zlacker

Apple supporting PWA (Progressive Web Apps) is hugely important because it enables a future where web apps can natively support browser, Mac/Windows/Linux desktop, and mobile iPhone/Android/Windows native mobile with a single codebase of open technologies.

Why after over 30 years of experiencing cross platform "write once run anywhere* technologies do developers still think that's the best user experience? Yes it makes life easier for the developer but it's rarely best for the user.

>>scarfa+(OP)
I think this is the crux of the matter. Apple supporting PWA means lower quality apps for its users, and Apple has the market share to demand apps be native code.

>>scarfa+(OP)
GMail was (and maybe keeps being) a much better user experience than native email clients for desktop PCs.

>>euyyn+O7
It's better in that it required no configuration. But from a UI perspective it feels inferior. For example, native clients can just show you a list of all your messages, but GMail still paginates like a late-90s PHP site.

>>millst+Md
That view is hugely annoying, even when you group unread and read, both are paginated separately. Perhaps there's some configuration I need to set..

>>euyyn+O7
I can’t disagree more. I find gmail to be a perfect example of why web apps are playing to the lowest common denominator and result in poor user experiences everywhere. Just my opinion though, I realise most people love it.

>>euyyn+O7
Completly disagree.

I only use GMail as gateway to aggregate my email accounts and synchronize with my Android devices, native mail client.

On Windows and GNU/Linux systems at home, I happily keep using Thunderbird.

>>millst+Md
I think PC clients back then paginated too. They didn't group emails by thread either, and at least Outlook still doesn't by default.

>>pjmlp+Vx
Without specifics there's not much to discuss.

E.g. Thunderbird apparently only introduced threaded conversations 7 years after GMail did.

>>danpal+Ms
What feature of native apps do you wish web-GMail had?

>>euyyn+zA
I hate threaded conversations, so that isn't something I even value.

>>pjmlp+bD
Even if you personally dislike it, I think you can agree that it's one of the UX choices that made it storm over the alternatives at the time.

Not all our individual tastes align with what's most popular, obviously.

>>euyyn+MA
Snappiness. It wasn't close even to Fastmail's web UI and took forever to load when my connection was slow.

>>euyyn+aF
Not really, I guess many jumped on it, because it was a free email server from Google.

I still manage my own email servers.

>>ivm+3G
That can't be attributed to playing to the lowest common denominator.

>>euyyn+O7
Believe it or not, in my experience, Exchange + Outlook 2016 stomps all over GMail. I find that its faster, searches quicker, and takes up _WAY_ less memory. I don't do any fancy things other than basic email, scheduling meetings, etc so YMMV.

>>euyyn+DI
If Google can't make the best web application then who can ?

>>scarfa+(OP)
I'm not trying to argue that it is the BEST user experience. I'm trying to say that it is hurting small dev shops and startups because they are being forced to learn a completely new tech stack in order to play ball. I could have spent that time implementing new features that users would actually use and in turn improve their business, or in this case, reach and help more people with valuable medical advice.

In the end, Apple got what they wanted. I needed a feature that PWA's can give me - but Apple hasn't added support for them in mobile safari, so I paid the $100 to get access to the app store, and was forced to learn a completely different language.

Yes, the end product has an arguably better and 'native-like' experience, but it took me longer to do and it is lacking some of the features that I could have rolled out if I was able to use PWA's. And it would have worked on Android out of the box as well.

I don't regret learning React Native. It was actually really, really fun. The community is great, and being able to write native apps now feels really good.

But its the principal of the matter. Holding back innovation for your company's own selfish reasons is a shitty thing to do.

>>gregbl+za1
Yes, the end product has an arguably better and 'native-like' experience, but it took me longer to do and it is lacking some of the features that I could have rolled out if I was able to use PWA's. And it would have worked on Android out of the box as well.

So am I as an end user suppose to be upset that you were forced to make a better product.

Holding back innovation for the company's selfish reasons?

Back in 2008 they said the same thing about Apple not supporting Flash and Java.

If anyone is being selfish to try foist cross platform apps that you admitted weren't as good, it isn't Apple.

>>euyyn+MA
I'm on a Mac and mostly come from Mail.app, but many of these things would apply on Windows/Linux as well in slightly different forms.

- Speed. It's sluggish compared to the FastMail web UI, and slow compared to Mail.app on my Mac.

- System provided UI editing controls which would bring richer editing and consistent controls

- Consistent hotkeys - I know Gmail has rich hotkeys, but all my other software uses a fairly consistent set which can also access a wider range of keys than a browser can do.

- Automation - I use automation and tools like Alfred (/Quicksilver/Gnome Do/etc) and these can interface with native apps much more effectively through things like AppleScript.

- Drag and drop (you can drag and drop much more than you might think on a Mac, and I use it extensively)

- Centralised notification control in system preferences

- Better (and faster) layout – you're constrained to a web browser so there's less you can do in terms of good use of screen real-estate.

- Prettier – it might sound superficial, but I enjoy using apps that have a nicer design and Gmail, compared with many native clients, looks pretty terrible.

- Real multi-window support - using new tabs doesn't provide the same interface or interaction patterns.

- Real right-click support, with the options I'd expect for any other system app.

That's most of what I'd like to see. Note that an Electron app like Slack doesn't exhibit many of these.