Web developer here. The libraries and build tools used nowadays to develop websites, or web apps (as I like to call it) can optimise them to the point where they can deliver almost all the necessary features of a native mobile app without significant performance drop. If a website pushes its users to install its app, it means the company behind the website definitely wants to track the visitors more closely.
@@1nikolas It's been that way for a while, too, and most sites don't even do anything special that should call for an app in the first place It's all about screwing the users.
They purposely make a terrible job with their mobile web pages to force you to use the app for features too. My company has one app, but dozens of web apps for both employees and customers that were designed to work like an app (or else we would have to give macs to the developers so we could build iOS apps)
The problem is that most of the pushy ones are all just the website in a webview, making no difference at all. Most of the corps I've worked with are binning off native apps because it's cheaper for them to run a webview and slim down the app team. And possibly worse still - some apps have no website, so for example, when you're sat next to a 32" 4K monitor and get a bit peckish, Starship forces you to use their slow clunky app.
this is the LAST of the problems, users should not be forced to use an app, when an equivalent website exists or can exists. It doesn't matter how good or bad the app is, the entire idea is to not use redundant apps
This problem is only compounded by the fact that most of these websites are so riddled with spyware and whatnot that, if removed, speed wouldn't actually be a concern and the site could load in a decent time even over a 2G connection or something. I remember when the EU first came out with the rules on accepting/denying cookies and all the commercial spaces scrambled to get their sites into compliance. Many of them took the most basic approach and just put up a barebones site sans the trackers at first. Being in the USA and loading those barebones sites either via adding "eu" into the url somewhere or by using a proxy made it just so much easier to browse the web for a while until they figured out how to re-add all that tracker bloat. I remember loading up the EU version of The Guardian at one point and it was lightning fast. Literally a fraction of a second on a 100Mbps connection on desktop. The US version of the site took at least two seconds. Both versions of the site looked and functioned the same. It was all tracker bloat. Even today, using EU versions of sites via proxies or whatever can result in better speeds and better privacy than those of us stuck in the "land of freedom" where corporations control our every step. Imagine the latency caused by the data having to go across the ocean and you're still loading pages faster than if you loaded the version stored on that local CDN half a state away. The state of web design and usage has been utterly ruined by corporations and the EU cookies thing *really* showed that off to the world.
You should see what sensors are available without any permissions. Did you know they can read your battery, charger, alarm, and position sensors? They can tell if you're the kind of person who lays in bed using your phone all night, how much sleep you get, and if you only plug in your phone when the battery hits 10%.
i hate using apps now since phones no longer have external sd cards to store photos and videos means that ur seriously limited on how many things we can have installed on our phones
Exactly. "It has more direct access to your phone" as stated in the video is exactly why I don't want any apps installed. I'd rather use the desktop site if i have to and zoom in and out than use those cursed apps
It allows them to ask you for permissions of their own, rather than live within the permissions you already set on the browser, which means the browser is your first of 2 lines of defense of privacy and against malicious actions.
I remember a while back, the nagging "download our app" interstitial messages/ads got so bad that Google had to change their search results to punish sites that were using them. Remember clicking a link on Google, only to get a full screen ad suggesting the website's app, and when you close the ad it took you to the site's home page rather than the content you wanted?
@@swawif Most websites are pretty usable in web form. It's why we're so annoyed about the nagging. Some websites even lock the website whilst the popup is active...
Funnily enough, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter do this. As I have deleted my FB, Insta I barely use so im not logged in on pc. And Twitter im not logged in either
This completely ignores the fact that many of these apps are just wrappers for the same old website, and many of the benefits listed here of using apps apply just as easily to web-based systems (local storage, location, user preference tracking, etc.)
Yes, service worker, offline-first cache strategy and push notifications, camera or bluetooth are also available. And coding an native app doesn't provide a speed advantage you notice for most apps.
I think the main reason is to make you come back frequently. By having that icon on your home screen, you're more likely to open the app and use it. Compared to opening your browser and going to that specific URL.
No its not. Stop thinking everyone is trying to spy on you. the only reason companies push aps a lot is that they make it easier to sell you more stuff
What I dislike is either method asks my location when I try to visit either way, I have to change my location as my wifi connection at home is dynamic and served from 320 miles away, and not any of the more populis 4 locations 250 or less miles away.. my "brick and mortar" shopping is about 40 miles away, I have to keep a record of zip codes to change this EVERY visit.. and it's funny that ad servers embedded always offer as if I'm up in Minneapolis and I'm down off of I-80 in Iowa
@@DaveMcIroy Are you being deliberately dense or are you just stupid? A web page can't control the web browser, and can't directly access your microphone, data, etc... it has to go through the web browser. Demanding you download an app evades all of these protections and gives them direct access to your hardware. It decreases your phone's safety so that they can gobble up more of your data and profile you/their customer base.
@@jamesphillips2285 No, In all browsers i've used there is an option in the 3 dots to enable desktop mode making websites think you're on an arm Linux computer with weird tastes in monitors
That brand awareness thing is a very traditional trick. Back when I worked at Target, the employee training said we should ask if customers wanted a Target card because they wanted people to have the brand visible whenever the person opens up their wallets.
