For desktop browsers there are also no application launch icons.
Probably has most to do with the limits of the UX of a phone. Pulling up a browser and typing in a url, hitting autocomplete is done in 2 seconds. On mobile everything is so much more painful, a lot more desire for one click wonder buttons
Wait, there is sort of speeddial/favorites tab in every browser, desktop and mobile. E.g. a food ordering webapp is my first “wonder button” in safari’s empty tab. I could even put it to the phone home screen (no need for that though).
Chrome has the ability to save sites as a desktop shortcut. It even prompts you to do so on some web apps, like Stadia, so you can use it like a more "normal" desktop app.
Safari on iOS can do this, too. You can pin a website to your home screen, which is something that I have done for PWAs.
It could have easily gone another way where this was the "normal" behavior of the mobile ecosystem.
You should read the article. To sum it up: the web beat desktop apps because traditional OS were not designed for a networked world.
The iPhone however was designed for a networked world so it didn't have all the limitations of desktop OS.
The web wasn't designed for a mobile world so it had a lot of limitations: hard to do a good UX, passwords to type on a tiny keyboard, no offline mode (or so complex to use that no dev do), URL vs app icons...
The world works with power: Apple used their power to make strangle the entire idea of the web on mobile by putting a break on change. Why? Mobile web tech helps their competitors more than it helps them.
If Apple's own platform / APIs had had the same rate of change as they effectively forced on the mobile web, then they would be a decade behind Android.
This is exactly the same thing as Microsoft did in the 90s with productivity software. They had secret undocumented APIs which made Office a fantastic experience and non-office "meh".
Mobile Web is enough for like 90% of CRUD stuff, regardless of PWAs.
Yet, most business still go native due to the development experience, like not having to turn <div> magically into beautiful dropdown combo boxes with multiple selections via an HTML/CSS/JS soup, that don't feel quite right with the native ones.
I don’t think so - PWAs on Android are also usable at best.
It’s hard to twist the web into something it isn’t. So much effort goes into making the web do what native apps already do instead of trying to complement all that towards a better experience.
Apple is the reason. App store greed.
We with our "design and virtue signalling" addiction helped a lot in creation of this monster.
As far as I can remember, the real UI/UX innovation was killed fast. Palm/WebOS.
It's always confusing when people say "native" on Android... you never know if they mean "not a web app" (SDK) or "machine code" (NDK). Do you mean the latter?
toshk|4 years ago
For desktop browsers there are also no application launch icons.
Probably has most to do with the limits of the UX of a phone. Pulling up a browser and typing in a url, hitting autocomplete is done in 2 seconds. On mobile everything is so much more painful, a lot more desire for one click wonder buttons
wruza|4 years ago
brendoelfrendo|4 years ago
Safari on iOS can do this, too. You can pin a website to your home screen, which is something that I have done for PWAs.
It could have easily gone another way where this was the "normal" behavior of the mobile ecosystem.
eloisant|4 years ago
The iPhone however was designed for a networked world so it didn't have all the limitations of desktop OS.
The web wasn't designed for a mobile world so it had a lot of limitations: hard to do a good UX, passwords to type on a tiny keyboard, no offline mode (or so complex to use that no dev do), URL vs app icons...
radicalbyte|4 years ago
The world works with power: Apple used their power to make strangle the entire idea of the web on mobile by putting a break on change. Why? Mobile web tech helps their competitors more than it helps them.
If Apple's own platform / APIs had had the same rate of change as they effectively forced on the mobile web, then they would be a decade behind Android.
This is exactly the same thing as Microsoft did in the 90s with productivity software. They had secret undocumented APIs which made Office a fantastic experience and non-office "meh".
pjmlp|4 years ago
Yet, most business still go native due to the development experience, like not having to turn <div> magically into beautiful dropdown combo boxes with multiple selections via an HTML/CSS/JS soup, that don't feel quite right with the native ones.
isodev|4 years ago
It’s hard to twist the web into something it isn’t. So much effort goes into making the web do what native apps already do instead of trying to complement all that towards a better experience.
nbzso|4 years ago
wruza|4 years ago
dataflow|4 years ago
Hydraulix989|4 years ago
occz|4 years ago
mahgnous|4 years ago
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