Comment by nfw2
18 hours ago
The main cost of two engineering teams shipping identical products in my opinion isn't the cost of those extra engineers, it is in the product and organizational challenges of keeping those two products that need to be identical in sync. I am very bullish on coding agents but would be wary of this turning into a mess.
But here's the thing, across operating systems the products should not be identical.
When you get to the point that your have a significant enough number of users across multiple platforms, generalizing everything into a shared UX doesn't make sense; giving those classes of users the best experience requires embracing their platform.
A simple example: Android has a system-wide convention for a `back` button. iOS has no such standard. Users on each platform have different expectations for how to navigate an app fundamentally, and holding tightly onto the concept of identical gives both camps a compromised experience.
I took "identical" as in feature wise. The user should be able to accomplish the same things, no matter what platform they're using.
I do think that the way the features are implemented should be platform dependent, i.e. use common UX pattern on each platform, fit in with the UI, and be good platform citizens.
The solution is to make the common features a part of a statically-linked library that you can pull into your apps. A web app is, IMO, never the answer when you want to address multiple audiences. It is bad for accessibility (because 99.999 percent of web app developers never consider accessibility) and it doesn't solve the problem that web apps are trying to solve (having 8 code bases all that have to remain in sync) because you will inevitably need your code to handle platform-specific differences, standards/conventions and whatnot.
Why does Shopify need to use Apple's or Google's branded design language in their app?
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There is an implication here that the back button is a microcosm that represents the differences holistically but it's not. It's a small one-off exception that doesn't even affect the design choices made for the various apps. As I open up app over app on my Android (Audible, Spotify, ChatGPT, etc.), they all have clear in-app "back" functionality where needed. No apps I have installed rely on the Android back button exclusively. Also, none of these apps have any design elements that follow Android's design language.
The back button works at its best when it closes an app and it restores the one that opened the previous one. There could be no in app back button to do that. However the back button used to be an always available hardware button or a touch one on the bottom bezel. It's optionally visible now (I'm on an old Android phone so I'm not up to date with the latest OS) or a gesture, right? So app designers must design as if it does not exist.
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Also, the back 'button' is mostly a thing of the past in Android and it's more similar to iOS now with the predictive back gesture.
The Android back button is legacy.
> keeping those two products that need to be identical in sync
I agree that most companies do that, but in my opinion that's not really all that important. Some drift between the iOS and Android apps should be expected and accepted.
This is a great point that I wish the Shopify article went into in more depth! Would love to hear if they considered this
I believe they have a more in-depth posting that talks about it
https://shopify.engineering/shop-app-migration
The blog post doesn't mention the personnel-related challenges with having two native platform teams working on the app.
The post DOES give more information as to why they looked at switching from React Native to native Platform APIs.
React Native is forcing a major refactor of React Native apps in switching to the React Native "New Architecture" (see https://reactnative.dev/architecture/landing-page).
So if Shopify had to do major refactors of all their React Native apps, maybe they could look at what it would take to go back to native Platform APIs.
from https://shopify.engineering/shop-app-migration
The result of that native platform APIs side project involving six devs converting the app's major user workflows?
- startup time reduced: iOS by 23%, Android by 50%
- crashes - 10x reduction
- app size - iOS increased by 1MB (67MB -> 68MB), Android reduced by 109MB (37.2%)
- build time - Android release build time fell ~75%.
- runtime perf - Android builds could draw at 120fps while scrolling feed and switching screens
Agree to a point, but human resource is literally the main cost in most businesses, so there's that
Conway's law also plays a big part here and it's kind of TBD to see if agentic development will minify or magnify its effects
Very true, especially when there are different turn around times and review policies for the various app stores, things can get out of sync quickly
Assuming they have a robust feature flag and experiment pipeline in place they are trying to solve a much more complicated version of this
> it is in the product and organizational challenges of keeping those two products that need to be identical in sync.
They're two different platforms where the capabilities and UI patterns differs, so I don't see why they should be in sync. The web platform is not in sync with them. And using native features can give you a nice boost in maintenance and speed, unlike React Native where you always needs to align library semantics.
The capabilities of Android and iOS don't meaningfully differ for the purposes of Shopify; Shopify doesn't need LIDAR. Most large brands throw the UI design patterns of the platforms out the window in favor of their own UI guidelines.
Saying the web platform is not in sync with mobile is not a relevant metaphor to justify why Android and iOS should be considered separately.
> Most large brands throw the UI design patterns of the platforms out the window in favor of their own UI guidelines.
I really wish they would not do that.
The best thing you can do to make your app trustworthy and friendly is to adhere to the host operating system UI guidelines and expectations.
Nobody wants your unique take on the checkbox or textarea please.
They vary in terms of architectural patterns and ui widgets. RN tries to prevent a single interface, but you quickly reach the point where it becomes a pain. You can use Expo to help, but their libraries are unstable.