And this is why I refuse to install most commercial apps on my phone. 80% of the apps I use are open source versions. The rest are apps that are harder to replace because they don't have good alternatives or tie into hardware that I have specifically purchased.
this was great back in the prime years of windows phone. so many of the major players didnt develop an app for windows phone but then along came a 3rd party that made apps that were an order of magnitude better than the official ones. so for most apps the best experience of the 3 platforms was on windows phone. its a shame it didnt last.
Websites *can* in fact store stuff locally as well as send notifications when they aren't running. There's a whole concept of PWA, basically apps running in browsers. So I'm with the "can't-adblock" theory 🙂
ive never actually bothered to look into ad blocking on my phone, but surely there is a method similar to the hosts file in windows that can do adblocking system wide?
@@iris4547 there's private DNS (on Android anyway), which is largely equivalent to the hosts file. But there's only so much that can do. An ad served from the same domain name as the useful parts would still make it through, as by blocking that you'd break the app.
So apps that connect to 3rd party ad networks can be kinda cleaned up this way, but apps by companies that serve you ads of their own (upselling you on their own or affiliated more expensive plans or extra services) cannot.
@@neoney (sighs) well, yeah. There are no modern browsers on iOS at all. Add that to the list of reasons to force third-party app installs unto Apple devices. Let's see what's about to go down in the EU!
Sadly RUclips never got the message that an app is supposed to run better then the website… issues with the app version not on the web version (extra buffering, lower amount of buffering, app not utilising cookies or cache to show accurate ads or suggestions, lower quality videos, PiP functionality only works if it feels like it, notifications sometimes delayed by 10-80 minutes…)
The worst thing I hate about apps is that some of them force you to update before you go any further. Yes, I know some will inform you that an update is available but will let you use the old one for awhile, but others will just stop working until you update. Guess when this usually happens...right! When I'm at the checkout line where I need to use it then.
By default, iOS and Android update apps automatically, in the background, when your phone is on Wi-Fi. If you turn that off, you will have to manually look for updates. That's not really the app makers fault then, surely?
@@dftfire Yes it is because the devs are the ones who have made it so that you must be on version X.X to run their app. I've had apps that have been on a version that was 2 years old and they still worked.
@@ent2220 Yes, but if the app had auto-updates in the background, you wouldn't then have an issue when you next opened it. Sometimes apps have security issues and cannot allow users to remain using an older version forever, or the older version is not compatible with a newer Android or iOS release. If you want to update apps manually, when you say so only, that's your choice but you must expect some apps to eventually not work
And the absolute worst case is... when you need the app to work right then & there, the app won't work until updated, and something is keeping you from updating, like having OS software that just became marked "obsolete," or no longer supported by the app developer.
Maybe stop using Windows Phone, Blackberry or Nokia Series 40 or 60 thesedays then? Or on PC, make sure you're not visiting the mobile-version of the website?
@@dftfire I want options OTHER than android and iOS Also this happens with people using ARM SBCs like Raspberry Pi. Some websites see you're using an ARM CPU and they ask you to use an app.
@@sharoyveduchi That may change now that Apple have moved macOS devices to ARM. (Though you can run iOS and iPadOS apps on a mac, so I guess they could offer you the app) Windows 11 can run Android apps also. You could just install a browser extension that would make your header and user-agents report to be a non-ARM platform too.
CVS did that's me and I'm like why the fuck do I have this app if you're sending me to the webpage and then I dunciad. And now I don't download any apps that people ask although I didn't really before. Although that take up space on your phone they clog your screen. And their bullshit. I wish there was a way I could prevent them from asking me to add their app.
For me biggest advantage of using browser instead of dedicated apps is to take advantage of adblocker installed to browser (using firefox mobile). Most apps are full ads nowadays.
I was thinking the same thing, all these points WERE true many years ago, but today, you can install a responsive web page as a full fledged app, receive notifications, the works...
@@jack.smith2958 its the opposite. the only apps that you truly need are those which run offline or are messaging apps. just look at PCs from 10 years ago, there was no RUclips or Tiktok App and it still worked fine.
@@Janiik It's not. There are so many things you just cannot do with a browser - or that if you do, you're going to have worse results. I've done both, and I can tell you with no uncertainty that native apps are far superior to websites for many cases.
What really winds me up is how a lot of sites that DO have a usable website, have also switched it to function more like the app, making it an inferior experience to what they used to be.
Websites nowadays can also request location data, use mic/camera, etc. (all based on permissions set per website, just like with apps). There are basically no reasons (from a user perspective) for apps that are just a frontend alternative to a website. Yes, their laggy/messy "fully responsive" UI layouting will maybe run an order of magnitude faster if it's not running in a browser. But that doesn't change the fact that it's three orders of magnitudes too inefficient to begin with...
@@ikuturso7570well that is very often a downside. As someone working in a phone store, there are so many people getting scammed or having their phones flooded with spam and adult content because random websites they visit get notifications. The use case is fairly limited and the risks are high. I doubt apple wants to add that as a feature.
