80% of apps are uninstalled in the first 10min (especially if they ask for information or creating an account). Once uninstalled very unlikely they will ever install again.
In my dev shop, I always advise clients to look into website MVP over apps unless IT IS CRITICAL to the functionality. Websites can always bring back ppl who were initially uninterested. Faster development/instant updates. Better tracking and UX anazyling.
I want to agree with you, but how many people are regularly surfing the web?
I actually think most people still are, but I keep getting this impression from HN and others in the tech industry that "everyone is on their phone and using apps", and I've yet to see any convincing research into the use of web browsers over the years. I don't know what I'm really supposed to think, but it seems that a lot of us in the industry are convinced that mobile browsing is "dead" or at least sits on the bleachers while apps do basically everything and use the browser as a webview for minor things.
I'd love to believe that most people aren't merely sitting on Instagram and Reddit all day, never touching their browser.
I completely agree. This is also my advice to clients that initially ask for a mobile app as well.
Unless you _know_ you have a successful business, a website/webapp MVP is almost always a cheaper way to validate your business concept and a cheaper way to iterate as you develop it.
Could you point to research related to the 80% or similar stats?
I am in an internal conversation regarding building an app vs a website and would love to have some ammo for my arguments.
Consultant is trying to sell an app and to me that looks crazy given that a website could fulfill the same purpose without platform fragmentation, installation etc.
This would work unless, the client wants to monetize via freemium model; in that case an IAP with native app would be far more intuitive than a web app as integrating a payment gateway which accepts global payments (Stripe is not available in all countries) is harder than integrating In app purchase on iOS or android.
I've got many clients who aren't tech savvy but come to me talking about "mobile first". But after a brief discussion they've all agreed to go website first and it has saved them a lot of money.
Regarding uninstalled apps, during a productivity self-study last year I deleted probably 75% of the apps off my phone, and cleaned the home screen to only include 7 apps I use daily. Highly recommend it if you want to reduce distractions.
> Faster development/instant updates. Better tracking and UX anazyling.
That’s a horrible argument in my opinion. Yes, it is more convenient from a developer’s or a business point of view. But what if the user sees more value in an app than a website, shouldn’t that be the first thing to consider?
Many folks that i know of don't keep browsing App stores for apps (some may look for new games now and then) and i wonder it may apply to substantial number of users out there.
The app has to be some how popular (either by word of mouth or ) before it gets installed, where as browsing web sites is
just a matter of clicking some link.
Thank you! I personally think that mobile web and app design has been one of the greatest atrocities in tech. Not only is it trash on mobile, it's spread and made lots of sites trash on desktop as well because people seek a one-size-fits-none solution.
I personally go by the rule that if your service can work as a website, it should be a website. Not ever a standalone app unless there are important requirements which can't be met in a browser. That can only be good for feature creep, gimmicks, and of course data scraping and other violations. A lot of companies end up purposely hamstringing their website--or push you into a terrible mobile site and ignoring your browser's request for the desktop version, plus cover half the screen with multiple instances of begware. Yes I'm looking at you reddit, you filthy old turd. It's incredibly user-hostile. I'm sure it drives plenty of cheap, chintzy short-term engagement but y'all are going to perish like digg sooner or later.
I wish companies would start really putting forward desktop deployment as a major priority again. Maybe I'm old and behind the times. But it seems like all serious activity in my life is always done on the desktop. As soon as I encounter something where I'm going to be doing a lot of browsing or typing or any effort, I move to the desktop platform where the interface and experience are just plain better in every way. I hate interacting through a terrible, tiny touchscreen by swiping around like a finger-painting toddler or using a minuscule keyboard which autocorrects me into apparent illiteracy. If I'm not out in the field and have no other choice, I will always, always choose the desktop environment for its many enormous advantages over mobile. Mobile is here to stay, but the UX still sucks enormous ass and is only tolerable because it's ubiquitous, plus everybody sucks relatively the same from mobile platform to mobile platform so it kind of seems normal.
Once again, maybe I'm just old and now I'm like my mom who stubbornly sticks to VIM in CLI and resents anything that requires clicking a mouse. On the other hand, I kind of see her point and totally respect her cantankerous old-fashioned style of computer literacy. She may hate modern interfaces, but she still knows how to do plenty of fundamental things that even young people these days are clueless about. I believe that simplistic, overly-intuitive interfaces can cause people to live up to expectations and become worse with actual computer literacy, that the golden age of power users is fading, but that's another story.
