But my god, they are SO pushy.
More on topic: I'm curious why we tolerate these horrible experiences on the web. Technically savvy people can't be the only ones infuriated by these dark patterns, yet I don't often see my non-tech friends complaining about it.
I also don't understanding the motive on Reddit's part. Let's broadly categorize users into two buckets: those who actively don't want to use the app, and those that do.
In most cases a native app experience "feels" better than a web app experience, so your average user is probably happy to see the "please use our app instead" popup. Those users will probably click it on the first try, and never have to deal with it again on the web.
The remainder who specifically want to use the browser version are doing so probably for technical reasons: don't want to be tracked, etc. Those people are never going to click to download the app, no matter how many times Reddit nags at them to do it. So why continue to force-feed the popup? All it's doing is creating ill will from the people who see it every time, and those people are arguably the more technically savvy and know it's intentionally being annoying. It's just making technical people dislike the platform and the company.
I guess I'm missing where the benefit of trying to force people into the app is. Is the disdain from techies worth the tiny amount of people who initially click no and then eventually click yes?
Its fast and lightweight. A superb third party reddit client.
I don't know what made Apple switch gears so hard and focus on promoting native. It could be they just wanted that App Store revenue and 30% cut, as well as in-app purchase revenue.
It could also be Apple was interested in promoting apps that only work on iOS, or work best on iOS.
I do think they made the wrong choice for the user's benefit however.
In 2007 many developers wanted a native SDK, similar to the one that Apple used internally, and were extremely disappointed at WWDC when Jobs announced Apple's "sweet" solution of web apps on the iPhone. In retrospect, two things have become clear:
1) the iPhone's support for web apps was surprisingly good and pointed to a future of responsive, standalone web apps that look and feel like native apps, and web technology as an alternative for implementing standalone apps
2) devs asked for a native SDK, and Apple said no; a year later, Apple gave them the App Store, which wasn't just an SDK but a new marketplace for mobile apps which led to "there's an app for that", millions of iPhone apps...and eventual complaints about Apple's terms
> until the day they have them, (like mice with two buttons, or phones with working antennas)
The trackpad on my Apple laptop actually has zero buttons. The clicking feature is a haptic and auditory illusion.
Jobs was technically correct that the iPhone 4 antenna worked properly when you didn't bridge it with your finger, and as I recall the low tech fix was a piece of insulating plastic to prevent you from doing so.
What you do want to be careful about is following links from browsers that load applications, because they are typically tagged with information that links the app to the browser (and from there to everything else).