What most people dont get:

Most of folks on HN here are much older than todays "first customers" of 16y/17/18

For them: The "Smartphone is the internet", while for most of us the "Smartphone is an extension of the internet from our desktops" that we were used to (remember the years before dot com bubble, saying: "I will be down in the basement at the computer to surf on the net little bit" ? :-)

But today, the very first touchpoint with "the internet" for younger folks is a smartphone display. The even do homework on this small screens!

Companies are seeing this switch, so they adapt.

Personally, a service which is "only an app" will be not used by me as I prefer to have a larger screen with more information (actually I use my mobile phone only when Im in public transport or similar, at home I have a notebook laying around if I need something)

Hall of shame:

* Reddit won't let you read "unreviewed" content on mobile web (but will on desktop web)

* PayPal won't let you pick your 5% rewards category, or set up balance auto-replenish without their app

* Robinhood Banking won't let you see your credit card statement or pay your balance without their app

* Instagram won't let you share posts as stories without their app

* SeatGeek won't let you attend events without their app (no will call, mailed tickets, print at home, or mobile web)

I have an app that is literally just a wrapper around the website. The mobile website and the mobile app are the exact same experience.

Before I built the app, people were constantly asking me to build a mobile app. Yes, I had a PWA but people still wanted an app.

I thought it was kind of silly but I eventually built that wrapper app. It immediately got thousands of downloads, users upgrading to paid plans increased by 10x, and app users have way better metrics that website users.

It's pretty interesting, but as a website owner, having an app is valuable.

That's my stance as well. Unless the website is completely broken or the devs force me to download the app by blocking features on the website I prefer the web.

With responsive design becoming mainstream I'm fine with using my browser for 90% of my internet work. In some cases like Google docs it's painful to use the web version so I just use the app.

EDIT: I wish they'd add a console to mobile web browsers though.

My experience might be the minority, but I have found that 95% of the time, when an app is available on both web and native mobile, the native mobile version is significantly better - usually not because it's a fantastic app or has more features, but rather because the web version is more buggy/slow/confusing.

Whether I prefer an app to be web or native is purely based on the use case (I probably would choose native for a dozen use cases and web for the remaining one million use cases), but that's orthogonal to the fact of which one is actually better.

Edit: And to be clear, I'm not referring to cases where the web app is purposefully restricted or injected with dark patterns to drive users to native. Even if you ignore those cases, this pattern still stands in my experience. Though, that doesn't mean there is no indirect quality bias, e.g. more money spent on the native devs than the web devs.

The site that irks me the most here is New York Times. Opening an article in the mobile browser often has a toast over the bottom third of the article to open it in their app for "a better experience". I struggle to think how nytimes isn't a perfect fit for a site over an app. The only frustrating experience I have with the web version that would be better in the app is not seeing that that pop-up.

Web browser is a sandbox by default. Worst a sketchy site does is eat a tab, less if you run an adblocker. Native app? Background processes, hardware ID shenanigans, your contacts, location. The whole buffet.

Browsers don't allow notifications if you don't have the site open. Browser ads can get blocked by browser extensions. Browsers make it harder to have an icon for a site/service directly on the home screen. Browsers make it harder to get extensive permissions. Browsers allow content to displayed without first being run through an approval process.

For companies these are all downsides but for me they are all upsides. It really is us vs them when it comes to apps vs browsers. The only reason they offer websites at all is out of fear of losing a big chunk of users.

This is my stance as well, but keep in mind that a lot of people have the opposite preference.

They didn't grow up with the world wide web. They only started using technology when Android and iPhone was popular. They only know Whatsapp, Youtube, TikTok. They're not used to using the browser.

There's a meme that "Gen Z Kids Don't Understand How File Systems Work" [0]

So, it'll depend on your target audiences.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30253526

A few years ago I had an interesting experience at a company where I was working on a new prototype iPhone app and asked people around the office to install it... and a surprising number of people didn't want to do it because their phone was full already and they didn't want to delete photos in order to try a new app.

