Comment by tempestn
8 months ago
At AutoTempest we resisted making an app for years, because anything that a hypothetical app could do, we could do with the website. And in my opinion, when searching for cars, it's more convenient to be in your browser where you can easily open new tabs, bookmark results, etc.
And for years, it was our most requested feature, by far. We had instructions for how to pin the site to your home screen, and would explain to users how the website does everything an app can do. Still, constant requests for an app. Finally we relented and released one, and very quickly around half our mobile traffic moved to the app without us really trying to nudge people at all.
People just really like apps! I think it suits our mental model of different tools for different uses. We've also found that app users are much more engaged than website users, but of course much of that will be selection bias. Still, I can see how having your app on someone's home screen could provide a significant boost to retention, compared to a website they're liable to forget. For us now, that's the main benefit we see. Certainly don't use any additional data, though I won't argue that other companies don't.
>We had instructions for how to pin the site to your home screen, and would explain to users how the website does everything an app can do. Still, constant requests for an app.
This is the result of the inconsistent user experience to which gatekeepers like Apple have been actively contributing through active sabotage of web apps, such that all profitable apps can be more effectively and reliably taxed through Apple's App Store.
The manufactured perception of the general public then became that web apps are not "real apps" despite offering the exact same features. They have been dragged down by the subtle artificial friction that makes the UX feel subpar.
This reminds me of my own experience of mobile websites when they first emerged. I thought that the desktop version of a website is the "real website" i.e. that there is only one static original website and that its mobile version was some fake substitute, so I always activated the option "show desktop version". Then I learned about responsive web design and it clicked for me. I predict that a similar epiphany will occur among casuals once the active sabotage of web apps stops due to regulations reigning in the anti-competitive business practices of gatekeepers.
I'm sure that some people will still prefer "native" apps for whatever reason. However, if regulators do a proper job and allow web apps to compete on a level playing field, then a lay person wouldn't even be able to differentiate between them. This is even the case today where some developers simply wrap their web app in a WebView and ship it as a "native" app.
> I thought that the desktop version of a website is the "real website" i.e. that there is only one static original website and that its mobile version was some fake substitute, so I always activated the option "show desktop version".
It wasn't that long ago that when you used the mobile internet, you would be getting a "fake version" of the site that could render speedily, despite the limited speed of 2G networks.
First it was all about WML[0], which would be processed by a proxy that would deliver the file in a binary format that would be smaller.
And even when mobile phones that could access proper HTML content hit the market, it was often still accessed through the use of an accelerator proxy[1] which would optimize the page (stripping unnecessary parts) that you were trying to access so that it could be downloaded faster.
These technologies are still in use in some places, as I understand it. But it's generally not necessary nowadays for locations with access to 3G or better.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Markup_Language
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_accelerator
heck, if I use the mobile version of facebook I still get a fake site that won't open direct messages, pushing me to install the messenger app instead. with the desktop version the messages open without any issues.
Exactly, web apps are superior in most ways to mobile apps for the user experience, but only if vendors support the web and stop actively trying to make it like apps are the better option.
The preference for apps is a learned behavior, not something fundamental. The vast majority of people with real understanding would prefer the web
I couldn't agree more. If vendors decided to give the web development the resources it deserves, the experience would turn out vastly superior for the users: no apps to download (browser is usually bundled), well standardized consistent interface where you know what a control does and how does it look like, more control on security and safety, and a lot less resources consumption. Unfortunately heavy advertising, catchy effects, colorful interfaces, and not caring for the web side, convinced most users that the apps approach is the best one, while it's actually the other way around. Apps also give vendors a tool to more easily infiltrate users devices and grab much of their personal data so I guess the motivation to change that is less than nil.
This seems like an extremely biased opinion.
PWAs are only as good of a user experience as the developer programs it to be. The average local TV news affiliate website spends 5MB-20MB of bandwidth within a minute of downloading 1 page. My last iOS app was only 5MB shipped and only consumes a few KB of bandwidth per session.
