I'm an Android developer, I usually spot a non native app immediately and the flaws in the ui are really annoying. Web apps are even worse.
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2023
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Asklemmy
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To me, properly optimized native apps tend to be less-bloated than their web equivalents. Have you ever used "RIF is fun" for reddit? It is amazing, lots of tiny UI optimizations make it a pleasure to consume content much faster than scrolling up and down reddit's UI for both links and comments
Jerboa is almost 70 times bigger than the PWA ...
Are you going to ignore the rest of what I wrote? lol
Have you ever used βRIF is funβ for reddit? It is amazing, lots of tiny UI optimizations make it a pleasure to consume content much faster than scrolling up and down redditβs UI for both links and comments
The app just feels better/faster. Think of this way: a webapp = browser + pwa. You have all of the resource requirements of the browser itself, plus whatever it needs to render the html/css of the webapp running on top of that. many webapps are just written so poorly (like the new reddit page) that the browser struggles to do simple things like smooth scrolling). Plus being native means there is better support for things like save/print dialogs, themes/dark mode, helper apps/intents, etc)
If none of this matters to you and a webapp feels ok to you, that's great! use what you want! I'm happy for you
But you came in here asking why people prefer native apps and we gave you an answer, you don't have to be antagonistic
PWAs work for sure, but you can really tell its just a full screen mobile website in a vast majority of cases. I am in no way saying PWAs are bad, but with apps that hook into APIs you have much wider latitude for how the data is presented and design choices
Can't you just write a new web frontend? without having to write an entire app?
That is a possability
so why do people asks for mobile apps instead of alternative web frontends (besides iOS users that are locked by apple)
man mobile apps are just a needless burden to carry around. instance owners are the ones who moderate them as well, like its a one-man band. instances that arent breaking down and that get to be quickly upgraded are the fittest to survive. we dont need to accomodate ios users and we dont need apps that uploads videos in 4k quality, and ones that include the rest of the bells and wisstles. i really hope that things stay this way and i hope we stay a minority, that way our communities stay healthy and sustainable. once quantity starts to be valued more over quality thats when the ends begins and things start to get worse for everyone. i am π―% on ur side.
A lot of the people coming in right now are specifically protesting Reddit due to the shut down of their preferred third party apps, especially Apollo, an iOS exclusive. Android has Jerboa and PWAs, but on iOS we just have the site (and mlem, but itβs very early days there). I think that if/when old Reddit gets shut down, the resulting exodus from that will not care as much about app access, as they were using the web previously.
The experience on the website is awful on mobile, while it's fairly good on desktop
ok, but if this is the issue you can ask for a better mobile website instead of a mobile app
Awful? I actually like it a lot. Why do you think itβs awful?
The UX is trash and it's graphically unappealing
I use Jerboa as an app forLemmzy and it doesn't really feel bloated. I am also a big fan of Infinity for reddit.
Jerboa is 17 MB while the PWA is 248 kb almost 70 times bigger
The website is unusable to me on a mobile browser. The experience is just awful.
I'm using Lemmy from the mobile website while Jerboa still doesn't let me do some things (at least in the weekend, don't know if it's updated) and it almost 70 times bigger than the PWA
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