Made me realize that for a lot of people who get cheaper phones with less storage installing a new app is actually a pretty big decision.

I also find that because the web version is worse in order to push you to download the app, it is a good way to not get sucked into endlessly scrolling. Get in, do what you need, and get out because of bad experience.

I will cast my vote for mobile websites over apps on phones. For personal choice reasons I have always had a "budget" phone with less memory and storage (and less cost) than a flagship phone. I also kept them running for years.

At the end of the cycle I can barely run the base phone let alone the menagerie of apps the world would like me to run.

I have opted out of app only service such as a Loyalty programs that forced me to transfer point from a partner only if I installed an app on my phone. They have enough info on me from purchase, they don't need more. (I even offer my card to strangers in the grocery cash if they did not have the loyalty card so they would get a discount and I would get a list of products I never buy in my loyalty list. Its a small, willful act of rebellion )

Unless you use it several times a day, downloading an "app" just gets in the way. You should never have to download an "app" for a one-time use.

We never went back to the restaurant in Cupertino where the table QR code tried to force downloading an app that onboarded you into a food delivery service. That restaurant was treating on-site customers as delivery orders with a very short delivery distance. The food wasn't very good, either.

The sad reality is people _want_ apps and the people paying for web/apps to be built also want apps (even before we talk about tracking/ad-blocking reasons).

I too love the web, but throughout my career the idea of web-first/web-only has been DOA. There is some level of perceived prestige from having an app.

I've told this story countless times but on multiple occasions I've written cross-platform apps using web technology. Throughout the development process, I have urged or even begged the stakeholders to try out the web-based version on their phone. It's almost identical. You just see the browser chrome in the web version. And yet it's not until I provide native builds that some people will even bother to look at.

I provide web interfaces as part of the package but I could probably skip that and no one would bat an eye (I won't though, it's practically free to do that alongside the native apps and I prefer it).

There are a handful of things you can only do, or only do well, in an app so I do understand that argument. Also, I find some PWA-advocates to clearly not be living in reality: "You can do X in a PWA" - only if you hate yourself and enjoy silly limitations that clients do not and will not understand or care about ("Just make it work, an app can do this!").

And if the only option is an app, then I'm not interested in your product / store / company.

I was helping my mom with the simple task of installing an app on her iPhone SE. "64 GB" of storage (about 20 of which taken by OS and other system files). It turned into a two hour long slog of me determining which apps she needs, and of the ones she needs, how to back up her data to icloud so Instagram and other apps aren't taking 500mb each on her phone.

This standard of every random website having an app and poorly managing cache and storage needs to stop. My mom can't begin to even understand how to fix it, and worse, she didn't even recognize half the apps I mentioned to her, which probably means she mindlessly clicked install on a bunch of random websites.

We do not need more app bloat on our devices, especially if they are just thin wrappers over your web app.

Yep. If your product needs me to install an app for a one-off thing, you've probably already lost me.

The crazy part is how many teams still treat the web as the demo and the app as the “real” product. For a lot of stuff it's the opposite now.

I know there are edge cases, but most of the time “download our app” just means “please care way more about our product than you currently do.”

My analog is something along the lines of "please build a small room in your house, closet-sized at first, but with enough room to grow to twice that as we add features, so we can give you the best possible temperature and weather information. Also, we need access to your full contacts so you can share how you feel about the weather more easily, with just a push! Also also, we need a hot microphone in your closet, so you can shop our umbrella store by just talking to our AI assistant! Also also also, your privacy is important to us."

It only needs to be "an app" if it is using hardware to do it's main job. There is never another reason to make it an app.

I had a doctor tell me that I had to buy an Android or iOS phone (I own neither) and install their new app, or they would be unable to continue seeing me as a patient.

Found a new doctor, because anyone that thinks this way I do not trust my heath to.

