
App-pocalypse Now - Evgeny
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2014/02/app-pocalypse-now.html
======
philbarr
On the reason why people will spend $5 on a coffee but not $1 on an app:

I've been thinking about this for a while and noticed this behaviour amongst
my friends. I have one friend who is a true apple fan-boy and finishes his
phone contract early so he can get the latest iPhone earlier at much cost etc.

I recently finished an app and said - hey, do you mind downloading it for me
and checking it out? He says, "but it costs £1?!" I said, "ok, no worries,
I'll GIVE you the £1 right now"

He still said "No". Why? Because "he never spends money on apps." Weird,
right?

Then last night I'm watching Horizon - "How we make decisions" [1], and they
talked about how when we feel we are ahead we are much more cautious than when
we feel we are behind, when we experience "loss aversion" and are more likely
to take a gamble.

I wonder if this is the best way to monetize apps. So you offer the app for
free (no risk at all), then instead of offering "add-ons", you offer to remove
"restrictions", implying that the user is already behind and they should take
the gamble to get back to their "free" app.

[1] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-
radio-r...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-
reviews/10658646/Horizon-How-You-Really-Make-Decisions-review.html)

~~~
jasey
I'm currently surveying 600 of my early users of my android app.

What's disconcerting so far is their answer to the following question:

The app will be 100% free for you forever (thank you for the support) however
what do you think is reasonable pricing? __Consider, that some of the revenue
will be re-invested in making the app better for all users __

It 's early days now but it's trending towards $1/$2 when in reality I believe
that it's worth allot more to anyone who gets a fair amount of value from it.

~~~
sosborn
Once you get something for free it becomes hard to associate a monetary value
to it.

------
k-mcgrady
>> "I already have 30 apps on my phone, some of them very good. Do I need
another one? I don’t use the 30 I have."

I hate seeing this argument. Why do you have those 30? Why don't you delete
them? Having 30 apps on your phone doesn't mean you don't need more apps. They
aren't all the same. It's not like saying 'I have 30 cans of diet coke in the
fridge why do I need another?' It's more similar to 'I have sausage and diet
coke in the fridge, why should I buy these vegetables'? Because they solve a
different problem than the things you already have.

I think the reason people are reluctant to spend money on apps is the same
reason they are reluctant to spend money on music or movies no matter who
convenient it's made for them - people don't see value in digital goods as
easily as they see it in physical goods.

~~~
pionar
>> I think the reason people are reluctant to spend money on apps is the same
reason they are reluctant to spend money on music or movies no matter who
convenient it's made for them - people don't see value in digital goods as
easily as they see it in physical goods.

I wholeheartedly disagree. By your logic, people wouldn't pay money for
Windows, or Photoshop, or thousands of other software packages. Oh, and Steam!
People pay $20 or more on Steam for some mediocre stuff.

The problem with paying for apps is two-fold: Frankly, 99% of apps out there
aren't worthy of my money. Most of the few I actually pay for (Spotify and
LastPass come to mind), I don't pay for for the app, it's for the service
behind the app.

Second, app developers have done this to themselves, in two ways - first,
putting out just really shitty, awful apps (especially games) that aren't
worth money.

Also, in perpetuating a race to the bottom and setting the expectations way
too low on price. I saw somewhere that Jobs thought the perfect price point
for an app is $10 (I might be wrong on the source, but someone said it). I
agree with this. If you really believe you have a great app, price that shit
accordingly. If you have a great app and price it at $10, if you get a third
of the downloads you'd get at $3, you're still ahead. And, your users will
feel like part of an exclusive club, and invite their friends to be part of
it.

Of course, this is my opinion, and no one ever listens to me.

~~~
tfinniga
There are a few things inherent in the design and policies of the app store
that pushes prices to be low.

One is that there are no demos possible. You can't make an app that works for
30 days and then stops working. You can sort of do this by limiting the app
and having it fully unlocked by in-app purchase. I really don't mind that
model at all, because I just see it as a demo version.

Another limiting policy is that there is no upgrade pricing. The app is just
the app.

~~~
Systemic33
This is actually possible on Windows Phone, and used extensively. It's the
pretty version of having a lite/express/free and pro/full/complete app.

------
oblio
Oh, so we've come full circle.

Don't download random Windows apps from the internet, they're bad for your PC!

Hey, here's my nice shiny app store where the applications are curated. Only
quality content, categorized, free of spyware and other distractions.

Oh no - market pressure has pushed the bar lower and lower and I once again
have to rely on the Internet for reviews and comparisons of apps in order to
install only the decent and trustworthy apps.

Kind of sounds like the Windows model all over again. But this time I have to
go through your BS systems to publish an app on my own device. Yay progress!

