
App-pocalypse Now - joeyespo
http://blog.codinghorror.com/app-pocalypse-now/
======
gtCameron
Previous discussion from last week:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7296178](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7296178)

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rkuykendall-com
Thank you. I was getting major Deja-Vu.

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therobot24
Surprised HN hasn't taken this down - in the time i've browsed through this
site anything that goes against monetizing a user is blasphemy. Given that
most of HN are developers of some sort I gave the benefit of the doubt, this
is how they make their money blah blah blah. More to the point, this article
organizes all my complaints and then some. Agree with it or not, whenever I
see a new start-up or app or whatever I immediately think, "I don't want to
give you $1.99, even if I pay more for chips that go stale." Too much
competition makes me very untrustworthy to buy anything.

~~~
rrradical
I think your point about this audience is a fair one (and I myself make games
for iOS), but I have trouble understanding the complaints.

My attempt to summarize: \- Charging up front won't work (some 2.99 apps are
terrible therefore this one might be also) \- Free w/IAP for features are
annoying because you can never truly buy the whole app \- Free is scary
because of the way companies monetize free users

Each of those is true individually, but that doesn't leave a lot of options
for a developer.

I don't the market is terrible because developers are so good at taking
advantage of people. Rather, customers are willing to choose low quality apps
over high quality apps if they are marginally cheaper.

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therobot24
Yea it's something of an impossible situation, and that really sucks. I would
gladly give money to something that would enrich my life somehow, but trudging
through the crap isn't worth it. Most of the time is wasted trying to figure
out exactly what it is i'm looking for, as opposed to looking for that one app
that fits my need.

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brudgers
Why are apps so crappy? Well the Koolaid is so potent it took someone as
sophisticated as Jeff Atwood four fucking years to realize that the model was

    
    
        AOL keyword: https://news.ycombinator.com
    

Hopefully it won't take for more years for people like him to realize that the
reason we have app stores is that they are easier to enforce than forbidding
users to install alternate browsers on the OS - in part as blowback from all
the litigation against Microsoft that it's competitors championed in the early
days of the web.

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soup10
I partially disagree, the main reason we have app stores is because it was a
model that worked fairly well for the iPhone and everyone else badly copied
it. The lockin effect is an ancillary benefit.

~~~
dmix
Also for the billions of dollars it funneled into Apple via distribution lock
in.

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BWStearns
The vast majority of apps that are not worth the bandwidth to install are
basically mobile versions of the parent site with better data tracking.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a browser-like umbrella app appear that allowed
for cross platform shit-app development where the native data tracking
features were supported in that app and exposed as a standardized API for the
second-layer apps. It wouldn't improve the quality of "Download our
app!"-apps, but it would at the very least standardize them. I know that there
are cross-platform development efforts now, but I'm thinking something more
limited and targeted.

Also, wrt therobot24, Atwood doesn't express issue with monetizing. Rather,
with the information asymmetry that exists in app stores you must gamble the
$0.99-3.99 to see whether or not it was worth it. When you do, you're more
than likely to find out that the app is shit and you've also handed over a
bunch of your data anyways.

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therobot24
i only brought up monetizing because it's the core issue that causes said
gamble - i understand that money needs to be made in order to ensure quality,
but because of it i've also lost all trust over any app or startup at a first
glance

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peterhunt
Until javascript can animate at a consistent 60 fps in mobile browsers, the
web will continue to have its ass deservedly kicked.

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aboodman
I don't really believe that this is the issue.

Developers are dying for a cross-platform solution for mobile development. If
one existed that had complete parity with existing mobile platforms (including
integration with OS and distribution model), except with current mobile web's
performance, you really think that most developers would continue to just do
everything twice?

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austinz
I'm really not sure I want to see the day that Javascript webapps have the
same level of access to system resources (camera, microphone, address book)
that native apps now have. Even if the OS asks the user for permissions.
Especially considering how broken the permission systems on both major mobile
platforms are.

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archagon
Personally, I appreciate that each mobile platform has its own look and feel,
design cues, etc. It's what makes using iOS and OSX so nice, at least for me.
(But this applies more to offline apps, since web-centric apps like Facebook
will look similar on every platform. And I agree that apps for every website
is a crappy way to go forward.)

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austinz
Anyone remember 2007? Apple's 'web apps are good enough' stance and everyone
clamoring for a native SDK? Seems like things have gone full circle.

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jjoonathan
The existence of shit-apps does not in any way suggest that a native SDK is
unnecessary or inferior.

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austinz
Of course it doesn't. I'm firmly in the native camp, and I honestly didn't
find this article convincing. I'll believe that mobile webapps are as
performant, secure, and capable as native apps when I see it happening on a
regular basis.

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Oculus
I find it interesting that Ghost, the blogging platform underneath Coding
Horror, can't handle HN Front Page. The text on the webpage is blank for me.

