Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)

https://danq.me/2026/07/09/your-app-could-have-been-a-webpage/

by MrVandemar • 12 days ago

892 550 12 days ago

I understand the anger. But I wish I were better able to resist fixing the world with code in this way, as I really am supposed to be working.

ed_mercer• 8 days ago

This is awesome. I think the much bigger use case here is building web equivalents of apps that are only available on iOS/Android.

datakan3• 8 days ago

We were supposed to be in the age of PWAs. That was the initial plan for iOS before the app store and 30% cuts on subscription apps.

Most web apps suck too though so I guess pick your poison. My strong belief is they want apps because they can spam you with notifications to get your attention.

brabel• 8 days ago

My strong belief is they want apps because they can spam you with notifications to get your attention.

I believe the same about the Youtube App, I just can't see why else it exists and I hate the video links try to open in the app if you're not careful!

smallpipe• 8 days ago

Casting from the web doesn’t work (on iOS at least) but that’s all I can think of.

LoganDark• 8 days ago

Apps are also more difficult to intercept and modify on most devices. Companies like them because it means you can't use ad blockers or other privacy tools. It's also why they flip out so outrageously when Apple adds privacy tools at the operating system level, because tracking and abuse are most of the reason why apps are useful to them in the first place.

jaffa2• 8 days ago

uninstall the app. my life is much better since i uninstalled most apps and I just use the web pages these days. To take ONE benefit from not using the youtube app, and instead using a browser: I can open more than one video at once.

ForHackernews• 8 days ago

NewPipe mostly works except when Google breaks it.

cube00• 8 days ago

I hate the video links try to open in the app if you're not careful!

Uninstall (disable) the app, YouTube on Firefox mobile is fine.

dec0dedab0de• 8 days ago

sure, but that original idea was 20 years ago.

forlorn• 8 days ago

They want apps so they could fingerprint your device, spy on you and get a lot more information than a web app.

jorisw13• 8 days ago

Sure. They. They want. You know who they are, and what they want.

jorisw13• 8 days ago

they want

Who are 'they' and how do you know what they want

pluralmonad3• 8 days ago

The people deciding between delivering their payload via app or web page. Engagement hacking is not something we have to guess that ad companies want.

datakan3• 8 days ago

The developer of the apps obviously.

snapcaster• 8 days ago

Why this gaslighting? obviously the massive companies with vested interest in monetizing your attention and data

pjc502• 8 days ago

Specific example would be Reddit.

mr_mitm3• 8 days ago

I'm currently attempting to write a calendar app for personal use, and I wanted to go the route of a self-host PWA. Notifications are a good point. How can I create notifications as a reminder before an event? Alerts are part of the icalendar standard ("VALARM"), so these are clearly notifications that are wanted by the user. Is that even possible for a PWA?

whstl3• 8 days ago

You can send notifications with PWAs with Web Push API + Service Worker, same as a regular page.

But, AFAIK, you need the server for push, though. It used to be possible to program entirely from the client with this proposed feature but AFAIK it's abandoned: https://github.com/GoogleChrome/developer.chrome.com//blob/m...

doginasuit• 8 days ago

My strong belief is they want apps because they can spam you with notifications to get your attention.

That's it, an app installed on a mobile device is a much more effective attentional hook than a website that must be either bookmarked or remembered. It is like inviting a door-to-door salesman to your house, of course they will take the invitation.

z3c0• 8 days ago

Also, analytics are not limited by JavaScript and browser APIs. Getting your attention isn't so valuable without knowing how to do it a second time.

harryf• 8 days ago

We are in the age of PWAs. I've created a few where I just host them on Github pages (no backend needed, no hosting costs).

And the P in PWA has become "Personal" ... vibe coding apps with no backend for non-developers for their _personal_ needs e.g. a create a job hunting app for my son specific to the types of jobs he's looking for. If I update it, it updates on his phone plus he can sync to his laptop via WebRTC.

benoau5• 8 days ago

My strong belief is they want apps because they can spam you with notifications to get your attention.

My strong belief is they realized people were prone to spending absurd amounts of money in Facebook games, so they hijacked "social gaming" and spent 20 years deteriorating in defense of it.

Consider this timeline:

- Apple launches iPhone in 2007 with web apps central

- Zynga launches "Zynga Poker" on FB in 2007

- Apple launches App Store in 2008 with single-purchase apps

- Zynga hits 40 million monthly users in 2009

- Apple implements IAP and defensive policies in 2009

- Hundreds of millions of people playing Facebook games in 2010

... Apple goes to war with, bans and eventually kills Flash, the core technology to these games, and all of it moves to mobile and IAP

... web apps deprioritized, arms race with other browsers prevented

polycancel• 8 days ago

With the state of current Android locking down to iOS level of closeness ( https://keepandroidopen.org )

Since my last smart phone broke, I have held out on getting a smart phone for personal use. Sure for doing professional stuff for work, I'll use the work phone, but NOT going to pay my own money to get a surveillance device now.

If you are a business, and the you don't have a web site working, then yeah too bad.

Until Ubuntu Touch or something similar catches up and can run on old smart phone in a reliable way (not having to hunt down ROM like LineageOS ) it will be going back to before 2007 for me. It is more inconvenient sometimes, but life is also better in many ways.

cainxinth• 8 days ago

Preach!

catapart2• 8 days ago

Fantastic work! It's always nice to see the method, in case anything is out there making this stuff easier. But the result is the real prize. There's way too much nonsense out there that is an app when it should be a webpage. I'm so tired of all of these apps.

One criticism, though: I wish you would have made a simple form-based alternative to the app's population mechanism, rather than just make the one-off consumer for yourself(/those you shared with). Definitely way more work and not something you should have to do. But that would have been a cherry on top. Not only prevent needing the app for viewing, but also removing future incentive for an organization turning to an app like that in the first place.

Dan-Q2• 8 days ago

I'm the original author (but not the poster here on HN).

Yeah, I considered that. I even wrote the code in such a way that it supports that. But I'm concerned about the legality of distributing it. Given that it hits API endpoints that were expected to be private to the developers' app, giving away a "tool" that bypasses the app (which hosts ads, albeit for their other products, and so serves as a money-maker for the app's owner) could be illegal.

At the very least, it could be a violation of the terms of service or just an annoyance to the app developer, either of which could lead them to trying to stop me from doing it, which would be an inconvenience. So maybe I'll wait until after the trip, when the page becomes useless to me, and THEN open-source it!

DrammBA• 8 days ago

I wanted to ask, why did you go with reverse-engineering using network traffic instead of decompiling the app locally and looking for endpoint definitions?

catapart2• 8 days ago

Hey, thanks for the follow up! That makes perfect sense to me. Personally, though, I was thinking more of a "competing service" than a "steal your content" kind of offering.

I know hosting an entire sign up process and user content is not something you can just build and forget about, so my thought was that a sufficiently decent website could bundle a package that could be hosted on existing organization infrastructure. A zip file of the user's content that they could upload to dropbox/drive/sharepoint/etc. Then the consumer page would match a url slug to a package file and serve the content that way.

It's... a lot of stuff for a quick workaround project. And it's a pathology of an engineer to make solutions where solutions aren't needed. So grain of salt on any of that. But I did want to clarify since you were willing to engage with the concept, as understood. Hopefully this proposition strikes you as less concerning/illegal! I never want to steal anyone's work or infrastructure. I just believe that better alternatives - even ones borne of seeing how badly other people are doing it - can and should win out, if people ever provide them.

viaredux• 8 days ago

Amazing. Love the dedication to fix this minor annoyance, which I also share. Would be great if there was a kind of universal tool for this, as I am sure many of those shitty apps share the same internals.

billyp-rva• 8 days ago

I can’t understand how we got to this place with “app culture”!

The short version: ad blockers work on browsers but not apps[0].

[0] https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle

CuriouslyC3• 8 days ago

I don't think that's it. Apps took off because people felt comfortable yoloing stuff from the Apple app store, and for a short while before saturation, the app store reach was making small developers rich.

reddalo4• 8 days ago

Apps took off because Apple did everything they could to make PWAs work badly, with no reliable notifications, no access to some data, etc.

Apple did that because they want their sweet 30% from in-app purchases, which they couldn't enforce in PWAs.

jorisw13• 8 days ago

The App Store took off because of the distribution channel it offers for developers (including being able to charge for the work) and the place of discovery it offers to users.

datakan3• 8 days ago

Apple has actually started allowing this. You can find the functionality in an adblocker called Wipr now and it works really well.

zamadatix• 8 days ago

URL filters in iOS 26 just make network level filtering more convenient (can use a real VPN at the same time) but it's nothing new in terms of replacement for real ad blockers, which is why apps like Wipr still include a Safari extension.

hashworks• 8 days ago

For most app ads it's enough to set a DoT or DoH in the system that blocks ad domains. Android supports this with a settings menu entry, on Apple one needs a more "technical" solution I think (loading some XML?). Most VPN apps also support DNS enforcement.

Apps like YouTube are an exception, but there are other ways around that on Android.

matltc• 8 days ago

YouTube... Ways around that on Android

Have DoH/DoT enabled as you mention, then open brave, go to YouTube.com

groundzeros20154• 8 days ago

I think it’s that your install base represents real customers who could actually buy things.

Web traffic is so diluted and low signal.

xingped• 8 days ago

It's too bad not enough people know about using adguard dns on their phones. Dunno about iPhones but it works wonders on Android. Only downside is it sometimes interferes with signing into public wifi networks.