There are massive convenience features that native apps support which aren’t available to browser APIs. Auth, payments, notifications, parental controls, power efficiency, and perhaps security and privacy (depending on how prevalent analytics/ tracking/ advertising libraries are on native apps).
A well crafted PWA can compete on most features with a well crafted app, but ultimately the App Store review process means native apps have a decently high floor, whereas PWAs have zero floor.
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There isn't just Apple, there's also Google which is a big promoter of PWA's, and in fact they popularized the term. PWA's just never took off.
> There isn't just Apple, there's also Google which is a big promoter of PWA's, and in fact they popularized the term.
Google is the primary champion of PWAs, they have a vested interest in its success. The reason I focused on Apple is because its actions are one of a profit-maximizing gatekeeper actively defending its most lucrative business against an existential threat that is PWA. Every bug, every delayed feature, and every artificial limitation imposed on PWAs on iOS is a calculated strategic move in this defense of its walled garden that makes maximum taxation possible.
>PWA's just never took off.
That's just the lazy manufactured and false narrative that I've already thoroughly debunked. I'm not going to repeat it, since you would just ignore it again.
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I use PWAs for my home websites (things like calendars and thermostat) running on tablets. They're a bit awkward, or I'm just ignorant of The Correct Way. I have to set metadata in a file for some reason I don't understand (most importantly, it must have a dedicated icon to display because ???). Then whenever tablet is restarted, I have to tap the website icon to launch it, then push up from bottom of screen to top and hold it up to bring up whatever Android calls the app manager, and then I tap and hold the window of my app and tap to pin it. -and if Android decides to reboot for whatever reason, I must do this again.
-But it's less pain than trying to turn a generic Android tablet into something more like a kiosk, best I can tell (there are third-party apps that do this, which survives reboots, I'm led to believe, but I'd rather not mess with third-party stuff). I previously made Android apps in Java for the tablets, and while I enjoyed the fragment system it uses, the permissions handling was always a nightmare whenever I wanted to do something neat or experimental -- TTS and mic listening in a PWA makes me much less frustrated than trying to do it via native app (which seems backwards to me), and I can still use the website on any non-Android device.
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Isn't the Mac way a good thing though? For example everything on Windows is moving to web apps where I feel they can load just as many trackers onto you eg https://www.theverge.com/news/710509/whatsapp-windows-app-we...
Whereas on Mac, Meta are keeping their native app presumably because they can't be in the Mac app store with just a web wrapper
But maybe I've just got the exact delusion youre talking about in that I view the app as having more functionality. Maybe they need to free web apps to be on a level playing field as you say
> many trackers
A native app has access to OS information for the same kind of fingerprinting as with browsers, except with more bits of information. The reason, for example, iOS has the “ask app not to track” button is because the tracking could still happen, even more comprehensively than in a browser. Not exactly sure about macOS but I don’t see why it would be different.
Meta is keeping their apps as native presumably because native apps make better spyware. I think they literally do not have any other reason; if web apps made better spyware, Meta would push people to use their web apps, simple as. Meta is a spyware company. Technical decisions about deploying/developing their spyware will be informed primarily by their desire to make it more effective as such.
Most apps on Mac are not on the App Store
You download a DMG file or something, then you drag and drop some icon into your “applications” folder
It is kind of dumb. I haven’t seen any graphical package manage interface to handle this.
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> This is the result of the inconsistent user experience to which gatekeepers like Apple have been actively contributing through active sabotage of web apps, such that all profitable apps can be more effectively and reliably taxed through Apple's App Store.
If web apps were any good, we'd see a plethora of them on Android. There are none (or very, very, very few).
If web apps were any good, nothing Apple "gatekeeps" would prevent you from building an amazing web app for iOS. The things Apple "gatekeeps" (such as mobile push) would not prevent you from making a smooth fast web app.