All the disadvantages are because Apple consciously chose to make their App store better than Safari. Web push notifications, PWAs with offline support, Add to home screen, Web bluetooth are all a thing but Apple chooses to not support them or make them worse because they don't get a 30% from websites. Open Web Advocacy is fighting to change that.
Websites can send push notifications to your phone just like a normal app. They can also access your camera, sensors, filesystem, etc. Additionally, they are able to cache data locally so the next time you load the site it displays content much faster than it would the first time. Hell, you can even add the website to your home screen like a regular app. Clunky websites aren't necessarily an issue with the browser, but is more often than not attributed to poor optimization. For most use cases such as social media, shopping, or news, a PWA works just as good as a regular app. I would go as far as saying that for the most part, traditional apps that don't perform any special operations are obsolete.
@@johnshite4656 From a corporate perspective, you are very much right. However, for most consumers, getting tracked more and making it harder to block ads isn't necessarily a reason to download an app.
what i hate is a site trying to get me to download their app when im on my desktop . doesnt happen all the time but enough to make me wonder what they are doing lol
If you have the web browser window resized very narrow, it sometimes assumes the width means you're on a mobile device. Or you could have a browser extension that is causing it
Even better is when it redirects you to the app you already have installed and doesn't allow you to open it in the browser at all, then the app continues to fail over and over. Looking at you, Best Buy and Newegg.
Yup, especially if it's like a product link and then it just takes you to the main page, hell I've had Newegg do that when trying to open their app notifications.
Some sites make it almost mandatory. Off the top of my noggin, Home Depot and Lowes to a lesser extent have an awful mobile browsing experience, but their apps are a breeze. Amazon, while not bad on a browser, is much more betterer on the app.
I wish they would get it in their head that everytime there website needs more than 1 click to access what you want to see, a lot of people will just leave
@@GameCyborgCh They don't mind, and in fact they prefer that. Customers that are picky are not good customers. They have so many people coming to their site/app they can actually kick out the ones they don't want. Small companies don't have this luxury so they aren't as aggressive.
Disagree. For any company to bend over backwards for that one extra sale and not simply optimize their online presence so they can weed out picky customers is insane. I can walk into most corporate stores with a product they don't even sell and get some store credit. Kroger used to do it, Costco did it for a long time and still might, Sam's and Walmart do it as of a year or so ago (this according to friends and family that work at these places). Incremental sales, i.e. the candy bar at checkout, are a huge thing. But they don't care about their website being difficult because it weeds out the quitters? No shot.
A pizza app refused to function because I had a remote access app installed... So I refused to give them anymore money. My bread machine makes pizza dough. I'm enjoying this turn of events. (It was the papa Murphy's app so I had to bake the pizza anyway, not much more work to make the dough too)
@@RCmaniac667 ya thats what I have to do. And even magisk hide is bit iffy. Because many apps scan the app list then you have to hide the app and all shenanigans.
@@USS_Sentinel I use web sites. Thing about the phone is you often don't know the deals ahead of time and don't get special offers for being part of their little business cult.
Let's talk about how the apps love to ask to take over basic functions of your phone (at least on Android), like being your Home Screen or Messaging app. Once they do that, you'll be bombarded with ads and notifications to a degree you've never seen before, and they have access to basically everything you do on your phone or store on your phone. The 'use our app' culture is supporting a lot of scummy exploitative behavior.
With a few exceptions most apps are just a browser that only allows you to visit the specific website minus useful features like multiple tabs, bookmarking, translation, etc. If a site nags me too often to use their app (or enable notifications, or sign up to a mailing list) I will just stop using it...
I recently got an A7 Lite Tab. It automatically brought over the apps from my phone. I had noticed about running out of storage on day 1, "maybe delete some photos." APPS... Few things actually HAVE to be an app but every company is pushing you to have this bloated software.
This is really accurate, It has been proven that an app using deep linking (from web browser to app essentially) has an 6X higher conversion rate than the same app without deep linking, this also boosts app downloads by 6%.
I had a thought about this, with the issues with app reviews from both Apple and Google, and wanting to have purchases on mobile, would Floatplane benefit from being a PWA instead of a dedicated app?
iOS doesn't handle PWAs very well... Which is ironic when you consider that the first iPhone didn't have an app store (or any means of installing third-party software). Steve Jobs and his team thought PWAs with shortcuts on the home screen were better than native apps, so they told developers to "make iPhone-shaped web pages that look and behave like apps" (not a direct quotation). But this system didn't work very well, and the second version of iOS introduced the App Store.
Video streaming pretty much always works better in apps on mobile devices though. I prefer using my web browser over an app for most things, but if i'm gonna watch streamed video on my phone or tablet i always prefer an app
@@InventorZahran There are a couple of PWAs I use on iPadOS, including Visual Studio Code. Seems to work just fine as long as the site is properly built for it.
I have seen more instances of bad apps that perform terrible when on phone than their own website. So using apps is not going to give better performance.
I can confirm. Everyone in my field just takes pre-made stuff and their code is bad even with that. I on the other hand love to do stuff my scratch and my code is always as optimal, bullet-proof and easy to read as possible. My stuff always runs really good and no glitches. I've had stuff released still on version 1.0 because there is nothing that needs fixing.