1970-01-012• 8 days ago

Does not have to be branded adguard to work. https://github.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists

xtracto• 8 days ago

I can’t understand how we got to this place with “app culture"

Thie assertion is extremely funny to me. Historically we come from an "app culture". Back in the day, around 2000 or so, if you wanted some functionality, you ran an application. You ran software in your computer.

Then on the early 2000s people started migrating their software web" , inventing "SaaS" (software as a service" .

I remember my young self being strongly opposed to that, because I saw little sense in constraining what you could do with a scripting language, when you could easily get the "networking" capabilities adding tcp/ip to your software .

But the web and Javascript won, mostly due to control (there was advertising in software since the 90s, for example Opera or GetRight had ad banners) .

The feature and mobile phones came and people started to migrate to "apps" again. So we came full circle.

master-lincoln• 8 days ago

It's because apple pushed towards apps and didn't want web apps on their phone. Likely due to the profits they can gain from appstore sales

Native apps would be the better platform in my eyes if the Operating Systems would be better in terms of letting a user manage what a native app have access to and can do.

But currently they are preferred by companies despite more dev effort because they can get more user data without the user having easy ways to prevent that. And of course showing ads without the user being easily able to block them

Izkata2• 8 days ago

Keep going further back, we had thin client terminals (not sure of the terminology, this was just before my time - I remember using them to look for books at our town library when I was a kid, green or orange text on a black screen, no mouse).

ndriscoll• 8 days ago

OP is about information, not functionality. In the early 2000s you would put things like that on a web page, and you'd put e.g. chat in its own application like Gaim.

In the 2010s the model inverted: now you need to keep an entire browser open to use google chat, and people try to get you to install an app to read a web page.

PaulHoule2• 8 days ago

I was having that argument with everybody in the late 1990s and was vindicated.

In corporate IT, for instance, you have to roll out new versions of software all the time. There are better solutions for managing desktop fleets than there were back then, but with a web app you just update the server and... you're done!

inigyou12• 8 days ago

There's also more data you can access from an app than from a browser. E.g. surrounding WiFi networks, battery level, persistent device identifier.

maxgashkov• 8 days ago

Two more things:

- well-designed apps retain enough state to be useful offline or in places with spotty coverage; PWAs can kinda be made to work like this but IIRC iOS will happily evict them under disk pressure;

- notifications. I've read that Apple have implemented them for home screen installed web apps but for reasons unknown I have not seen this in action even once.

afavour3• 8 days ago

Nah. When the App Store started getting truly popular you couldn't even run an ad blocker on mobile Safari. That came many years later.

IMO the reason we got to this place is twofold:

- apps give companies a spot on your Home Screen and allow you to develop a habit of opening it. I suspect Apple are very aware of this, which is why they continue to make it very difficult to install a web app to your home screen.

- notifications. Which, again, draw a returning audience

a_c• 8 days ago

There are surprising portion of population expect a dedicated app to perform a particular function

stronglikedan2• 8 days ago

And that's fine, but if your app is just a wrapper for a website, send people to the website and have a link for them to download the app if they prefer.

autoexec4• 8 days ago

That and having an app gives you a ton of options for data collection

drnick1• 8 days ago

The short version: ad blockers work on browsers but not apps[0].

It depends where the ads come from. I block ads at the DNS level for example, and there is little apps can do (I also filter public DNS servers by IP to prevent bypass). Not that would use apps that show me ads, or really any commercial apps. If something cannot be done in a browser, I'll simply pass.

Doctor_Fegg• 8 days ago

There only seem to be two things that this “app” does, that a webpage might not have, and they’re both anti-features:
It reports tracking data associated with your Google Account back to the developers.

Fortunately webpages never do any tracking whatsoever, let alone “Gobshite LLC and its 1131 partners need your permission for (contd. p94)”

reddalo4• 8 days ago

Luckily tools such as uBlock Origin let you block all those nasty scripts, _including_ the cookie banner themselves.

inigyou12• 8 days ago

I have uBO and I still see cookie banners.

mohammedmsgm• 8 days ago

I think yeah, most apps can be webpages, but the biggest used apps can also be webpages, (insta, facebook, x) and so on , I think the only real indicator is how much people are using the apps, not if it's simpler just to do a webpage

pdnagilum• 8 days ago

Wait, the users password is part of the URL? What happens if the password contains a forward slash or a question mark? Wouldn't that break the whole endpoint?

lstodd• 8 days ago

RFC 1738 Uniform Resource Locators (URL) December 1994 section 2.2

Dan-Q2• 8 days ago

Original author here. Upon inspection, these passwords are clearly not chosen by the user and, as far as I can tell, consist only of numbers and uppercase letters.

philipwhiuk5• 8 days ago

More of an ugly authToken then.

wsdn• 8 days ago

If a 120MB app is required just to display an itinerary PDF, that's an architecture problem, not a UX problem.

Grombobulous9• 8 days ago

I recently decided to publish an app on the App Store just so I could say I accomplished that, and maybe even make a little bit of beer money on the side.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that my actual app is pretty much garbage. I don’t expect it to be popular. It’s basically a worse version of stuff that is already available.

I expected this to be a learning exercise about the process of getting stuff published.

Long story short, by the end of the ordeal I was somewhat surprised that anyone independent bothers to publish apps at all. The amount of red tape and nitpicking by the initial app review process is astounding. The business/legal side is also annoying. I might be misremembering or misinterpreting, but it seems like you really need an LLC with a mail forwarding service and a cheap second phone line just to avoid the App Store sending the whole internet to your personal phone and address.

On a website you can just not deal with any of that, and not give Apple $99/year just to keep your app on the store.

And we haven’t even gotten into the big royalties you’re paying for App Store purchases.

Still, I understand the appeal at some point, just not for an app like OP was forced to use. I certainly wouldn’t want to use something like Immich or Opencloud without an app: these apps need to deeply integrate with my phone to be truly useful.

Steve16384• 8 days ago

Couldn't agree more. I've only published on Google Play, but the number of hoops Google makes you jump through (and keeps making you jump through if you want to keep your app in the store) is a full-time job in itself. New permission requirements, needing to self-decalre that your app does/doesn't do this or that, forcing you to reveal your personal details. The list goes on.

criddell2• 8 days ago

As someone who uses apps, the hoops you have to jump through are one of the reasons I prefer apps. I'm glad Apple knows who you are and have scrutinized (to some degree) your app.

I have no interest in installing a web app that could look innocuous today and be entirely different every time I hit F5.

benoau5• 8 days ago

If they were actually doing a good job this would make sense.

Just weeks ago they published a sanctioned Russian bank's app masquerading as a pomedoro timer lmao.

ftchd• 8 days ago

Well...

Search right now in the App Store for "Morpho" and you'll find a "Morpho: Network" app. That app says it's some sort of TODO/Note taking app. It uses very broad language in the screenshots and assets from morpho.org (a decentralized protocol).

Once you open the app, it immediately downloads another bundle using OTA updates and shows an entirely different app where you "connect your wallet". You can imagine what happens next.

afavour3• 8 days ago

I have no interest in installing a web app that could look innocuous today and be entirely different every time I hit F5.

That's been the case with native apps for a long time now too.

PaulHoule2• 8 days ago

My assumption is that 99% of what is on the app store is trash. I never go surfing the app store to find "an app" because I know it will be a waste of time. I'm outright offended that they hide the search in a corner and center a bunch of ads for apps that I know I want nothing to do with. I had to subscribe to Apple Arcade and cancel right away to make the (1) badge go away on a feature that insults me as a "gamer."

All the time I hear that "PhotoSync" is good or I install an app for a business that I deal with like my bank or the local gas station.

On the other hand I feel like it is safe and usually worthwhile to browse the web -- even the sketchy parts, like the web sites that lead me into rabbit holes right out of Videodrome.

Schiendelman6• 8 days ago

Exactly. I've published apps. When GP says their actual app is "pretty much garbage" and that there was red tape and nitpicking - Apple is trying to stop garbage!

cosmic_cheese3• 8 days ago

I have no interest in installing a web app that could look innocuous today and be entirely different every time I hit F5.

Or as I have encountered several times over the years, it turned out to have vanished without a trace for whatever reason (author got bored, became ill, didn’t want to pay for the domain any more, etc) when I reach for it, sending me searching for an alternative in the midst of a task.

Self-contained binaries stored on my personal devices don’t do that, and one can usually find third party copies scattered across the internet long after the author stopped publishing/maintaining them.

Zak3• 8 days ago

I have no interest in installing a web app in almost all cases. I'm happy to visit one though, and I trust the browser sandbox to keep it from doing anything worse than making my device warm until I notice and close the tab.

groundzeros20154• 8 days ago

I’ll be the first to admit that my actual app is pretty much garbage

It’s working. Your low quality project you weren’t really committed to got filtered.

r2_pilot• 8 days ago

Aside from the low-effort snark and lack of empathy towards someone's project, this is also how you filter people out of caring about software development at at a young age, and then who's going to keep the computer systems running?

kibwen• 8 days ago

Both Google's and Apple's app stores are 99% slop by volume, so no, it's not working.

Grombobulous9• 8 days ago

I’m not sure what you mean. My app is published. I actually jumped through the hoops because I wanted to learn how to jump through those hoops.

My project hasn’t been filtered at all. I just found the process more of a bureaucratic exercise than made sense (and the end result was that my low quality app was accepted so none of this is done in the name of quality).

al_borland3• 8 days ago

I periodically try to put something together. I don’t even care about publishing to the app store really, I mostly want to make stuff for myself for macOS.