Absolutely no one will make me own a cell phone or install corpo spyware. It is still actually a choice.

Sometimes apps lack the features of the web versions. For example, I wanted to translate a document on Android. When I was trying to open Google translator website, the system was redirecting me to the app. Unfortunately, I couldn't see document translation feature in this app. Could still open the website in incognito mode. This is really maddening me.

I will not download them on a train, I will not download them on a plane, I will not download them in a box, I will not download them with Firefox. I will not download them Sam I am.

The restaurant QR menu situation is peak 'we installed an app for the app' energy. I scanned a code expecting a menu and instead got a Play Store redirect. Just let me see the food.

The worst offenders are services that literally work fine in mobile Safari but pop a banner saying 'for the best experience download our app' covering half the screen. The web version is already the app, you just painted a door on the wall.

I asked the same question a few years ago, and the answer I arrived at is that the app has, by default, more permissions (not only technical but also conventional) to collect data, send push notifications, and otherwise harass the user.

How much of the native app push is to bypass ad blockers? If you’re just using a browser plugin like AdGuard or uBO it can’t block in a dedicated app unless you replace it with AGH or PiHole, can’t help but wonder if that plays a role as well

I understand the user point of view, but some web UIs nowadays are so bad and the app so good that I'm not sure this always holds true.

I do agree that this seems to be exception rather than the rule - so having both is actually nice IMHO.

While I sympathize with the author, and feel the same way, I think Apple/Google have some blame here. They make certain simple things only possible in the apps, because the APIs are not exposed via the web.

Notifications is a big obvious one. Not sure if they've changed it since I last looked into it, but having an app installed was the only way to send a notification to someone for a long time.

The cookie/session isolation is underrated. Half the reason services push you to the app is because the mobile browser experience for juggling multiple web apps is genuinely bad — not because the web can't do it, but because nobody's made it comfortable. I got annoyed enough to put together a small webview manager that keeps a few web apps in tabs with separate cookies: https://github.com/theoden8/webspace_app (yes, it's written in flutter)

I specifically do this with apps like Discord, because it seemed like every time I launched the app, there was a 200mb+ update.

I can just use the web version instead and skip all that, along with the memory usage (for the most part).

I've been running a video game collection site for years. The number one request I get from people is to build an app. I've worked so hard on making the mobile version of the site to be just as functional as the desktop version, and I don't really understand why people want an app over just using the web version. I sometimes wonder if I should just do it to see if I'm missing out on market share, but I don't really want to have to maintain two different user interfaces.

Those are valid arguments but I like apps better, for other reasons. Mostly security.

When I use, say, the Signal app:

- I can audit it, download it or even compile it myself from sources

- Once I have installed it, Signal doesn't get to change it "in my back"

- As a result, I don't need to trust Signal for the end-to-end encryption, which is the whole point of end-to-end encryption.

When I use a webapp, say ProtonMail:

- Every time I load the webapp, it is downloaded from the Proton servers. Even if I once stop to audit it, next time I load it, it may totally be a different codebase (that e.g. adds a backdoor, potentially just for me, and just this one time).

- I need to trust that Proton doesn't inject a backdoor to extract my key, then end-to-end encryption is useless. I could also trust Proton to not read my emails, right?

- If a webapp is served by a CDN, I have to trust that the CDN doesn't tamper with it. Actually Meta has an extension made for verifying that for WhatsApp Web. The extension is a bulky way to make sure that you loaded what Meta wanted you to load (i.e. that Cloudflare did not tamper with it), but it DOES NOT ensure that Meta did not inject a backdoor just for you, just this time.

Folding phones are the big/small screen compromise. One you fold, nobody goes back.

The samsung fold7 in particular is the same thickness/weight as slab phones, but unfolds to become a tablet. Please don't vote if you haven't held one. The compromise is cost, durability (dust, water), some battery life & some camera. Huge gains in productivity and night-to-day difference consuming video and photos. Google Maps FTW.