My least favourite example of this is the youtube studio app. "The experience is better in the app" 🤓! Basically half of the functions of the website are removed or really cumbersome to access. That's why i always have "request desktop site" enabled
You forgot to mention that using an app requires you to create an account and login. What you don't want to do either but just browse for some quick news.
The worst is when it's a website you use a lot and you hope the app is faster, but the app ends up being the exact same as the website and just as slow. I'm looking at you Best Buy and McMaster Carr.
I really dislike how certain websites I visit a few times a month for a minute or so keeps pestering me about downloading their apps, I'm just gonna use the website for a minute or two. It doesn't matter why they want us to download their app, if I wanted to download the app I would've downloaded it. For some strange reasons, some websites run much better than their awful apps.
the other reason is to lock you into certain features. apps cost certain portions of your memory limit of your phone, meaning you must delete certain if you want new ones but full. there are also certain services asking you to create account to use it at all. if you are an addict to mobile games, you often see gigabytes of total data needed per *single game,* so it does affect you and its endurance. i have been using microSDs for my phone multimedia and to backup almost everything in my PC, especially my livestream replays. today's specification standard is nearly as fast as common internal storage, but they are dropping it from phones anyway because cloud is "more profitable per gigabyte month".
Websites forcing me to use their phone app just to view one single article, then that app forcing me to create an account, makes me wish there was a cloud-based virtual Android phone or tablet I can download the app into that's isolated from my real phone without having to deal with Android's multi-user feature not allowing me to share apps and other data across user accounts.
Worst part is when websites do this when I am on a desktop and their website is only an ad for the app, can't do anything on the website and it's not like they have a windows/macOS app.
You absolutely can make a web page feed notifications yo your browser even if the page is off, assuming your browser allows for it and that this functionality is not switched off. I used to get double notifications that way a lot back in 2013-2018 era before I bothered to learn to block it and then bothered to actually block it on every new phone I'd get
They actually like seeing you leave since you're not open to giving them everything they want. They prefer people who are mindless drones who obey and open their doors, locks and wallets as soon as they're asked.
And this is why I purposefully go out of my way to avoid apps on my phone. Especially RUclips, it's simply pathetic and the only benefit it gives you is being able to see chat in a stream. Infuriatingly annoying to the point where I made sure to uninstall everything I could and borderline jailbreak new phones to put these trash apps in my glass orb.
"Ads loaded from some far away servers" - if you want a snappy website, then don't add ads to your website..? Native ads are laggy too, although browser ads are impressively poorly optimized. "A webpage that isn't well written" - I mean, the native app is subject to the same quality requirements for it to run well. "Apps can store vital informations on your phone locally" - So can webpages, with proper caching or with the local storage API. I guess the advantage here for native apps is that they can store DRM-ed content locally with the knowledge that the operating system will seal those files away on unrooted devices. Some companies just re-package their website as an electron app for android. So besides giving it an actual icon and easier access to the device's APIs, there will be no performance benefit.
Love the work y'all at LMG do, great quality content, thank you! If you are looking for another Techquickie topic, I've always wondered what exactly is going on under the hood when you click "perform maintenance" on Windows with each generation?
My own mother said it best. "If I kept every single one of your school papers, I would have school papers all over the house. No phone, tablet or computer can handle all the company's apps. As a rule of thumb, if the company has a website, why would I download the app? Then again, with a ever growing abundance of old cell phones that work only on Wifi, maybe I should look into filling up those old phones.
Many companies convert their browsers apps into what looks like native apps. There are technologies available that preserve performance cross platform, it depends on skill and whether there's an existing app or a brand new one is being developed.
I'll never download an app because of those messages, they all have the same trust-worthiness feeling as "there's hot X in your area" ads. There's nearly always a way around them and the few that don't, well I just don't bother with them at all any more. For me it's a simple case of 'you need me, I don't need you' mentality. There's loads of other sites out there that offer the same or better content, those mobile spam apps just push me to look for better.
My iPad has a too old IOS version and I cannot update RUclips anymore, and that app says it needs to be updated. So I am forced on the brower; Fun fact: I can drag the video slider to the end on ads skipping them in second there!
The 32bit iOS version of RUclips worked for years without any updates. It probably still would work if RUclips didn't decide that it was vitally important to hide the dislike counter.
I did learn that apps are coded for performance. I'd never thought it being the case, considering how slow a 2 years old smart phone works. I guess, they aren't slow on purpose, and big companies give their best, so that you don't need to buy a new model so frequently.
0:29 If you use a webapp you wont notice a difference between an app and an webapp. Why do you compare apps with websites? Twitter for example has an webapp, it does not rely on page refreshes and has local storage that it uses. There is also a thing that is called pwa progressive web apps that are able to render as fast as native stuff. But today you wont notice a difference. Webapps are able to store information in local space too. And the access to webcams and operating systems is also not that of an issue. As a webdev i can tell one size fits all can look and feel better than different apps for different os, if you know how to do it. WebApps ftw!!! Dont need spy apps that are able to access my sensors secretly.
Pi-hole still works to block ads and some forms of tracking even with apps. Certain streaming apps will fail to serve ad rolls if you run over a pi-holed network. So we are not entirely helpless.