I would love to have a phone that runs a desktop version of linux and has a slide-out keyboard like they had in the 2000s or whenever that was. Something that just sticks to a desktop user agent and runs desktop executables. Perhaps even something that runs x86 and has a swappable battery to compensate for its power inefficiency. Basically a desktop computer disguised as a mobile device that fits in your pocket. Not iOS or Android or some rooted variant of Android. I don't even give a damn if it has voice calling or not. I think that would have enormous potential and would command a small yet incredibly dedicated userbase, but so far I haven't found anything quite like it.
I don't even bother installing apps anymore, I don't have time to research whether or not they are going to abuse my privacy or have some horrendous TOS. I got my core 10 apps and haven't bought a new one in a year.
> I don't even bother installing apps anymore, I don't have time to research whether or not they are going to abuse my privacy or have some horrendous TOS.
I'm going out on a limb but I'd wager you're not exactly representative of the general userbase for which apps are developed.
I figure most things don't need an app unless they are trying to take more data anyway. Anything telling me to install an app whose mobile experience is fine already is very fishy to me. I'm looking at you, Reddit.
This is my position as well. Unless your app is going to provide substantial features over your website or operating system like functionality. I'm not even going to try it out.
This doesn't express how a mobile app is essentially worse than a website - it only highlights how apps devs are doing it wrong and how mobile platforms vendors don't do their job preventing this.
Apps vendors should be discouraged from abusing access permissions, users should be warned if they probably do (in a visible and practical way) and be allowed to control them.
When a user clicks to install an app the system shows what rights does the app want and only gives choice to allow everything or just cancel. Instead it should disable everything by default, let the user turn particular permissions on explicitly and still install the app even if the user won't allow anything. It's the app vendor job to handle the cases when app can't access something.
As for TOSes - I doubt I understand why these should even be allowed by a platform. All the reasonable TOS terms are obvious and can be implied: the user can use the app for whatever is not illegal, the vendor can use whatever data the user enters the ways actually needed for the app to do its direct job (+ in non-personalized statistics calculation perhaps) and no other way.
I think I never had more than 10 apps installed on a smartphone since like 2008. Not for privacy or security concerns, I just never had any use for more than a few core apps and always used the browser for the rest.
I am very, very sparing about installing apps. However, I'm even MORE cautious about browsing to websites, unless I can disable all client-side scripting.
At least I can firewall apps to mitigate any abuse they may engage in. That's much harder to do with websites.
Given the fact that most people are already maxed out on apps on their device with just things like facebook and youtube, you're going to be hard pressed to get people to install your app just to try it out. With a progressive web app if they like your app they can add it to their device home screen without installing via the app store and without using up space on their device. Also don't need to pay Apple $100 a year but you have the same benefits as a native app. Now with wasm you can even include native performance from a progressive web app.
IMHO, the reasons mentioned are not very convincing. Your goal, when starting a product, is to find whether you serve a real user need or not. So, start with a website or a mobile app depending on what suits your users needs better. Where would a user naturally go (web or mobile) for that need? That's the platform you start with.
Even at $10 a year, it's a very weak statement to make about costs. If you can't afford to pay $90 more a year on something simple for your startup, you have other problems.
The real answer to this question? (Surprise!) It depends.
I have worked on a side project for the last year or so that will have a website and a mobile application. It has social elements, so ultimately I decided to prioritize the mobile application, because that is where users have access to their contacts, and do most of their communication with their friends and family. There are, of course, other business ideas that would be better suited to a website (or electron app?): work-related tools, dashboards, etc.
A lot of people on here are talking about PWAs which are amazing, but iOS Safari is missing the Web Push API. Unfortunately, that makes the effort nearly futile because you have to build a separate mobile app anyway.
If you are an Apple engineer and can help get that shipped, I will buy you a nice dinner. If you're an Apple recruiter, hire me so I can help ship it! :)
"No one wants to download apps anymore"
I stopped reading there. The major advantage of the App Store (primarily for consumer apps though) is the fact that there's some kind of filtering at place. If I find a quality app, I want to actually pay for it. In fact, if it's a good app - then I prefer to pay, as it often ensures some kind of continuity in the app's lifecycle.
How about start with a product that people would actually use? If it is a website, fine. If it is a mobile app, fine. Don't sacrifice business opportunities because of early tech choices.
I'm gonna play devils advocate here and say web apps aren't as pleasant to use on mobile phones as mobile apps and that's why mobile apps are still a thing.
I'm especially looking at things like touch gestures and native integrations (launcher icons, notifications, "share with" providers, maybe even a home screen widget). I know PWAs are a thing but afaik they don't solve all of the above problems or don't solve them well (for example there are still inconsistencies as to what is a PWA and how PWAs are handled across Firefox and Chrome).