I don't understand it from the app developers point of view. Having to pay app store cuts over basic card processing fees. I understand the appeal of access to a market, like selling on eBay gets you eyeballs. But once you have a customer using their app, what does the app give you that a PWA doesn't unless you need access to specific sensors / file system access patterns etc?

Agree with the article. I’m increasingly jaded by the state of the web.

Something that has been happening for a long time on iOS Safari that I only recently realized: pinch to zoom on sites like Reddit, instagram, shopping sites, and many others cause what I’m calling “website seizures.” Where I try to zoom in and half the time the page reloads completely or triggers a reload but ends up throwing an error.

On one hand, I don’t know why startups make apps. It requires more devs and keeping everything at parity is tough with desktop, iOS, android, mobile web. Seems pragmatic to just simplify and use web.

But on the other hand, I’d love to pay you $0.99 if it meant I could get an ad free version of your little widget and I’m not sure how to do that easily with web

Being required to use an Android app sucks and is annoying, but an AOSP VM would solve the issue. Perhaps MITM-ing the app would be harder than MITM-ing a site without reversing the app. And not everyone has the hardware resources for an Android VM.

But for me the main issues with "you need our app" BS is that they don't give you the apk but tell you to download it from the Google Play Store. They don't give you the source for the apk as well, as if it's such a huge trade secret how some shitty API works. The worst offenders ask for all the attestation shit (unrooted phone and so on). That's what's wrong with apps vs sites, not just the format itself. We should fight for FOSS apks with no attestation if companies want to invest so heavily in apps.

Slightly tangential but is there a way to download a PWA permanently on a mobile device and have it remain indefinitely even if the upstream site goes offline or changes?

Every time I try to load a PWA on my phone from my dev laptop, it breaks after a few weeks (days?) for no obvious reason. I investigated this for a bit but eventually gave up and went the electron/wrapper app route.

If we can find a real fix for this stupid issue, I would be more than happy to focus on PWAs.

Stop asking me for access to my contacts, microphone, location, or permission to send me 5 kinds of useless notifications.

This also skips over with some hand waving that a lot of mobile app uses cases simply can’t be replicated with web sites. Take gps or smart home control as two easy of the top of my head example the author skipped too.

Also the fact that people here would rather have their info stored in the cloud vs local on device is interesting.

This and thanks to GrapheneOS!

I have ditched a ton of apps, from Youtube, to X, Discord and what not.

Apps is the biggest trap, it grants techs full access to your device, unless you are running GrapheneOS of course.

Web version works just fine, faster, it is not bloated like the app and won't drain your battery since there is no app running in the background.

The only app I still have is Instagram when I wanna upload a video to my car account because they refuse to do that via browser.

If I place expects me to download an app to order, I am eating elsewhere.

I ran into the same “friends are too nice / surveys are too vague” problem and what helped was testing my landing page copy with people who don’t know me at all. I’ve been using TractionWay to throw up a few headline/message variations and get 4–5 brutally honest takes back in a few hours, plus they flag folks who’d actually want to hear more so I’m not just collecting opinions in a vacuum.

My bank is now doing this: for a few newish and not-quite-essential services you can only use their app, the rest you can still do via the web.

The same has been going on with radio and podcasts for a while: e.g., the BBC, or my newspaper, wants me to install their app to listen to their streams or podcasts, while I much rather concentrate all my listening in one central radio or podcast app for all my sources. Note that a system for paid-only podcast subscriptions via generic podcast apps actually exists, but I've never used it since no podcast maker I listen to actually uses it.

I've more than once had a company reply to a bug report about their website, "did you try using the app instead." To which I usually reply, "why would I trust your site with direct access to my phone when you can't make a website that works correctly?"

