zlacker

I remember when ChatGPT was released. I talked about it to a friend who is not technical. She said "oh wow, I really need to try it". She later said "I couldn't find the app in my AppStore".

I kept saying they had a website and why would you need an app. She couldn't understand what I was saying.

Seems like indeed the general public really likes apps and even thinks you can't do so many things in the browser.

>>Einenl+(OP)
Devs are usually disconnected from the average user's experience. I too used to be the same.

>>kaptai+O7
Weren't PMs supposed to fix this problem?

The dev's ambassador to the common man.

>>Einenl+(OP)
> She couldn't understand what I was saying

I don’t buy this for one second. The web is well known, and well understood - I’ve never run into anyone, in any age group, with any level of education, who wouldn’t understand what a website is.

Either you’re being overly dramatic and exaggerating here, or you had a very difficult time pronouncing the words you were intending to say.

>>happyo+tq
No, a lot of non-technical people don't know the difference.

My friend was trying to explain an app to me. How everyone at his work was amazed at how well it worked compared to their Salesforce solution that they were forced to use.

The app? A website. Not even a web application. It was just a brochure type web catalog that allowed them to show their customer the brands and products they sold.

Other's I've told about ChatGPT or Claude, have trouble finding it. They go into the App Store and search for the apps. They are inundated non-official versions. All with similar titles. Some stop, some install the wrong versions.

>>happyo+tq
It’s not a given that “web page” has any particular meaning to people who don’t own a computer or laptop. Even people with only a cell phone, many don’t browse the web on mobile. Is the google sign in screen that pops up on a google tv a webpage, is not a question a lot of people can answer with confidence.

>>happyo+tq
You might be surprised. I can assure you it happened. And my friend is a 35yo physiotherapist who uses a website on a daily basis to manage her appointments. I guess what was confusing to her was the fact that it was not just a "simple" website where you would find information (blogs, Wikipedia, whatever). It was something where you would say something and it would respond dynamically. As a software engineer, we know there's no difference. It's just a few POST endpoints anyway. For a user without technical background? The way I described it sounded like it should be an app.

Now, you would say that these people (35yo) used to use Facebook (and maybe Google meet) and such on desktop. So they should know that many things can be achieved through a browser. But it seems like when thinking about mobile, people think differently. A website that "does something" other than displaying information (which is a weird and blurry definition) must be an app. I'm absolutely sure my friend has never thought it could be possible to use Facebook on through her mobile browser. If you access something with your mobile, it must be through an app.