My last attempt, it felt like Apple was no longer interested in the idea of hobbyist developers. The setup just to get the Xcode project setup felt like I needed to have a company and a website. When I selected something about iCloud, because I thought it would be nice if what I made synced to iCloud, I couldn’t even get started without paying $99, so I had to start again and choose a different option without it. And here I thought the $99 was just to publish to the store.

Considering how Apple started, this trend feels wrong. When I wanted to make a simple little app a few weeks ago, I ended up using python with webview. It seemed to be one of the few ways to make a little GUI app without boiling the ocean.

rpdillon3• 8 days ago

This is exactly what I've been observing as well. As soon as the App Store became a cash cow, the incentive to support non-commercial development went away. It's now a place constructed by a giant company, for giant companies.

inigyou12• 8 days ago

It's like a lot of tech trajectories. At first it was fairly easy and people did it, and then both the producer, consumer, and platform evolved off in some direction in an endless feedback cycle, and now a newcomer sees the whole ecosystem is all the way over there in some weird place and doesn't join it because why would you want to be over there, but the existing actors don't see it as strange because they acclimatized to each step along the way.

Recently I tried out tiktok for a day and couldn't fathom why I would possibly want to ever use this app. Same with Instagram. But people who followed their trajectory since their earlier days find them normal.

Same with Facebook, actually. And Google.

On the other side of that equation, my very old YouTube account (which still has a subscription to "YouTube Red" that costs half of what a new subscription to YouTube Premium costs) has been trained to show me certain content, and if I joined with a new account or told someone else to join, I know the homepage would be filled with dumb slop.

bee_rider3• 8 days ago

Facebook only made sense in the context of living on a college campus… I think it doesn’t quite fit this pattern because realistically users were rarely in the “good fit” case for only ~4 years. Then, for each user, it becomes this sort of awkward slowly decaying network as people move on.

I agree with everything else you said though.

hbn2• 8 days ago

it seems like you really need an LLC with a mail forwarding service and a cheap second phone line just to avoid the App Store sending the whole internet to your personal phone and address

That's an EU thing. If you don't publish in the EU you don't need to dox yourself.

Izkata2• 8 days ago

It's also in the US. A consumer protection law in California started it around a decade ago and Google applied it to everyone instead of letting us opt out of the state (it's why I let my Android app die), and since then they've also disallowed PO boxes.

inigyou12• 8 days ago

It's also a very general European mindset thing. They have a very different approach to privacy there - they basically expect everyone's identity to be public, and then protect those identities from abuse, rather than the more US approach of letting you hide your identity so it can't be abused. You see supermarkets with the owner's full name plastered across the storefront underneath the franchise logo. "This store is EDEKA John Smith"

Grombobulous9• 8 days ago

Why isn’t Apple the business with the contact info? They’re taking 15-30% cut and fully control their software APIs.

Unless I’m mistaken, Steam and GOG games aren’t listing the address of the game developers in the EU, but I admit that I might be mistaken.

Telaneo14• 8 days ago

I might be misremembering or misinterpreting, but it seems like you really need an LLC with a mail forwarding service and a cheap second phone line just to avoid the App Store sending the whole internet to your personal phone and address.

For something free I can get why this would seem unreasonable (modulo scams, for which this is a hoop I would rather have than not), but if money's involved, a consumer should be able to contact a human and be made whole, and having the money be handled by a company (even if that company is just a one-man-show) honestly does not seem unreasonable.

If you want to bypass that, you just shouldn't publish to the App Store, which does (or at least is supposed to) have protections suitable for most people. You should still be able to make apps and use them without the App Store involved, then the individual human who wants that app can make decisions based in the specific app in question and the people behind it, but that's a separate conversation.

zacwest• 8 days ago

Developers cannot issue refunds from the Apple App Store. Contacting the developer by physical mail doesn’t have any effect.

Grombobulous9• 8 days ago

Yes, you’re right that much of this only comes up when you’re trying to charge money for an app.

However, if you’re running your own website you can make those decisions on your own without being forced into most of them.

Plenty of very large “reputable” companies obfuscate their physical address and phone number, and don’t even offer an email address for contact.

I’d also say that this shouldn’t be as necessary when an app platform is involved. Apple takes 15-30% of the revenue and acts as a full retailer. Why do App Store customers have any need to contact the underlying developers in this scenario?

Walmart doesn’t make it easy/possible for me to contact the manufacturer of their t-shirts.

There are even other digital software stores like GOG or Steam that really aren’t selling you software that has a guaranteed point of contact.

Those platforms just have a half-decent to decent return policy and act as the middleman.

But when you’re on iOS you have all the burdens of a third-party supplier without all the benefits.

cyral2• 8 days ago

a consumer should be able to contact a human and be made whole

Apple does not provide any mechanism for developers to issue a refund, or even look up or view your purchase or subscription - so there is nothing a developer can do here besides refer you to apple support.

(Although as a developer I would like to be able to do this, because customers are very confused by it)

drdexebtjl• 8 days ago

I would want that hoop for free apps too. If the developer is, for example, found to be mishandling private data, or maybe sharing my intellectual property, someone needs to answer for it.

david4222• 8 days ago

For something free I can get why this would seem unreasonable (modulo scams, for which this is a hoop I would rather have than not), but if money's involved, a consumer should be able to contact a human and be made whole, and having the money be handled by a company (even if that company is just a one-man-show) honestly does not seem unreasonable.

You're buying a digital good. You can already get refunds. An email address is fine for contact.

You definitely don't need someone's physical home address, nor an actual phone number.

gadders2• 8 days ago

The android store is the same. Jump through loads of hoops, fill in tax information for a bunch of countries, dox yourself, etc etc.

I'm finding it hard to reconcile a) how difficult the process and b) the load of absolute garbage apps that are out there.

Rohansi5• 8 days ago

You'll still find people praising Apple (maybe even Google) for their review process even though their store is full of garbage. Really justifies their 30% cut.

wahnfrieden5• 8 days ago

it seems like you really need an LLC with a mail forwarding service and a cheap second phone line just to avoid the App Store sending the whole internet to your personal phone and address.

This is an EU requirement, and Apple didn't do this before EU required it. All app marketplaces have the same requirement for EU

On a website you can just not deal with any of that

This may violate other EU compliance requirements but sure there's obviously no authority determining your compliance before allowing you to publish on web

kokanee2• 8 days ago

Back when I used to freelance, somebody once paid me a scant fee to build a pretty cool online tool for music teachers, basically an interactive piano. I checked in on the website a few years afterwards and found that they had wrapped it into an app and been selling it for $5/install ever since I made it for them. Probably my fault for not licensing the software I wrote for them (I was basically a kid at the time) but it still bothers me.

cgannett• 8 days ago

Time to make a better version for $4 install and a similar name... out of spite.

c0nsumer10• 8 days ago

I like making maps, and I wanted to do a certain bend on a very specific kind of online map, filling a gap I noticed in existing maps.

The idea of an app really appealed to me (at first), but the more I thought about it the more I didn't want to deal with iOS and then Android and then maintaining parallel functionality on the web and all that mess just for a fairly-local hobby project that I make no money off of.

So, I just kept it as a website (which is also a PWA) with extensive testing on every platform I can think of. It's just worked out so well and is so, so, so much less complicated. And if I abandon it, should just keep working for years so long as the website stays up (or until browsers start doing something very different JS-wise.)

(You can see it at https://trailmaps.app if you're interested.)

verelo4• 8 days ago

So i've done similar things in the past - and my justification for 'app' over website has been offline.

Does the PWA state of things resolve that in the modern days? If it did, yeah I'd agree, no need for an app at all. In my case the app was being used in rural Ontario. I cant even make a phone call here without wifi.

motoroco2• 8 days ago

Hello fellow map maker! I feel like I’m in the same boat. PWAs work great, I wish Apple would treat them as first class apps. I tinkered with launching a TWA for my app on the Play Store and it works pretty well but I haven’t published it yet. Probably a harder market to monetize than iOS but it seems like good advertising just to have the listing up

atourgates2• 8 days ago

That's a cool project. Sort of a more open Trailforks alternative?

chrisweekly• 8 days ago

cool project!

dd8601fn2• 8 days ago

I did something similar. I wanted to tell myself I had done it, but also it was an inexpensive learning experience and I got an app that I wanted out of it.

And I think I got that. I like how mine does what it does (maps breaker panels and records home maintenance and stuff) without someone trying to sell me something.

But once I realized what advertising costs everywhere, I pretty quickly realized that app exists essentially just for me.

And that’s ok, but it’s a stark contrast from the goldrush years of (even garbage) apps making money.

svachalek2• 8 days ago

It's about tracking. Most of the money in the industry comes from knowing precisely when you were on the toilet every day and they can't get that from a web app.

paulddraper3• 8 days ago

my actual app is pretty much garbage

The app review process is explicitly meant to keep out garbage apps.

Sounds like it worked as designed?

autoexec4• 8 days ago

Sounds like it worked as designed?

It didn't, because his admittedly garbage app ended up on the app store, because the app review process doesn't actually keep out garbage apps.

busymom0• 8 days ago

I have been publishing apps as a solo developer for a long time and every app I've published has been something I wanted for myself. For example, I spent so much time here on hacker news. So I wanted an app for a better experience. So I built my app almost a decade ago. Then people requested me build one for Android, so I built that too. I've similarly built various macOS apps which I use daily for myself.

