Mobile-First Is Old News. Think Platform-First | Hacker News Reader

Mobile-First Is Old News. Think Platform-First

linkedin.com

25 pointsartvar6 comments

LinkedIn's success cannot be denied, but I'm wary of all messaging from them. Their site is a usability mess and is slow. Their marketing tactics range from creepy to sleezy.

They're also champions of fleeting causes. LinkedIn yelled from the mountains about the advantages of HTML5 apps for mobile. And then they championed hybrid apps. And then they yelled about the brilliance of all native apps. In no way am I saying that we all shouldn't constantly be learning and evaluating, but if you champion something and find yourself moving a different direction, maybe downplay the evangelizing.

Though of course LinkedIn does it for the same reason that undergrads mine data to come to trendy and contrarian findings -- it gets press.

Ignoring the article's snarky tone, i am not really sure if there's anything interesting left. Actually people are currently advising to move from OS-specific code to HTML, the mobile movement was long before that. Not sure where the author gets that trend for native apps.

But considering that this comes from LinkedIn, i admit things like IMAP MITM are only feasible with truly native apps, as opposed to PhoneGap-based ones or even "pure" webapps.

The last point is not as great as they think. If you go too far outside the user's comfort zone with the platform you risk making apps no one wants to use. Sure a more limited palette is limiting but often that's a good thing for user engagement.

Articles like this remind me why I don't use an Android phone. To each their own, but this is not a feature that I want: "Upon install, Android apps can get access to users’ location, contacts, phone calls, email addresses, and almost every piece of information that resides on the phone."

This: https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX

(Slightly related to the article)

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