zlacker

>>foxfir+(OP)
Don’t agree, but to each their own. The native app experience for every app noted in the article is better and smoother than the mobile web version, in my opinion. Lots of people hate Electron apps, which suggests to me that my preference for native apps isn’t unique.

Web apps can ask for your location or microphone the same way native apps can. Just reject it, there’s nothing that says you have to accept on either platform, so to say that’s a negative for native apps is odd.

The biggest downside of native apps is you can’t customize them with extensions or user styles like you can with websites.

>>markba+P3
The reason I believe the web experience is inferior is because companies put more resources into apps at the expense of the web.

Apps break often. They need a lot of support. Everything must be constantly updated. You never know when Samsung or Apple will push an update that breaks things because of some esoteric policy shift or setting change.

But the web? If you do it right, maintenence is much easier. If things do break: users can try different browsers or devices to get around instead of being bricked.

I can't be the only one who _never _ updates software on my phone until I absolutely have to. Everything is so brittle. I'm sick of being gaslit that apps make that better. Despite it's own horrible implementations, the web is far more stable.

>>VoidWa+55
> The reason I believe the web experience is inferior is because companies put more resources into apps at the expense of the web.

The main reason is just a single company - Apple. They have been hell bent on nerfing Safari so that they can continue their rent seeking behavior on App Store.

If Spotify has a functional mobile website, they cant take 30% cut from their app. The way Apple does is 2 fold. 1) deliberating not investing $$ into Safari 2) claiming that you'll get malware from internet.

Both are hypocritical.

>>bitpus+c8
Yes that’s why there are so many great PWAs on Android and companies don’t make apps for Android and instead tell their users to use the web app…

And Spotify hasn’t had in app purchasing of subscriptions on iOS for over a decade. Apple has never once said you would get malware by using Safari.

>>scarfa+Gk
Spotify was an example, but since you were harping on it. Why is it that on desktop everyone uses spotify.com to listen to music, purchase subscription but when it comes to iPhone, we have to install an app from the App Store.

Who do you think is stopping from that happening?

>>bitpus+Pn
Well seeing that you could play music in the background from Safari since 2007, Spotify is the one forcing you to use an app

Apple makes no money from the Spotify app being on the iPhone and hadn’t for over a decade.

>>scarfa+Wp
This is an untrue statement.

Music was played by the iTunes process on mobile until 2016, and only a single audio stream at a time. How dare you wanted a fade in/out with less than 3 seconds latency!

And even then Apple was reluctant to implement a correct Promise based Audio API in WebKit, which in turn was incompatible with all other Web Browsers (up until today, btw) and also had very different audio formats supported that were only compatible with iOS due to proprietary patents.

Saying WebKit played music in 2007 is literally a worse experience than a Flash web player doing that.

>>h4ck_t+4w
It is very true, you think the only way thst music came from your phone before 2016 was iTunes? It was a hack that streaming services - mostly radio streaming services- used before iOS 4 when apps could play music in the background used because Safari was the only thing that could run in the background.

The question was why did Spotify have to use an app instead of using the web.

But then again, are you really saying that Android users don’t use the app?