And yet here we are.
> if regulators do a proper job and allow web apps to compete on a level playing field
They already are competing on a level playing field. It's not "lack of NFC" or "lack of Bluetooth" or "lack of <another moving goalpost>" that prevent you from having good web apps.
> If web apps were any good, we'd see a plethora of them on Android. There are none (or very, very, very few).
Android also benefits immensely from the store revenue, it's not called a duopoly for no reason.
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>If web apps were any good, we'd see a plethora of them on Android. There are none (or very, very, very few).
This statement alone is evidence that you didn't understand the crux of the issue. You are also confusing cause and effect. I clearly explained the root causes for that. The reason there are not more web apps is not that they aren't "good" - what does that even mean? what is the criterion for "good" here? If you say that it's because they lack certain features, then you confirmed my point that it's due to active sabotage and denial of equal rights. Be specific, why are they not "good"? There wouldn't be coincidentally a mysterious opposing force that actively prevents developers from improving those aspects, right?
>There are none (or very, very, very few).
X (Twitter) - has PWA
Pinterest - has PWA
Spotify - has PWA
Uber - Hybrid
Starbucks - has PWA
Again, you're confusing cause and effect. It's like actively sabotaging a runner and saying: "See? that runner sucks!!" - Yeah because that runner is being actively sabotaged. You're completely ignoring all the evidence and simply claiming that they are unpopular because they are not "good" when in reality they are unpopular because they have been sabotaged to prevent them from challenging the gatekeeper's taxation funnels.
>If web apps were any good, nothing Apple "gatekeeps" would prevent you from building an amazing web app for iOS. The things Apple "gatekeeps" (such as mobile push) would not prevent you from making a smooth fast web app.
That's not even a coherent argument. Gatekeepers can sabotage competitors in many subtle ways to make the user experience subpar, it's not a 1-dimensional game where only feature parity can be weaponized. It's clear that you are actively refusing to understand the points being made. There is also documented evidence that Apple consistently engaged in practices that made any competing platform a worse experience. Gatekeepers have a conflict of interest and they consistently act in a manner that makes that bias glaring. Gatekeepers are also not morons, they know that it doesn't take much to introduce artificial friction while also maintaining plausible deniability. e.g. see court documents where Apple's engineers admit that they strategically use "scare screens" and that their managers would "definitely like that".
>They already are competing on a level playing field. It's not "lack of NFC" or "lack of Bluetooth" or "lack of <another moving goalpost>" that prevent you from having good web apps.
That's factually incorrect. As previously stated, it's not just a 1-dimensional form of sabotage where only feature parity is being weaponized but any form of artificially introduced friction, while being able to maintain plausible deniability - any of that will get the job done of shutting down any threat to the gatekeeper's taxation funnel. Furthermore, as open-web-advocacy.org states:
- #AppleBrowserBan Apple's ban of third party browsers on iOS is deeply anti-competitive, starves the Safari/WebKit team of funding and has stalled innovation for the past 10 years and prevented Web Apps from taking off on mobile. (https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/apples-browser-engine-ban...)
-Deep System Integration
Web Apps need to become just Apps. Apps built with the free and open web need equal treatment and integration. Closed and heavily taxed proprietary ecosystems should not receive any preference.
- Web App Equality
All artifical barriers placed by gatekeepers must be removed. Web Apps if allowed can offer equivalent functionality with greater privacy and security for demanding use-cases.
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> Apps have to update to use new APIs that are cleaner (under threat of being removed…)
WhatsApp on iOS is still not using the private photo picker* that iOS 14 introduced, and they haven’t been booted off the App Store yet.
*So that you don’t have to share your entire photo library with Meta if you want to share a photo via WhatsApp.
It’s just one example, but I suspect ubiquitous apps like WhatsApp (super popular in many geographies) might see lighter-touch enforcement. The point is that App Store governance isn’t as straightforward as one would think.