The whole tracking things is the reason why I dislike how apps are seemingly being pushed now. One of our local stores offers “discounts”, but ONLY if you download the stores app. These discounts are advertised in-store. Also, it seems that you don’t get a discount, but a rebate. I f you’re going to advertise a discount, just give me the discount.
I actually looked at the stores app today, and my suspicions were confirmed. Their app page in the App Store shows that they don’t collect anything that can’t be used to directly identify or track you.
Everyone wants *their* app downloaded, which clogs your phone, which then the solution is to "buy a bigger phone", and the cycle continues, which is why I refuse to give up my phone with a micro sd slot despite my family insisting I "upgrade".
@@1IGG LOL. That's not why I don't have a phone. I don't have a need or interstress in them. And even if I did,0 they're too expensive, and where I live I don't get a signal.
When a website puts that pop-up and tries to force you to use their app, you just don't use that website, backup to Google and find one that doesn't do that. You're voting with their paychecks, and when they lose enough money they'll realize their flaw and stop or not realize and go out of business.
Some sites like autodoc (car parts in Germany) will automatically open your app store (in my case android) and find their app so you just have to download it. It will also open in the app if you have it on your phone.
Remember when smart phones were new and people wrote apps that did cool shit for the fun of it? I thought phone apps were amazing and awesome and they would change the world. Now you'd pretty much have to break my arm, waterboard me, and threaten to harvest one of my kidneys against my will to coerce me to install your app. Companies are assholes.
One of the better uses for an app I had to download was a healthcare app for my healthcare provider that would you used to generate a QR code to transfer your personal data when you checked in. Saved a lot of minutes of data entry and made everything go more smoothly. Especially since it also did push notifications for things like your COVID test. Negative. Yay!
Downloading tacobell and getting an urge to get it just because you have an app but then not getting it so you don’t contribute to the problem is some strong discipline. The problem inhale with apps is that they are not even better than sites, it’s that website are purposefully made bad on purpose to say the app is better to make you download it and sell data etc
Apps are still chock full of adverts. Usually trying to get you to install another useless app, or the advert in the linking script is so badly/maliciously written it crashes you phone. I had one card game that secretly installed a gambling app from the advert playing in the linking script.
Another issue with app is the extra memory it takes and all the updates. It makes no sense to have an app for every website, especially places were you only read article or services you rarely use.
1:40 I've watched so many videos of yours that I can immediately detect when you're about to throw in your advertisement so my hand instinctively reach for the mouse and click forward like 1 min. lol
With features like localStorage, local db, notification passthrough and service workers, the advantages of native apps is fairly overblown. Add into that how a well developed webpage is much more platform agnostic and way easier to maintain and deploy, and it's pretty damn clear that apps are substantial extra effort they happily invest _not_ for your benefit (most of the time). The vast majority of exceptions are actually doing something a web app can't as a central feature.
Another reason that was missed here is Google Adwords. The more users on the app the less are clicking through from Google or other search engines which the company pays for promotion on with a per click basis. Source: I'm on one of the App Dev teams at a large travel website.
They also want you to download many apps in order to change your phone every 2 years and become more and more tied into their system. If you have used smartphones for the last 10 years, you're feeling comfortable using a ton of apps for every service you do and you don't need and even when you actually start understanding the situation, you don't have the will to change anything. Unfortunately, the whole society is now addicted to these smartphones even though a proper computer will always be superior.
Web developer here. The libraries and build tools used nowadays to develop websites, or web apps (as I like to call it) can optimise them to the point where they can deliver almost all the necessary features of a native mobile app without significant performance drop. If a website pushes its users to install its app, it means the company behind the website definitely wants to track the visitors more closely.
i was thinking the same. Almost all the APIs can be accessed through a browser now
@@1nikolas It's been that way for a while, too, and most sites don't even do anything special that should call for an app in the first place
It's all about screwing the users.
PWAs are just like apps, they can access the file system and send notifications
They purposely make a terrible job with their mobile web pages to force you to use the app for features too. My company has one app, but dozens of web apps for both employees and customers that were designed to work like an app (or else we would have to give macs to the developers so we could build iOS apps)
The problem is that most of the pushy ones are all just the website in a webview, making no difference at all. Most of the corps I've worked with are binning off native apps because it's cheaper for them to run a webview and slim down the app team. And possibly worse still - some apps have no website, so for example, when you're sat next to a 32" 4K monitor and get a bit peckish, Starship forces you to use their slow clunky app.
And even for those webviews performance can vary wildly. Some you barely notice anything, some are god awful slow. Looking at you, Amazon.
this is the LAST of the problems, users should not be forced to use an app, when an equivalent website exists or can exists.
It doesn't matter how good or bad the app is, the entire idea is to not use redundant apps
This problem is only compounded by the fact that most of these websites are so riddled with spyware and whatnot that, if removed, speed wouldn't actually be a concern and the site could load in a decent time even over a 2G connection or something. I remember when the EU first came out with the rules on accepting/denying cookies and all the commercial spaces scrambled to get their sites into compliance. Many of them took the most basic approach and just put up a barebones site sans the trackers at first. Being in the USA and loading those barebones sites either via adding "eu" into the url somewhere or by using a proxy made it just so much easier to browse the web for a while until they figured out how to re-add all that tracker bloat.
