Seriously. I don’t want to install something on my phone when the dev is just using a WebView, if that’s what it’s called. When the app is basically just a website with the browser hidden.
What’s the reason for that? To attach the customer? To sell the app for money? Is there more ad revenue that way? Do you reach more people?
(Are there any good reasons for it, too? Security, maybe?)
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If they have an app they can gather far more personal data from you (and your device) that they can then turn around and sell
And far fewer people have adblockers that block ads in apps.
So they can make your phone go bingedybeep and show you more adverts, while slurping up any data the browser doesn’t usually let them access.
This, and also so they can avoid your plugins that kill browser tracking for ads and shit.
And you know the rest of the reasons when at the first start your minesweeper app needs to have access to your photos, location, camera and microphone.
We had a project once that ran completely fine as a website except for the ability to scan bar codes. That one thing forced us to create an app and the rest of the app was just showing the website.
Can’t you use camera on browser? I actually seen a project that does some complex things using camera [1] and it ran in browser. I’m confident scanning bar codes is possible.
https://serratus.github.io/quaggaJS/ and whatnot exist. Any reason why such an approach couldn’t be taken?
There are JS barcode libraries out there, some better than others, some free, others paid. A few years back at a corporate job I built just the thing - a web app designed to replace a 3rd party mobile app. The back-end was Laravel + various AWS services, with a responsive front-end made with Tailwind.
The requirements were to make it mimic most of the mobile app’s functionality. There was also location tracking via browser APIs (to track the cargo at all times) and a barcode scanner. I used a paid library for that, and it was quite expensive, but very reliable. So it can definitely be done as a web app.
Some people are missing the forest for the trees here
Having a businesses app on your phone is better regular advertising than anything they could ever pay for.
They just want an excuse to make you look at their logo and think about their business as regularly as possible
This is true
people tend to develop liking or disliking for things merely because they are familiar with them
and it’s amazing that basic psychological principles have been decoupled from mainstream awareness of marketing tactics (obviously intentionally).
This is not a problem with the olauncher
Thanks I’m trying that
Lemmy has a real problem with this. It’s like all of the angry people from Reddit came here and now we just have an angry circlejerk about anything the crowd doesn’t like.
Username checks out
All I see are people talking about consumer apps that could be websites, but it’s a problem in the business world, too. My small business makes a service for other small businesses and all our big competitors use apps for their system while we use a web app. Some even restrict to only iOS or Android, too. It blows our potential customers’ minds when they see that ours is just a website with at least as much functionality as the competition and the ability to access it from anything.
I have no idea why anyone would do it differently as it’s WAY easier/cheaper to maintain this website than deal with app ecosystems. And there simply aren’t enough users in this space to merit data scraping like with consumer apps.
I want apps to be apps again.
On my desktop I have browser tabs for WhatsApp, messenger, Skype, gMailChatTalkHangouts and slack. I know slack’s app was ass but I miss the rest.
I want a discrete app that doesn’t crash with chrome and which sits in my tooltray so I don’t have to fucking search for it whenever something makes a noise (ctrl-alt-a). I want to see it from the blink in the corner and not by scanning 31 windows of 7 groups of 12 tabs each.
Often times I just give up and hope it also makes my phone spork too so I can grab it there.
Progressive Web Apps were supposed to marry these schools of thought, but maybe we hoped for too much because it’s still
garbageChromium under the hood.Just make everything for maximum interoperability I guess? I recently saw and forgot the name of a system for creating and displaying Github-like pull requests and associated discussions that are sent in via email. A very simple web interface displaying plain-text that could reasonably have been extended any way you like. I am beginning to see the appeal of the plain-text revolution.
Just add them as PWAs using a browser you don’t usually use (e.g. Edge), that should give you everything you’re asking for.
I want apps to be programs again*
I would say in some cases, people are conditioned now to expect an app, even if it’s basically a website. I think in a mobile context, most non-techy people don’t normally think to open up a browser and say, browse Amazon or something. Instead they go for the Amazon app on their phone, and browse/shop/whatever there.
I wouldn’t say this is exclusive to phones either. I once worked on a product that was essentially web-native, but they had to ship a desktop app because their market expected it, even though it was only a web-view wrapper to the website. No offline storage, no difference in behaviour, or need for some specific API; nothing. I guess you try explaining to boomers that a web-view desktop app is unnecessary.
The data vacuuming and additional marketing are just added benefits for the app developer, if they go down that path (they usually do).
Sometimes they can get more data out of your phone through an app then through your default browser.
Or feed you more ads.
Because the majority of internet connections these days are from a mobile device. And if you want to reach the average person, you have to be where they are looking.
I think it’s really a shame that mobile OS’s are so locked down that the only real way for people to download things is through some centralized app store.
Are average persons regularly scrolling through their app store looking for new apps then?
Popups on your websites for the app are by definition redirections to places the user isn’t looking.
i was curious so i did some research
A study by Google and Ipsos found that while app stores are a popular destination for finding new apps, they are not the only method. About 40% of smartphone users browse for apps in app stores, and one in four app users discovers an app through a search engine. This suggests that a significant portion of smartphone users are indeed using search engines, rather than just app stores, to find apps and information
Additionally, data from Amplitude Labs reveals that app usage grew by 36% from January 2020 to December 2021, while website usage grew by 57% in the same period. By December 2021, the user base was almost evenly split between apps and websites, with 54% of users on apps and 46% on websites
while me or you might go to a search engine and type in “weather today”, i think there really is a large chunk of the userbase (somewhere near half) who would rather go into the app store and type in “weather”
i think it might be an age thing with older people, but honestly, maybe even younger generations like alpha / z. they grew up in a different OS environment. we grew up on PCs, they grow up on mobile OS
F-droid exists, but sadly most people and devs don’t use it.
The infamous manipulation trick when you ask someone for the time then you ask them what you really wanted
Those are actually websites, with embedded site and embedded browser, see: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_(software_framework)
Thats why those are slow, unstable, and huge (in occupied storage)
not on mobile, they generally use the native browser engine. at the very least it’s not electron on ios/android
Still, unless it needs some native api’s could still be a website.
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I always assumed the reason was to get more tendrils into your phone for that sweet sweet data $$$ and allowing themselves more control over shoving notifications in your face.
Do I sound bitter?
I believe Spotify did this back in the day in order to hide as much of their AB testing from Apple who is essentially a competitor due to iTunes.
Having much of the UI delivered via web also makes it easier to deploy updates as no software update is necessary.
Besides the other mentioned reasons: exposure through the app store can be a motivator too.