~~~
dredmorbius
And the answer which the Linux world came up with: we're going to offer you a
repository with your distro from which you can obtain most or all of the
applications you need.

In the case of one particular distro, Debian, this was backed by a Social
Contract[1] and Constitution[2], expressed in Policy[3] which was ultimately
enacted by A Package Tool (APT)[4] with user feedback and interaction
supported through the Debian Bug Tracking System (BTS)[5].

Among the principles of the Social Contract: "Our priorities are our users and
free software".

The result: a distro with a _tremendous_ number of packages available (49,614
on my jessie/sid install), in which the significant concerns are user
experience (including privacy and security), and freedom of software. The last
possibly best exemplified in LWN's coverage of a story ... wow, already a
decade ago, on LWN: "Debian and the hot babe problem". It concerned an "ITP"
(intent to package) a new piece of software. I'll let Jon Corbet take it from
here:

 _The program involved is hot-babe, a graphical CPU utilization monitor. It
works by displaying a typical Bruno Bellamy drawing of a minimally-clad,
maximally-endowed woman. As the CPU gets busier ( "hotter"), the woman
undresses to compensate. Your editor, whose journalistic ethics required that
he investigate this utility, found it to be an amusing addition to the desktop
- for about five minutes, or until the children walk in, whichever comes
first._

 _The Debian developers raised the obvious, predictable objection to the
inclusion of this utility: the associated images were covered by a non-free
license._

Hot babes notwithstanding, one thing I noticed Debian _didn 't_ have problems
with a decade ago were drive-by installs of spyware and adware which were
plaguing Windows at the time. That, um, "ecosystem" has now moved into the
mobile space, and the negative equity and goodwill associated will, I suspect,
play out in time there as well.

~~~
diminish
And Debian got first release on August 16th, 1993; 20 years ago. It saved many
from shareware/crapware app-colypse of 90s.

Am I the only on dreaming of Debian (an exactly Debian) developing an app
repository (at least for Android), where free apps are carefully supported,
building on top of each other where no tricks or crap exist.

~~~
mseebach
Google could help kickstart that ecosystem by offering a promotion category
for "Best Free/Open Source apps" in Play. Only apps with a GPL compatible
license and fully buildable from a public repo are eligible.

~~~
shawn-furyan
I'm not sure Google has the incentives in place to be interested in this, but
it seems like a perfect fit for CyanogenMod as they try to grow as a platform.

~~~
mseebach
The incentive is that Google will benefit form having an ecosystem of high
quality apps. A good ecosystem lowers the bar to creating high quality apps -
the non-app open source software ecosystem is pretty conclusive proof of that.

But you're right - CyanogenMod is probably a better forum for such an
ecosystem to bootstrap.

~~~
shawn-furyan
Hmmm, maybe I should have appealed to Google's strategy rather than their
incentives. An APT/RPM style model strikes me as counter to the prevailing
direction that Android, and Google more generally has been moving.

I think that from their perspective, mass market users don't care about
license terms or free-ness as in freedom. They seem to care about free-ness as
in sticker price, even when it comes with prohibitive in-app purchase
requirements. If we look at mass market targeted app stores based on APT-like
repository systems, well, all we really have is the Ubuntu Software Center.
And that isn't clearly better than the Android Market to the mass market user,
and I would go further to claim that the inverse is true. So I can't see
strategically why Google would change direction toward an Ubuntu Software
Center style direction, and the higher quality but less user friendly
APT/RPM/pacman is just a complete non-starter.

But CyanogenMod seems to have reached its market position by appealing to the
ethics of openness. So it makes sense given their prevailing strategies. They
also have a history of providing relatively open/customizable alternatives to
Android components, and an app repository in the tradition of APT/RPM would
fit right in with their past initiatives.

------
dredmorbius
I saw the WebMD app nag and thought for more than a few moments that it was
from codinghorror.com.

And was unmistakably annoyed.

Then I realized that was precisely the point. And yes, it's absofuckinglutely
annoying.

Right up there with interstitials and flyovers on webpages. I'm thinking of
writing a default Stylebot CSS to simply block any element class / ID starting
with "fly".

The other problem, of course (and checking to see if Jeff addresses this --
yes, obliquely) is that _every app comes with its own permissions set(s) which
I the user need to individually inspect and vet_. And, frankly, which I'm
increasingly reluctant to do so.

Fastest way to get your app removed from my phone? Request additional
permissions. Goodbye Pandora, whatever that "identify that song" app was,
Facebook, Mr. Number (irony: nominally a privacy-enhancing app) and others.