I remember loading up the EU version of The Guardian at one point and it was lightning fast. Literally a fraction of a second on a 100Mbps connection on desktop. The US version of the site took at least two seconds. Both versions of the site looked and functioned the same. It was all tracker bloat. Even today, using EU versions of sites via proxies or whatever can result in better speeds and better privacy than those of us stuck in the "land of freedom" where corporations control our every step. Imagine the latency caused by the data having to go across the ocean and you're still loading pages faster than if you loaded the version stored on that local CDN half a state away. The state of web design and usage has been utterly ruined by corporations and the EU cookies thing *really* showed that off to the world.
You should see what sensors are available without any permissions. Did you know they can read your battery, charger, alarm, and position sensors? They can tell if you're the kind of person who lays in bed using your phone all night, how much sleep you get, and if you only plug in your phone when the battery hits 10%.
i hate using apps now since phones no longer have external sd cards to store photos and videos means that ur seriously limited on how many things we can have installed on our phones
The real reason: It's easier to collect and harvest your data with a local app vs. a webpage.
And ensures adverts are less-likely to be blocked, and so they can bombard you with notifications
Exactly. "It has more direct access to your phone" as stated in the video is exactly why I don't want any apps installed. I'd rather use the desktop site if i have to and zoom in and out than use those cursed apps
Exactly.
It allows them to ask you for permissions of their own, rather than live within the permissions you already set on the browser, which means the browser is your first of 2 lines of defense of privacy and against malicious actions.
The root reason is always money.
I remember a while back, the nagging "download our app" interstitial messages/ads got so bad that Google had to change their search results to punish sites that were using them. Remember clicking a link on Google, only to get a full screen ad suggesting the website's app, and when you close the ad it took you to the site's home page rather than the content you wanted?
This still happens constantly
Twitter actually have been pretty useable in web form. It's how I've been using it for a while on mobile.
Quora be like, but it's a horrible community of stupid people pretending to be smart so nothing of value loss.
@@swawif Most websites are pretty usable in web form.
It's why we're so annoyed about the nagging.
Some websites even lock the website whilst the popup is active...
This is still the case, I basically ignore any website that does this.
My favorite part is when they straight lock you out of the sight without logging in or using the app. I just leave every time
Funnily enough, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter do this. As I have deleted my FB, Insta I barely use so im not logged in on pc. And Twitter im not logged in either
@@Terandium They do it for blocking any unknown stalkers who are attempted to explore someone's account without logging in
@@sihamhamda47 they can just. Maybe. Make an. Account?
Twitch does it
If they only block because you don't use the app on phone. Request the desktop version of the site and it should work.
This completely ignores the fact that many of these apps are just wrappers for the same old website, and many of the benefits listed here of using apps apply just as easily to web-based systems (local storage, location, user preference tracking, etc.)
Yes, service worker, offline-first cache strategy and push notifications, camera or bluetooth are also available. And coding an native app doesn't provide a speed advantage you notice for most apps.
I think the main reason is to make you come back frequently. By having that icon on your home screen, you're more likely to open the app and use it. Compared to opening your browser and going to that specific URL.
@@arjundureja Also, they can send you push notifications. Which shoots the probability of you engaging with the app through the roof.
@@thewiirocks websites can too with permission
@@szymex22 But we never give them that permission. It's new on the Web, it's the status quo with mobile.
an app makes it easier to track your data than a web browser who's metadata you can delete, its all about that ad revenue and data stealing
No its not. Stop thinking everyone is trying to spy on you. the only reason companies push aps a lot is that they make it easier to sell you more stuff
@@awpfade isn't That exactly the same thing as what he just said in the comment?
A web browser is an app. 🙄🤡
What I dislike is either method asks my location when I try to visit either way, I have to change my location as my wifi connection at home is dynamic and served from 320 miles away, and not any of the more populis 4 locations 250 or less miles away.. my "brick and mortar" shopping is about 40 miles away, I have to keep a record of zip codes to change this EVERY visit.. and it's funny that ad servers embedded always offer as if I'm up in Minneapolis and I'm down off of I-80 in Iowa
@@DaveMcIroy Are you being deliberately dense or are you just stupid? A web page can't control the web browser, and can't directly access your microphone, data, etc... it has to go through the web browser. Demanding you download an app evades all of these protections and gives them direct access to your hardware. It decreases your phone's safety so that they can gobble up more of your data and profile you/their customer base.
Whether it's for "my benefit" or not, i hate being told how to use a website or service.
Pro Tip: Use desktop mode
is pretty clunky but it works
@@OrangoTheAndro Problem is a lot of sites automatically redirect you to the mobile site if they detect a mobile browser.
@@jamesphillips2285 No,
In all browsers i've used there is an option in the 3 dots to enable desktop mode making websites think you're on an arm Linux computer with weird tastes in monitors
@@OrangoTheAndro TBF: Android IS a weird Linux distro with a weird taste in monitors.
the only exception is when you have never touched the internet before.