Most of my mobile users(64 %) has the page added to the home screen, and it's awesome.
There is however one problem in all things web: Apple.
The amount of bugs in Safari on iOS is incredible and the developers should be ashamed of their work. Safari is literally worse than IE6 was.
But sure, users can just switch to Chrome.. Oh, wait, we're talking iOS here, so there is only one engine, and that engine is broken. So the only option is to get a decent phone, aka not an iPhone.
Like, how freaking hard can it be to make a browser that doesn't need to be restarted just to make touch or keyboard working again?
I feel like this is coming from a good place. They're trying to help the majority of devs choose the right platform for their project to be the most successful.
As many before me have commented, the choice of platform depends on your situation, the technical limitations that come with it, and what kind of experience you want to deliver.
You have to use what makes sense and delivers what you need to satisfy your users. End of story.
Silver bullet solutions make a good headline, but they rarely address all possible concerns of a specific problem. Especially not with a broad audience.
IMO it's a misleading premise to begin with "Start with a website, not a mobile". One should try to stay true to target audience. If your product justifies "Mobile first" approach, mobile app is what one should start with.
Few years ago, I started with a website prototype with an end goal of porting UI elements and business logic to mobile. With some exception of reusing business logic, most UI elements required redo.
My main issue with app development, as I've been saying for close to a decade now, is that with _any_ app dev, you're automatically at the whim of whoever created the platform. Google, Apple, or Microsoft. We say a lot of things about how Google is trying to "take over" the web, but as long as there are Firefox users, that's unlikely to happen anytime soon. No one owns the web, that's why it's still the best place for a startup.
Especially Apple. Their iOS app development team uses the App Store as a proving ground for ideas that work well, then re-implement the features most users love in a crappy/cartoon-style way and attempt to out-promote the original idea.
> Web products get internationalization for free, which is important for a small, cash-strapped team.
I like the article but this statement is not true. Internationalization is quite a big topic and there is no way to automatically make a site internationalized for "free".
Don't forget that clients always get the lastest updated version of the app. I mean, I remember that everytime you decide to change something on the API, things go really bad because of the old versions and people just give you negative feedback because they didn't update the app. You have to be extremely cautious.
There are some very strange arguments in this article.
One claimed advantage of a web app is: "An App Store developer license costs $99/year, whereas a Namecheap domain is less than $10/month". Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but surely a year has 12 months, making it actually more expensive? I guess it's an advantage if you expect your business to fail within 10 months?
Also: "Browsers automatically translate text, so web developers don’t need to do much extra work to reach foreign users."
...
What? Presumably the author speaks no languages other than English. Developers of native applications could easily run their UI strings through machine translation if they wanted to - but nobody wants that because the results are at best unprofessional and usually nonsensical gibberish.
Depends on your applications use cases and what is needed to make it function. No matter what you're doing you should look for the quickest and cheapest option as long as it fulfills your needs. If I'm building pro grade video editing software I'm likely going to pick desktop technologies, if I'm building something that requires location or a camera I'm going to pick native apps. If the service is just reading data from a server and maybe writing a little with not too much interaction probably a mobile website or a PWA.
Not new advice, just pick the right tool for the job, not what's flashy.
There is one side of me that wishes more things were Mobile Apps. On the other hand, it's hard to argue that worse is better here and that any founder should focus on Web unless it's not possible to do it on the web (yet).
I'd much prefer a native app (or actually feels native; Well done RN is good enough for me), but the cost of creating and maintaining one is often too high when you don't know what will work.
As a web developer (react, etc.) I kind of wish I could have more time to work on native apps instead.
If $100 per year for the Apple Developer program is too much, is whatever you’d be making an app for even worth it? Not saying app-first is or isn’t the answer, just questioning a criticism of an expense that’s comes out to $8.25 per month.
[+] [-] casper345|7 years ago|reply
In my dev shop, I always advise clients to look into website MVP over apps unless IT IS CRITICAL to the functionality. Websites can always bring back ppl who were initially uninterested. Faster development/instant updates. Better tracking and UX anazyling.
Edit: also better collaboration tools.
[+] [-] ravenstine|7 years ago|reply
I actually think most people still are, but I keep getting this impression from HN and others in the tech industry that "everyone is on their phone and using apps", and I've yet to see any convincing research into the use of web browsers over the years. I don't know what I'm really supposed to think, but it seems that a lot of us in the industry are convinced that mobile browsing is "dead" or at least sits on the bleachers while apps do basically everything and use the browser as a webview for minor things.