That's just my thinking... I try not to install apps most of the time, I don't want them to have access or even the greater chance at breaking security/isolation. On a similar vein, I still can't believe that LinkedIn didn't get permanently banned from Apple and Google stores when they broke security to spy on emails.

Though I agree with the author & use the web version of various applications, there is another side to this. The author says s/he uses plugins to disable ads and so on. If its an ad supported site for which one does not pay, this is tantamount to expecting the provider to run the service for no compensation/revenue at all.

Furthermore, to say platform owners don't care about offending such users would be an understatement: platform owners likely want to actively repel such users. Why serve someone who neither pays a fee nor agrees to be shown ads?

My Google Chrome app is by far the most used app on my phone. If you catch me at a random moment on my phone, chances are I'm on Chrome.

Sometimes the mobile app experience is better than the mobile browser for me, though. Examples are Twitter, Spotify, Upwork, Google Keep Notes.

If I'm on my computer I don't even download the apps, I just use the browser. It just feels more convenient.

I haven't thought much about why they all feel good on my laptop browser while some apps offer better experience on mobile.

Edit: It's also why I keep procrastinating on getting into mobile app development. I just generally prefer web experience. With some exceptions as already stated here.

We're all here debating the friction of downloading apps versus the convenience of the mobile web, but we might be missing the bigger picture. Both are UI-heavy paradigms designed for humans to click things. In a few years, we won't care if a service has a slick React app or a native iOS build. We’ll just tell our AI agents: 'Book that flight' or 'Fix my billing issue,' and they’ll talk to the APIs directly. The era of 'interfaces for humans' is peaking; the era of 'headless services for agents' is just beginning. Interfaces are becoming a legacy tax.

There is also the lack of support for bookmarks. I value the ability to reach a part I am interested in quickly.

When Chrome started supporting PWAs you couldn't bookmark the content at all. They seem to have fixed that now.

I've got an old-ish phone, so in most cases, I can't download your app even if I wanted to. You deliberately set your minimum iOS deployment version to be higher than what my phone can even install. So I have to go to your web site or just stop doing business with your ass. Just because your developers decided that developing for older phones is too hard to figure out, or it takes too much effort, and they'd rather just cut us off.

I would be fine having an app for everything if:

1. Phone storage wasn't paid at an absurdly premium price. Sometimes the option with just higher storage may be $300 more.

2. High speed Internet was available cheaply everywhere.

If I'm in a town in the middle of nowhere. I'm not going to use my expensive data plan (because in the US mobile data is extremely expensive compared to EU) To download a 500Mb app that will take 5 minutes to download because the Internet is slow just to pay for parking

I can't type on a smartphone. Even as I wrote this, c became a space, the word space started each time with an a, etc.

But on a keyboard I type hella fast.

Now, I also hate creating account after account, having all these applications needing to be installed with ads in them that I can't block or some permissions that I don't think it needs. F that.

The worst thing about this is a company saying you need to lock yourself on one of the 2 proprietary platform that somehow didn't just wrap the web for apps and use a ridiculously small device you might own, but anyone on an open standard system can go F themselves...

It’s a little tough these days. With AI and scraping, running an open webapp/website is now more expensive than ever before. My friends and I have launched a product in the last few months and decided to focus on mobile first and wait to develop a webapp simply because we couldn’t feel we could optimize the costs of open webapp while we have so few resources.

Who does serious work on a phone?

I have found app-only experiences that cover looking for a job, looking for a house, doing accounting/personal finances.

How can you even stay organized or do any meaningful data entry on a phone?

My gripe is how iOS allows these companies to constantly bug us to use their stupid apps. I ended up installing the NYTimes app, not because I use it, but just to shut it up. I switched to duck duck go because I was sick of being bugged to install chrome. How many times do I need to say no?

I wish PWAs were more of a thing. That is actually what I'd use instead of installing a company app.

I have it the other way around. I want local first app. Don’t want everything in the cloud apps.