~~~
rockdoe
_Fastest way to get your app removed from my phone? Request additional
permissions._

Unfortunately there's little the developers can do about it, short of not
adding any features. You have to ask for every permissions your app could
potentially need to use, upfront. You can't ask at point of use. This is a
huge Android flaw.

~~~
sharpneli
Another problem is that you need some permissions for even the most basic
functionality.

Let us assume I'm making a singleplayer game that happens to take more space
than 50MB. For that I need internet and external storage write permissions in
addition to network and wifi state etc (see
[http://developer.android.com/google/play/expansion-
files.htm...](http://developer.android.com/google/play/expansion-
files.html#Permissions))

And all this because the persons designing android thought that 50MB is enough
for all applications and thus made their package manager to cap packages at
50MB. Imagine if .deb or .rpm would be 50MB max.

~~~
lmm
If you want to use 50mb of my phone's flash space then yeah, you'd better have
a good reason for that.

~~~
rockdoe
Requesting 50M+ of storage for a single player game is a good enough reason,
that's not outrageous for graphics resources, music etc. But would you
understand that this _necessarily_ leads to the app having to request:

    
    
        <uses-permission android:name="com.android.vending.CHECK_LICENSE" />
        <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
        <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WAKE_LOCK" />
        <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />
        <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE"/>
        <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
    

as well?

------
frik
Surprisingly, in Europe we had that _fade_ two years ago.

Every company wanted a Facebook page and a year later an iOS app. Amusingly
the marketing departments and executives of many companies were out of touch
with their audience/consumer as most had a Android phone or tablet. Two years
ago many disco, bar, smaller shops, etc. had such native apps. The main point
was they all were useless as they lacked a lot of features that there
equivalent websites offered.

Fast forwards to 2014 (Europe), most such native apps vanished as well as many
business related Facebook pages have decreased in popularity or "dried-out".
Now, some companies offer hybrid apps for Android/iOS that is basically a
WebView that shows a slightly modified version of their HTML5 website.

~~~
rockdoe
I wish I lived in your Europe.

In mine all those venues still have websites built on Flash.

------
shanselman
Apps are the new CD-ROMs. The Web will win.

[http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AppsAreTooMuchLike1990sCDROMsA...](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AppsAreTooMuchLike1990sCDROMsAndNotEnoughLikeTheWeb.aspx)

~~~
pjmlp
Except the web has always been a Frankenstein mess for development and still
is.

As someone with long experience in both fields back to the 8 bit days, I
welcome the native renaissance.

~~~
rockdoe
_has always been a Frankenstein mess_

 _cough_ Android _gargle_

Or for that matter, rewriting your app for every phone platform.

~~~
pjmlp
> Or for that matter, rewriting your app for every phone platform.

Cordova, Qt/C++, Xamarin Mono, Unity, Cocos-2D-X, Titanium, ....

There are lots of alternatives to minimize duplicate native code. Plus it is
not as if one doesn't need to write once, debug everywhere with HTML 5.

~~~
rockdoe
And how much of the apps written with such frameworks will feel remotely like
a native app? How much of the frameworks you mention even support a reasonable
amount of target platforms?

I don't disagree HTML5 has porting problems between devices & browsers. I'm
just saying that native apps have more.

~~~
cableshaft
I can't speak for all of them but I use Xamarin at work, and it absolutely
does translate to native look and feel for the app. Although once you get to
the GUI layer, it's not much more than a thin C# wrapper for the native OS
framework and you have to write a lot of platform specific code. But
everything else is cross-platform. And you're coding in C# and not Objective-C
(or Java), which is a more predictable and less verbose experience, at least
for me, and I've made half a dozen apps using Objective-C.

------
fauigerzigerk
Permissions are a real problem of installed apps, but otherwise I wonder if
web apps are that much better _if_ they are really applications and not
documents/content.

The general functionality provided by web browsers (URLs, the back button,
searching in a apge, etc) is very useful as a common basis for different
content centric sites. But it just doesn't work very well for applications
regardless of whether or not these applications are based on HTML/JavaScript
or on some other GUI toolkit.

Yes the back button can be made to do _something_ in any app. But how can
users have a reasonable expectation or intuition of what it's going to do? "Go
back" used to mean "show me the page I saw before clicking the hyperlink".
Bookmarking meant "remember the current page".

But applications don't have pages, they have states. Pages are concrete.
States are abstract. That is the real problem, not the specific technology on
which applications are based.

~~~
frik
It's called one-page app. You can control the browser tab history with
HTML5/JS5 and create WebApps that offer all the same functionally you see in
most native apps.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
I think you misunderstand me. I didn't say it was technically impossible to
create applications based on HTML/JavaScript that have similar functionality
to installed apps.

What I said is that if you do that, you get the very same UX problems as well.
You can implement back button functionality in either technology, but what it
does needs to be reinterpreted for every single app because you have lost the
page as a concrete unit of reference.

There may be other useful units of reference, but they are different ones in
different apps regardless of technology.