That brand awareness thing is a very traditional trick. Back when I worked at Target, the employee training said we should ask if customers wanted a Target card because they wanted people to have the brand visible whenever the person opens up their wallets.
And this is why I refuse to install most commercial apps on my phone. 80% of the apps I use are open source versions. The rest are apps that are harder to replace because they don't have good alternatives or tie into hardware that I have specifically purchased.
Not to mention, a lot of commercial apps are simply piles of crap.
this was great back in the prime years of windows phone. so many of the major players didnt develop an app for windows phone but then along came a 3rd party that made apps that were an order of magnitude better than the official ones. so for most apps the best experience of the 3 platforms was on windows phone. its a shame it didnt last.
@@iris4547 It's the same today, all of the apps I use are third party except the microsoft ones which are fine
Websites *can* in fact store stuff locally as well as send notifications when they aren't running. There's a whole concept of PWA, basically apps running in browsers. So I'm with the "can't-adblock" theory 🙂
ive never actually bothered to look into ad blocking on my phone, but surely there is a method similar to the hosts file in windows that can do adblocking system wide?
@@iris4547 there's private DNS (on Android anyway), which is largely equivalent to the hosts file. But there's only so much that can do. An ad served from the same domain name as the useful parts would still make it through, as by blocking that you'd break the app.
So apps that connect to 3rd party ad networks can be kinda cleaned up this way, but apps by companies that serve you ads of their own (upselling you on their own or affiliated more expensive plans or extra services) cannot.
I wish they could. iOS has no push api support still.
@@neoney (sighs) well, yeah. There are no modern browsers on iOS at all. Add that to the list of reasons to force third-party app installs unto Apple devices. Let's see what's about to go down in the EU!
Sadly RUclips never got the message that an app is supposed to run better then the website… issues with the app version not on the web version (extra buffering, lower amount of buffering, app not utilising cookies or cache to show accurate ads or suggestions, lower quality videos, PiP functionality only works if it feels like it, notifications sometimes delayed by 10-80 minutes…)
the fact that the app functions vastly different than the web version is even worse...
RUclips runs great on my Pixel 7, and it was almost as good on my old Moto G4 Play.... ಠಿ_ಠ
I had a ton of issues with the iOS and Android RUclips app back in the day. Now I use Kiwi with an Ad Blocker lol.
most big corp apps are trash by design. See twitter, the website puts the app to shame
The worst thing I hate about apps is that some of them force you to update before you go any further. Yes, I know some will inform you that an update is available but will let you use the old one for awhile, but others will just stop working until you update. Guess when this usually happens...right! When I'm at the checkout line where I need to use it then.
By default, iOS and Android update apps automatically, in the background, when your phone is on Wi-Fi. If you turn that off, you will have to manually look for updates. That's not really the app makers fault then, surely?
@@dftfire Yes it is because the devs are the ones who have made it so that you must be on version X.X to run their app. I've had apps that have been on a version that was 2 years old and they still worked.
@@ent2220 Yes, but if the app had auto-updates in the background, you wouldn't then have an issue when you next opened it. Sometimes apps have security issues and cannot allow users to remain using an older version forever, or the older version is not compatible with a newer Android or iOS release. If you want to update apps manually, when you say so only, that's your choice but you must expect some apps to eventually not work
And the absolute worst case is... when you need the app to work right then & there, the app won't work until updated, and something is keeping you from updating, like having OS software that just became marked "obsolete," or no longer supported by the app developer.
*when a website tells you to get the app but it's not on the platform you're using*
Maybe stop using Windows Phone, Blackberry or Nokia Series 40 or 60 thesedays then?
Or on PC, make sure you're not visiting the mobile-version of the website?
@@dftfire I want options OTHER than android and iOS
Also this happens with people using ARM SBCs like Raspberry Pi. Some websites see you're using an ARM CPU and they ask you to use an app.
@@sharoyveduchi That may change now that Apple have moved macOS devices to ARM. (Though you can run iOS and iPadOS apps on a mac, so I guess they could offer you the app)
Windows 11 can run Android apps also.
You could just install a browser extension that would make your header and user-agents report to be a non-ARM platform too.
It's funny when you install an app that only sends you to a webpage to do the thing the app should be doing on its own.
Sometimes that is due to rules about what Apple or Google permit in an app
CVS did that's me and I'm like why the fuck do I have this app if you're sending me to the webpage and then I dunciad. And now I don't download any apps that people ask although I didn't really before. Although that take up space on your phone they clog your screen. And their bullshit. I wish there was a way I could prevent them from asking me to add their app.
For me biggest advantage of using browser instead of dedicated apps is to take advantage of adblocker installed to browser (using firefox mobile). Most apps are full ads nowadays.
All of those benefits to the user can be done in the browser with a combination of Responsive Design, the various browser apis, and Local Storage.
Not really. Sure, some apps would be just as good as a website, but definitely not all.
I was thinking the same thing, all these points WERE true many years ago, but today, you can install a responsive web page as a full fledged app, receive notifications, the works...
@@jack.smith2958 its the opposite. the only apps that you truly need are those which run offline or are messaging apps. just look at PCs from 10 years ago, there was no RUclips or Tiktok App and it still worked fine.
