

Ask HN: How do App Store webviews work? - mikhuang

It seems the one company that has gotten Webkit views perfect on iOS is Apple. Has the secret sauce behind how they make scrollable areas, smooth pages, etc been revealed anywhere?
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jonsterling
It's pretty hilarious how this is the "state of the art". It's basically the
worst experience present on a fresh iOS device before you've added anything to
it.

(Let's preface this with the following fact: I have very small fingers. These
issues lie in the implementation of the software, not in my bratwurst
fingers).

Here are a few problems that I've had with it:

1\. Touch-canceling doesn't appear to work in the same way as it does for most
native apps; the result is that many links are followed by accident.

2\. In the Genius tab on the App Store, the tap area for the “Not Interested”
button is way too small, and the touch-down feedback is too late. The result
is that about 60% of the time when I'm trying to hit that button, I get sent
to the page for the app that is in focus.

Now, to be fair, they've actually improved it quite a bit from what it was, it
would seem. But it still dwells in the uncanny valley of unhappiness. If this
is the state of the art for the sort of thing you are trying to do, than I'd
recommend you doing something else.

To put it another way, if Apple, with their massive resources, cannot make a
better web view experience than the embarrassing disgrace that is the mobile
App Store and iTunes Store, then that may suggest that it is prohibitively
difficult (if not impossible) to make web view experiences that any solid
engineer can be proud of.

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mikhuang
Even Google iOS views don't seem nearly as polished as those used by Apple.
Any idea how to find out what's going on?