I'd love to believe that most people aren't merely sitting on Instagram and Reddit all day, never touching their browser.
[+] [-] ncallaway|7 years ago|reply
Unless you _know_ you have a successful business, a website/webapp MVP is almost always a cheaper way to validate your business concept and a cheaper way to iterate as you develop it.
[+] [-] wvenable|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrei_says_|7 years ago|reply
I am in an internal conversation regarding building an app vs a website and would love to have some ammo for my arguments.
Consultant is trying to sell an app and to me that looks crazy given that a website could fulfill the same purpose without platform fragmentation, installation etc.
[+] [-] Abishek_Muthian|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thelittleone|7 years ago|reply
Regarding uninstalled apps, during a productivity self-study last year I deleted probably 75% of the apps off my phone, and cleaned the home screen to only include 7 apps I use daily. Highly recommend it if you want to reduce distractions.
[+] [-] dannylandau|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jk801|7 years ago|reply
That’s a horrible argument in my opinion. Yes, it is more convenient from a developer’s or a business point of view. But what if the user sees more value in an app than a website, shouldn’t that be the first thing to consider?
[+] [-] pvelagal|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ssutch3|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foobiekr|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vertexFarm|7 years ago|reply
I personally go by the rule that if your service can work as a website, it should be a website. Not ever a standalone app unless there are important requirements which can't be met in a browser. That can only be good for feature creep, gimmicks, and of course data scraping and other violations. A lot of companies end up purposely hamstringing their website--or push you into a terrible mobile site and ignoring your browser's request for the desktop version, plus cover half the screen with multiple instances of begware. Yes I'm looking at you reddit, you filthy old turd. It's incredibly user-hostile. I'm sure it drives plenty of cheap, chintzy short-term engagement but y'all are going to perish like digg sooner or later.
I wish companies would start really putting forward desktop deployment as a major priority again. Maybe I'm old and behind the times. But it seems like all serious activity in my life is always done on the desktop. As soon as I encounter something where I'm going to be doing a lot of browsing or typing or any effort, I move to the desktop platform where the interface and experience are just plain better in every way. I hate interacting through a terrible, tiny touchscreen by swiping around like a finger-painting toddler or using a minuscule keyboard which autocorrects me into apparent illiteracy. If I'm not out in the field and have no other choice, I will always, always choose the desktop environment for its many enormous advantages over mobile. Mobile is here to stay, but the UX still sucks enormous ass and is only tolerable because it's ubiquitous, plus everybody sucks relatively the same from mobile platform to mobile platform so it kind of seems normal.
Once again, maybe I'm just old and now I'm like my mom who stubbornly sticks to VIM in CLI and resents anything that requires clicking a mouse. On the other hand, I kind of see her point and totally respect her cantankerous old-fashioned style of computer literacy. She may hate modern interfaces, but she still knows how to do plenty of fundamental things that even young people these days are clueless about. I believe that simplistic, overly-intuitive interfaces can cause people to live up to expectations and become worse with actual computer literacy, that the golden age of power users is fading, but that's another story.
I would love to have a phone that runs a desktop version of linux and has a slide-out keyboard like they had in the 2000s or whenever that was. Something that just sticks to a desktop user agent and runs desktop executables. Perhaps even something that runs x86 and has a swappable battery to compensate for its power inefficiency. Basically a desktop computer disguised as a mobile device that fits in your pocket. Not iOS or Android or some rooted variant of Android. I don't even give a damn if it has voice calling or not. I think that would have enormous potential and would command a small yet incredibly dedicated userbase, but so far I haven't found anything quite like it.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] fxfan|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hahabrew|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] debt|7 years ago|reply
What about the market caps of the top three tech companies combined makes you think web is the future? Just curious.
[+] [-] ecp9|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] airstrike|7 years ago|reply
I'm going out on a limb but I'd wager you're not exactly representative of the general userbase for which apps are developed.
[+] [-] criddell|7 years ago|reply
I'll buy a game once in a while (just got Civ 6 on the iPad and it's outstanding), but that's about it.
[+] [-] trophycase|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vesak|7 years ago|reply
Do you think that web apps are better in that regard?
[+] [-] jermaustin1|7 years ago|reply
What are your 10 core apps if you don't mind sharing?
[+] [-] awat|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] qwerty456127|7 years ago|reply
Apps vendors should be discouraged from abusing access permissions, users should be warned if they probably do (in a visible and practical way) and be allowed to control them.