Luckily there is choice :)

I wish there was a version of this website that was simpler, more educated and that I could show to the "normies" who own business and insist on asking me to download their app (I'm looking at you, TKD school!). This one is too aimed at the cooks.

The author touches on this in the last section, but I'd reframe this a different way. The natural conclusion for a company who wants to funnel you to the app is, "the web version is a-OK? Let's make the web version worse."

I'd rather see this framed as, "if you don't have a high functioning web version, I don't need to use your service." Gimping my preferred medium will lose me as a customer. If enough people draw that line, "enshittifying" your web app should hurt your metrics, not help. That way maintaining a good web version is looked at as a long-term necessity, not a top of funnel.

This is especially true for dev tools. Engineers already have 20 browser tabs open with dashboards, CI/CD, docs, and logs. The last thing anyone wants is another Electron app eating RAM in the background. The best tools meet you where you already are.

Yes, the TC is right and I completely agree, but we all know the reason for forcing users to install an app: retention, ARPU and other metrics grow for this audience, and push notifications also help with that.

The web version would be a-ok if it wasn't artificially blocking me from consuming it when on mobile, like Yelp.

Or it's full of annoying popups to use the app, looking at you, Google.

Nah u right, it is possible to do BLE debug stuff from browser, but my tool is so fire and china keeps downloading it 200x per day i had to add that $4.99 monthly subscription wall.

I agree...except, I would've appreciated some self-awareness from the author. They represent a minority of the users, yet they fail to comprehend this simple fact.

For the large majority of users, phones are THE primary (if not only) device for their interaction with the internet. You can complain "them-lazy-brainrotting-GenZs" but some people don't have a choice. There are plenty of countries where a smartphone is the cheapest internet enabled device that a person can afford.

Secondly, the UX for "web browsing" on the phone is strictly worse compared to (well-made) apps. In fact, apps are the reason for the explosion in popularity of smartphones. And also the reason only android and iphone have survived the OS race (see windows phone and linux phones). So — much to my own disappointment — it does make sense for companies to treat mobile (app) users as first class citizens. You need to understand that you are not the target user anymore. And, yes it sucks.

That said, it does not justify the gradual enshittification, dark patterns and dopamine hacking that have been normalized in modern apps.

I trust the chrome sandbox and security more than a desktop or phone app.

I don't want to install your spyware. Vivaldi has it right with the browser now where you have UI autohide. I hope for that to get to Android.

Like you touched on, they're just trying to get you to make a small commitment to being in their walled garden and then they add on a bunch of other things

It's a waste of resources too. I've seen startups waste soooooo much time and effort on simple native apps that could trivially be webviews, it's tragic.

If the elevator was invented today, use of it would require an app which demands access to one’s contacts and microphone, and has a rating of 1.4 stars.

The Politico website on Android has this issue. Can't login so can't read articles. Had to download app, but would prefer web page.

ios Native App > web app > android app > anything made with a cross platform toolkit like react native or flutter.

I would much prefer a really well-crafted ios Native App with extensive attention to detail than anything, even a web app made with similar detail (in most cases). And also ios apps are far more likely to receive that level of attention than just about anything else.

"The experience is better in our app". Yeah, right, and whose damn fault is that, I wonder?

I at times wonder if my life would be easier if I were not so stubborn and just installed every app suggested along the way.

Still holding my breath for the app that puts up a dialog on every launch asking "would you like to try our web version?"

An app could offer a more stable identifier compared to an in-browser guest session which might have its cookies cleared.

Obligatory Dennis Reynolds / It's Always Sunny... thoughts on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzb355qT8RI

I honestly don't mind downloading apps for things I use all the time so long as the app isn't a nightmare. It's when I am having a single interaction with a brand (such as buying my wife a gift) and I'm bombarded with "it's better in the app" that drives me nuts.

I realize that I am perhaps not the target demographic of this app-centric culture; but, I cannot count the number of times in a week that I utter the phrase, "no, I don't want to download your app" as I try to accomplish what should be a simple task.