Also, websites can drop support for certain browsers, use feature detection and progressive enhancement. There’s no reason for a website to get jankier over time if web devs do their job right.
so to be clear, you are suggest we move to a closed internet, where Apple (who just lost in court due to unfair monopoly practices), not only gate keeps everything, but we have to pay them for the privilege?
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> The manufactured perception of the general public then became that web apps are not "real apps" despite offering the exact same features
But they're not real apps, they're webpages. They are two different things, both very useful, but both very different.
It's a very good thing for a user to be aware that there's a real and important difference between a signed binary from the App Store which lives on their device and a blob of minified JS coming down from quite literally anywhere.
And they're correct to feel that way! Apps, when made correctly, feel way better to use! It's a bit surprising to me you attribute this preference for ""native"" apps to "whatever reason". I've always felt the difference was extremely stark and obvious, I couldn't imagine getting them confused. It seems you're a little misinformed with how most native apps are built; it's just not true that any meaningful number of apps you interact with regularly with "simply wrap their web app in a WebView." In fact, if you try to ship an app which does solely this (webpage in a WebView), Apple will reject it. Have you built any mobile apps, kelthuzad?
I encourage you to try Google Docs or Youtube from a mobile browser and observe whether you find differences between that and the native experience. I think you'll be surprised :)
> People just really like apps!
I would say people really hate websites on mobile. The browsers are horrible, the pages are slow and oftentimes broken in some way. You get all these popups everywhere, ads are much more intrusive. It's just bad experience, so of course people would prefer app for something they use.
I avoid the browser on mobile as much as possible and I don't remember ever having a good time using it.
I refuse to use Facebook's app. It's been years, I don't remember why, don't ask me.
Their web app is fundamentally broken in half a dozen ways, and has been for years. A couple examples (not all):
If you are in the middle of typing a comment and switch to another app, when you come back, it will reload the display, losing your comment.
Video shorts load in a way that hides the video after about two seconds. Editing the URL to remove the parameters fixes this.
The layout of comments/posts often breaks, forcing me to switch to "ask for desktop version" to make one feature work, then switch back to "mobile version" to make another feature work. Neither is completely functional.
As I said, there are more. As I said, I don't even remember why I rejected their app, but at this point, if they can't make a mobile web site, why would I trust them to make an app?
>If you are in the middle of typing a comment and switch to another app, when you come back, it will reload the display, losing your comment.
This is the rule for a lot of apps and mobile websites now. I don't understand why - we have so much RAM available - but they love to refresh whether there's a reason to or not. And even if there's a reason not to. I can't count the number of times I've tapped on a tab that has a minature version of all the information I want, only for it to be replaced by a loading screen or 404.
A while ago I noticed my battery usage had gone way up. It was because any time I was distracted from my phone (or lost internet connection on a train), I would just leave the display on. Locking the phone meant that I'd lose whatever context I had.
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Companies intentionally make their web experiences worse because they can track you better in apps. Even if the trackers are technically the same, even somewhat savvy people using blockers or browser protections generally don't use them on their phones.
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Why are people still using Meta's products? Their products are among the most unbelievably user-hostile things I come across on the web; I wonder why there hasn't been a revolt yet against them
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This. I dislike most mobile websites as much as I hate the mobile apps. So to pick my poison, I have a formula.
- Banking: Install it on a different android profile because my websites forces me to use the App one way or the other anyway.
- If the site uses an existing open protocol to interact (IndieWeb, Fediverse, etc), use a non-browser/non-electron app that can handle multiple instances of such protocols.
- If not, and it has PWA, is responsive, and I use it at least twice a day, use the PWA (so far I have one).
- If it does not have PWA, but have has nice responsive layout, Firefox Android with uBlock Origin (I use Iornfox).
- For everything else, if I'm outside without a laptop, whine, complain, and use the website in the mobile browser, enable desktop mode if it has a crappy UI.
