One big supermarket chain here has an app where you get a few cents bonus discount on already discounted items with the app coupon. The in-store announcement praises it as the first place of some insitute’s supermarket app ranking. Even if that institute were legit, the ranking fair and the spot well-deserved, I always felt like that’s a competition with no winners.
I just go without.
the overwhelming majority of apps are nothing but websites wrapped in apps that strip away all the privacy and protections anyway, and demand far to many permissions for shit that are completely irrelevant to their purpose (because they want to siphon literally everything out of your phone and monetize the information).
I’d rather miss a deal, a sale, or whatever, than to deal with that shit.
well it is not just that, websites stopped working properly. I almost always run into a problem trying to book a ticket from an airline company’s website.
I recently had a rather baffling experience trying to preemptively avoid this by downloading the stupid app right away, only to discover I needed the website version anyway.
I was attempting to add my Known Traveler Number to an already booked trip with Southwest Airlines, booked by someone else. I was able to link the trip to my account right away in the app, no issue. And I could see the KTN field for my ticket sitting there, empty, greyed-out, and not interactible. I opened up the moble version of their website, completely unsurprised to find it was identical to the app, except for the detail that the KTN field there was functional. Put in the information, changes reflected in the app instantly, and I was in the TAS-pre line that afternoon.
Why did the two versions obviously built from the same codebase have two different sets of capabilities? Why was the website the more capable of the two this time? I have no clue. All I know is I never want to be a developer at a corporation where I’d have to be responsible for this flavor of trash.
When the app is prompting you to accept cookies
I recently switched to GrapheneOS and decided to avoid the Google Play store entirely, and honestly, the inconveniences have been pretty limited. The only bank I’ve had trouble with is Citi, everything else (I’ve tried several others) work fine through the browser. Likewise for most services I use, the web version works fine, though occasionally I’ll need to use the “desktop” version.
Some services just don’t work properly on the web, but most of the ones I used to use through an app work just fine. Give it a try, maybe together we can send a signal that apps should only exist when they provide value.
It still depends. I live in China and the internet here suckass. Every copy-to-China product, say taobao(Amazon), xianyu(eBay), Alipay(PayPal), WeChat(instant msg), etc. is crucial to your daily usage and mandatories an application. The API is closed and the webapp has no functionality other than a banner with “go fuck our mobile app”.
Doesn’t WeChat do more than instant messaging, though?
You mean the built-in browser with shitty nonconsistent API? Yeah it’s used widely. Some crazy dudes even put earthquake forecast on it.
Yes, it steals your soul, spies on you for the cccp and sells your privacy to anyone with a buck fifty (except to you).
Open source social media app: 30MB full size.
Privative social media app: 300MB install + 500 MG data full size 700MG
Go figure. I could have thousand of apps. Id they were not packed with intrusive software to get all my data and to lock the company IP.
I use the Voyager Web App lol, only gotta store browser cache and cookies. Take that private social media!
Used get my haircut at one of those “no appointment needed” haircut chains. Then they got an app, and every time I went it was “Why aren’t you using the app? You need to use the app. Next time use the app. Download the app on your phone. It’s gonna be an hour wait because you didn’t use the app.”
Now I just go to a local place.
This is what CalDAV is for. We don’t need apps. We don’t need Calendly or Google Calendar or some BS.
As someone who needs to let other people schedule time on my calendar without wanting to give them every detail about my personal life I find Calendly to be incredibly useful.
You can break those up into private vs. public calendars
Great, now I have two calendars to manage.
I mean most calendar apps like the default in LineageOS & ikhal aggregate calendars & have a simple selection + coloring for the two calendars. It isn’t rocket surgery.
Okay, now how do I get that second calendar’s availability to someone who isn’t using CalDAV so we’re not playing email ping-pong trying to find a time to meet?
Why assume everyone else has Google?
I just cut my own hair.
But yeah, this trend is frustrating. When I get food from Jimmy Johns or a handful of other quick meal places, they bring up the app every single time. Yeah, I could get a free sandwich or whatever occasionally, but I really don’t want yet another app on my device. If that choice resulted in a worse experience, I’d find a different service.
I like apps for stores I frequent. Most people do.
Having 150+ is a personal problem.
But I mean, you gotta install an app if you want that functionality. The key thing is if you do or do not have full control of that app. While you allow it freedom in your 🤳📱, is it doing stuff you are not aware of that you don’t want it to do. Like I found an app to do a sound sweep. Great, but will it go thru my contacts while I’m at work? It is going to learn about who I work with because it has blue tooth access. That’s just nefarious shitty business that should be illegal. Either tell me what it does or don’t do anything other than want you say it does. I also write my own apps for photography stuff and I wouldn’t want to have to go ask a judge if I can please use my phone for specific programming I want to do.
The most ironic part…
… an ad for an app for the article…
Isn’t that the promise of App Clips? iOS and Android both allow you to run a mini app temporarily for shopping and not cluttering your system.
This is why everything apps are so popular in many parts of the world. Using a mini-app from the internet running within another app is far preferable to downloading a whole app you may never need to use again. The way they do it in China is so seamless even if you’ve never visited the business before. There’s never any special account creation or entering of payment information.
Obviously it’s pretty terrible in terms of user privacy, but the convenience is incredible and feels decades ahead of how apps work in the US.
Us lemmings will never be comfortable with this level of centralisation.
This is why everything apps are so popular in many parts of the world
What’s wrong with a web browser? I know it’s not as seamless, but it’s far less limiting and literally any company can create a site, regardless of their size. There’s systems like Google Pay that avoid you having to enter your credit card details on every site.