I can't search through the text in your app or copy paste out of it.

Anecdotally had the axios maintainer used the Zoom desktop app, he'd be used to seeing the "Open this link in the app" prompt on the call page and less likely to fall for the scam upon not seeing the same prompt when following the phishing link. I think there's some value in having the app installed for the extra validation.

Somehow the one feature I need to use is the one feature broken on the website... every time.

If a website disrespects "request desktop site" and still tries to force you into an app... ugh.

Had this happen yesterday when someone sent me a link to something on AllTrails. If the service was good and the website was usable, I might have even considered getting the app for offline features. Not anymore - screw companies that do this.

It depends. The parking app example is an example of an app I want, for so many reasons

Can't we run Android inside a browser these days?

WASM should be able to handle it now, I suppose.

I'm a huge supporter of the open web. However this issue was decided 16 year ago. If you recall the first push on smartphones were "web apps". Those sucked. The bottom line is that native apps provide a better user experience and that is why they became prevalent 16 years ago.

Can the "app" just load the mobile website. Then everyone is happy?

Mostly I am quite tired of the 30 step onboarding funnel all apps have. I was trying out a fitness app and the second I opened it, I was about step 9 into it and I just deleted the app.

Yes you will download the app because we will not offer a web version.

I wonder what happened to PWAs

I actually enjoy having mobile apps for lots of use cases – travel, news, entertainment, utility bills, banking. I have probably around 100 apps on my iPhone right now and I'm fine with this number.

There are 2 things though that make me dislike mobile apps.

First, regularly logging me out. It's so frustrating, especially if the app does not support biometric login. I have a password manager, so I can log in rather quickly, but I just want to be logged in for months.

Second, webviews, I just can't understand mobile apps that render part of their content inside webviews. Like, either commit to having a proper native mobile experience or just let me use your website. One of the more annoying cases for me personally is NBA app. I'm searching for some stat, I open their website in a browser, it redirects me to the app, the app opens and then renders the same web page in a web view. What's even the point?!

I use Twitter/X on web because the iOS so bad.

Last year the same idea made it to the front page [0]. I understand that the apps can be faster, or easier to use. But that's intentional. Developers are deliberately making the web experience worst to force you to use the app. The reason is they have control over the experience in the apps. For example, blocking ads on the apps is much harder, and they can extract things like your contacts, GPS data, and run in the background.

At this point, the only apps on my phone are bank apps. Even that is something I'm trying to get rid off.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44689059

I'm not going to download an app for every company I do business with. It's as simple as that.

I'm not going to download an app to order food from your restaurant. I'm not going to download an app to operate an appliance. I'm not going to download an app to get a discount on a beverage at your convenience store.

I don't care about your stupid rewards system for trying to get a reasonable price on overpriced items. I'm not downloading an app for it.

There are many people who download every app they do business with without hesitation. It's crazy. I can't imagine how many apps these people have on their phones.

Do you really think developers are going through the hellish pain of dealing with Google and Apple for no reason? Real world users prefer and expect apps as opposed to web versions for many product categories.

I'm okay with downloading your app provided it's actually good and does something substantially better than a website could do. I'm talking seamless mobile UI, use of mobile features like gps or nfc, or easier/better security and authentication.

However, I don't want your bloated or minimum effort dog-shit app just to watch a movie on a plane, browse a site like Reddit, order a pizza, read a news article/blog, or shop at your specific online store. I will begrudgingly download it if I must, but I'll hate you for it.

Preach your truth, brother!

I won’t use your web app. The app version has better performance, lower memory usage, is more idiomatic and looks better.

We should blame Apple for creating incentives that let it take a 30% cut from apps. I don't know why governments, especially foreign governments, allow Apple app store to operate in their countries.

gmail on mobile is particularly insidious in this context.

