Ask HN: Why do such things like smartphone apps even exist if we have web pages?
Regarding how advanced today web technologies are, and how much stuff we can do in our web browsers – why do such things as (most) smartphone apps even exist?
Even more: Most of these apps seem to fall into the category of providing a GUI for the functionality a server in the internet provides for it, so being a meaningless piece of software, where the creators have to program a different version for every platform, and are furthermore not allowed to do what they want, and have to share any payments with the platform providers, which get quite a piece of the cake.
Instead when directly using a web page, which can be used by every device, including desktop computers, they also would have access to the devices sensors, camera, microphone, audio, position, but would only have to program once, and would be free to do what they want, including payments going only to themselves.
So why do people provide (and use) apps, instead of proper web technology? Except of some really special ones (like banking), this does not seem to make any sense?
28 comments
[ 0.42 ms ] story [ 30.7 ms ] threadThe "touch screen tablet" is the epitome of SciFi user interface and has been since the early 70s or so, I think. The "powers that be" have this in their sights and can't hear any of the reasonable objections raised by engineers and users. One might conclude that the real reasons have less to do with "user experience" and more to do with what the vendors can get away with.
The humble keyboard, despite all the reasons there are to hate it, despite all the flaws and room for improvement; despite the lack of "market support" by manufacturing giants, still continues to be used, valued, and innovated on by users.
So the answer to your question is, I think: because BIG money wants there to be smartphones and apps; in the hope that that minimal functionality will prevent the invention of better functions. Competing is hard, so much easier to manage market expectations.
I think non-techie people are more accustomed to "exclusiveness" where you just reach the app directly as compare to having the choice the entering the webpage address or even clicking a bookmark. Sometimes it is more about human psychology than technical issues.
And what amazing games are you playing on a web browser? The same could be said about desktop apps… Why even have desktop apps?
And normal desktop programs are something quite different, because you often work with big software packages, and large local data items, which you additionally would not want to send around the world, not even being able to do your work, when something remote fails. Which would be no problem for most of your smartphone apps, I'd think.
I think the best one could do would be to contribute to a Hall Of Fame of websites that work well with cell phone browsers and create an icon legend that lists what addons are known to interfere with that site.
Beyond that maybe contributions to the next HTML6/7 specifications that which makes writing code that is more compatible with cell phone browsers and addons, giving more control to the client while keeping the site functional even when using addons. i.e. extensions in the spec that addons can utilize to better understand context and intention.
And stuff like games come with well tested JS frameworks, where you (should) have no problems if you do not start to fiddle around with required 3rd party cookies, blocking non-referer-sending requests, and other senseless stuff.
Games - Even though there are some games that could be done with HTML / JS and there are games as such within app store. Vast majority require Native access for performance and battery.
Icons on HomeScreen. This is partially a platform limitation where you cant add the "Web Site" to Home Screen with "one click". A click on Homescreen to access information is million times easier to typing in a Website address.
Performance - The best HTML / JS apps may be just above the median of Native Apps in terms of performance. And vast majority of HTML / Web Apps performs poorly even on the fastest SoC A15.
Technology - You cant do instant messaging and other things as native app.
App Store provide easy access, distribution and trust to consumers.
Basically the experience of Native Apps is so much better than Web alternative. That doesn't mean I support native app or denounce Web App. I consider the point above as objective truth.
* Games: some might be done with better battery life, but most games are simple ones, where this should not really hold. Besides that: If it's so horrible in browsers, the manufacturers should hurry to keep up, as these manufacturers are often the same as the mobile platform providers
* Icons: maybe it's two clicks to add a web page to the home screen, or to click on a bookmark in the browser. But it should be still not more difficult for users to add the bookmark icon to home screen than to install an app, which requires not less 'clicks'
* Performance: most apps are quite simple, and should not need the native boost. By the way: How big would it be really for most apps?
* Technology: if you "cant" do messaging, why does it work? ;-) And of course as web page it already works for ages, also encrypted, if you want. Besides that, email is still superior, and not more complicated, than instant messaging.
* App Store: restricts you in many ways, in what you can install, instead of having a freely visible web page
So already with the restrictions of the App Stores, how can the User Experience for (most) apps be better than with simply visiting a web site? Do you really consider them being too dumb to add an icon to their home screen instead of installing an app?
PUBG? Fornite? Genshin?
>most apps are quite simple
Twitter is simple, but Twitter App is still better than Twitter on Web. My answer is find me a decent app made with Web technology. The only one that is good enough is VSCode. And that is with lots of native component to speed things up.
Does web apps works? Yes, are they objectively better than Native Apps, best vs best? No.
I think you need to look at how consumer use computing, and not semi pros, nerds uses it. There are people who still have difficulties using mouse as pointing devices.
* That there also are bad web pages, would be no reason to make apps?
* there are still people struggling using a touch screen
The parent gave you valid, legitimate reasons why people do it, and you’re saying “yeah I’m ignoring all that because -technically- you can do the same things on the web”.