If anyone is interested, it's called HACK and I am writing this comment from it. Link is in my bio.

dirkc• 8 days ago

I did something similar, for similar reasons. In the end I just did whatever to get it published. If you show up at my door, I'll pour you your choice of beer/coffee. But I agree, it feels very invasive!

On the web side of things DNS only recently started being more private - 10+ years ago it was common to have your phone + postal address on whois.

Two take aways from my experience 1. I'm happy that I invested more in the web 2. The app store gives you distribution - I have a few websites with almost 0 traffic, but the app I wrote gets a handful of downloads a week almost 2 years later?

encom• 8 days ago

10+ years ago it was common to have your phone + postal address on whois

This is the .dk TLD today, and it's the reason I've never posted my website here. The .dk registry (punktum.dk) is run by absolute clowns.

On the other hand, the first thing I do before spending money on a danish website is "whois eksempel.dk", and if it doesn't return a danish address (and wasn't created recently), I'm out.

bendangelo• 8 days ago

Yeah it’s all a pain. One thing that helped was using hotwire native. It is basically a web view but it bridges the mobile app with your website and wraps it into a mobile app. This is the only way I can make apps now. Flutter never worked well for me.

mcdonje• 8 days ago

I wish PWAs took off, or a "desktop" environment for phones and tablets that allows me to save a simple website shortcut as an app.

I want my phone to be the portal to the places I want to go to and the things I want to see. I want to have the same experience going to a web app or website I regularly visit as with a normal app.

Like, I want to click on an icon and be there. I don't want to click on the browser and then find the tab.

Also, I want PWAs and website shortcuts to be first class citizens. I want a normal icon, not one that has some sort of visual marker that it's not a normal app.

It's been an ongoing annoyance, but it's getting to be more commonplace of an issue because there are a lot of people building cool things on atproto, and they generally start as a web app before they maybe build a phone app.

stavros2• 8 days ago

You can already do this, browser allow you to add a website as an icon and it acts completely like an app. Even iOS allows this, try adding HN to your home screen.

hn111• 8 days ago

It’s too bad Apple made the option to install a website as a webapp so hard to find. It’s now hidden in ‘Share’ > ‘View more’ > ‘Add to home screen’

This has nothing to do with ‘sharing’ something

pjmlp9• 8 days ago

I keep telling that outside games, most apps could be done as plain mobile Web, emphasis on mobile Web, not the PWA kludge of workers and what not.

Eleg007• 8 days ago

Love this

me_vinayakakv• 8 days ago

Why they would have password in the URL?!

rTX5CMRXIfFG• 8 days ago

I prefer native apps over web apps, but I’m honestly at the point now where I just want to make voice or chat commands and get an output, instead of learning some self-important UI/UX person’s custom UI controls aka “””design system”””

mrcrm9494• 8 days ago

does not load for me

creaturemachine• 8 days ago

Maybe it should've been an app after all.

smcg2• 8 days ago

The fundamental problem with the internet is that hosting sucks and no one wants to do it. It's thankless and it's expensive to maintain, both time and money. Apps are a way to not worry about that.

By the way, the link doesn't load for me, so I used the archive to read it. https://archive.ph/ByFBN

anonzzzies3• 8 days ago

I love hosting and I will never stop doing it. I keep buying servers (second hand; almost no one actually needs the latest) and hosting 1000s of companies.

smcg2• 8 days ago

For every person like you there are thousands who don't want to host!

inigyou12• 8 days ago

How did you get companies to sign up to your website business?

inbx0• 8 days ago

Simply hosting a front-end only app is almost free on several platforms (e.g. Cloudflare). Certainly less than the $99 Apple developer membership fee. It starts getting more expensive once you add back-end servers and databases and whatnot, but you’d be needing those with the App-approach too if your featureset requires that.

al_borland3• 8 days ago

Not to mention dealing with authentication, securing user data, and opening yourself to being a target for hackers.

Shipping a local app eliminates a lot of those headaches.

buffalobuffalo2• 8 days ago

No, the fundamental problem is ios. There are a bunch of features that ios locks down so that you are essentially forced to use apps. Want to send push notifications? You need an app. Want to be able to wake your app up in the background to do stuff intermittently? You need an app. Want to get your app on the home screen? Once again, you need an app. And before anyone says you can do this with PWAs, yes, that's true. But the steps required from your users in order to get a PWA running on ios are so cumbersome (by design) that nobody even bothers. And since ios has something like 60% of market share in the US, we're stuck with apps.

rahimnathwani2• 8 days ago

"Want to get your app on the home screen?"

Open Safari, navigate to the web app, tap the Share button, scroll down, and select 'Add to Home Screen'.

ardacinar• 8 days ago

Well if you're calling an API you host yourself to populate that said UI, not needing to host that UI as a webpage is not that much of an advantage.

_fat_santa• 8 days ago

The fundamental problem with the internet is that hosting sucks and no one wants to do it. It's thankless and it's expensive to maintain, both time and money. Apps are a way to not worry about that.

No it's not. Hosting a web app is one of the most trivial things you can do these days, far more trivial than attempting to get an app into the app store. Hosting API's and Databases is a little more difficult but you still need those things if you're building an app.

There is no world in which getting your app signed, getting it approved, getting every update approved and paying $X/year to Apple or Google is easier than hosting a webapp, even if you host it in the most difficult way possible (on say AWS + Cloudfront). And even that method isn't that difficult, just moreso relative to other ways of hosting a webapp.

isaachinman• 8 days ago

What the hell?

Make your website static and host it on a CDN. There's nothing expensive or thankless about it.

Stop over engineering.

tiborsaas• 8 days ago

How many free and easy options do you want me to list?

ValentineC3• 8 days ago

The fundamental problem with the internet is that hosting sucks and no one wants to do it. It's thankless and it's expensive to maintain, both time and money. Apps are a way to not worry about that.

Except it seems like plenty of apps these days are just vehicles to give web-based services some native abilities, so they're practically useless without a data connection.

deadbabe• 8 days ago

The reason people want an 'App' instead of a website is purely marketing related. Apps are sexy and native, and have better distribution. Websites are old, crappy things where you can't always control exactly what the user is going to see very well, and sharing a slick URL isn't always easy.

llm_nerd3• 8 days ago

By "marketing" do you mean "experience"? Because absolutely no one is marketing apps as being superior, but instead this is just the experience of users.

There's a weird conspiratorial thing that people do about this whole topic that is so easily debunked. For instance "Apple wanted apps more than PWAs!". Android powers about 73% of the world's smartphones, yet PWAs are irrelevant on the platform.

Web apps can be incredibly powerful, but there's just a massively lower bar in the web app domain, historically. Like people are used to the website being dogshit, a mishmash of broken functionality, terrible layout quirks, slow responsiveness, and so on. Because that is generally acceptable to the web community, where it is deadly to an app.

Like I think it's hilariously ironic that the website telling us that the app could have been a website is currently completely broken, unable to handle a relatively tiny amount of traffic.

abanana2• 8 days ago

Yes, "marketing". Ability to market your business, not marketing the concept of an app.

Businesses have an app developed because they feel the market demands it. Their marketing departments feel they have to be able to tell prospective customers "we have an app!" and if they can't, they feel they'll be seen as inferior, not with the times, thereby losing customers.

I totally agree with the article that apps shouldn't be the automatic first choice, but that's the way it is. We've reached the stage where it's seen by users as the default. App icons on the homescreen can be seen, for many, as the modern alternative to bookmarks in the browser. And regarding "sharing a slick URL isn't always easy", perhaps the App Store is, for many users, the modern alternative to Google Search?

svachalek2• 8 days ago

Because absolutely no one is marketing apps as being superior, but instead this is just the experience of users.

I guess you haven't used the mobile web? Practically any website you use covers half the page with a banner saying don't use the website, the app is SOOO much better.

ChrisMarshallNY3• 8 days ago

If that's the case, then I agree. Lots of crapplets should be Web pages (for example, almost every corporate app).

However, there's a lot of stuff that does, indeed, require a native app.

That's the stuff I like to do. Doesn't really scale to Web pages.

bobro• 8 days ago

examples?

ChrisMarshallNY3• 8 days ago

Nah, you can look at my GH profile, where I link to some open stuff, but I’m working on apps for a specialized demographic, right now, that don’t benefit from being HN hugged.

maelito• 8 days ago

Of course it should have been a Webpage. You can even code a whole modern map application on the Web, that's under 3 Mo gzipped, instead of the 600 Mo Java applications that we're served.

Dwedit• 8 days ago

A webpage cannot harvest your personal data in ways that an app can.

gwbas1c• 8 days ago

But at least I (and the rest of our group, whom I’ve shared it with) now get the choice about how we access this content.

What I want to know is: How many people actually used the website? How many people prefer the website?

It's easy to forget that many people use their computers (and phones) differently than the typical HNer.

Also: I wonder how easy/hard it is to do this with an LLM / vibecoding? Seems like there could be a Napster moment for bad apps where the LLM installs the app in a sandbox and makes educated guesses about how to turn it into a simple website.

carlosjobim5• 8 days ago

The question is: Why would anybody prefer a web-app over a native app in any kind of system or on any kind of device?

I think the answer is "only when there is no native app for the system I use", ie Linux.