I think app stores are getting restrictive and their next attack would be on PWA because that's one loophole in their walled garden where they need to extract 30% cut. Only a matter of time.

As for me, I would be mostly relying on PWAs.

Being a smaller company, try pushing an app to production on Android. Good luck with that.

I like apps, much better then web version experience

Preach brother

See also https://idiallo.com/blog/dont-download-apps

I fully agree. A web based UI is superior in every way.

This also means you don't have to be running this week's android version to use it, with all the increased surveillance consequences that implies.

But, as the article states, people who are actually paying attention are a small minority and an acceptable collateral damage to user numbers.

The smartphone and it's consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

To be perfectly honest, modern phone apps are so riddled with spyware that it would be unthinkable for a similar situation to have started on PCs.

App developers are not living up to the expectations and needs that these services have in our lives. MyQ for example, is a Garage Door opener . It’s a key. It needs to meet the responsiveness and reliability expectations of a key. Instead, the app is slow, the buttons often freeze , the app logs itself out without notifying you – so in the most urgent situation you don’t have access to open your door.

Even some of the better ones don’t take themselves seriously. Buggy, hostile UIs , slow.

Honestly I don’t believe most of the producers are even using their own apps. I’m able to discover critical bugs within 2 minutes using nearly any app.

I think it's best to ignore this kind of user feedback and focus on the users who really want the service or product and are willing download an app if necessary or use the web version if necessary. Popular opinions on apps/web and desktop/mobile change every few years. I remember when Facebook became deeply unpopular and was afraid of going under because they didn't manage to provide a native app.

Because of the walled gardens, duplication of efforts, and waste of resources I'd personally favor if apps died out but that is never going to happen because they always have better platform integration.

Agreed, if you have a website I'll just use that.

I don't get apps. Apart from Audible, I don't have any installed and don't use any. I've never enjoyed using smartphones to do anything.

Many many people are downloading the apps, and this is pushing a lot of younger people into apps-first over native web experiences.

I think we should call on Apple and Google to make web apps/sites a more first-class experience, rather than ask app developers to stop going where the people are.

The whole premise doesn't make much sense (to me) if the app doesn't have an inherent benefit over a website. Don't tell me that all the app first people would rather have a web wrapped app for every website they visit? Seems to be more of a "we can get more metrics out of app users than website users" thing so they intentionally break the mobile website to aggressively push an app. #LinkedIn #Facebook

The web version being ok is a sign of the degradation of the desktop experience more than it is a sign of the capabilities of the web.

One very egregious example: Moovit

Even with mobile FF and adblock their mobile website is completely unusable. Now ask me if I'm happy to download ther app if their website is a complete POS like that

The desktop website works "fine" for the most part though

The government is supposed to be pushing for web as the default.

You're not my target audience

This sentiment will probably resonate with a lot of people here. I literally won’t use a service if they try to force me onto their app..

This indeed is annoying. Burn it down. This year is the year of moving away from services pushing this nonsense. I am looking at you PayPal.

Yes and now I use AI to build any website which locks me into their workflow and run it locally how I choose!

what's funnier is that this could have been written 10 years ago and the situation was the exact same

apps function more so as a checkbox for investors to take an organization seriously, as well as for the founder to self aggrandize and feel like their own app store presence means something. for devs it is functionally a make-work program.

PWAs are dead.

The only reason they want you to download their app is to farm more data about you. They will push you to huge extent just to collect more data.

To share an egregious example, Mercury (which is a great bank) sent KYC notice literally saying "we noticed you use app outside of declared locations" for one of my friends companies. And yes they push their app hard.

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dozens of apps on the smartphone is gross. an indicator for me of an elderly / technically illiterate smartphone user is the presence of a ton of apps, most of which were used long ago and seldomly.

I got the entire idea from the title, no need for the article 's body.

And when I started reading I got bored after a few paragraphs since, again, I already got the idea.

Do we really need more than a title for these articles?