- If I'm not outside, browse it from my laptop.
I honestly hate PWAs. Last time I tried it, I realized I couldn't open a link in a new tab. Some people tried to make me use the PWA instead of browsing the website, but to me, it just makes my life harder.
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Thats because you don't use mobile firefox with ublock origin (on android). I very much prefer sites for stuff I do, they provide 100% of same experience, with one exception - can't easily block ads in apps.
Thus mobile is often even a better experience.
Your experience matches that of roughly 0% of users, unfortunately. Usable browser was one of the many things I missed when switching from Android to iOS.
Mostly that's because devs want to drive people to the app, where they can track you a lot better, so they make their mobile sites shitty on purpose. Plenty of mobile apps are just webapps anyway under the hood. There's absolutely no reason for a mobile site to be massively worse than the app unless the devs want it that way.
right, and the problem is that even if you have a good site on mobile it is sitting in the browser, the gateway to all the awful site experiences, to get to your good site people may go through a bunch of crap. Thus they would rather have an app.
The problem is not just to make your site mobile friendly, it is also that the rest of the web isn't.
> You get all these popups everywhere, ads are much more intrusive.
I've literally never had that problem. Firefox Mobile + uBlock Origin eliminates ads.
That works well on Android, but on iOS not so much I think? Also, those damn cookie banners in EU.
Many of those things are true in general, but fwiw I think we've done a decent job making the site fast and usable on mobile. It's comparable to the app in most ways, but many still prefer that.
I hate everything on mobile. The apps are badly put together. The web sites are crap.
I think Apple's core apps that ship with iOS are about the only things that don't annoy me. They work offline and disconnected for days at a time quite happily and generally work as intended. No one else seems to bother with that and rather ships some fat web turd instead that works occasionally and forces you to sign in all the time.
I think this is a much more accurate characterization, especially in AutoTempest's case. Their experience on mobile has always been slow and glitchy. I'm not sure what makes their web "app" so heavy, but it's very noticeable.
Can you share details? Or feel free to email me directly, nathan at autotempest. I'd like to learn more about your device, browser, and search criteria so we can try and reproduce what you described.
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Most people don't know how to use a computer well. Most people are just slightly above computer-illiterate. They were introduced to phones which have apps. Now in their minds that's how everything must be. Anything else induces fear into their minds.
While technically competent people might go:
"Oh neat, I don't even need to install an app, if I just put the website icon onto my home screen."
Most users are like: "Oh my god noooo! Not another way to do something! Aaaaa I cannot cope!" and panic.
You come off like a dick, but it's really true.
I saw a tweet where some Zoomer was roasting an "Elder Millenial" for switching devices from a mobile phone to a desktop when making a big purchase (airline tickets? I forget).
I didn't feel like wading into that argument (what's the point? like spitting in a campfire), but... yeah.
Some folks say that we are regressing wrt technological proficiency, but it's really just that more people use technology than they used to. Regression to the mean, maybe? Is that the right expression?
This may not be relevant to the tweet, but big purchases can involve price discrimination, so making the same purchase from a different device/browser/location could get a better price.
Using a website instead of an app isn't signaling some particularly strong computer literacy. Not that it matters - the web, both mobile and general, has been neutered so much over the years that webpages are just as useless, locked down experience siloes as apps; really the main difference in practice is the icon experience and how unobtrusive surveillance is :).
> Using a website instead of an app isn't signaling some particularly strong computer literacy.
I am not claiming it is. But it is different from what some people got introduced to. That's enough already to strike fear.
But what do you mean with websites have been neutered? Didn't HTML, CSS, and JS only got more capabilities over time?
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Most people can’t explain the difference between a website and an app, to them the web browser is just a more confusing construct with additional overheads (tabs/links etc).
This is an unnecessarily rude and reductive take. Tons of people without your exalted computer science background are perfectly competent and comfortable with using computers “well”.