So FOSS people want for apps to become much worse for everybody else, so that they can have the apps also through a web browser. Remembering that everybody else is who pays for the apps and all development, while FOSS people will never pay a dime to software developers.

carlosjobim5• 8 days ago

I invite down voters to make a reply explaining why users would prefer web apps to native apps, given the choice.

philipwhiuk5• 8 days ago

At least with web app I have a browser sandbox to protect my system.

max-privatevoid• 8 days ago

I encourage you to actually read the OP if you haven't, because I think it gives the most obvious example for that. That kind of app makes much more sense (for the user) to be a web app, especially when you don't intend to become a repeat customer.

rpdillon3• 8 days ago

I'm a "FOSS person" and spend a fair amount on apps that behave well. Just bought Brave Origin for $60 on Sunday, as an example.

I've been in the room when companies talk about web vs. app. It's always a business decision that basically comes down to "The LTV of app users is higher, because we live rent-free on their home screen and we can push notifications to get people to re-engage." Doesn't matter what company: apartment searches, rideshare, communications app, etc.

The reason I will always prefer web experiences is because:

* I have a user agent that I can configure the behavior of. I can examine, and even change, app behavior to suit my needs. I can intercept and black-hole telemetry. I can remove distracting UI elements. uBlock Origin allows me to do this. Vimium gives me a keyboard-centric interface to help avoid mouse usage, since lots of mousing gives me RSI.

* I write web apps that are self-contained HTML files. These are awesome because they endure. An app written that way will open in 20 years just as well as it does today. Tiddlywiki is a living example of this.

* Browsers provide a baseline of functionality: selecting, cutting, pasting, and editing all work the same (or can be made to). Apps randomly prevent me from selecting text, or pasting a password.

* Apps are a constant treadmill. Staying up to date with APIs and app store fees and reviews all cost money, which means apps have to make money. This discourages hobbiest coders from releasing cool tools like the did 15 years ago, but it's those apps, the ones made for fun or utility, not for profit, that tend to behave the best. App stores are selecting against the very thing that brings me the most value, in favor of what brings them the most value.

* Finally: control. App stores increasing think they should not only vend money-making software, but they should be the only source where users can go to get functionality. I reject this outright; it's my computer, I decide what runs on it. The web is the last bastion of this on mobile, so I prefer the web.

Evidlo• 8 days ago

I'll bite (I did not downvote). Why should I have to go to an app store to see text/images with occasional buttons that make GET/POST requests? This is what most "apps" in the world do.

The question should be reframed in the opposite direction: why do apps need to be siloed into multiple incompatible systems (appstores).

tcmart143• 8 days ago

FOSS enjoyer here. I actually prefer native apps. I already got too many tabs and windows opened with my browser(s) and also, I really hate when a web app decided to rearrange the UI and I have no clue until I am in it. With native apps, its seems like people are not as eager to change the UI and I also know the possibility is there when I see the update happen. I can also generally look at the version number and see its a patch release, so generally, my UI should not have changed.

david-moore• 8 days ago

If you're having any trouble loading it, it is cached here: https://archive.ph/ByFBN

pknerd• 8 days ago

Yeah, it can be, but who'd take care of distribution and making money?

0xdeadbeefbabe• 8 days ago

Either a 43MB app (ballooning to 124MB when it’s finished downloading extra content) with tracking and advertisements… or a 0.05MB web page (with an optional extra 35MB of images)

That ought to work better for people who don't have fancy phones and data plans. I've heard they exist somewhere.

glasffordd• 8 days ago

Booking a flight on the website and then being told I need the app just to see my boarding pass drives me nuts.

stronglikedan2• 8 days ago

I can sort of understand that - device attestation and all. And it's still a choice since you can go to the airline's counter at the airport to get a boarding pass.

mavleop• 8 days ago

If it's frontier, as much as they want to make you think you need the app, if you lookup the trip manually on the site (using your confirmation code), you can download it from the web

timnetworks• 8 days ago

Unless the app is better than Chrome or Safari, make it a website. The world is a difficult place because of dolts that think others are as dumb as they are. People are okay to use a browser. Nobody wants your stupid app.

eightturn• 8 days ago

I love it when folks get fired up and fix things and use uplifting cuss words. a+

Magicrafter13• 8 days ago

100% agree with this.

I've been wanting to write an article on a very similar topic myself for some time now. Perhaps I'll finish it and share it here. Absolutely done with this modern 'convenience' and app culture.

brunoborges• 8 days ago

Choosing to do an app is quite often less about the capabilities (of an app on the phone, versus a website in a mobile browser) and more about discoverability and market reach. App Stores serve a "store window" purpose, where it is easy to search, easy to discover, easy to access new tools/solutions.

What annoys me is not that "this app could've been a webpage". It is that "this app should also have a web version".

TripIt comes to mind as the opposite way: they started as a website only, and quickly the need to have an app was obvious: GPS integration, offline access, contact list for sharing, and more.

jonathanlydall• 8 days ago

Websites like Reddit love to say “it’s better in the app”, except it should have this added to that sentence: “for us, not so much for you”.

philote• 8 days ago

More like "We can track you better in the app"

Invictus0• 8 days ago

One of the most annoying things about hacker news is these random hills it dies on. people like apps, they prefer the experiences they provide. not everyone wants to use vim to interact with the internet

philipwhiuk5• 8 days ago

With only a couple of minutes experimentation I discovered that the app works by concatenating the username and password5 and using it in a URL of the form:

yikes

57016524002• 8 days ago

"I did not like the app and their service, so I am breaking the law because I am so smart"

philipwhiuk5• 8 days ago

None of this is illegal.

57016524002• 8 days ago

really? did you even read T&C of that app?

https://www.travelbound.co.uk/terms-and-conditions/

hoherd• 8 days ago

I was recently raving about how NYC's metro payment system OMNI doesn't require an app, so you can use whatever contactless payment device you already have to get around NYC. That characteristic makes it so easy to just slide into the metro without having to deal with unfamiliar apps and all the mental overhead that comes with them on top of all the mental stress and sensory overload that comes with traveling.

progforlyfe• 8 days ago

YES!!! I fucking hate all these stupid web-pages-as-Apps

staticshock• 8 days ago

Low-tech users don't give a damn if something has the guts of an "app" or not, they care about having a thing on the home screen they can click.

Businesses have the incentive to give their users that low friction experience (at the point of need) using already familiar rails (i.e. "install app from app store").

The makers of both iOS and Android treat the ability to "bookmark" a web URL onto your home screen as a power user feature that requires navigating through complex, technical-sounding menus. Does it have to be like that? Of course not. They just have a business interest in pushing users away from the open web and towards their walled gardens.

Mind you, I'm not saying, "advertising doesn't play a role in this". A clump of well aligned motivations is obviously going to be more powerful than a single isolated motivation. But let's not forget that apps built for non-technical users, which—I cannot stress this enough—IS MOST USERS, benefit greatly from lowest common denominator solutions where they never feel like they have to learn anything to get going.

titanomachy2• 8 days ago

Yes, this is the answer. It’s easy to forget if you live in a tech bubble, but there are probably billions of smartphone users who don’t even know how to type a url into a browser and navigate to it.

I’ve worked on projects where we ran this experiment, and the success rate of “install this app and click on it” is several times higher than “navigate to this webpage every time you want to use our tool”.

One small correction though, android has made it easier to add a “progressive web app” to the home screen now. You can prompt the user with a dialog asking if they want to install it. I think there was at least some period where Google was really encouraging PWAs. iOS still sucks. I’ve had very poor success rates in getting users to install our PWA using the iOS workflow (and our tool is something they need for their jobs, so they are highly motivated to install it).

wbobeirne• 8 days ago

The makers of both iOS and Android treat the ability to "bookmark" a web URL onto your home screen as a power user feature that requires navigating through complex, technical-sounding menus.

Not the case on many Android browsers, you can present the user with a button to do this for them by listening for the `beforeinstallprompt` event. There are some requirements to meet for that, but it's a pretty user-friendly way to push your PWA to the home screen: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web...

catuscubitus• 8 days ago

My app already is a webpage. I made Android and iOS apps for years. Got fed up with the arbitrary roadblocks, erratic whims of store reviewers, and general bureaucracy involved. Pushing a simple fix would sometimes be delayed for days and a couple of weeks in the worst case I experienced. Now I can deploy patches immediately and no one needs to download or update anything on their device. Abandoning those walled garden regimes was one of the best things I ever did.

jcmontx2• 8 days ago

Something the author doesn't mention as a pro for the web is my favorite type of tech: browser extensions. I love web because I can basically customize pretty much everything to my needs.

I have published a few of them in the last few years, and I have tens of them which I haven't published. I use them for tons of different things:

* allowing only text tweets on X

* blocking photos and videos on all Meta products

* blocking explicit content

* customizing exchange rates for online shopping (Argentine peso, you wouldn't get it™)

* having reddit hot as default for the home and subreddits (they been pushing the "best" for a couple years and it's actually trash)

browser extensions have allowed me to regain some of my cognitive sovereignty while being a heavy internet user.

titanomachy2• 8 days ago

It’s a pro for you (the user), but I’m sure Disney (or whoever made this app) cares very very little about this, or treats it as a negative.

georgemcbay• 8 days ago

I’m sure Disney (or whoever made this app) cares very very little about this, or treats it as a negative.

