I'm currently in a whole thing with the marketing team where we're basically forced to do an app version of our website because bookmarks just aren't done that well in mobile browsers. If you make the user install an app, then it'll be on their home screen and they'll be more likely to return to your site, whereas if you're web-only there's a chance they'll forget about you after the first visit.
It's going to cost us tens of thousands to develop the mobile app, $100/year for Apple's developer fee, and 30% of our subscription revenue, all whilst providing no actual technical benefits or making it easier for the user.
Apple and Google have made billions of dollars just off the back of nothing more than websites wanting to have their link appear on the mobile's home screen.
Just make your website a progressive web app, then the end user can install it just like a native app and you skip all the BS that a native app needs. And only one platform to support.
I don’t think Apple let you put PWAs in the App Store, and the install process for mobile is deliberately awkward for a regular user.
Also AIUI they also don’t allow push notifications for PWAs, which is another thing marketing teams are really keen to have. It’s truly a race to the bottom.
You are right that iOS has some limitations, which I guess could be a deal breaker, but I've personally found it to be a great middle ground for most use cases. And android works amazing with them, so I guess it mostly depends on your target demographic. I've just used it in the past and it's worked great for me.
Fun fact: you can easily make shortcuts for sites on linux and windows' home desktop, which will open the default browser at the page. You cannot create a URL shortcut in the home screen of fucking android unless you're using fucking chrome. Hell, depending on the browser, you can't even fucking save the html for offline reading. I doubt iphones are any better
I bet mobile phone shoppers are more prone to impulse purchases.
When I first tried Temu I think I ordered like $50 of items that I didn't need to rely on while doomscrolling in bed. Thinking it's the same china knockoff from amazon but cheaper.
I tried to return most of it and they told me to keep it with a return. It ended up in the trash. Yeah fuck Temu...
Pfft. A waitress of a restaurant in Universal park Osaka told me that their physical menu is inside their restaurant, and I noped the heck out and ate a slice of pizza instead. If I had to use a digital menu for no good reason I would really rather starve.
Ye I was typing fast and hit the wrong thing and then realized I was on my side account and not the main one im starting to use so I switched off and didnt even noticed until I decided to check notifications.
Instead of opening your 200MB web browser to see this page, can I interest you in this 200MB separate app to see this web page embedded in a data collection app?
My bank wont let me open an account in the web browser. I either have to use their shitty banking app or go in person to a branch 10 miles away (they closed all the local branches)
They have websites that work usually. When tech has gone off the rails as it has because the tech bros are high on their own farts, being a bit behind the times and having a solid but boring online interface is a net positive
I was using Ubuntu Touch back when Canonical launched it in partnership with BQ. I still remember how annoyed I was when reddit kept telling me to download the app or continue with "Google Chrome" when I was on Firefox. Those where the days.
Petty little bitches. I almost always find Sxan's comments useful and relevant, good discussion. Hope they hang in with their style and fuck the haters.
Maybe it's not so much the business as the consumer. Commented before on travelling to a new client's shop and having the employees asking for an app to access their payroll.
Told the manager that our site would automatically optimize for phone, works great as-is.
"These people are not going to understand that unless they can download an app."
"No problem. I'll show everyone how to put a shortcut on their home screen. Done! I'll even write up directions for Android and Apple."
<manager shaking her head>
Understand, a load of these people were illiterate, embarrassed to need help filling out the online hiring docs.
If this was your experience as a business, would you not wrap your site in an app and push it? Plus, imagine the talk, "Yeah, site's OK but they don't have an app."
That's understandable, but not the point of the comic.
Some sites don't just off apps but require them for service.
I read fan translated stories. I tried the paid officially licensed website. Forced app. Tried it. DRM bullshit. Can't even download a chapter. Tried website on desktop.
Website literally told me to get a phone and the app...
They never saw another penny from me. I started donating to fan translations groups and just using machine translations.
Edit: name and shame.
I forget the stupid name but webtoon.com got into web novels and it was the absolute worst experience. The translation was fine but slow, extremely expensive and loaded with DRM. If I "unlock" something to read I'd like to download a copy.
To hell with your "you own nothing" business model. Shit I could buy physical copies of books for cheaper than their crap.
Back when I was young I was an ergo assessor and helped all the old people in the office actually use their computers painlessly. That shit has not changed at all and is paying serious dividends.
I do the web stuff for a very large news company, and over 80% of traffic is mobile, so product people don’t care about desktop. It’s being treated the way IE support used to be: an annoyingly necessary fringe user group. I imagine it’d be even worse in a company whose target demo didn’t skew sharply towards the elderly. We’re finally starting to move away from the idea of “websites exist to push people towards apps”, but it’s contentious and experimental. If I win, our sites will be far less annoying next year.