The user experience is undeniably better in most native apps, that’s just reality. Nobody’s saying it’s impossible to match it, but to make a web app that comes close to a native app in terms of UX takes a lot of work. Most web apps are nowhere near the level of polish or performance that comes for free with an OS’s UI tooling.
Think about it: If what you’re saying was true, then you’d see services with web apps that are of equal or better polish than their native apps (since they usually maintain both, like how eBay/Twitter/Reddit has their web app and the native app), and that just basically doesn’t happen.
I am still waiting for that effect, respectively only asking further to the parts not fulfilling that, as I am basically asking why we would need (most) apps, if web provides (most) of the stuff in a much more simple way, regarded from developer's side – and a not more complicated way, from user's view.
Also I often struggle with the way big companies are developing their sites, already for the good old web browsers – e.g. Twitter already regularly collapses trying to detect if I am human – so don't take it personally, if I do not take them as measurement, how things should be done. Just because you are big, does not mean you do it right. They can't even get it really managed to develop their sites so that they work normally on a 10 year old box, and are more part of the unnerving keep-the-sites-content-moving all the time, then part of solid web development, IMHO.
Icons are an artificial limitation. Ditto for the app store (access and distribution via web are much easier than an app store, and curation could fulfill the trust aspect).
Technology-wise, there's no technical limitation preventing a web app from sending instant messages. We are, however, hampered by the adoption of browser support for things like cameras, gamepads, etc, but even there, much of that is policy, and not due to how long it takes to integrate with browsers.
Games/performance are the one thing that's true here, though it's possible WASM will upend that, too.
The app stores taking sizable cuts of the profits provide a strong incentive to prioritize apps over web, and drag their heels on supporting web apps.
The single click Home Screen is definitely a platform limitation and not a technology limitation.
There are dozens if not hundreds of Real world examples where companies moves to Web Based technology ( example Ikea ) and move back to Native App simply because the experience, and user retention rate is far higher in Apps. React Native is bridging the gap but many would argue that is Native as well, not Web.
I am not in support of everything App Store. I think there needs to be a balance of things. I think there needs to be an option for user to install ( or sideload, which is a word I hate ). What we dont have an answer is how should Apple monetise what ever they think is needed for their R&D cost that is also acceptable to user and developer.
[1] https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...
2. Performance was a much bigger problem, especially for games and 3d acceleration APIs like webgl was also not available back then. To this day the 3d engines makers still don't target the Browser platform because webgl is so limited and buggy. I think Unity did for a bit but eventually dropped support
3. In fact Steve Jobs around 2007 was pushing for web apps as the only 3rd party app platform for the iphone, but due to public pressure (due to 1. and 2.) App Stores came about. They still exist though because the vendors (google and apple) realised the lock-in and closed-garden control over the market was a huge boon for profits. Much like Playstation/XBox/Switch, they really enjoy taking a cut on every sale. Steve knew that when you are the underdog entering a market you have to be open and consumer friendly, once you have the users locked-in you can close down. He managed to hit the jackpot because there was NO viable open alternative to code what the phones were physically capable of, so the developers didn't even have a choice, they HAD to use the proprietary solution. This is partly why the VR space is so promising to big companies, they know whoever gets lock-in effect will be able to milk it for DECADES. We as consumers and 3rd party devs desperately need an open VR platform (maybe inside the browser?), but it seems like it is not going to happen any time soon
The lock-in is much more insidious than you might think though, the lock-in is both in the user-level but as well as the developer-level. In UI development there is this big thing that the UI should feel native to the platform, meaning apps should behave similarly to each other. For example the acceleration and rubber-banding when scrolling down a list should be the same for every app.
Browsers are inherently a different platform that just happens to run on top of other platforms. Anyone can tell that a web app in Windows feels different than a Windows 8 App that also feels different to the obscure win32 configuration screens from windows 98 days that appear if you dig deep into the settings
Android and iOS likewise have the same lock-in effect, web-views wrapped in native apps just feel bad. Not because they are bad, but because they are different. The ONLY way to make a web app feel native in Android or iOS would be to compile their native UI Widgets into webassembly and somehow render them to a full-screen <canvas> tag and not use the DOM at all. Which is kinda pointless, might as well code full native. No matter how much hacking a cross-platform framework does to try to feel native it won't be native because there is no way to mimic millions of lines of code of the native UI toolkit. It is much the same reason Java desktop apps and java applets failed, they didn't feel native inside Windows OR inside browsers
Facebook realised this ...
android->iOS iOS->windows phone (RiP)
they will bitch and moan all god damn day long, especially on the desktop even though all those systems are basically the same. Even people who only use browsers and word/excel in desktop will HATE to switch windows<->macos (mac also has word/excel)
a lot of it (not all) has to do with the "native feel" of apps
If I subscribe through the App Store, I can easily cancel my subscription at any time by going to one place and just clicking "Cancel Subscription". Contrast this with some well-known news sites who make you place a phone call and then give you the run around just to cancel a basic subscription.
It would be a nightmare to subscribe to multiple different websites and then have to go through a user-unfriendly process to cancel through each one.