
Tell HN: Udacity is deprioritizing its app and will eventually remove it - 3into10power5
Udacity is getting ready to kill its mobile app. I got following email from them today. I think its a good thing. Mobile apps should die..for they add little value but cause massive privacy problems. I hope this means less intrusive &quot;download our app&quot; requests on websites<p>When we launched the Udacity app over 4 years ago, we were pleased to offer Udacity students our learning experience from the convenience of a mobile app. Ultimately, ten percent of Udacity students downloaded the app, and many enjoyed using it as an additional learning path.<p>In 2019, we are prioritizing massive upgrades to the Udacity classroom and service experience. We are focusing our efforts to support, motivate, and drive not only learning and career success for our students, but also to provide a world-class online learning experience.<p>Because the Udacity app has not significantly advanced students&#x27; ability to achieve their learning and career goals, moving forward we will not support many of these product upgrades on the mobile app and will sunset the mobile app as of January 9, 2019. After this point you won&#x27;t be able to download or use the app anymore. The Udacity classroom experience, including Knowledge and Student Hub will remain supported on mobile web as it is today.<p>If you have questions, view the FAQ doc or reach out by responding to this email.<p>Your Udacity team
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aosaigh
> Mobile apps should die..for they add little value but cause massive privacy
> problems.

Mobile apps that are a bad fit for the platform should die. Not everything
needs to be a mobile app but some products and services absolutely benefit
from being mobile and native.

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zapzupnz
I'd also love to see video games on mobile devices running through a browser
with the same level of immersion and capability as, say, Infinity Blade,
Gear.Club, Flatpack, or, heck, Minecraft.

I know I've only cited one category of mobile app, but it illustrates the
point that anybody who tells you "xyz needs to die" might have a very myopic
view of what xyz actually is.

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ttty
Take a look at [http://bitplanets.com](http://bitplanets.com)

It's a game that works on phone

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zapzupnz
Not even vaguely comparable. A rather ugly 2D browser game doesn't match the
titles I suggested, nor even the most shovelware games that make the top lists
on the App Store.

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sciurus
When you lay off 30% of your staff you have to deprioritize lots of things.

[https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/29/edtech-unicorn-udacity-
lay...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/29/edtech-unicorn-udacity-lays-
off-125-people-in-global-strategy-shift/)

~~~
jackallis
that's right.

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bargl
I'm going to miss this. I was one of the 10%. I would download a video so I
didn't have to download it over mobile for my commute. Then I could watch it
on the bus while working problems on my laptop.

This isn't a huge loss as 4 years ago I didn't have as much data as I do now.
I'll get over it, but I'm still sad.

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geezerjay
As someone who relies on udacity's app to follow a couple of courses in
scenarios where I don't have internet access (say, in a flight) this news is
very disapointing. It feels like a sort of bait and switch.

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hdfx
Just because Udacity is withdrawing their app, it does not mean that mobile
apps are dying, or should die. I have passed several courses on Udacity and
other MOOCs, and I cannot imagine following a programming course from a mobile
device. I need to try out the things by myself, eg.: type code in an actual
IDE, install a server on your machine, use command line tools, etc, things
that you can't do from a mobile app.

"ultimately, ten percent of Udacity students downloaded the app". - this makes
sense, why to develop and maintain an app that is barely used?

~~~
zapzupnz
On the other hand, an app that was further developed and maintained might have
been used more. The app, as it is, probably shouldn't have existed in the
first place. There's room for an app at Udacity, but not what they made.

~~~
geezerjay
What's wrong with udacity's app? It enables users to buy course subscriptions
and follow courses even when offline, and does so painlessly and efectively.
What else is it missing?

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zapzupnz
It's not missing anything, really. It just doesn't do more than the website.

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langitbiru
I used their mobile app because I wanted to download the videos for later
viewing in a place with a poor connection. But even basic feature like
downloading videos did not always work correctly. It was quite frustrating. So
that's why I abandoned their mobile app.

I think maintaining a mobile app with basic functionality like downloading
videos should not take much effort. We don't need a fancy mobile app where you
can learn programming by dragging blocks of statements.

Anyway, I still love Udacity. I already graduated from two nanodegrees.

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NikolaNovak
I don't think this is a good use case for "mobile apps should die", quite the
opposite - how will I download the content and watch it on subway, airplane,
etc?

I don't do much video when connected, prefer written format, so without
offline capability I literally have no need for video classes etc (even
Netflix won me over once I could download for offline viewing).

As well, ten percent of your user base ain't nothing!

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zapzupnz
> Because the Udacity app has not significantly advanced students' ability to
> achieve their learning and career goals

This is oddly worded. It's not the app's fault that Udacity didn't put enough
oomph behind it.

I'm not saying that it was necessarily feasible or even possible to put more
resources behind it, but the wording is irksome.

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ashleyw
I read it as more "students tend to prefer sitting at a real computer to
learn".

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zapzupnz
I know that's what it means. The point (as I said twice) is that it's not
worded that way; the agency is in the wrong place.

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jmull
This sounds like the right business move for Udacity. They’ve had to lay off a
significant fraction of their workforce so it makes sense to focus on the
platform 90% of their students use.

But this doesn’t have much to do with the general question of app vs web site.
It really depends on what you’re doing. Also, apps and web sites have the same
potential for massive privacy problems. Either way it’s up to what data is
collected, how it’s secured and who it is sold to.

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msaharia
In my opinion, if only 10% of your students downloaded the app, that means you
never had significant traction outside western countries. Mobile traffic is
through the roof for developing Countries, often the only device owned by a
learner.

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laurynas-s
For non-programming subjects that do not require writing code I found the app
really useful for watching the courses offline.

As that content is mostly free, I see why you decided to discontinue the app.

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axit
I did use the mobile app to watch lecture videos on the go. Would it be
possible to put the videos in a course-wise playlist on Youtube for easy
viewing?

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CharlesW
Why is that better than using Udacity's web site?

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yjftsjthsd-h
Downloading so you don't have to use cell data?

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quickthrower2
I think so. Even better: drm free mp4s

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geezerjay
Mp3s don't support video, and video is of vital importance to the vast
majority of courses, specially IT.

~~~
quickthrower2
? I said mp4 not mp3

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Apocryphon
Sounds like abandoning React Native didn't save it.

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franzwong
Perhaps they should think about cutting features and going back to "Minimal
maintainable product".

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piyushpr134
You have just killed Udacity in India

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auct
Not sure how it's today but yesr ago udacity website was slow af. To be short:
make your website fast before deleting app.

P.s. its friendly hint, i don't care actually

