
Apps are too much like 1990's CD-ROMs and not enough like the Web - joeyespo
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AppsAreTooMuchLike1990sCDROMsAndNotEnoughLikeTheWeb.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ScottHanselman+%28Scott+Hanselman+-+ComputerZen.com%29
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marknutter
I posted this comment in another thread about apps, but too late for it to
really get any responses:

\- app discoverability sucks ass

\- apps require updates

\- app development is unnecessarily tedious and must be done x number of times
for x platforms

\- iOS apps need to be approved by Apple, and you have to play the game by
their rules if you want to charge money for them

\- apps lack basic features of browsers - no universal find, no back/forward
buttons, no bookmarking of pages or states, no organizing apps into tabs, etc.

Let's be honest: not counting games, the vast majority of the native apps out
there would work just fine (or better) as websites. Add API's like access to
the camera and there's even less reasons to develop a native app. Apps will be
relegated to games and highly sophisticated interfaces, which if I had to
guess probably represents around 10% of all the apps out there (heck, most of
the games out there could probably be done in the browser).

~~~
randomdata
_"app discoverability sucks ass"_

Discoverability sucks ass. Period. Unless you already have a strong network,
or lots of advertising dollars, the chances of anyone finding your software,
of any kind, is low.

 _"apps require updates"_

While that is true of some implementations, there is no reason why apps cannot
be downloaded on each execution. You could even use a URL bar to show the
network location of the app, if you want to.

 _"app development is unnecessarily tedious"_

A modern web application is no better in this regard. In fact, most of the
recent frameworks that have sprung up to solve the problem of building web
apps all seem to be loosely based on the same ideas from OpenStep that are
used in popular native frameworks.

 _"apps lack basic features of browsers - no universal find, no back/forward
buttons, no bookmarking of pages or states, no organizing apps into tabs,
etc."_

I mentioned it in an earlier discussion, but it seems worth repeating: The web
browser is just another platform API. There is no reason why, say, CocoaTouch
could not include those things by default for all apps too.

The whole web vs. native discussion is pretty silly because it all comes down
to a few specific implementations that we keep pointing to, when anyone can
change the state at either end of the spectrum on a whim.

~~~
rmc
_there is no reason why apps cannot be downloaded on each execution_

It would make it much slower to open an application each time. After all, vast
majority of applications _don't_ do this, so there must be a reason why.

~~~
randomdata
I don't see why it needs to be any worse than loading a web application. It is
the media assets that make any application large, and they are going to be the
same size no matter how you package your app.

~~~
rmc
With a webapp, you only download the images for the page that is being shown,
not all the images for all the pages.

------
cellis
Keep in mind there are ton of mobile apps that do things that shouldn't
require web access. I'm often in areas with spotty coverage, yet still need to
use some of the following:

    
    
      camera apps
      flashlight
      calculators
      document editors / todos
      games
    

It seems like in these debates people are confusing HTML based browsers with
internet connectivity. Internet connectivity is all that matters. The
hypertext web browser, on smartphones, is looking rather obsolete from a
performance standpoint.

~~~
notatoad
webapps don't require web access. localstorage and application cache apis are
widely supported.

------
dlsspy
I wish this were true. Those 1990s CD-ROMs were useful when I wasn't connected
to a network.

My iPad has 32GB of space (about 50 CD-ROMs), two cores each faster than any
computer in the 1990s plenty of RAM, etc... It wants to be used like a thin
client web browser thing. What a horrible waste.

------
calebbrown
I think apps are popular because they are more concrete than the web.

A user knows where an app starts and ends and they know what icon they need to
touch to get there.

Websites are far more ethereal and it isn't as clear when you've left one site
and landed on another. And it's much harder remembering how to get there.

Case in point: how many people type 'facebook' into google and click the first
link instead of entering 'www.facebook.com' into the address bar.

------
ImprovedSilence
Haven't heard a better metaphor for apps yet. Long live the web.

In all my infinite wisdom, I tried out a few apps from google chrome. And gave
them permission to see what websites I view. Does anyone know if that goes
away once I uninstall said app, or is there any extra mucking about and cookie
removal I should take care of to make sure feedly isn't following me
everywhere, even after it's uninstalled?

~~~
jaredsohn
You should be okay.

Once you uninstall a Chrome extension and close all tabs (since code could
have been injected into them), there won't be any code related to it running
on your machine.

It is still theoretically possible that while a Chrome extension was running
that it updated state (via a cookie or otherwise) on webpages you were
visiting, so perhaps clearing cookies could be helpful, but I'm not aware of
this happening.

------
robterrell
Some of these complaints are side effects of Apple's implementation and not
apps in general.

Frequent updates are often used to churn an app for visibility on iTunes for
better discoverability. Thanks to this, apps are updated for very minor
reasons, and most people don't give a crap about minor updates.