------
lazyjones
Isn't the app-craze just a sign that websites are too complicated, slow, in
many cases also somewhat shady and full of annoying ads? Most of them are
nearly impossible to navigate using a mobile browser and extremely annoying.
App stores give us a tiny bit more security (through moderation) and UIs that
will work for our device.

Making websites that work well both on desktop and mobile browsers is a PITA.
We already have too many browser versions (and deficiencies) to take care of
(yes, we really do not want 2-3% fewer users = customers = revenue), mobile
browsers add a whole bunch of new issues to take care of (hover, selections
etc. all work differently).

As long as we don't have a framework or set of widgets that works properly
everywhere and is fast/small enough for mobile devices, Apps will have a
Raison d'être. Now go write one or stop complaining!

~~~
untog
_Isn 't the app-craze just a sign that websites are too complicated, slow, in
many cases also somewhat shady and full of annoying ads? _

1\. Complicated? No, I don't think so. If anything the problem is that web
sites aren't capable of being as complex as they ideally would be.

2\. Slow - yes. But browsers keep getting better (iOS excepted, sadly - Apple
appears to have lost a lot of interest)

3\. Somewhat shady and full of ads - apps are worse in this regard, IMO. They
also ask for access to your location, and all sort of other data access web
sites don't have.

 _Making websites that work well both on desktop and mobile browsers is a
PITA._

Yep. Making websites that work across all desktop browsers was a PITA a few
years ago. Cross-platform web development has never really be that easy.

~~~
lazyjones
> _Somewhat shady and full of ads - apps are worse in this regard, IMO. They
> also ask for access to your location, and all sort of other data access web
> sites don 't have._

I disagree with that - App stores will reject many apps but search engines
will happily index most shady websites as long as they don't serve obvious
malware or try "black hat SEO". Websites can also ask for your location, store
a multitude of tracking info (cookies, Flash cookies, local storage...) and
while they cannot access contacts, SMS and similar information, they can get
very sensitive information though phishing and possibly from browser history.

> _Cross-platform web development has never really be that easy._

We could stick to the lowest common denominator (which is still simple HTML
apparently), but people would complain about the obsolete UI.

------
skore
The problem with "apps" is fundamentally one of curation which IMHO is, in
turn, a problem of centralization.

If you set out to build "the one big marketplace", you inevitably get to a
place where mostly what your marketplace offers is crap, because you have
optimized it towards _providers putting stuff onto your marketplace_.

Thus, in building "the big marketplace", you necessarily fail to optimize it
towards users getting value out of the marketplace, because you kinda sorta
hoped that would be taken care of by "free market" pressures. (And also
because it's one of those "hard problems" that you would rather forget about
and build some neat code instead.) But it's the users bearing the collateral
damage.

I'm currently working on a package/application distribution system that is
decentralized and the "app-pocalypse" is one of the reasons why I made it so.
Being decentralized means that the value you are getting out of it depends
mainly on the trust you invest in your immediate channel provider who in turn
now has a responsibility to keep you happy. By splitting up the relationship
and giving people proper roles instead of the delusion of a grand audience
that is fit for whatever some app developers shovel into the system, I hope it
will end up providing actual value instead of just a top-down revenue system.

Having worked on it for a while now, it always strikes me as weird how we are
all on the Internet (which by its design is fault tolerant and decentralized),
building these centralized, monolithic services that inevitably fail (either
in a big way due to security reasons or in a slow way, like in the app-
pocalypse) for the same reasons.

~~~
mattlutze
> Thus, in building "the big marketplace", you necessarily fail to optimize it
> towards users getting value out of the marketplace, because you kinda sorta
> hoped that would be taken care of by "free market" pressures.

In an open and free market most of the stuff sold "is crap", but people
generally discover valuable things and will equalize to the right intersection
of value and cost, all things equal.

The big problem with a big marketplace is when it obscures the value part of
that balance. How do I determine which of these 30 applications has the best
value/cost balance?

Isn't straight-up downloads, because who knows how many of those people still
use the app. Isn't necessarily rating, because we know those responses don't
really answer the big question.

A small curated market solves the hard question (which is most valuable for
the price?) but short-cutting the question. The user doesn't need to ask or
research, because by the nature of having a small, curated marketplace, the
marketplace organizers rely on their own credibility as curators.

Like the news industry, whose job it was to curate the news, eventually a few
small curators float to the top and then attract more quality curators,
growing that marketplace.

But it's still inherently weak, because you're still not supporting the user
answering their own question - which of these has the best value for the cost?

~~~
skore
What it comes down to, for me, is the question of trust. If there are 30
messaging applications, I will use the one that somebody I trust uses or
recommends. Otherwise, I would have to spend a lot of time searching through
the options ("collateral damage", as mentioned before).