Virtually every company will treat it as a negative as the first thing most users are going to do if you allow them 100% experience customization is remove all the ads.

da02• 8 days ago

Are these Chrome extensions? How did you learn to write them?

turtlebits• 8 days ago

I use the tampermonkey extension (formerly greasemonkey). AI is fairly good for writing scripts.

jcmontx2• 8 days ago

they are just js scripts and a manifest for permissions. it's like game-mod scripting but for the web. ask any llm and they'll guide you through

stevage2• 8 days ago

Ah, blocking all videos on Facebook is such a good idea. Can you share your script?

amelius• 8 days ago

Someone should design a webpage that can run native iOS/Android apps. That will teach them.

khalic• 8 days ago

I’ll always remember that dumb Wired headline screaming “the web is dead” a decade or so ago… nah I’m happy with whatever crappy webpage, thank you very much

fguerraz• 8 days ago

The strong language is fully appropriate given the circumstances.

frankus• 8 days ago

The list of things that require an app rather than a web page was pretty long circa 2010, but it's quite a bit shorter now: it's mostly hardware access (Bluetooth/NFC), background activities (like background app refresh), persisting location permission, reliable offline storage, and system/OS integration (widgets/live activities, Siri shortcuts).

If done for the right reasons, a native app could theoretically be a bit more power- and bandwidth-efficient for a given level of polish.

But usually what you're getting is some cross-platform mystery meat UI, a boatload of tracking, and no real system/OS integration (because it isn't trivial to do from whatever cross-platform environment they chose).

paulddraper3• 8 days ago

something that could have been a (smaller, faster, more universally-accessible)

Full circle.

I remember when people were complaining that native was smaller, faster, and had richer accessibility integration.

tingletech• 8 days ago

depending on the age of the children, could it be designed this way for people who are not allowed to access the internet generally, but their parents will let them have the app installed for vacation?

dumpHero2• 8 days ago

I actually prefer apps because I don't have to wait for each page to load, initialize, see the UI shifting a 100 times. If I had to open webpages for things I use regularly, that would drive me insane. Maybe that says something about web dev standards

baud9600• 8 days ago

I remember when Steve Jobs stood on stage and complained about Flash, how he hated its dominance of the free web, how it was a heavy and proprietary technology that prevented mobile devices from participating. His solution? To adopt the latest HTML standards… and also to build responsive apps. But now some apps have become heavy, advertising-bound, subscription nightmares. So it’s back to HTML, right?

DonHopkins• 8 days ago

I want my lickable pixels back.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46581424

nolok4• 8 days ago

They now make 30% of those, no matter the amount of effort, and that part of their business is growing fast in terms of revenues, so no I think even Steve Jobs wouldn't be reverting to html. He was not annoyed about the closed garden, he was annoyed that it wasn't his.

Another lesson here is about how Adobe screwed that up when they had control, but then again they never wanted Flash they just wanted to kill Macromedia, by the time someone woke up over there it was way too late and even Air was too little too late.

CharlesW• 8 days ago

He was not annoyed about the closed garden, he was annoyed that it wasn't his.

Those are reasonable guesses, but as someone who was at Apple at the time (in developer relations, with Adobe/Macromedia among my developers), neither of those were Steve's primary annoyances with Flash. The actual annoyances were that the Flash runtime was (1) slow and (2) very crashy compared to the Windows version.

The former mattered because it created/reinforced a perception that Macs were slow. The latter mattered because it created/reinforced a perception that Macs were unstable, and it created a lot of expensive support calls. (For quite some time, the Flash runtime was the #1 cause of Mac crashes.)

There's more to this story (Adobe was threatening Apple on other fronts), but IMO Steve did the right thing by responding to a toxic partner in the way that he did.

Zak3• 8 days ago

I once read that app users are seven times more profitable than web users. That easily answers the author's question about why a company would bother make an app when a web page is the natural fit for the use case.

I don't remember the source or methodology for that number, but I have no trouble believing it. An app gives the developer a foothold on the user's device. It can more easily send notifications, track the user's location, resist customization like ad blocking, and remain present on the user's device even when closed. It's easier to funnel users into profitable behavior with an app.

Companies wouldn't do this if a large fraction of users refused the app, but most users don't.

nolok4• 8 days ago

I mean, I don't know if that's a generation thing or what but as much as I'm comfortable using my phone, and ordering things in my phone's apps, when it's a website and I'm on mobile I always feel an urge to go to my desktop or laptop to check and do it there, I don't "trust" mobile websites as they always seem to give a limited set of information. Or at least that's the vibe I'm getting.

nchmy2• 8 days ago

What generation are you?

rhines• 8 days ago

Interesting. I'm 29 and hate downloading apps on phone or pc, if I can use a website I'll choose that every time. Unless performance matters like a game or media editor.

cozzyd• 8 days ago

I'm fine using my mobile browser for things. What I'm not fine on is using the, um, internet intent thing that comes up when you click on a link in slack or email or something and isn't actually you're browser and if you switch applications it might go away forever?

tempestn• 8 days ago

And in fact, a significant subset of users will pester you to make an app, even if your website can and does do everything an app could do.

jambalaya82• 8 days ago

There are actually apps which will "appify" webpages/websites for Android, or were the last time I needed one. They've been aroubd a long time. I assume they still exist.

Zak3• 8 days ago

That's so opposite to my preferences that I'd be really interested in the results of someone studying that group of users.

I do like local native software, preferably using the native UI toolkit, filesystem and features of the device hardware not necessarily available to the browser. That doesn't describe most commercial mobile apps in 2026.

SoftTalker• 8 days ago

Apps bypass ad and tracking blockers too. They do have OS permissions as a potential roadblock, but most users just click "OK" on those prompts the first time when they install or open the app.

a_imho• 7 days ago

I have seen this or similar metrics cited as a reason for forcing customers into apps, but imo it is misguided in a measure-becomes-the target way.

DANmode3• 7 days ago

I once read that app users are seven times more profitable than web users

Drug sales are often profitable.

drunken_thor• 8 days ago

The terrible thing is that everything is moving to apps so that the developers can get more access to the user's fingerprint and get more data. Get access to photos, location ect. All webpages that suddenly have an app, which in my experience ends up having less functionality than the website, are quite simply there to get data, and be able to push notifications. They are parasitic. I miss the days when an app was the better offering but it isn't anymore.

qurren• 8 days ago

The absolute worst is the rare Wi-Fi hotspots in China that require you to install an app in order to connect to the Wi-Fi.

nsxwolf• 8 days ago

Your app could have been a webpage with a cookie banner

OkayPhysicist2• 8 days ago

Nobody here is talking about the fact that a significant number of users want apps, too.

I'm responsible for an internal tool at the company I work for, hosted as a website, that handles a bunch of miscellaneous tasks that other employees need. Think reimbursements, documentation and reporting, gathering and presenting business data. That sort of thing.

When I took it over, it was desktop only ( a lot of <table> formatted pages with fixed px sizes). I spruced it up, modernized it to work on screens of any size, and created a mobile version of any pages that just didn't translate well to small screens (think "large tables of information").

When I announced the update, the number of people who asked me variations of "how to get website on phone if website on computer" or requested I make the damn thing an app was outrageous.

We take tech literacy for granted, because it's like a dozen levels down fundamental to our entire field. But the tech illiterati exist, and they love apps.

nitwit0052• 8 days ago

That sounds less like wanting apps, than simply having no idea what's going on.

OkayPhysicist2• 8 days ago

Honestly, they probably would have been perfectly happy with a bookmark on their home screen, but have you ever tried walking someone who doesn't know how to enter a url into their browser through the process of making a home page bookmark on their phone?

Ultimately I ended up making a PWA that does nothing except act as a bookmark. Which was way more of a PITA than it should have been.

skyberrys• 8 days ago

Most of the users of phones seem to operate on the no idea what's going on model. It's on developers to meet them where they are at, and if that's the app store you better be there for them.

adamddev1• 8 days ago

I really wish PWAs were more well-known among average users. If people knew and expected they could install certain websites as apps, that would simplify things so much and really balance the power of the app stores.

giraffe_lady• 8 days ago

Unfortunately apple accomplished their goal of killing that entire idea. The time for it to take off was 10 years ago. They begrudgingly support it now but it's too late. gg

jbverschoor• 8 days ago

My problem with PWA, is that it usually completely ruins the multiple tabs/windows of the same app/data

realusername• 8 days ago

It's not well known because it's annoying to install ... and it's annoying to install because the stores are huge cash printing machines so that's not going to change.

reaperducer• 8 days ago

When I announced the update, the number of people who asked me variations of "how to get website on phone if website on computer" or requested I make the damn thing an app was outrageous.

I had a similar experience. It was mostly lower- and middle-managers who needed to put their mark on something visible.

I responded with, "Tell me what features you want the app to have that the web site doesn't; or is this a vanity project?" The "vanity project" line is what made people re-think what they were asking.

When that didn't work, I pointed out that they'd have to hire an entire new team to do the app, and gave them a high six-figure number to accomplish what they wanted.† That always worked.

† For a number of regulatory and political reasons, we cannot offshore for cheap.

hadlock• 8 days ago

If the app store allowed you to install bookmarks, I doubt most people would notice.

groby_b2• 8 days ago

It does. It's called a PWA.

notnullorvoid2• 8 days ago

The Google Play store did (maybe still does?) allow installing some PWAs advertised as light versions of the apps.

jonahx3• 8 days ago

We take tech literacy for granted, because it's like a dozen levels down fundamental to our entire field. But the tech illiterati exist, and they love apps.

They "love apps" because apple and android have spent billions to break their mental models and convince them that "you use apps to do things on your phone". Literally. That's the extent of most people's understanding.

So, sure, they "want" apps in the same sense that early internet users "wanted" AOL because in their minds AOL and the internet were indistinguishable. But actual free choice requires an understanding of the choices.

montag• 8 days ago

That is a great analogy! I still remember the day my cousin explained that there was a whole internet outside of AOL…

adamwk• 8 days ago

This doesn’t really make sense. Apps were pretty popular immediately after decades of web usage. There are many reasons to prefer an app. Even on desktop; if I’m using a service enough throughout the day, I want a native app, not a website.

jxdxbx• 8 days ago

No, because I used a computer before web apps took over and native software is a better experience.