Their mental model of how they LIKE to use them is different from yours though - and that should be ok instead of arousing angst.
Why do you think people have to be "computer illiterate" to prefer apps? That’s pretty narrow, and obviously just an explanation you came up with to fit your mental model.
I just find apps more practical and convenient than websites in a browser most of the time, on my phone.
If you read my comment with more attention to detail, you will see, that I did not claim, that one has to be computer illiterate to prefer apps.
But aside from that, even if I had claimed that, it wouldn't imply, that anyone preferring an app must be computer illiterate.
I remember when ChatGPT was released. I talked about it to a friend who is not technical. She said "oh wow, I really need to try it". She later said "I couldn't find the app in my AppStore".
I kept saying they had a website and why would you need an app. She couldn't understand what I was saying.
Seems like indeed the general public really likes apps and even thinks you can't do so many things in the browser.
Devs are usually disconnected from the average user's experience. I too used to be the same.
Weren't PMs supposed to fix this problem?
The dev's ambassador to the common man.
> She couldn't understand what I was saying
I don’t buy this for one second. The web is well known, and well understood - I’ve never run into anyone, in any age group, with any level of education, who wouldn’t understand what a website is.
Either you’re being overly dramatic and exaggerating here, or you had a very difficult time pronouncing the words you were intending to say.
You might be surprised. I can assure you it happened. And my friend is a 35yo physiotherapist who uses a website on a daily basis to manage her appointments. I guess what was confusing to her was the fact that it was not just a "simple" website where you would find information (blogs, Wikipedia, whatever). It was something where you would say something and it would respond dynamically. As a software engineer, we know there's no difference. It's just a few POST endpoints anyway. For a user without technical background? The way I described it sounded like it should be an app.
Now, you would say that these people (35yo) used to use Facebook (and maybe Google meet) and such on desktop. So they should know that many things can be achieved through a browser. But it seems like when thinking about mobile, people think differently. A website that "does something" other than displaying information (which is a weird and blurry definition) must be an app. I'm absolutely sure my friend has never thought it could be possible to use Facebook on through her mobile browser. If you access something with your mobile, it must be through an app.
No, a lot of non-technical people don't know the difference.
My friend was trying to explain an app to me. How everyone at his work was amazed at how well it worked compared to their Salesforce solution that they were forced to use.
The app? A website. Not even a web application. It was just a brochure type web catalog that allowed them to show their customer the brands and products they sold.
Other's I've told about ChatGPT or Claude, have trouble finding it. They go into the App Store and search for the apps. They are inundated non-official versions. All with similar titles. Some stop, some install the wrong versions.
It’s not a given that “web page” has any particular meaning to people who don’t own a computer or laptop. Even people with only a cell phone, many don’t browse the web on mobile. Is the google sign in screen that pops up on a google tv a webpage, is not a question a lot of people can answer with confidence.
> People just really like apps!
This is it. I’ve worked on plenty of projects that have web/iOS/Android, and the reason for offering native apps has always been user demand. All of this “spy on the user” crap literally never even comes up in conversation. We don’t care at all. We care about native apps because users care about native apps.
I think this is probably more true than not in terms of proportion of apps that offer a native client interface to an existing web service, but I don't think it's true for Reddit or other large companies who's primary business is selling advertising and data.
If that’s the case, why do so many websites try to push you into using the app even if you have no problem with using the website?
> why do so many websites try to push you into using the app
It you’re talking about the intrusive stuff that gets in the way of you using the website, then the answer to this is pretty simple: they don’t. The sites that do that are comparatively rare. They just appear more numerous than they really are because it’s the really big sites like Reddit that do it. The norm is either a page on the site that tells you about the app, or the banner that appears at the top of a page.
People just don't like bloated JS heavy websites
This is a very interesting, but it doesn't explain why companies push so hard to download their apps. It's even contradictory: since it seems users want apps so much, there should be no need to push them.