Managing trust on a large scale (or in terms of the big app-stores, _ultimate_
scale) is very hard because people are very different in their needs and in
which providers they would trust in the first place.

Funnily enough, even if you decentralize this process as I'm trying to do, you
might end up serving all clients with 90% of the same product. But those 10%
make all the difference in the world.

In a sense, what I'm trying to do is to make that dynamic of relationships and
trust the main focus of how the network is built. It is a marketplace of
marketplaces that rise or fall depending on how much value they provide and
how much trust users put into them.

~~~
mattlutze
That first paragraph does it for me.

I think my question here would be, why do I want to go search out a bunch of
smaller, federated, decentralized app stores, then build trust with each of
their managing teams, and trust my payment info and PII with them, when I
could go to a curated tech blog/info site and get recommendations, then go to
one of the main app stores and buy the app?

I'm not sure that I understand what value a middle-man aggregator of smaller
markets will provide that beats such a situation.

------
nunodonato
I, for one, am tired of the app-bubble. It will take a few more years,
probably, but eventually will go away.

Am I the only one that looks at this whole app-crazy-run as something
completely unsustainable?

~~~
CmonDev
We are slowly transitioning into HTML5 bubble at the moment.

~~~
dredmorbius
Explain?

I'm as curmudgeonly as they get. Other than DRM, I think I'm actually pretty
happy with what I see in HTML5, though unfortunately there's still no way to
actually force Web developers to use just a minimal markup set.

If I could force every last goddamned Web dev in the universe to stick with
<html>, <body>, <header>, <article>, <aside>, and <footer> tags, along with
<p>, <em>, <strong>, <a>, <blockquote>, <ul>, (and list items), form and text
elements, and <img>, I think I wouldn't shed a tear. And I could then write my
_own_ goddamned CSS to render their pages in a sane and readable fashion. Once
(as opposed to the 1000x I'm approaching now via Stylebot).

Table elements would be accessible for a fee, waivable for actual data
presentation.

~~~
burkestar
HTML5 isn't just about the tags. It's an ecosystem of technologies that are
breaking down the barriers of the browser to enable more native-like
experiences over the web. Take for example how Google Maps in the browser can
"access your phone's location". Think about what it's doing - there's a
browser API that web developers can call that retrieves data sensed off the
user's mobile device. This used to only be possible with native apps.

Also, the HTML5 ecosystem is more exciting because of the renaissance with
javascript (nodeJS for server-side javascript, many JS libraries and
frameworks) and the entire developer tooling that is making web development
workflows much more productive than in the past.

~~~
CmonDev
"(nodeJS for server-side javascript, many JS libraries and frameworks)" \- the
saddest part, as if we don't need language innovation anymore... One to rule
them all.

~~~
mattgreenrocks
If JS is the x86 of the web, then we need to stop arguing about which macro
syntax we prefer and move up a level of abstraction.

~~~
burkestar
Let's just jump to the Wolfram Language! hehe, that would be awesome.

------
pbowyer
Cross-posting my comment from his blog:

Since the app ecosystem is generally closed, why aren't apps available as
Shareware, with 30/45/60 day trials, or with no-questions-asked refunds within
48 hours of buying?

What you said about coffee-vs apps is spot on. I've bought some totally
rubbish apps and now it's a hard sell to get me to buy any. Competing apps in
a field (e.g. PDF marking up on iPad)? I can't try before I buy, so I haven't
bought...

------
smoyer
At least the "It looks like you're writing a letter" era came with
entertainment by Clippy. I avoid going to sites that don't remember my
rejection of their "website-wannabe" apps ... Atwood is right about how
annoying that is!

~~~
dredmorbius
You call that entertainment?

Back when I had the misfortune to have to use Microsoft software, pretty much
the first thing I learned to do on any fresh revision was how to nuke those
damned tools with extreme prejudice.

The most gratuitously annoying aspect of the cartoons? The little dance they
did when you told them to go to fucking hell and never come back. One more
half second just to rub it all in.

~~~
gaius
I liked the cat, I still miss him.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykGIcXKAXbI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykGIcXKAXbI)

~~~
dredmorbius
I'm quite fond of cats.

Not that one though. They were _all_ just so gratuitously annoying.

Actually, now that I think about it, Microsoft's tone-deafness on just _how
much_ people hated Clippy reminds me of Google's attitudes on G+, Real Names,
and the Anschluss of all Google services.