Sounds like Serializd. I love that site so much, but the dev clearly cares way more about the app than the site cause there's so many basic features on the app that have no plans to ever come to the site (or at least none announced).
looks inside
shitty frontend for the website
And requires access to your contacts and precise location for some reason.
Isolated dummy contacts and fake geolocation.
Yes, Chinese company I am the king, can't you see how my eScooter is parked at the royal residence 24/7?
The app login launches the browser to handle the login, since the app is just a front end for the webpage.
when you use their "app" but it still asks you to install the app..
looks inside website
It’s a Wordpress wrapper over an autogenerated CSS wrapper on their 2002 website written in HTML-1 and Perl. On Angelfire.
I block 99% of all trackers and social media.
I can't even order a fucking pizza online.
fuck this commercial world.
It's a fucking war zone...
24k sweet baby Jesus they want yer precious bodily fluids m8.
Why the fuck does BBC sounds have so much tracking???
Probably to collect all that it can to sell the data. Or they fucked up the feature and it triggers a connection attempt each second or sth.
I mean, even for your average commercial app, that's an absolutely insane rate. I'm betting it keeps retrying whenever it fails or something
Yeah, honestly that almost looks like straight-up incompetence, like a ton of polling going on.
Yeah, I wondered that but I'm no tech expert.
Lots of these trackers and advertisers will happily serve you literal malware. It’s not safe to browse unprotected.
What do you use to block attempts?
Looks like the duckduck go app for android
Thank you. I knew they had a browser but I didn't know it could also block tracking from other apps. Definitely useful.
Yup... Duckduckgo.
Wait, what app are you using?
I use duckduckgo browser. It has an App tracker blocker.
And the app is just the mobile website in a sandboxed web browser.
Yeah, but in the backend, they can now better track you.
Correct.
Sandboxed, you say? So no adblock without a pi-hole-ish solution? Sold!
Adguard DNS tends to block ads in apps pretty well in my experience.
Because everyone needs 47 different versions of chrome installed in their phones :D
FWIW I do believe that if they rely on a WebView it doesn't actually bundle the browser back.
I'm currently in a whole thing with the marketing team where we're basically forced to do an app version of our website because bookmarks just aren't done that well in mobile browsers. If you make the user install an app, then it'll be on their home screen and they'll be more likely to return to your site, whereas if you're web-only there's a chance they'll forget about you after the first visit.
It's going to cost us tens of thousands to develop the mobile app, $100/year for Apple's developer fee, and 30% of our subscription revenue, all whilst providing no actual technical benefits or making it easier for the user.
Apple and Google have made billions of dollars just off the back of nothing more than websites wanting to have their link appear on the mobile's home screen.
Just make your website a progressive web app, then the end user can install it just like a native app and you skip all the BS that a native app needs. And only one platform to support.
I don’t think Apple let you put PWAs in the App Store, and the install process for mobile is deliberately awkward for a regular user.
Also AIUI they also don’t allow push notifications for PWAs, which is another thing marketing teams are really keen to have. It’s truly a race to the bottom.
You are right that iOS has some limitations, which I guess could be a deal breaker, but I've personally found it to be a great middle ground for most use cases. And android works amazing with them, so I guess it mostly depends on your target demographic. I've just used it in the past and it's worked great for me.
Late stage capitalism. It's all rent seeking, all the way down.
You can put bookmarks on your Home Screen.
Fun fact: you can easily make shortcuts for sites on linux and windows' home desktop, which will open the default browser at the page. You cannot create a URL shortcut in the home screen of fucking android unless you're using fucking chrome. Hell, depending on the browser, you can't even fucking save the html for offline reading. I doubt iphones are any better
Firefox Android can make a home screen shortcut just fine...
Unfortunately desktop browsers make up a single digit percentage of traffic to our site.
I bet mobile phone shoppers are more prone to impulse purchases.
When I first tried Temu I think I ordered like $50 of items that I didn't need to rely on while doomscrolling in bed. Thinking it's the same china knockoff from amazon but cheaper.
I tried to return most of it and they told me to keep it with a return. It ended up in the trash. Yeah fuck Temu...
I consider your request to download your app as a hostile act.
Your link format needs to be parentheses () instead of curly brackets {}
Secret Panel
Me: Where's the menu?
Waiter: "In our app."
Me: Guess I'll starve.
I've left two restaurants for the bullshit app-menu thing.
Fortunately haven't run across one since.
you can't even get a ride from the 'taxi' here without their 'app'... and an existing account, with a verified payment method saved.
Where is “here?”
You know, here. The internet.