Businesses want you to use their app for a few reasons: it’s stickier because they can start sending you push notifications right away without even signing in/making an account, they get their logo right on your home screen, there are expedited login methods available like FaceID, they bypass most normal ad blocking so they can show users ads but also get much more reliable telemetry, they get access to APIs that allow them to request/slurp additional user data like your contacts list, persistent location services, and camera roll metadata, plus they can access a broader set of system APIs for fingerprinting purposes (even if against the ToS).
Then there’s a measurement element where app installs became an important KPI around the time ad blocking became more popular and interfered with detailed website engagement tracking, creating a self-fulfilling kind of thing.
On top of this I think another factor is that many websites are in terrible shape, super bloated by ten thousand tracking pixels and third party snippets added willy nilly by marketing teams using Tag Manager, so apps benefit from gatekeeping that bloat to a degree.
When most people want mobile apps, it makes no sense to develop a mobile website with feature parity for the handful of people that will use it.
They are potentially operationally cheaper. Answering a few API requests is cheaper than sending the same HTML over and over and over again.
The cost is minimal. It also needs to be offset against the cost of maintaining both unless you go app only. Some app seems to wrap a web view anyway.
My wife is one of these people. We couldn't be more different in that regard. I loathe apps and generally only install them when there's no alternative. She seems to either not understand or trust websites, and wants an app.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Every time I grab her phone I get dizzy and lost from the hundreds of apps. When she grabs mine, she wonders how I accomplish anything at all.
Your wife probably just wants a smooth user experience and an app delivers on that. Apps have a clear way of installing and onboarding.
I discovered that all our self hosted applications were easily adopted after I added SSO. My wife just wants one account to rule them all.
I got her accustomed to installing web apps by adding all the links in a shared note. She clicks the link, pins the site and uses SSO to log in. Easy.
> Your wife probably just wants a smooth user experience and an app delivers on that. Apps have a clear way of installing and onboarding.
To a certain extent, I fall in this camp. With privacy in general.
Without dedicating my life to it I won't be able to beat the system I live in, so why not just accept it and take what I can from it?
At the last company I worked for we wanted to shut down our app to save expenses. The idea being that most people would just the website if we removed the app. It seems like you didn't gain anything by making an app, you just created more expenses and complexity.
but did the idea pan out? did the users switch to the website or did you lose em?
Too many people were "working" on the app (mainly non-developers, like marketing), so we got too much push back. I learned that a lot of gen-x love saying they are working on an app, even if they don't do design or programming. There was no reason for the company to have an app. This was for an industry that has too little supply with too high demand, so users would have no problem going to the website, especially with their strong brand.
Piece by piece all of the app was replaced with web views for the website, and keeping the native tab menu at the bottom. No money was saved, but at least they didn't have to update the native parts of the app as features stopped working because of legacy systems being shut down. They kept the native mobile devs and fired some of the web devs instead to save money. Even though the website now needed a browser version and a slightly modified app-friendly version. No biggie, but it complicated the testing, as the responsibility for most of the app was moved to the web teams.
Well don't leave us hanging! We need the anecdata!
Interesting. Why do you think so many websites try to foist apps on you if people will voluntarily download them anyway?
My guess would be that it's because (as the above poster says) "app users are much more engaged than website users" and only "half our" moved without nudging - the sites would like more engagement from all users.
That said, the harder you "nudge" me, the more I want to avoid the app and the whole business. Especially if you have any other dark patterns - I will assume you want me to download your app just so you can abuse me better.
My wife and daughter seem to be very receptive to dark patterns. It's about education and understanding but you also need to care. They don't. Alas.
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Because they don't accept their website is not worth an app. Most of that long tail of businesses has a transactional relationship with users, who by very nature would ideally want to think about them as little as possible and only for the short moment of actual transaction.