 _apps are still little islands of functionality that don't talk to each
other_

That's not entirely true. Apps are only islands if you make them that way.
Many iOS apps talk to each other using URL protocol handlers as an interchange
mechanism. I just bought TextExpander Touch, and it works with over 120 other
apps. There's some Twitter clients that do something similar. No question that
this would be even better with more support for it in the OS, but it works
now.

I spent much of last year working on an HTML5 app. Maybe HTML5 will equal the
app experience someday. But that day is not today.

~~~
flyosity
Re: updating your app all the time for discoverability, on the flip side of
that coin is that if you update your app frequently you'll also lose glowing
1.0 reviews frequently, to be replaced by the often-less-glowing 1.1 reviews.
This is actually a large deterrent for many developers to ever release bugfix
updates without new features because people are less prone to leave 5-star
reviews on a new version that just fixes some small issues they may not have
even noticed.

------
bonaldi
HTML/JS is up to running Doom now? Is that the best example? It puts it 17
years behind native.

The article also says the water level is rising -- which is true, but why
assume native is standing still? On the contrary, I see native APIs evolving
far more quickly because of the huge competition in mobile platforms. iOS has
gone from 1.0 to 5.0 while HTML5 has been in gestation.

Native is a moving target, and HTML isn't catching up, let alone surpassing.

------
brisance
One thing that web apps lag behind now is the "micropayments" thing. The
eponymous "in-app purchase" is a damn sight easier for the end-user to
understand and use ("Do you wish to purchase 99 potions for US$0.99?" Yes/No
button).

Because the App Store already has your card on file, they can do this with
minimal friction. Same goes for Amazon.

------
webisbest
I think that people are more likely to pay for an app then for a website..
maybe that is why, Apple, Google & Microsoft are pushing apps instead of
pushing the web..

~~~
ImprovedSilence
This is a good point, and touches on what calebbrown said above, that apps are
concrete, which makes it easier to pay for (psychologically). Perhaps the
powers that be recognize this, or perhaps it's just a matter of the biz end of
then interent starting to trend towards paid material. Money drives motivation
here. This scares me a little, because it tells me we really are going to move
into a world of apps....

------
mechanical_fish
I just tried viewing this fellow's website through an iPad and an iPhone, and
am pleased to report that he had the native good sense to make sure his site
didn't look like garbage on a mobile device before singing the praises of the
mobile web.

However. This good sense is far from universal, yet. When I browse the web on
my mobile device, I stumble across a lot of pages that look as if they've
never been viewed on a mobile browser - or, worse, that seem to think I'm
using a mobile browser from 2003. Many other sites still use Flash - it will
probably be another five years before the last one of those gets the memo that
Apple mailed four years ago. And even the sites that _have_ a mobile design
often use stock frameworks like OnSwipe, which I find to be an effective
commercial for native apps or, for that matter, unstyled plain text.

In short, it's too early in the web's counterattack to deem it effective. For
at least another year, that app icon is more valuable than a hyperlink,
because it provides evidence that at least one programmer has spent at least
five minutes looking at the app on a mobile device before signing off on it.

~~~
shanselman
Thanks, I'm a responsive design fan and worked hard on that. Thanks for
noticing. :)

------
surfingdino
"Apps are too much like 1990's CD-ROMs and not enough like the Web"

And that's a good thing. App developers have a much wider set of APIs to play
with so they can do more while web app developers are stuck with whatever they
had around 2005. There's been enormous progress on the back-end of web apps,
but the browser side hasn't kept up.

~~~
zerostar07
I remember tons of CD-roms which were just HTML, images , swf and java files.
The same goes today for many of the apps that are sold on appstores,
especially magazines and newspaper apps. The main reason seems to be that
publishers can charge for the apps. On the web we don't really have an
alternative yet, unless someone comes up with a brilliant, frictionless,
secure and elegant web API for micropayments.

------
ufuk
I don't understand why not much has been said about Android on exactly this
topic.

The article complains mainly about two issues both of which are solved by the
Android platform:

1) The keeping-applications-up-to-date problem has been addressed by the auto-
update mechanism introduced by a market update for some time now. The apps are
updated silently in the background without any user-interaction whatsoever.
That's exactly what Chrome does for the web. If you keep Chrome open for
decades then you web app will not upgrade either, at least not in the way you
think it will.

2) The every-app-is-an-island problem is symptomatic of iOS since you are only
allowed access as Apple sees fit. However, this is a solved problem on the
Android platform through the use of Intents and the Back button which works as
good as any web linking would.

------
peterwwillis
'APPS' AND 'THE WEB' ARE TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FUCKING THINGS!!!

Do you realize you're comparing a crippled, poorly-designed gadget with a
distributed, massively networked system for browsing documents and
information?