When a user clicks to install an app the system shows what rights does the app want and only gives choice to allow everything or just cancel. Instead it should disable everything by default, let the user turn particular permissions on explicitly and still install the app even if the user won't allow anything. It's the app vendor job to handle the cases when app can't access something.
As for TOSes - I doubt I understand why these should even be allowed by a platform. All the reasonable TOS terms are obvious and can be implied: the user can use the app for whatever is not illegal, the vendor can use whatever data the user enters the ways actually needed for the app to do its direct job (+ in non-personalized statistics calculation perhaps) and no other way.
[+] [-] smoe|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnFen|7 years ago|reply
At least I can firewall apps to mitigate any abuse they may engage in. That's much harder to do with websites.
[+] [-] bitrrrate|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shams93|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sinatra|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] avree|7 years ago|reply
"A developer license is $99/year, but a website is less than $120/year!"
Very weird statement.
[+] [-] allenu|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FiReaNG3L|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sjroot|7 years ago|reply
I have worked on a side project for the last year or so that will have a website and a mobile application. It has social elements, so ultimately I decided to prioritize the mobile application, because that is where users have access to their contacts, and do most of their communication with their friends and family. There are, of course, other business ideas that would be better suited to a website (or electron app?): work-related tools, dashboards, etc.
A lot of people on here are talking about PWAs which are amazing, but iOS Safari is missing the Web Push API. Unfortunately, that makes the effort nearly futile because you have to build a separate mobile app anyway.
If you are an Apple engineer and can help get that shipped, I will buy you a nice dinner. If you're an Apple recruiter, hire me so I can help ship it! :)
[+] [-] sgt|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cntlzw|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] t0astbread|7 years ago|reply
I'm especially looking at things like touch gestures and native integrations (launcher icons, notifications, "share with" providers, maybe even a home screen widget). I know PWAs are a thing but afaik they don't solve all of the above problems or don't solve them well (for example there are still inconsistencies as to what is a PWA and how PWAs are handled across Firefox and Chrome).
[+] [-] NightlyDev|7 years ago|reply
There is however one problem in all things web: Apple.
The amount of bugs in Safari on iOS is incredible and the developers should be ashamed of their work. Safari is literally worse than IE6 was.
But sure, users can just switch to Chrome.. Oh, wait, we're talking iOS here, so there is only one engine, and that engine is broken. So the only option is to get a decent phone, aka not an iPhone.
Like, how freaking hard can it be to make a browser that doesn't need to be restarted just to make touch or keyboard working again?
[+] [-] softfalcon|7 years ago|reply
As many before me have commented, the choice of platform depends on your situation, the technical limitations that come with it, and what kind of experience you want to deliver.
You have to use what makes sense and delivers what you need to satisfy your users. End of story.
Silver bullet solutions make a good headline, but they rarely address all possible concerns of a specific problem. Especially not with a broad audience.
[+] [-] let_var|7 years ago|reply
Few years ago, I started with a website prototype with an end goal of porting UI elements and business logic to mobile. With some exception of reusing business logic, most UI elements required redo.
[+] [-] tomphoolery|7 years ago|reply
Especially Apple. Their iOS app development team uses the App Store as a proving ground for ideas that work well, then re-implement the features most users love in a crappy/cartoon-style way and attempt to out-promote the original idea.
Examples:
[+] [-] dlandis|7 years ago|reply
I like the article but this statement is not true. Internationalization is quite a big topic and there is no way to automatically make a site internationalized for "free".
[+] [-] craftoman|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ptx|7 years ago|reply
One claimed advantage of a web app is: "An App Store developer license costs $99/year, whereas a Namecheap domain is less than $10/month". Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but surely a year has 12 months, making it actually more expensive? I guess it's an advantage if you expect your business to fail within 10 months?
Also: "Browsers automatically translate text, so web developers don’t need to do much extra work to reach foreign users."
...
What? Presumably the author speaks no languages other than English. Developers of native applications could easily run their UI strings through machine translation if they wanted to - but nobody wants that because the results are at best unprofessional and usually nonsensical gibberish.
[+] [-] shehryarrr|7 years ago|reply
Not new advice, just pick the right tool for the job, not what's flashy.
[+] [-] 0xCMP|7 years ago|reply
I'd much prefer a native app (or actually feels native; Well done RN is good enough for me), but the cost of creating and maintaining one is often too high when you don't know what will work.
As a web developer (react, etc.) I kind of wish I could have more time to work on native apps instead.
[+] [-] Spivak|7 years ago|reply
I think you mean $10/year.
[+] [-] wvenable|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] briandear|7 years ago|reply