> I can’t understand how we got to this place with “app culture”!<p>The short version: ad blockers work on browsers but not apps[0].<p>[0] <a href="https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle" rel="nofollow">https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle</a>
I don't think that's it. Apps took off because people felt comfortable yoloing stuff from the Apple app store, and for a short while before saturation, the app store reach was making small developers rich.
Apps took off because Apple did everything they could to make PWAs work badly, with no reliable notifications, no access to some data, etc.<p>Apple did that because they want their sweet 30% from in-app purchases, which they couldn't enforce in PWAs.
The <i>App Store</i> took off because of the distribution channel offers for developers (including being able to charge for the work) and the place of discovery it offers to users.
Apple has actually started allowing this. You can find the functionality in an adblocker called Wipr now and it works really well.
> There only seem to be two things that this “app” does, that a webpage might not have, and they’re both anti-features:<p>> It reports tracking data associated with your Google Account back to the developers.<p>Fortunately webpages never do any tracking whatsoever, let alone “Gobshite LLC and its 1131 partners need your permission for (contd. p94)”
We were supposed to be in the age of PWAs. That was the initial plan for iOS before the app store and 30% cuts on subscription apps.<p>Most web apps suck too though so I guess pick your poison. My strong belief is they want apps because they can spam you with notifications to get your attention.
> My strong belief is they want apps because they can spam you with notifications to get your attention.<p>I believe the same about the Youtube App, I just can't see why else it exists and I hate the video links try to open in the app if you're not careful!
Casting from the web doesn’t work (on iOS at least) but that’s all I can think of.
Chromecast from desktop chromium works, so there's no reason they couldn't make the universal turing machine in my pocket do the same.
AirPlay should work for every native video element, or do you mean something like chromecast?
Apps are also more difficult to intercept and modify on most devices. Companies like them because it means you can't use ad blockers or other privacy tools. It's also why they flip out so outrageously when Apple adds privacy tools at the operating system level, because tracking and abuse are most of the reason why apps are useful to them in the first place.
I'm currently attempting to write a calendar app for personal use, and I wanted to go the route of a self-host PWA. Notifications are a good point. How can I create notifications as a reminder before an event? Alerts are part of the icalendar standard ("VALARM"), so these are clearly notifications that are wanted by the user. Is that even possible for a PWA?
You can send notifications with PWAs with Web Push API + Service Worker, same as a regular page.<p>But, AFAIK, you need the server for push, though. It used to be possible to program entirely from the client with this proposed feature but AFAIK it's abandoned: <a href="https://github.com/GoogleChrome/developer.chrome.com//blob/main/site/en/docs/web-platform/notification-triggers/index.md" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/GoogleChrome/developer.chrome.com//blob/m...</a>
They want apps so they could fingerprint your device, spy on you and get a lot more information than a web app.
sure, but that original idea was 20 years ago.
> they want<p>Who are 'they' and how do you know what they want
The people deciding between delivering their payload via app or web page. Engagement hacking is not something we have to guess that ad companies want.
The developer of the apps obviously.
Why this gaslighting? obviously the massive companies with vested interest in monetizing your attention and data
Wait, the users password is part of the URL? What happens if the password contains a forward slash or a question mark? Wouldn't that break the whole endpoint?
Original author here. Upon inspection, these passwords are clearly not chosen by the user and, as far as I can tell, consist only of numbers and uppercase letters.
RFC 1738 Uniform Resource Locators (URL) December 1994 section 2.2
I think yeah, most apps can be webpages, but the biggest used apps can also be webpages, (insta, facebook, x) and so on , I think the only real indicator is how much people are using the apps, not if it's simpler just to do a webpage
If a 120MB app is required just to display an itinerary PDF, that's an architecture problem, not a UX problem.
I understand the anger. But I wish I were better able to resist fixing the world with code in this way, as I really am supposed to be working.
Fantastic work! It's always nice to see the method, in case anything is out there making this stuff easier. But the result is the real prize. There's way too much nonsense out there that is an app when it should be a webpage. I'm so tired of all of these apps.<p>One criticism, though: I wish you would have made a simple form-based alternative to the app's population mechanism, rather than just make the one-off consumer for yourself(/those you shared with). Definitely way more work and not something you should have to do. But that would have been a cherry on top. Not only prevent needing the app for viewing, but also removing future incentive for an organization turning to an app like that in the first place.
I'm the original author (but not the poster here on HN).<p>Yeah, I considered that. I even wrote the code in such a way that it supports that. But I'm concerned about the legality of distributing it. Given that it hits API endpoints that were expected to be private to the developers' app, giving away a "tool" that bypasses the app (which hosts ads, albeit for their other products, and so serves as a money-maker for the app's owner) could be illegal.<p>At the very least, it could be a violation of the terms of service or just an annoyance to the app developer, either of which could lead them to trying to stop me from doing it, which would be an inconvenience. So maybe I'll wait until after the trip, when the page becomes useless to me, and THEN open-source it!
This is awesome. I think the much bigger use case here is building web equivalents of apps that are only available on iOS/Android.
Amazing. Love the dedication to fix this minor annoyance, which I also share. Would be great if there was a kind of universal tool for this, as I am sure many of those shitty apps share the same internals.
Preach!