Even the best websites don’t feel as smooth as native UI elements, and somehow browser compatibility is still a very common issue. Signing in with Google and using gpay for checkout is kind of close, but each website has different design elements complicating the experience while giving up the same amount of your personal data as if using an everything app.
Among other things said, you lose access to push notifications / scheduling which a lot of apps are reliant on.
You could have those come in an email instead, but now it’s not personalized to the app or notification type, and if you’re like me, I actually disable alerts on my gmail because most of the things in there aren’t important and it was too disruptive.
you lose access to push notifications
Web apps have supported push notifications for a long time now. I think even Safari supports them now.
Those aren’t the same, they require the browser to be open.I don’t know if that means it works with a tab in the background though if the browser is open but you aren’t on their page, but it’d make sense if it did work that way.Edit: Further looking at this, maybe that’s just on Android. They might work on iOS as expected but only if you add the web app to your home screen as an app, and that’s only in 2023 when iOS 16.4 was released.
Edit: Okay it looks like it should work on Android too, I saw some older stuff. I’m seeing some complaints about delivery times though not being immediate.
How is that better than a web browser? Web browsers were supposed to be the “everything app”.
Web browsers don’t integrate to a single account and payment system, nor do they preemptively load entire websites before you start browsing. So you’re always waiting for actions to complete or for images to load which feels slower. Mobile websites also tend to be very bloated slowing things down further than if the same functions were done natively in an app. There’s also no consistency between websites so you never know when something will/won’t work nor how far away you are from checkout. And then to top it all off there’s browser compatibility, which is typically pretty poor for anything that isn’t Chrome/Safari.
If a web browsers could really do the same thing all these companies wouldn’t feel the need to make their own device specific apps.
I actually often prefer using apps over websites, because my phone is quite slow and using a browser is often way slower than an app.
This doesn’t have to be the case but developers have been chasing bloated fads/frameworks for the over a decade instead of being reasonable with their technology. Résumé-driven development…? YAGNI.
Particularly since some companies have made their websites intentionally shit so that you’d be encouraged to use the app instead. I noticed that with out local flavour of door dash, where the website got slower and clunkier and generally more shit right around the same time that the “Use our app!” banners got more obnoxious.
This…is a BATTERY SUCKING LIE PEOPLE!! - Aldi ad
Not sure anyone actually read the article, cuz yall are talkin about apps vs. web sites, and data collection. Two points which are briefly covered, but ultimately shrugged off in favor of the larger thesis:
Smartphones … meant [companies] could use their apps to off-load effort. … In other words, apps became bureaucratized. What started as a source of fun, efficiency, and convenience became enmeshed in daily life. Now it seems like every ordinary activity has been turned into an app, while the benefit of those apps has diminished.
I’d like to think that this hellscape is a temporary one. As the number of apps multiplies beyond all logic or utility, won’t people start resisting them? And if platform owners such as Apple ratchet up their privacy restrictions, won’t businesses adjust? Don’t count on it. Our app-ocalypse is much too far along already. Every crevice of contemporary life has been colonized. At every branch in your life, and with each new responsibility, apps will keep sprouting from your phone. You can’t escape them. You won’t escape them, not even as you die, because—of course—there’s an app for that too.
It’s not simply the code delivery mechanism, and it’s not whether the data exchange is safe from prying eyes… It’s the fact that a digital UX has invaded every aspect of human interaction, including mourning.
At every branch in your life, and with each new responsibility, apps will keep sprouting from your phone. You can’t escape them. You won’t escape them, not even as you die, because—of course—there’s an app for that too.
Except that’s just straight up not true. You can’t escape it? You can’t escape installing the Michaels app to get a $5 discount coupon?
I’m absolutely flabbergasted by what I’m reading here because I have no idea what the hell any of these people are doing in their lives where they’re collecting this many apps out of necessity. This is entirely selection bias.
5 USD is a lot.
Yes, as annoying as apps for everything is, very few are necessary, or even useful. I have had no problem going though life with minimal apps.
I think you’re presenting a terribly myopic viewpoint. A lot of companies make the process of interacting with them so painful if you don’t use their app, that you feel hounded, harassed, and yeah, in some cases, forced to use their app. Do you really think your idea here hasn’t been considered by the author? Of course it has, because like most older people (in their 30s and 40s), that’s how it always used to be. The author is complaining that the way it is today, it can be difficult or borderline impossible to do the very thing you seem confused about.
Some stores require you to use the app for order pickup. Why they have the Menards app installed I have no clue. They’ve always been way behind with e-commerce, but their website works perfectly fine.
Some stores require you to use the app for order pickup.
Sounds like a store to avoid like the plague.
I wish sites that do have PWAs would stop funneling people towards their app.
Especially Patreon, where patronages started using their app would be 30% more expensive for their users than patronages started through their website because of the Apple (and probably Google) tax. Patreon is aware of this tax but keeps advertising their fucking stupid app! You have a Progressive Web App that’s works perfectly! Stop it! Get some help!I have never encounteted a PWA that works better than a website OR an app - this from users actual usability viewpoint. They are a cancer, that sits right in between the worst of both worlds.
Twitter had some great outcomes when they rolled out their PWA: https://web.dev/case-studies/twitter
Twitter Lite is now the fastest, least expensive, and most reliable way to use Twitter. The web app rivals the performance of our native apps but requires less than 3% of the device storage space compared to Twitter for Android.
65% increase in pages per session
75% increase in Tweets sent
20% decrease in bounce rateyet they kept pushing their native apps, probably because they can collect more data through them. The web is way more sandboxed than regular apps.
That’s less an endorsement of PWAs and more a condemnation of how garbage the native app always was.
