Many (most?) apps don't do it, but the useful feature for me that's not possible with a web page is reliable, unobtrusive, background updates.
Things like weather (with or without current coarse location), sports scores, headline news benefit from up to the minute data fetches, but older data is still useful.
For communication apps, often people would like notifications on inbound messages, so that can fit with web push apis to get data; but if you don't want notifications, you can't consistently make messages available to read offline.
1) Shortcut on the homescreen by simply tapping 1 button(install) instead of hoping that the user will somehow remember you. WebApp shortcuts are quite involved.
2) Sign in once with a forever session. I hate apps where I need to sign in again because having an App is a great opportunity to have one time sign in that runs through generations of phone upgrades. Even better, the sign in doesn't have to involve the user, the data will be there and not accidentally deleted which means that the presence of the app is as good as username and password.
3) Immersive experience means better user experience. The UI becomes part of the Phone's UI instead of another App's UI's sub UI. A well designed app is very effective. I haven't seen a well designed mobile Web App, Web is great for websites and "possible to do" Mobile Web Apps.
4) Smaller download sizes, faster launches. A website would usually download a few MB of scripts and images, an App without bloated frameworks would be easily around that size and will download it only once. It will be ready to use in less than 0.5s every time.
5) Any advanced stuff is done much better natively even if it is possible to do through the browser. This is because the browser put extra boundaries around the boundaries that has due to the OS boundaries.
I think we need "Demand explanation" button for comments like this . It's a useless statement as is. It's essentially trolling and trolling shouldn't be happening on HN.
I know the reasoning of that statement but it's not providing an argument to refute. What am I supposed to say? "No. You can't, that's why it's not happening".
I do not see how you could read it as such. Because the reason / explanation is already given, as all the options that were mentioned (1-4) can be easily matched by any website, I think it is rather self evident.
1) You can add websites as app icons to iOS and Android.
2) Websites can hold persistent identities, and devices can otherwise remember the login details.
3) Websites UI can be anything and have nearly all options that apps can have, depending on the quality of the UX, which depends on the designer in any case.
4) A professional website will not be any slower if properly designed.
Now on 5, that depends on the specifics of the app. Some types do benefit greatly from being boarded on a device. An example would be Procreate for instance, which can not be mimicked on par in webform.
1) As I said, it's too involved. Only a fraction of your users would know how to do it, you will need to teach them.
2) Websites do that through Cookies and Local Storage. These have limits and users would be purging them en mass. The data of the app doesn't disappear for no reason.
3) As I said, the problem is that it runs within a browser if not added to the homescreen. It is a window within a window.
4) Professional or amateur design, websites data is managed by the browser and not you. Caches get invalidated, you download everything again. It happens all the time.
Just being able to do something is not enough, Apps are much smoother experience.
As an android user, I personally hate having to use apps. Websites are much easier to use and I can zoom (and override if they try to block it). I can use extensions on firefox (yes it's possible) and modify the behavior when needed.
I also cannot bookmark pages from apps. I can, however, add websites to the home-screen. I don't see any reason to download fat binaries for a worse experience.
Are you an app developer? You seem to be very biased.
I do Web and Apps. I also hate apps on Android, it feels like invasion.
BTW, I’m not talking about websites(articles and forms) but Web apps(task achieving experiences). Of course it’s just as bad experience to have a website as an app. it’s even worse when you are being forced to.
>Though, (1) is wrong on iPhone; there’s an “add to home screen” action in the share menu.
As I said:
>WebApp shortcuts are quite involved.
Most people don't know about that functionality, you need to teach them. It would have been cool if Apple supported that, then I guess everyone would have been trying trick you into it like the good old days where every website was trying to trick you into making it you start page.
