Please don't make a mobile app (unless if you have to)
#pwa#webdev#mobile#apps
Lucis

Lucis @lucis

About: Building

Location:
Rio de Janeiro
Joined:
May 24, 2019

Please don't make a mobile app (unless if you have to)

Publish Date: Feb 2 '20
73 15

Last december I've started my first "real job" and, apart from the great onboarding experience, I've been having a bit of trouble setting up my benefits plans. Yeah, there are some UI quirks and weird verification challenges but, by far, having to install a bunch of apps on my phones caused most part of this pain.

Some of this apps exists for the sole puporse of consulting information, like the one from the healthcare company. No need for background processing, no notifications, nor some fancy use of the camera, and it still is shipped only as a native mobile app. One funny thing about this app in particular is that it has an "online chat" functionality that, when accessed, guess what: it redirects to a webpage.

I know that mobile apps are still a hit. Companies are proud to say "download our app on Play Store or App Store", and most users get into that as well, but we have to start evangelizing more about web apps. And it's not a hard job, since, after battery draining, the most common complain from my close ones is their cellphones being low on storage, and, for the companies, building a native apps is more time-and-resource consuming compared to web development.

Whenever I see a new startup releasing a mobile app for its shine new CRUD, I feel a bit of the pain of every developer that has been doing an awesome job pushing PWA technologies forward for the last couple of years. And, in fact, being up-to-date with their job is a great way for us to embrace this campaign as developers.

We still have a long way to support every native API on the browser, but we already have a ton of features that makes it possible to implement most of the apps I use everyday. There are also great web apps that are already PWAs (in fact, I use dev.to as an installed PWA on my phone).

An accesible and inclusive WEB is everyone's goal!

Comments 15 total

  • Lucis
    LucisFeb 2, 2020

    Disclaimer: I know all about browsers lack of support and, most importantly, old phones performing really bad on webpages, but I wouldn't want to discuss every liability of web technologies. These are edge cases, IMO.

    I think this post's should be summed up as: if it's not a cool game or something to tweak the phone's system, please don't ship a mobile app nowadays.

    • Mauro Garcia
      Mauro GarciaFeb 2, 2020

      Are you talking about enterprise apps or in general?

      • Lucis
        LucisFeb 2, 2020

        About what part?

        I think I talk about apps in general in this disclaimer. Like one comment below, it wouldn't be a practical solution to ship WhatsApp solely as a web app, since important features would be missing in old phones.

  • Mario
    MarioFeb 2, 2020

    I totally agree with you. In fact, on friday I was doing a little talk in an online marketing course telling the enormous benefits of developing one web application and using current technologies to create PWA or even hybrid apps (ionic, react, vaadin or electron) from that web application.

    As a piece of information, I will leave you this link to a web that gathers PWA experiences from the development point of view and its impact in the economical aspects of the application development.

    pwastats.com

    Greetings,
    Mario

    • Lucis
      LucisFeb 2, 2020

      Thank you very much, Mario!

      I will save it for checking it ;)

  • Lucis
    LucisFeb 2, 2020

    As a matter of fact, Whatsapp wouldn't be the hardest app to replicate if supporting low-level (and iPhones hihi) phones wasn't a goal.

    I think the most advanced use cases for Whatsapp are notifications and registering itself as a share app, both supported by PWA tecnologies.

    I get your point, but my title and the comment disclaimer both make it clear that web apps aren't a silver bullet now. I hope it becomes one someday, but it might not, and there's no problem with that.

  • diek
    diekFeb 3, 2020

    I use dev.to installed too, awesome work :)

  • Navdeep Singh
    Navdeep SinghFeb 3, 2020

    Truly agree with you Lucis. Companies are just following the pattern to make native web apps (although needed or not) PWA technology is meant for mobile users.

  • Adnan
    AdnanFeb 3, 2020

    One clumsy part with PWAs is telling people to install it.

    With a native app on the app store: "Go to Google Play and search app name and download it"

    With a PWA: "go to appname.com and then look for the add to home screen button hidden somewhere in your browser"

    • Saurabh Sharma
      Saurabh SharmaFeb 5, 2020

      You don't have to install the app to homescreen for PWA benefits

      Service worker, notification, responsive design all works without add to homescreen.

  • Merk42
    Merk42Feb 3, 2020

    Too bad Apple is intentionally dragging their feet on support lest your idea catch on and cut into their sweet sweet app store / apple developer revenue.

  • Saurabh Sharma
    Saurabh SharmaFeb 5, 2020

    WhatsApp is a native app because they don't want to store your data, they can't afford it.

    But for a PWA people expect them to work all across their devices not like "No it's an Android app, you can't run it on your PC or IOS device"

  • craigcampbell
    craigcampbellFeb 8, 2020

    Your pre-conceived notion is that people know how to navigate websites etc. I agree with every point you made but I've been in this field now for over 15 years. The main issue is users in the 36-60+ demographic simply don't like going to websites. It's like pulling teeth telling someone to type something in a URL bar I guess.

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