alt Hacker NewsNobody here is talking about the fact that a significant number of users want apps, too.
I'm responsible for an internal tool at the company I work for, hosted as a website, that handles a bunch of miscellaneous tasks that other employees need. Think reimbursements, documentation and reporting, gathering and presenting business data. That sort of thing.
When I took it over, it was desktop only ( a lot of <table> formatted pages with fixed px sizes). I spruced it up, modernized it to work on screens of any size, and created a mobile version of any pages that just didn't translate well to small screens (think "large tables of information").
When I announced the update, the number of people who asked me variations of "how to get website on phone if website on computer" or requested I make the damn thing an app was outrageous.
We take tech literacy for granted, because it's like a dozen levels down fundamental to our entire field. But the tech illiterati exist, and they love apps.
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As not a web dev, out of curiosity: What would be the drawback or problem with showing a header or pop-up on mobile browsers, offering to install them as (web)app? Then using the PWA functionality of the browser to do it.
I'm not a heavy user of those but the result of PWAs has always been an icon that's handled by the OS like if it was any other native app, and when opened it just behaves like the web browser in kiosk mode just for that website.
When I say I want an app that implies a few things:
- this isn't a one-off use, I don't want an app to pay parking meter once and never use it again.
- it's an app and not a WebView pretending to be native
- it's native and not react-wanna-be-native
- you know how to make an app
I have to use this app to open a parcel locker and every time I launch it I have to wait for "downloading bundle". It's probably the easiest kind of app to make and yet somehow they made it worse then a website.
That sounds less like wanting apps, than simply having no idea what's going on.
I really wish PWAs were more well-known among average users. If people knew and expected they could install certain websites as apps, that would simplify things so much and really balance the power of the app stores.
I think you're right, but I think it's also because the industry trained everyone on this model. I remember ~ 2010-2012 there was a big push to make everything an app. As far as I can tell the only benefit to users is a nice icon on the home page, and the benefit for the company is.. exfiltrating data from the users phone?
If pinning website bookmarks was more prominently advertised in the UI, they would be fine with it I guess. Though it would need some more changes.
Why do people like apps? Because they can put it on their home screen, they can open the app list and pick from there, they are searchable in a canonical repository, which is kind of like googling for the website but still.
Login flows are simpler and persist better, with local storage etc.
Multiple apps can be switched between by just moving between the currently opened apps, while website tabs appear inside the browser only and are mixed with many other unrelated browsing tabs, making it harder to find.
I guess fundamentally all of these could be supported with browsers. But in the end, Google and Apple don't want to make bookmarks and independent persistent "browser windows" easier.
FTA
> I can’t understand how we got to this place with “app culture”
> Nobody here is talking about the fact that a significant number of users want apps, too.
End users, for the most part don't know what they want. They take when makes sense to them. To end users apps are easy. To us, a URL is easy.
> But the tech illiterati exist, and they love apps.
Yup!! And we get sucked into this vortex at times. Good post btw.
If the app store allowed you to install bookmarks, I doubt most people would notice.
When I announced the update, the number of people who asked me variations of "how to get website on phone if website on computer" or requested I make the damn thing an app was outrageous.
I had a similar experience. It was mostly lower- and middle-managers who needed to put their mark on something visible.
I responded with, "Tell me what features you want the app to have that the web site doesn't; or is this a vanity project?" The "vanity project" line is what made people re-think what they were asking.
When that didn't work, I pointed out that they'd have to hire an entire new team to do the app, and gave them a high six-figure number to accomplish what they wanted.† That always worked.
† For a number of regulatory and political reasons, we cannot offshore for cheap.
On iOS, I think the only two reasons to have an app are: notifications and access to contacts.
Okay I guess? So then you politely answer to them the “app” is their web browser of choice! Problem solved
> We take tech literacy for granted, because it's like a dozen levels down fundamental to our entire field. But the tech illiterati exist, and they love apps.
They "love apps" because apple and android have spent billions to break their mental models and convince them that "you use apps to do things on your phone". Literally. That's the extent of most people's understanding.
So, sure, they "want" apps in the same sense that early internet users "wanted" AOL because in their minds AOL and the internet were indistinguishable. But actual free choice requires an understanding of the choices.