127.0.0.1
Pfft. A waitress of a restaurant in Universal park Osaka told me that their physical menu is inside their restaurant, and I noped the heck out and ate a slice of pizza instead. If I had to use a digital menu for no good reason I would really rather starve.
Ye I was typing fast and hit the wrong thing and then realized I was on my side account and not the main one im starting to use so I switched off and didnt even noticed until I decided to check notifications.
Its fixed now.
As someone who uses a Linux phone, this becomes more and more true everyday
As someone that doesn't want to give my IMEI, location, and list of installed apps to anyone that asks, same here.
Instead of opening your 200MB web browser to see this page, can I interest you in this 200MB separate app to see this web page embedded in a data collection app?
App? You mean the website with DRM and no interoperability?
My bank wont let me open an account in the web browser. I either have to use their shitty banking app or go in person to a branch 10 miles away (they closed all the local branches)
Your bank sucks. Get a credit union.
how would a credit union help here?
They have websites that work usually. When tech has gone off the rails as it has because the tech bros are high on their own farts, being a bit behind the times and having a solid but boring online interface is a net positive
What ? Switch banks
Would you like a cookie?
Are you 18?
Can i send you notifications?
Can i gert your position?
Do you want to login with google?
Can I see your call log?
How about your contacts then?
Messages would be ok too.
Nevermind. Forget all that. Can I access your camera?
Versatile
I'm about to switch to Ubuntu Phone soon anyways, basically no apps on that. I am ready for the peace of mind.
I was using Ubuntu Touch back when Canonical launched it in partnership with BQ. I still remember how annoyed I was when reddit kept telling me to download the app or continue with "Google Chrome" when I was on Firefox. Those where the days.
If you get a iphone you can relive those days
But it's Ubuntu so you'll have snaps, that's close enough right?
Came here to say þis. I tend to do use apps; I'm anticipating a lot of new habits I'll need to use.
So much hate for just using a few different characters
Petty little bitches. I almost always find Sxan's comments useful and relevant, good discussion. Hope they hang in with their style and fuck the haters.
Maybe it's not so much the business as the consumer. Commented before on travelling to a new client's shop and having the employees asking for an app to access their payroll.
Told the manager that our site would automatically optimize for phone, works great as-is.
"These people are not going to understand that unless they can download an app."
"No problem. I'll show everyone how to put a shortcut on their home screen. Done! I'll even write up directions for Android and Apple."
<manager shaking her head>
Understand, a load of these people were illiterate, embarrassed to need help filling out the online hiring docs.
If this was your experience as a business, would you not wrap your site in an app and push it? Plus, imagine the talk, "Yeah, site's OK but they don't have an app."
That's understandable, but not the point of the comic.
Some sites don't just off apps but require them for service.
I read fan translated stories. I tried the paid officially licensed website. Forced app. Tried it. DRM bullshit. Can't even download a chapter. Tried website on desktop.
Website literally told me to get a phone and the app...
They never saw another penny from me. I started donating to fan translations groups and just using machine translations.
Edit: name and shame.
I forget the stupid name but webtoon.com got into web novels and it was the absolute worst experience. The translation was fine but slow, extremely expensive and loaded with DRM. If I "unlock" something to read I'd like to download a copy.
To hell with your "you own nothing" business model. Shit I could buy physical copies of books for cheaper than their crap.
Luckily you can set the browser into desktop mode and see everything super tiny (sometimes).
It's becoming more and more common to not even design a website for desktop
I can't count how often I go to a website on a 1440p screen and I can see only like three things at once. I fucking hate that shit
My PC is driving a 40" monitor, imagine my pain. Even worse on the extended 55", but that one's just for movies.
SITES BE LIKE
CTRL + - all day long. And I'm old and blind, hence the monster monitor.
Back when I was young I was an ergo assessor and helped all the old people in the office actually use their computers painlessly. That shit has not changed at all and is paying serious dividends.
oh yeah I forgot about the sites that automatically resize everything when you try to zoom out lmfao
I do the web stuff for a very large news company, and over 80% of traffic is mobile, so product people don’t care about desktop. It’s being treated the way IE support used to be: an annoyingly necessary fringe user group. I imagine it’d be even worse in a company whose target demo didn’t skew sharply towards the elderly. We’re finally starting to move away from the idea of “websites exist to push people towards apps”, but it’s contentious and experimental. If I win, our sites will be far less annoying next year.
I'm using piefed on Firefox via my phone lol. Oh no.
How it feels browsing AliExpress as of late..
Amazon and LinkedIn. So annoying.
Sounds like Serializd. I love that site so much, but the dev clearly cares way more about the app than the site cause there's so many basic features on the app that have no plans to ever come to the site (or at least none announced).
Normalize Progressive-WebApps