In short: I do install apps of main platforms and physical shops I frequent. It's usually vastly better than a website, even if it just wraps a webview. But I don't want to install an app for every site I visit, for the same reason I don't want to go on a date with every stranger that smiles at me when I pass them by on the street.
Yeah, as others have said, I'm guessing it's primarily for the enhanced engagement and retention. And come to think of it, I've experienced it myself in reverse, in that social media is much easier to ignore when the app icon isn't right there on your home screen.
Apps have the ability to send notifications, web apps meanwhile have to deal with a pesky browser that prompts you to provide explicit consent for them to do that.
The ones that do are usually the ones that know people will be reluctant to download.
Maybe OP offers some really valuable products?
Thank you for trying to resist app-insanity. It really sucks that my doctor's office tries to get me to use one. No, I don't want to download an app for the one time I need it each year. Just make a freaking website. There are some exceptions like a calculator app that is completely offline.
Thank you for this extensive analysis. In my country now's the phase that every shop, even small one, wants me to download an app (for the client identification purposes). And tbh one thing is making an app for people who want it, another is requiring an app. Those "loyalty card" apps all weigh at least 100MB because of the browser bundled inside, and they are too heavy for my phone. I mitigated it using catima, an open source loyalty card wallet, but some of the app creators started to generate time based codes, so it's no longer a viable solution for me in those cases, and I started suspecting those apps do more than showing a code
Mobile apps do not bundle a browser. They use Chrome/Android System WebView on Android or WKWebView on iOS. Capacitor is one project that lets you build on top of installed browser engines, unlike Electron, which bundles Chrome.
A new Capacitor app has a size of 3-5 MB at most.
If such a simple app has 100 MB, they bundle shit like Facebook SDK and such.
“On the web you can open multiple tabs” - Interesting how people categorise things as only possible with browser. You can design experience in app to allow having multiple searches or whatever user needs multiple tabs for.
I hate having 300 apps on my phone (and I can't have them all on my home screen), but unfortunately, they're often much nicer to use than the corresponding websites. They're much faster / snappier as they don't need to load everything.
Even if each click only takes a second to load or wait, it's annoying for many clicks. Then there are all kinds of usability issues, like the page reloading in the middle of a form or process when scrolling up was misinterpreted as a refresh.
However, I'm not talking about apps that just load a webpage.
Proper native apps simply have better UX.
Of course it’s possible to mess that up, but the default is superior.
What about just using PWABuilder? Sure maybe it's not as nice an experience as a native app, but the savings on costs and time with having 1 product mean you can do way more innovation elsewhere
I would say using the web"app" give a better user experience since you always have the latest version without the need for updates. Only if offline use is possible an app would be necesarry.
I don't really know or care whether I'm using the latest version of anything. To care about that, I would first of all need to be aware that I'm not using the latest version.
By the latest I also lean the lost secure and patched version of an app. You should care.
There's no reason a website should be more up to date than an app. Could just as well be the other way around.
You need to update the app on your device. That's automated for a lot of users but not all. A web app should be maintained by the developers and should be updated to the latest stable version at all times. A web app shouldn't depend on your OS either so it would also run on OS'es that aren't supported anymore.
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Currently in this boat. Avoiding pushing an app version but seems like it might be time...
Is it because apps are usually faster? Milliseconds make a difference in UX.
There's no speed difference in downloading HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in a browser or in the app.
The question is - did you notice users uptick when adding an app, or just some web users moved to it?
Mostly it was just moving from mobile web. I think it it is contributing somewhat to long term growth as well, but that's more difficult to determine amongst other factors.
Doesn't an app allow for caching which makes the whole experience much more responsive?
I think antifingerprinting means that browsers are constantly re-loading and rerendering tons and tons of resources. The web is much much slower than it could be in theory. If you have an siloed app then you don't need to worry about that and can reuse everything. You open a new tab and nearly everything displays instantly (except the different car or whatever you're displaying)
This would also decrease your network bandwidth load. So a win for you and your customers