Note that ZDNet (hardly a harsh Microsoft critic) noted when Clippy was
finally killed (in 2001):

[http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-kills-off-
clippy-3002085615/](http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-kills-off-
clippy-3002085615/)

 _Software giant Microsoft is laying off one of its most controversial
employees: Clippy._

 _The software help system, a long-despised feature of Microsoft 's popular
Office suite of business software, is the star of a new Web marketing campaign
launched on Wednesday. The campaign and a companion Web site trumpet
Microsoft's forthcoming Office XP software as so easy to use that Clippy is
out of a job._

And even that didn't take, they had to take out a second hit 9 years later:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUawhjxLS2I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUawhjxLS2I)

------
BadassFractal
Can we stick to the web somehow instead and bypass the various proprietary
walled gardens?

~~~
pjscott
We can. Whenever I see "Would you like to install our app? Y/n", my answer has
been Ctrl-w to close the tab. This strategy has worked flawlessly for years.
It can work for you, too.

~~~
dredmorbius
May I suggest the additional step of an /etc/hosts file entry for the site in
question. I recommend '0.0.0.0'.

------
the_watcher
He hits on some good points and misses on some others to me.

Most importantly, the question of why you are building an app in the first
place is incredibly important. However, he's also got to consider each app
maker is unique. McDonald's makes an app because they have a marketing budget
so large that their strategy is to appear everywhere - including your phone.
However, I generally agree with his point that not everyone needs an app, and
they absolutely shouldn't be giving us the mobile equivalent of the Javascript
popup every time we hit their website (personally, I like the sites that just
have a header bar drop down asking if I'd like to install the app that is easy
to scroll past).

I don't think the web is dead, but I do think mobile apps are the future. The
best UX I can imagine based on what is around right now is something like what
Facebook is trying to do - apps that deep link to each other without the user
realizing they are moving between apps. The key here is that the apps must be
specifically designed to maximize the user experience, not just to have an
"app." We aren't at that point yet, but remembering where the mobile web was
back in 2005 when I got my first data plan compared to now keeps me incredibly
optimistic about its future, as does knowing that some of the smartest people
out there are thinking about this problem all the time (like the guys at URX).

~~~
taude
It sounds like someone soon will being reinventing OLE (Object linking and
embedding)...which scares me a lot.

Maybe call it MOLE - mobile object linking and embedding?

------
sgift
The only good news: If the web is as dead as the PC or Lisp I won't have to
care about these problems for a long time. Back to work ..

~~~
ithkuil
yep, but this kind of considerations define which projects get funded and get
traction and excitement.

There is always money in legacy, but you don't read often a about a startup
creating exiting products for COBOL refactoring...

~~~
haiduc
Isn't that the definition of exiting? [http://www.cobol-
it.com/index.php?page=products](http://www.cobol-
it.com/index.php?page=products)

"Restructuring COBOL sources" "COBOL-IT is the first company offering an
enterprise-class Open Source COBOL Compiler with a wide range of Premium
Professional Services"

------
programminggeek
The web is not going to "win" because the average consumer has been trained to
look for "apps" from the app store, not to use web apps. Web apps packaged in
the app store might be a bigger thing moving forward, but the point remains -
on a phone people expect an app. No amount of needing out over how things
"should" be is going to change the basic behavior of millions of users.
Instead of hoping the web will win, smart devs will accept reality and make
the best of it.

~~~
nodata
So make the web look like apps, as Firefox OS does.

~~~
pjmlp
Which I don't believe will win any usable userbase.

~~~
rockdoe
You're right, nobody uses websites except for some guys @ CERN.

~~~
rimantas
You have slipped _a lot there_ : the difference between website and app is
much much bigger than many would like to admit.

~~~
rockdoe
You might reasonably argue that Firefox OS will not get much traction, but
denying it's existence as you're doing is foolish, because it obviously
exists.

There is no difference between apps and webpages. None. Zero. That's the point
of the original article as well: that most apps are just _worse_
implementations of perfectly working webpages.

------
burkestar
It seems that the line between native app and web will increasingly blur as
HTML5 matures to the point it obviates whatever advantages remain with
building native apps. I think this will mean a better end user experience as
there will no longer be these walls between the web and mobile experience. It
doesn't seem efficient for companies to have to build a website, a mobile
version of the website (with responsive design), and native apps (for every
platform).

~~~
rimantas

      > It seems that the line between native app and web will
      > increasingly blur as HTML5 matures
    

Would you care to elaborate on that? Because I see no blurring. Building apps
with webtech was a stupid idea to start with, and the current state is just
incessant running in circles trying to invent a wheel. I am pretty sure that
webdevs touting the victory of HTML5 have _no idea_ what native offers and how
many years behind even the best web-based offering is.

Why don't you first replace all the desktop apps with the browser and then
talk about mobile? Why this obsession that web should win? Why not everything
has it's place?

~~~
rockdoe
_I am pretty sure that webdevs touting the victory of HTML5 have no idea what
native offers and how many years behind even the best web-based offering is._

It's just an example of worse-is-better in action. Many webapps offer mediocre
features compared to the real thing, but they have no install latency, better
monetization features than pay-in-advance or messing with serials and unlocks,
and offer enough features that you can get by with them. When the need to use
or access them on mobile arises, they are available, and often the native
solutions are not.

