Let's pretend Indie Hackers has a mobile app. What makes it better than the web version?
This has been a reoccurring request from indie hackers. I'm curious why.
Is it speed? UI responsiveness? Customizability?
This has been a reoccurring request from indie hackers. I'm curious why.
Is it speed? UI responsiveness? Customizability?
Excellent question in my opinion, although I'm more interested to hear the answer to this question from non developers. Personally I only install a native app if it is necessary or provides an advantage over using the web app. I have nothing against native apps, but if the web app gives me basically the same experience, I prefer a web app for several reasons. One is that I know I can enjoy the app from any browser on any computer without installing anything. I feel like most people default to installing the native app if one is available, and like @levidxyz, I'd like to understand why. The line between web and native is getting blurrier. Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are a move in the right direction.
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Thanks for this. I was aware that PWA was a late-comer to iOS, but I did not realize how bad it is still. I think it's a matter of time. I think just like web apps beat out desktop apps, they will beat out native apps. I believe the #1 reasons native apps exist is because of things you simply can't do in a web app. Slowly but surely that list of things you can't do in a web app is shrinking. The advantage of truly developing (and building and deploying) your app once and having it run EVERYWHERE will win. For right now, 99 out of 100 people can't conceive of a simple web app that you launch from your phone screen like a native app. Native app = dedicated screen icon and fast to launch. Web app = open browser, go to a URL, wait for it to load. Soon, though, it will be hard for the average person to know the difference.
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I agree with your point--follow the dollars!
BUT, I don't see why Apple can't still maintain their App Store in a PWA-only future. They could fully support PWA functionality in the OS but require that the only way to install one on an iPhone is through the App Store.
Devs would still complain about the extra hassle of getting their PWA approved for the App Store, but that approval process is the only thing giving average users some "quality assurance".
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The truth is, I don't have any technical understanding of how in-app purchasing works in native apps, but any functionality a native app can do on the device CAN be exposed in a web app--it's just a matter of Apple deciding to provide the necessary javascript hooks in the browser to do all the things.
e.g. Used to be you couldn't access the camera from a web app in a browser. You can do that now across devices and operating systems.
Push notifications! I consider most of the emails I get from IH to be high-quality so I'd be happy to get them as push notifications that open an app right on my phone.
I generally like to stay out of email during my workday... is that weird?
Great reason! This is another area where web app functionality is blurring the line between native and web. Web apps have been able to do push notifications for a long time on many OS's. If these don't work on iOS, then again, it's just a matter of them allowing and supporting that feature.
Can save poss to read later or get updated on.
Ooh that's good!
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Same. For me its a few things:
I've made some improvements in recent weeks, but I'd like to keep improving things. If you're ever up for sending me some screenshots of annoying pages on your phone, I'd happily take a look! courtland@indiehackers.com
Happy to!
Btw while I have your attention I might as well ask: hypothetically, if I were to build a native iOS client for Indie Hackers (with placeholder data) and it was good enough that the IH community were asking you just to expose APIs so I could wire it up... how likely would you be to do that?