'Apps' do not work like 'the web' because they're not supposed to work that
way. They're supposed to be static, stable, simple, reliable, offline, well-
tested, usable. 'The web' is literally thrown together like so many
ingredients in hobo chili. 'An app' is a Bonsai tree. Unfortunately, most
people spend all their time tweaking the chili and spend absolutely no time
pruning their bonsai. God, I hate making these comparisons.

I'm sorry for being angry, but it's getting sickening just reading the titles
for weird articles like these that make no sense.

~~~
webisbest
so many apps do what the web can already do

~~~
TylerE
That's true, but on the other hand, there are many apps that are pleasure to
use where a web site is a pain in the ass. The android gmail app comes to
mind.

------
akg
This reminds me of the dichotomy that Apple and Microsoft faced when
developing their empires. There are two major camps I think: one that ties in
hardware + software (native apps) and one that relies on software with
disregard to the underlying hardware (the web).

It's really tough to say what the clear winner is. There are advantages and
disadvantages to both approaches. AFAIK, Apple has always bet the bank on the
first approach and it's done well for them.

History would seem to suggest that the first approach provides a richer end
user experience where as the latter provide ubiquity. I'm not sure which will
win out in the long-run.

------
playhard
Why the fuck there is a debate over apps vs webs going on lately?? web,app or
desktop is a medium and way to provide your service to users/customers.. You
choose the medium depending on solutions u provide.. u do location based
service on apps and u cannot do it well in web.. Each platform has its own
advantage/disadvantage. it depends on users you target, solution you provide.
i dont know why there is a debate?? is web developers vs native platform
developers and their concern about their future,the root cause of this
debate??

------
kombine
Well that's precisely the point. The advantage of the Web is its concept, not
its implementation. URL is great, instant delivery of content is great. But
the technology stack that Web is currently implemented with, i.e. HTML, JS and
CSS is full of crap. Advocates for Web confuse the two: it's not HTML and JS
that constitute the main advantage of Web, it's linking and sharing. And those
technologies need to be replaced as soon as possible. Good that Google is
trying to do something about it: Native Client and Dart.

------
jermar
Native apps have their place and so do web apps. One major benefit of native
apps on iOS is consistent user experience. This is because a lot of apps use
standard UI elements and navigation. I tend to feel more at home in native iOS
apps than a mobile version.

I still don't understand how discovery is any worse for native apps. On the
web most people use search engines to find an app? App stores have search too.
Plus, search engines usually find apps on app stores. If anything this makes
discovery better for the native app.

------
gte910h
Installable applications are much easier for many people to pay for.

This isn't limited to things that run on smartphones: Games that are
installable are an easier sell than network games.

In some ways, they SHOULD be easier to pay for, as they have a chance of
sticking around and at least partially working if the company goes belly up.

------
andrewfelix
This is why Google is so keen on the browser market. Once we're able to run
beautiful apps through the browser independent of the platforms, standalone
apps start to look really un-attractive. IMO who-over dominates the browser
market in 5-10 years time, dominates the mobile app market.

------
firefoxman1
"Yes, JavaScript, HTML and CSS is a mess and it's hard, but it won't always
be."

Just wondering, since those are the only languages I know, but aren't
programming languages for writing native applications (like C++) harder than,
say, JavaScript?

------
zerostar07
Apps vs websites reminds of the TV vs VCR analogy. Yes you can use the VCR
24/7 but requires lots of maintainance. Sometimes it's just easier to turn the
TV on no matter how bad the content.

------
jaequery
Yeah, apps were cool in the beginning, like when you first bought your iphone.
But after you've installed like 10+, the novelty wears off and all the apps
feels like a scam junk yard.

------
tcarnell
Great insight, I mostly agree. And I am really crossing my fingers that HTML5
will quickly become a recognized app technology across all web platforms.

------
Apocryphon
Tangent: how does developing for webOS compare to developing for the mobile
web?

------
MrMan
This "insight" is why WebOS was such a good idea. Entertainingly written
though.

~~~
scrod
Clearly. WebOS has proven the author correct with its stunning success in the
marketplace.

------
scrod
_> As browsers get smarter native apps will introduce new interaction models,
hardware accesses and new features. Those will get folded into HTML 9, then
HTML 10 and the cycle will continue._

So in other words, the latest web technology will always be lagging behind.
Yeah, that's pretty obvious.

But the sad thing is we're comparing two already horribly flawed systems. No
one in their right mind should be arguing in terms of a locked-down, Disney-
fied, compartmentalized experience versus a slow, infuriatingly clumsy and
intermittently-available simulacrum of the same thing. We need to _own_ our
own devices and create, modify, and deploy _our own software on our own
terms_. (And please don't insult my intelligence by claiming that the ability
to _browse to any given URL_ can constitute these freedoms in any materially
useful way.) To publicly ask for anything less is so lacking in imagination
and ambition as to be criminal; it serves only to reinforce the pathetic
productivity-destroying dichotomy seemingly being forced upon us.