Silasdev• 8 days ago

My take is that they love apps for the simple reason they show as easily clickable buttons to enter. Most dread having to type a Web address for something they regularly do. Few know that they can create an "app-icon" from any Web page. Should be advertised more.

cyberrock• 8 days ago

To most modern users, web browsers kinda suck if they don't know URLs. For example, if they want to find an item they saw on Amazon, searching it in browser history just sucks compared to the in-service search.

A lot of users also use browsers like they use their Desktop folder, which is to say they have 100s of tabs open. The fact that apps enforce quitting and limited state is a plus to them, hence mobile Chrome adding an automatic inactive tabs cleanup feature (which mobile FF removed for some reason?).

Browsers really should've adapted to this reality with some UI/UX changes, like showing relevant site history. But none of them are actually interested in improving UI/UX, and the few changes that do get through just piss off long-term users.

herval3• 7 days ago

webapps are inefficient, clunky, slow substitutes to actual native apps. I think decades of marketing and billions spent by Google trying to convince people that webapps are better is what makes many tech people think they are. Literally.

People "want" webapps to be what users "wanted" bc it pays their salary...

EduardoBautista• 5 days ago

I “love apps” because it’s less likely to be bloated electron crap or browser based. It’s easier for me to review code on the GitHub iOS app than in the browser because performance is much better.

bonoboTP• 8 days ago

If pinning website bookmarks was more prominently advertised in the UI, they would be fine with it I guess. Though it would need some more changes.

Why do people like apps? Because they can put it on their home screen, they can open the app list and pick from there, they are searchable in a canonical repository, which is kind of like googling for the website but still.

Multiple apps can be switched between by just moving between the currently opened apps, while website tabs appear inside the browser only and are mixed with many other unrelated browsing tabs, making it harder to find.

I guess fundamentally all of these could be supported with browsers. But in the end, Google and Apple don't want to make bookmarks and independent persistent "browser windows" easier.

overgard2• 8 days ago

I think you're right, but I think it's also because the industry trained everyone on this model. I remember ~ 2010-2012 there was a big push to make everything an app. As far as I can tell the only benefit to users is a nice icon on the home page, and the benefit for the company is.. exfiltrating data from the users phone?

0x4572• 8 days ago

When I say I want an app that implies a few things:

- this isn't a one-off use, I don't want an app to pay parking meter once and never use it again.

- it's an app and not a WebView pretending to be native

- it's native and not react-wanna-be-native

- you know how to make an app

I have to use this app to open a parcel locker and every time I launch it I have to wait for "downloading bundle". It's probably the easiest kind of app to make and yet somehow they made it worse then a website.

wodenokoto3• 8 days ago

But take parents example. What is it you want the app version to do that a decent website can’t do?

Akronymus5• 7 days ago

this isn't a one-off use, I don't want an app to pay parking meter once and never use it again

Just today I ran into a parkingmeter that was covered up in favor of ONLY allowing to pay via app. Which I find horrendous. (austria, for context)

EGreg2• 8 days ago

On iOS, I think the only two reasons to have an app are: notifications and access to contacts.

tlh• 8 days ago

Rich widgets on the Home Screen are valuable too. As a web developer, I wish I were able to make widgets for people to put on their Home Screen to perform certain actions in less clicks, or have information from my (web) apps easily viewable at a glance. Which I know they would want. Right now, as far as I’m aware, for me to do that in iOS (and possibly Android) is to build those in native land.

TheSkyHasEyes• 8 days ago

FTA

I can’t understand how we got to this place with “app culture”
Nobody here is talking about the fact that a significant number of users want apps, too.

End users, for the most part don't know what they want. They take when makes sense to them. To end users apps are easy. To us, a URL is easy.

But the tech illiterati exist, and they love apps.

Yup!! And we get sucked into this vortex at times. Good post btw.

40four• 8 days ago

Okay I guess? So then you politely answer to them the “app” is their web browser of choice! Problem solved

j1elo• 8 days ago

As not a web dev, out of curiosity: What would be the drawback or problem with showing a header or pop-up on mobile browsers, offering to install them as (web)app? Then using the PWA functionality of the browser to do it.

I'm not a heavy user of those but the result of PWAs has always been an icon that's handled by the OS like if it was any other native app, and when opened it just behaves like the web browser in kiosk mode just for that website.

wlesieutre• 8 days ago

Would be great, but at least on iOS the only way to add a PWA to your home screen is via the share menu. Apple would need to support that header pop-up to install the PWA and they won’t unless someone makes them.

Nursie• 8 days ago

What would be the drawback or problem with showing a header or pop-up on mobile browsers, offering to install them as (web)app?

In this world, every single site now pops up asking to be installed. No thanks.

da_chicken• 8 days ago

End users don't care about if it's an app or not.

What they care about:

- Does it do what I need it to

- Can I access it easily

- Is it easy to navigate

- Does it work or is it buggy

- Is it slow

- Does it abuse notifications

- Is it prompting me to log in all the time

- Are there too many ads

- Can I use it on any device I have

- Does it complain about updating constantly

I don't think any of those actually has to do with being a website. The problem is that web browsers and websites didn't get a not-stupid UI for phones faster than the phone vendors could funnel everyone into their walled garden. Remember "click here for mobile" and having to develop two web interfaces? And half the time functions would be missing on one side?

swishman3• 8 days ago

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills reading these comments. Apps are clearly better for end users.

HTML and css is SUPER slow. It doesn't feel native, it doesn't feel good to use.

You also get so many weird glitches with state refreshing, sessions being cleared, log in not persisting.

Has anyone here actually used a PWA? You can feel that it's slow and clunky. Apps feel SO much better with the native UI, pre-downloaded, much faster etc.

DANmode3• 8 days ago

Wrap the page in an app and publish to app store.

Can someone explain why this isn’t obvious?

LAC-Tech2• 8 days ago

My PWA skills are rusty, but IIRC it's one click on Android to install web page as an "app" (ie it appears on the home screen like anything else), and it was about 3 in Safari - perhaps a onerous for B2C, but surely not for internal users.

So you can easily make an "App" for normies, from a web page.

nektro2• 8 days ago

the benefit of apps is they don't break. websites update out from under you and the web expects browsers to always be evergreen

_carbyau_2• 8 days ago

the benefit of apps is they don't break

What world do you live in? Apps are either enshittified with updates, or the content source the app was using is broken in similar ways to a normal website.

The only way you avoid this are sideloaded non-networked apps - which are not the usual.

AussieWog93• 8 days ago

The "uhm, ackshually" responses to this comment are insane.

solarized• 8 days ago

We take tech literacy for granted, because it's like a dozen levels down fundamental to our entire field. But the tech illiterati exist, and they love apps.

LOL. Kindly do this prompt to any LLM : "critize this statement, or any logical fallacy inside"

Try applying the same level of skepticism to your own statements before posting them on HN.

mvdtnz• 8 days ago

When I announced the update, the number of people who asked me variations of "how to get website on phone if website on computer" or requested I make the damn thing an app was outrageous.

This level of technical illiteracy shouldn't be tolerated in the workplace in 2026. We all work on computers all day, there's simply no excuse for being incapable of basic computer operations. Upskill or get out.

deminature• 8 days ago

I encountered something similar recently. I put a lot of effort into making a PWA mobile-optimized version of my product which is effective an app in a browser. And I was flooded by user feedback saying they simply would not use the product until there was an app available. There is little option but to create an app in this environment, or face disinterest from potential customers. And the internet is shockingly mobile-focused nowadays, 80-90% of traffic is coming from mobile devices. So not having an app is death for your business.

Apple will also not approve a straight web browser in an app wrapper, there's a specific rule that disallows this, so you have to make some good faith effort to implement it natively or not be allowed on the App Store.

culi• 8 days ago

so add a manifest.json and give them instructions on how to install a PWA

baranul• 8 days ago

Nobody here is talking about the fact that a significant number of users want apps, too.

This is true, as it depends on the nature of what is being presented and if offline usability is preferred or doable.

Everything as a website, can arguably be an equally bad fit for situations, as everything as an app. Flexibility and careful study is required.

palata13• 7 days ago

I came here to say that a significant number of developers want apps, too. Including me. For many reasons including performance. But the one I want to mention here is security, because it systematically gets missed by web people:

End-to-end encryption fundamentally doesn't work in webpages. Because when you load a webpage, you have a 1:1 connection to the server which sends you the code you need to run. You have to trust that the server sends you the right code, every single time, and there is no practical way to verify it. The whole point of E2EE is that you don't trust the server, and with a webpage you fundamentally trust the server. That's completely incompatible.

Let's compare the Signal mobile app and the ProtonMail website:

- With Signal, you can audit the sources, compile them and run that. You know you are running the code you audited. You can trust someone else to audit the code, compile it and run it. Or you can just download it through the Play Store and know that tens (hundreds?) of millions of people did that too. If you download it through the Play Store, you can "verify" your app with someone else, making sure that Google didn't send you a modified version (which would have required Signal and Google to collude in the first place). You know when the app is updated. If it matters for your life, you can make sure you benefit from end-to-end encryption.

- With ProtonMail, you load a website. Everytime you load it, the sources could change. When you enter your password, you enter it in that very code that the server just sent you. So the server could identify you, and just this one time, send you a different version of the code, just for you, that would leak your password to them. You don't have any way to pin a version of the website and compare it with others, and there is no need for Proton to collude with anyone else to do that (it's a lot easier when no collusion is needed).