I like LibreOffice Calc (or Excel, for that matter) but they don't work on my
Android tablet.

------
Zigurd
Many people misunderstand the proper boundary between apps and Web sites.

Web sites that should remain Web sites "go app" to get more eyes. That's the
main fault found in the article. App makers that should be thinking "app
first" or "app equal," including Google, often have apps that are not at
feature-parity with Web sites. That's also pointless and very annoying.

There's a place for both. The Web is great for publishing hypertext
information and when you tread that line with e-reader apps, you have to be
very careful not to leave out Web functionality. And while Web versions of
highly interactive applications offer an anywhere-accessible backstop, if you
don't put more effort into the apps, you're missing the point of putting an
app in a highly interactive touch device. Apps are inherently better at
controlling presentation, direct manipulation, and inter-app cooperation. If
you are not accessing these capabilities, you probably cross-trained a bunch
of Web UI people to write your apps, gave them a smaller budget, and your
product manager wasn't aware there are features that apps should have that are
hard to duplicate in Web interfaces.

------
abvdasker
Literally yesterday I got an email to download the new Sallie Mae app. Now I
can have my student loans with me wherever I go!

I wouldn't be surprised if the app had a button to "share this loan on
Facebook".

------
GBKS
And yet app revenues keep increasing every quarter
([http://www.asymco.com/2014/02/10/fortune-130/](http://www.asymco.com/2014/02/10/fortune-130/)).

First, I'm not sure poor marketing practices can be blamed on the App Store
itself. It is up to those companies/sites to decide how to promote themselves.
I'm also not sure it is the App Stores responsibility to provide many
marketing channels.

Second, websites are free, that's why most people probably expect apps to be
free, too. I think people like to pay for experiences. A coffee is an
experience. And you get a friendly barista, a nice store with wi-fi, a whole
table with extras to mix in, etc. Software in comparison is really abstract.
Out bodies tell us they are hungry or sleepy, and pressure us to do something
about it. Our bodies do not pressure us to try out a new calendar app.

------
netcan
I think this blog (and some other sentiments I've heard lately) is chaotic
enough to be boiled down to: "Something's not right here!" I'm not sure that
fragmentation, inconsistencies, nag screens, hamburger apps and a general
refusal to pay $2.49 for an app are explainable in one easy way.

One insight (I think) is - " _My son 's iPad has more than 10 pages of apps
now, we don't even bother with the pretense of scrolling through pages of
icons, we just go straight to search every time._"

If search turns out to be a game changer again, that's an interesting result.

------
btbuildem
One way to deal with app platform fragmentation is to develop your app using a
technology that supports multiple platforms -- Sencha Touch comes to mind as
one example. Not that it solves the problem entirely, but it does make it
cheaper.

I'm not sure what makes the app ecosystem that much different from the web at
large -- if anything, I think the amount of trite, junky apps mirrors the
amount of useless noise found on the web in general.

He does make a good observation about there being an opportunity for some
startup to come along and do to apps what google did to the web.

------
nahname
>Have you ever noticed that the people complaining about apps that cost $3.99
are the same people dropping five bucks on a cup of fancy coffee

Every single time there is a post like this we beat the same dead horse.

~~~
JohnBooty
You can certainly be forgiven if you stopped reading the article at that
sentence, because that is a frequently-beaten dead horse.

However, Atwood is actually making the exact _opposite_ point: he goes on to
say that people _are justified_ to gripe about $3.99 apps because the quality
of apps is so uneven and there's no real way to ascertain the quality of an
app before you buy it.

He says we'd certainly be justified about complaining about $3.99 cups of
coffee, too, if only 1 in 5 $3.99 cups of coffee was actually a decent cup of
coffee!

------
arocks
"Would you like to subscribe to our Newsletter before you read this article?"
is an equally poor, if not worse, way to welcome a visitor. Atleast give me a
chance to evaluate that decision.

------
nahname
Reading this, I was left with the impression that iOS apps took off by
offering high quality at low cost. However, the cost differential was wrong
and eventually the developers figured it was a scam and changed up.

Some provided lame platforms for pump and dump html to apps. Others made their
games free and played off their users addiction.

Each day app developers burn more and more consumer trust. Eventually we will
get to a point where quality matches cost, we may be there already.

------
mathattack
The app purchase process is definitely broken. You can't trust ratings, and
it's hard to know what you get. In the end it's just "I'll toss a few dollars
and roll the dice."

I really want high quality education software for kids. The only thing that
works is word of mouth. App store reviews don't help. Googling the topic
produces mostly reviews that may or may not be ads.

I'm waiting for Netflix of the App World.

------
Kurtz79
Jeff is really talking about a very specific kind of app: one that provides an
interface to a web service, and that has (or could have) a comparable service
accessible through a browser.

There are a lot of apps that make the bulk of the "millions of apps" that do
not fit this description: games, productivity apps, apps making use of mobile
hardware (microphone, camera), that couldn't possibly have web alternatives.

It's totally true that App stores have pricing/quality/discovery problems, but
I'm not sure that there is a duality with the web (which could be resolved by
"product x"), just an intersection.

------
Ygg2
Meanwhile there are decent sites that run fine in the browser. E.g. I had no
trouble with [http://thrillbent.com](http://thrillbent.com) adapting to my
PC/phone screen size.

------
cLeEOGPw
There should be some universally recognized icon, like RSS feed icon, which
would be on sites offering app versions, and user could press it of he wants
to.

