Why isn't webapp preferred over native app? | Hacker News Reader

Why isn't webapp preferred over native app?

8 pointsaabbcc124122 comments

As mentioned by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26588480

Webapp nowadays has access to plenty of permissions. In addition, it can be updated freely and automatically.

For native app to update, you need to get Google and Apple to approve your updates and wait for their distribution network to propagate updates.

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You get a lot of features, but not all of them. We've just fully migrated a web app to a native app. Reasons:

1. Camera is an absolute pain on web - you can take photos, but when you want to deal with things like EXIF data, cropping, zoom, and every device has multiple front cameras now.

2. File systems are a pain. Where does it go when you download? Are you planning on using a cache? Offline database? OK, great, your hack works. Now try again with the new Android 10 scoped storage.

3. Can't easily handle things like calls.

4. RAM usage by browsers can be massive, this is part of the reason for the lag.

5. App Store optimization is easier and more effective than SEO. You can create a shell around your app, sure but you still should upload it and you have to go through quality control processes.

6. DOM manipulation and UI is much harder than on native. If you're using a template, it works, but if you want custom UI, it's a lot easier to control on an app. Even small things like toasts. CSS is hard enough on desktop, try web browsers. And then create a "back stack" on top of your app.

7. You can use something like Cordova, but bits and pieces go obsolete every few months. And making Cordova plugins is an absolute nightmare. I did something in 3 days native recently which I couldn't do in 3 weeks previously.

8. Multithreading, e.g. an app that supports chat or a download queue.

Pros of web app:

1. Prototypes and MVPs are a lot faster. npm has most utilities. And there's custom templates for everything.

2. It's easier to integrate other web functionality, e.g. Facebook posts and TikTok.

3. Architecture is "flat" on a SPA. So you can access something 3 pages back easily, or do something like change data on every page. Whereas native architecture often has several layers. Duck typing is a nice feature.

I'd say the biggest advantages of the web app are:

1. Cross-platform. One build and you're done.

2. No store. You just put it on the web. There are no gatekeepers delaying your deployment, and no hoops to jump through.

There are still all of the disadvantages you mentioned, especially when it comes to the device itself. But a huge range of apps don't require any of those. A basic game or CRUD app should Just Work.

As much as working in the JS ecosystem sucks, it's a real pleasure to type "create-react-app" and "netlify deploy" and have a Hello World app available on every device in literally seconds.

You're gonna find yourself coming up against the limits of that right quick, and then you're going to wish you'd written a native app in the first place. Sooner rather than later, depending on the application. But for a lot of ideas, you can live within those limits, and it's really cool.

Deploying websites/webapps can take minutes.

But deploying native apps to the Apple/Android stores can literally take days/weeks to verify accounts and approve specific app builds...

and using a website takes seconds, for a app I need to consider downloading it, giving it permissions to do stuff/track me only to be disappointed half the time.

Agreed. It takes about 15 min to build and publish an app, and an hour to get it approved. If you're doing rapid prototyping or if you only have an hour to spare a day, that's a world of difference.

I once built an app with React that worked reasonably well on my iPad, my Android phone, and my Mac.

I tried to port it to native Swift. It was demoralising after going through all the trouble of rewriting it in Swift, the app that works on the iPad, doesn't work on the Mac.

Agree on the differences. However, maybe it's my sampling too small. Most of the apps I saw from ads don't need the native-exclusive functions. (e.g. listing app of restaurant and house renting and selling)

Many of those shouldn't be apps at all.

I wouldn't say web apps are always preferred over a native app. When people are prototyping, I see a lot of people building web apps to get the idea out. However, as you grow, a native app might be favourable if you can have one cause in my experience they perform better, especially in the background. You don't have to worry about what browser they're using and if it supports the things you need, as long as the OS supports it and you can do more stuff in the background like local notifications which web apps can't

In the case of notification, we can do that with webapp as well.

Both Chrome and Firefox support that https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Push_API

> In comparison, Chrome applies no limit, but requires that every push message causes a notification to be displayed.

No silent push is a huge limitation. Can't let the server send you updates without annoying the user.

Actually its better, Chrome just displays a silent notification that says "this website just updated in background". I personally would rather know that a app did something behind my back. But I can see some users getting the wrong idea.

Though I think it ia fair since chrome is a web browser and shouldn't be making requests to random websites without my knowledge. cough cough

I can see your point of view, but lets say I made a weather site. Would you really want to be notified everytime the data is updated, or do you just want the latest data when you view the page (assuming you want it to do that; I would like up to date data when I view the page, without having to wait for it to refresh; but then, since I'm the developer of my hypothetical weather page, I trust myself not to do anything untoward with the data)

In that case, the website can just do a get request when I click on the app. That should take like <200ms and won't even be noticable imo. The notification is only there for the use of Push API.

The absolute killer feature for webapp is privacy and I will use the webapp instead of the native app whenever it is available for that reason only.

Besides, all those comments about native being better due to performance and RAM and such go straight to the toilet when the app is something I will keep open for like 5 minutes every 2 days just to do something specific thing. Most apps do not require daemon-like features.

Dear native app developers, I'm not buying into your arguments on why a native app is required. You're going to use some kind of SDK that is going to spy the hell out of my phone. Get off my LAN!

Fun fact: up until the latest Android version, any app with Read Storage access (i.e. nearly all of them) could go through all your photos, pull location data, map out all the places your phone has been, and stealthily upload that.

Several years ago, if you gave it microphone permissions, it could stealthily record all your conversations in background, transcribe that to text, and upload that. This was a beginner task that needs about 2 hours experience and I still use it for my tutorials. Lately it prompts a full screen saying that it's recording you, but this doesn't prevent apps that take a few days to build their own stealth recording system.

I wish there was a way to completely prevent an app any kind of network access (Wifi/4G/Bluetooth/etc). This would immensely help: you can grab all the data you want, you won't have a way to upload it.

The privacy argument works both ways, because native apps can reliably keep data local that (unless it's just some simple utility) web apps would store on a 3rd party server.

There's the theory, then there's the practice. In practice most of the apps I can think about that I could use are used to communicate with some sort of web server that is actually the one storing the info. So you get 3rd party storage + the stronger privacy invasion.

You need a native program to access the web, so for now, always you'll need at least one native program ;)

Now, seriously, as muzani states indirectly, the preferred way will be divided as long as implies another layer and a difference in available device services. Also, you mentioned a disadvantage of the stores but think about the distribution network in terms of online presence to being noticed. There're plenty of pros and cons in every aspect.

Regarding the update point, like in desktop OS, with Android, you didn't need to wait, just take the APK file and install it. From the perspective of your sentence, it's only a problem (or situation) of the Apple ecosystem, not related to the web/native. They can't control the web but if they could they will. From the perspective of the consumer, some say they are fine with the gatekeeper, adding a layer of security and quality assurance.

Well for android you can release a PWA as a "Trusted PWA" in the android app store.

Web app ui components or the ability to make a fluid ui is an entire class below mobile. There’s no two ways about this. Every website is pure dog shit compared to their mobile app.

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