Again: end-to-end encryption fundamentally does not work with webpages.

clodecloud• 8 days ago

And then there’s websites that should be apps

dudeWithAMood• 8 days ago

I did something similar (though I used a slightly different method to intercept traffic) to make the US version of the Costco app better: www.97cost.co

I'm only surfacing two api requests that Costco's app is using, but even with a server as a middle man between the browser and Costo's backend this is way faster than the app.

Source: https://github.com/DavidZirinsky/costco-deals

user2722• 8 days ago

I thought he had created an website which ran an APK server-side and was loadable in a browser. Oh well.

pvtmert• 8 days ago

  > With only a couple of minutes experimentation I discovered that the app works by concatenating the username and password5 and using it in a URL of the form:

In 2026, these terrible practices still common. Meanwhile we are discussing the LLM generated code quality, the race to the bottom continues...

bearjaws• 8 days ago

I don't think an LLM would propose this terrible method ever, at least not any of the big 3.

esjeon• 8 days ago

App = Information × Interface = User Experience

It's ×(multiplication), not +(plus). Interface is not simply overlaid on Information; it actively changes how information is perceived and used, thus User Experience (UX).

Users have limited screen space, attention time, context retention, etc. So, apps must be wise about what information matters at any given moment, and make the best out of those limited resources.

Developers have been crazy about this: A/B testing, CVR, retention, churn, LTV, ARPU, DAU/MAU, North Star Metrics. Deploy and analyze, develop and optimize, rinse and repeat, and apps end up as revenue-generating machines.

A side effect of this optimization loop is that, apps become a designed thinking process for users. Apps decide what to show, what to hide, what to emphasize, and what comes next. They actively shape how people see and think, all to lure them into spending money.

So, "this could have been a webpage" misses the point of what apps are for, and, by extension, who apps are for.

Still, I see a bit of potential here. Document is a natural user interface -- almost all apps, including even SPAs, have document-like or document-driven views. Perhaps we've been too obsessed with computer-program-like UI. Documents can always be dynamic and interactive without being overdesigned. Perhaps this is what folks wanted to point out.

audioh4cker• 8 days ago

I recently made a "mobile app" that was hosted as a web page with a mobile-friendly UI. Went on my search browser and saved it as a shortcut. Easy work around for testing it on a mobile interface.

cwoolfe• 8 days ago

How can we collectively fix apps/websites that are so poorly built that they take 10 minutes and 100 taps on your smartphone just to do something that could have been done in a minute? Companies put out an app/website as the only way to interface with them, you just have to deal with it. I've daydreamed about starting an agency which scouts bad apps and offers to fix them, as a sort of public service.

yard2010• 8 days ago

Why not both? In Prepbook[0] (shameless plug) we created a web app, then used it to make a native app. You can use whatever you want. I like both. The native app though gives an objectively better experience - you can set timers on the OS level, open recipes in the app using the OS native share menu, etc.

We worked hard so you don't have to vibe code your way to get the experience you prefer.

[0] https://prepbook.app

rosstex• 8 days ago

Y'all are missing a huge benefit of apps: offline use. The #1 reason I download apps for every booking website I use for example.

VladVladikoff2• 8 days ago

Love your username! Great book. It’s a shame he’s been cast into obscurity because of his personal life. You mean someone who writes lots of dark fiction is a deeply dark and troubled soul himself! Gasp!

alkonaut• 8 days ago

I usually prefer apps to sites if there’s any usability improvement over the webpage - which there usually is.

If the app just shows a webpage then no.

overgard2• 8 days ago

I haven't gotten to it, but I've been meaning to update my personal site from wordpress to just be statically rendered markdown I publish. I realized that I don't want the security surface area, and the features it offers are more or less things I don't even want anymore (post comments, text editor, analytics, etc.) I pretty much just want a static thing I can put on a CDN and never worry about ever again until I have an update. I already designed my (unlaunched) business site that way and I'm very happy with it.

BoorishBears• 8 days ago

Articles like this stress me out because they make me feel wildly out of touch by proxy

Like on most other technical opinions this person has I probably agree, but they're so absolutely wrong (for the majority of modern consumers you will fail without an app) that it makes me wonder what other seemingly obvious things we're both completely wrong about.

jack09268• 8 days ago

Treefort [1], the company where I work, provides a no-code cross-platform app builder (iOS, Android, web) for streaming apps, and probably the only really big feature we've noticed that browsers don't support is media downloads for offline listing/watching in an app, although that might actually be possible now [2].

That said it seems like we're constantly coming across things that are sub par or sometimes broken on the web that work in native apps. E.g. autoplay, background playback (TBH this is a real pain on Android too [3]), notifications, and there's probably more.

For instance, I've spent a good chunk of time today and yesterday battling the address bar on mobile Safari, which sometimes animates up/down, changing window.innerHeight, while we're trying to run an animation, leading to some layout issues.

This is really unfortunate because for a host of reasons the web is so much nicer to develop for than the App Store/Play Store, and all of the missing features are things that browsers could support.

[1] https://treefortsystems.com [2] https://web.dev/articles/pwa-with-offline-streaming [3] https://dontkillmyapp.com

koolba• 8 days ago

I like apps to sequester authentication. Not for everything, but nice to keep some things only authenticated in their own walled garden.

hackermeows• 8 days ago

The no copy paste of visible text(have to take a screenshot then select) and in app browsers fucking annoys me the most . These two are IMO the Worst UX pattern that affect me every day .

MiddleEndian• 8 days ago

Most of the time, I want neither. No I don't want the ticketmaster app (or DICE). I may need to visit a website to buy a ticket, but after that just email me a QR code or something. Even worse, I found myself at Royale in Boston and they wanted me to install yet another app to check my coat. I hid my coat under a chair instead and have not returned to the venue since then.

The example from the article:

This summer, the kids’ performing arts school are singing and dancing in a show at Disneyland. We’re all very excited, but my excitement, at least, was muted a little when I was told to install the “Travelbound” app in order to get access to the itinerary, travel arrangements, and accommodation details.

I don't need an app for this or website for this. Just email me the information and let me put it in my calendar and then leave me alone.

stevage2• 8 days ago

Yeah I was considering buying tickets for something recently, then discovered the only option is to install an app just to buy the damn ticket.

No. Damn. Way.

VladVladikoff2• 8 days ago

Where does the legality with this lie? I’ve read cases where someone was jailed just for changing the ID in a url parameter. If you are intercepting network requests and then replaying them (with modifications?) in you own custom code, I bet under some laws this is “hacking”. Personally I would be afraid to post publicly that I’ve done this, seems like it could be used as an admission of guilt in a trial.

QuercusMax• 8 days ago

One problem with PWAs, at least on Android, is that if you save one to your home screen, it may get borked or deleted the next time there's an OS or app update. Chrome has eaten my home screen shortcuts too many times!

bizzybeezy• 8 days ago

OMG! I am dead. I don’t think I laughed out loud in about a month. It’s been an oddly humorless summer so far. But this made me feel alive. I literally installed on of these shitty apps for my boss for a work trip to a museum leadership retreat-all the information in the app was redundant and sent to us in form of emails, calendar invites, pdf attachments all of which were printed out -and all of them were slightly different in detail. Another variant of this fucking nightmare is an app my boss had to download a month earlier that “page gate” style force you to interact with an ai chat bot to chat about what was maybe 5 pages of conference content

syngrog66• 8 days ago

a lot of the modern web could just be plain text files. or simple static HTML or Markdown for links and embedded images.

pooploop64• 8 days ago

I wish there hadn't been that weird conspiracy against bookmarks that google and mozilla collaborated on. I keep trying to get back into the habit of using bookmarks, but I keep forgetting they exist again whenever the bookmark bar turns itself off for no reason.

While I'm at it, also screw mozilla for messing up the browser history so badly.

-ev0ve-2• 8 days ago

Very interesting. Whosever wrote the codes and supporting this mechanism, "https://travelbound.api.vamoos.com/api/itineraries/{username...". I would run away from that person as far as I can. :)

-ev0ve-2• 8 days ago

Very interesting. Whoever wrote codes and design this mechanism, "https://travelbound.api.vamoos.com/api/itineraries/{username...". I would stay far away from that person as possible. :)

Animats• 8 days ago

Nice. Would someone please port the Waymo and Uber apps to web sites? And put them on F-Droid? Thank you.

11mariom• 8 days ago

I tend not to use websites that forces me to use their app. If users want it - make it existing, but DO NOT force other users to install your app if they want to just use the mobile web experience.

zenith605• 7 days ago

This resonates with me. I recently built a community site (user submissions, votes, comments, Google login) as a plain static page on free hosting, with a hosted Postgres behind it. No app, no server of my own. People assume you need an app or at least a backend for anything interactive, but the modern web platform covers far more than most product teams give it credit for. The whole thing costs me $11/year for the domain.

leecommamichael• 7 days ago

How you distribute software is a consequence of the user’s relationship with it. If I “take a number” online for the License Office before driving in, that most certainly shouldn’t be an app. Installing is harder than “taking a number.”

Apps are great for tools which the user needs to depend on regularly. A consequence of this is that apps shouldn’t change their UI too frequently.

louraider• 7 days ago

Personally, I hate installing apps, especially when that's required. So web pages are the deal.

tlhunter• 7 days ago

I just want icons that I can click from my home screen (eg PWA).

Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)

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