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Comment by xnyan

8 hours ago

> I think they're very overused

I disagree, native apps on iOS have important abilities that no web application can match. The inability to control cache long-term is alone a dealbreaker if trying to create an experience with minimal friction.

9 comments

xnyan

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mircerlancerous  7 hours ago

Service workers allow you to control cache in web apps; you may be a bit out of date.

There are hardware APIs for some stuff that only works in native (cors, raw tcp), but 99% of apps don't need those.

pphysch  8 hours ago

Those same elevated controls are used to steal PII and sell to data brokers. Again, it's the companies that are trying to force apps on their users. If it were genuinely a much better UX, they wouldn't have to do that.

  • xnyan  7 hours ago

    I don’t think you are correct, but I could be wrong. For example, can you replicate the functionality of TikTok - autoplay unmuted videos as the user scroll down to new videos? It’s the experience that the user expects.

    • rpdillon  3 hours ago

      I've probably deleted 15 apps from my phone in the past year as I steadily move over to the web for everything.

      My chat agent, file transfer tool, Grubhub, Amazon, YouTube, news, weather are all deleted in favor of a set of armored browsers that suppress the trash and clean up the experience. Its been an amazing change, as those companies no longer get a free advertisement on the application grid of my phone, making my use of them much more intentional.

    • dwaite  4 hours ago

      Sure, once the user interacts with the first video.

      If third party native apps were installed and run without user interaction the same as cross-origin redirects, I would expect the same limitations with native apps.

    • peaseagee  6 hours ago

      I use FB via my web browser (Firefox on Android) and when I look at Shorts, it has this exact functionality. Web browsers on mobile can do this, clearly.

      1 reply →

    • kcrwfrd_  3 hours ago

      Yes I literally worked on a PWA with this exact feature.

      I believe you can see it working on TikTok web as well.

      You just can’t have the first video unmuted on initial load, although I wonder if this can be relaxed when user installs a PWA.