goal of their customers) are not aligned and they own the platform.