~~~
burkestar
It's going that way. Hopefully not some annoying icon featured prominently on
every page, but instead a subtle browser-based recognition that the site also
has a web app and puts a tiny mobile icon in the browser bar that will launch
you to the app's install page.

~~~
sirkneeland
This functionality is actually built into the Metro side of IE 10/11 on
Windows 8. Which sadly means that nobody (especially nobody who reads HN) will
ever see it.

~~~
burkestar
Cool, didn't know that. But HTML5 will enable this in a platform-indepedent
manner which is good for the web.

------
sandaru1
One of the main reasons companies want people to download their free app is
that it's a great marketing channel. Once enough people download the app, it
goes up in the App Store rankings. When you are up in the rankings, you get
free marketing for your product. Thousands/millions of users are seeing the
app and by extension the product.

------
cognivore
I think that the move from the web to apps the web brought on itself.

Fundementally the web is a linked document viewing system. Later it needed
scripting and a bletcherous system was hastily added. But the web had huge
momentum, the system stuck, and here we are with three+ major browers all
interpreting the morass of HTML, DOM, CSS and Javascript slightly different.
Yes, HTML5 tries to rectify some of that, but it's sadly too late.

As a developer of a mobile or tablet application you have a choice of the
technology cesspool that is the web or the nice tidy mobile development tool
of your choice (mostly) with sane UI tools and a language that probably didn't
need a "good parts" book. You also get a better system for collecting payment,
easy access to the customer's data, and when it's installed and then
compromised it's on someone else's computer, not yours. And that computer is
relatively easy to use. No calling nephews to figure out where the internet
went ("It used to be right here on the screen..."). To view a usable 1024x768
web page you need one of those complicated general purpose computers, which
really aren't practical or even understandable for 95% of the population.

It's so easy to make an app we now have a gajillion of them cranked out daily
that no one cares about. Then they get thrown in the the cesspool that is the
mobile app market and the suckage continues.

If you want to have the web continue to flourish (and I'm not aligning with
the trolling and utterly stupid Mr. Rabois here) we should have better tools
for creating applications for the web. I'm not sure what that would be
(bytecode runtimes, mature HTML5, a new language?) nor how to wrest control
from the oppressive JavaScript Empire. But unless that happens don't be
surprised if the web turns a bit gray.

~~~
mattgreenrocks
This is one reason why MS had significant developer mindshare ten years ago:
they invested a ton of resources into creating great developer tools, be they
IDEs, languages, or frameworks. While many have derided MS for their frantic
pace with this, it does convey an attitude of "developers are important to us:
have some new toys." While those tools weren't always the most advanced, they
did build on each other.

The web today is still dominated by the same tech stack I learned in HS:
HTML/CSS/JS. The DHTML of yesteryear has mainly had hordes of libraries built
on it to make it more palatable. But accidental growth tends to spawn a lot of
needless complexity. The web is a fantastic delivery mechanism, and I love
that it's open. But it's just so painful for app development compared to the
walled gardens that I don't blame developers for sticking with something that
is more cohesive.

------
tmosleyIII
Imagine an environment that was not connected to the Internet but you still
needed to deliver services through handheld and desktop platforms. Would you
go native or a web (internal) based solution?

All devices would be the same and all users would have access to same
services.

------
lmm
Funnily enough I've found ebay and similar stuck-in-the-90s websites are very
easy to use on my phone. It's the ones from the late '00s fancy css and
rounded corners era that are less usable.

------
mwcampbell
This seems to me like a straightforward extension of Sturgeon's law: 90% of
everything is crap. Should hardly be surprising.

------
MrDosu
Jeff Atwood is a horrible analyst and populist writer with mediocre knowledge.
Noone should read his blog...

~~~
gauravpandey
Jeff: sorry... who are you?

------
igravious
tl;dr. Jeff loves Apps and would like all of us to make more of them.