@@Janiik It's not. There are so many things you just cannot do with a browser - or that if you do, you're going to have worse results. I've done both, and I can tell you with no uncertainty that native apps are far superior to websites for many cases.
@@jack.smith2958 still waiting for examples
What really winds me up is how a lot of sites that DO have a usable website, have also switched it to function more like the app, making it an inferior experience to what they used to be.
Slight correction: It is possible for websites to send push notifications too, just like apps can.
Websites nowadays can also request location data, use mic/camera, etc. (all based on permissions set per website, just like with apps).
There are basically no reasons (from a user perspective) for apps that are just a frontend alternative to a website.
Yes, their laggy/messy "fully responsive" UI layouting will maybe run an order of magnitude faster if it's not running in a browser. But that doesn't change the fact that it's three orders of magnitudes too inefficient to begin with...
not yet on iOS
@@Anon-y4wThey have "worked on it" for years if I recall right. I quite often wonder what the software engineers at Apple actually do...
But you have to opt in instead of opt out
@@ikuturso7570well that is very often a downside. As someone working in a phone store, there are so many people getting scammed or having their phones flooded with spam and adult content because random websites they visit get notifications. The use case is fairly limited and the risks are high. I doubt apple wants to add that as a feature.
All the disadvantages are because Apple consciously chose to make their App store better than Safari.
Web push notifications, PWAs with offline support, Add to home screen, Web bluetooth are all a thing but Apple chooses to not support them or make them worse because they don't get a 30% from websites.
Open Web Advocacy is fighting to change that.
The reason is to "accept permissions" for your whole life!
When on a website one can refuse the use of cookies
Websites can send push notifications to your phone just like a normal app. They can also access your camera, sensors, filesystem, etc. Additionally, they are able to cache data locally so the next time you load the site it displays content much faster than it would the first time. Hell, you can even add the website to your home screen like a regular app. Clunky websites aren't necessarily an issue with the browser, but is more often than not attributed to poor optimization. For most use cases such as social media, shopping, or news, a PWA works just as good as a regular app. I would go as far as saying that for the most part, traditional apps that don't perform any special operations are obsolete.
But the marketing strategy isn't obsolete. $$$$$$$ 🤑
@@johnshite4656 From a corporate perspective, you are very much right. However, for most consumers, getting tracked more and making it harder to block ads isn't necessarily a reason to download an app.
what i hate is a site trying to get me to download their app when im on my desktop . doesnt happen all the time but enough to make me wonder what they are doing lol
If you have the web browser window resized very narrow, it sometimes assumes the width means you're on a mobile device. Or you could have a browser extension that is causing it
Don't think I've seen this.
Even better is when it redirects you to the app you already have installed and doesn't allow you to open it in the browser at all, then the app continues to fail over and over. Looking at you, Best Buy and Newegg.
This is why I use the desktop websites. The apps are GARBAGE.
Yup, especially if it's like a product link and then it just takes you to the main page, hell I've had Newegg do that when trying to open their app notifications.
That is so fucking stupid 💀💀
Some sites make it almost mandatory. Off the top of my noggin, Home Depot and Lowes to a lesser extent have an awful mobile browsing experience, but their apps are a breeze. Amazon, while not bad on a browser, is much more betterer on the app.
I wish they would get it in their head that everytime there website needs more than 1 click to access what you want to see, a lot of people will just leave
@@GameCyborgCh They don't mind, and in fact they prefer that. Customers that are picky are not good customers. They have so many people coming to their site/app they can actually kick out the ones they don't want.
Small companies don't have this luxury so they aren't as aggressive.
Disagree. For any company to bend over backwards for that one extra sale and not simply optimize their online presence so they can weed out picky customers is insane. I can walk into most corporate stores with a product they don't even sell and get some store credit. Kroger used to do it, Costco did it for a long time and still might, Sam's and Walmart do it as of a year or so ago (this according to friends and family that work at these places). Incremental sales, i.e. the candy bar at checkout, are a huge thing. But they don't care about their website being difficult because it weeds out the quitters? No shot.
I was watching this video and also I got a notification on my phone that an app was not responding. I just can't get over how hilarious this is.
Typical android user
@@oeufleau8543 Typical Windows Phone user
You must be using a cheap Android phone (no offence). iPhones are incredibly fast and well optimised. Their apps never stop responding.
The annoyance of website apps is the greatest when I’m just Googling for information on my mobile browser.
When downloading an app it should give an auto-delete option such as 'after this use', 'after 1 day', 'after 1 week'. Etc
A pizza app refused to function because I had a remote access app installed... So I refused to give them anymore money.
My bread machine makes pizza dough. I'm enjoying this turn of events. (It was the papa Murphy's app so I had to bake the pizza anyway, not much more work to make the dough too)
What fr? For me they cause issue if its rooted
I usually just call pizza places myself. Fuck apps.
@@mokisan magisk hide don't work?
@@RCmaniac667 ya thats what I have to do. And even magisk hide is bit iffy. Because many apps scan the app list then you have to hide the app and all shenanigans.
@@USS_Sentinel I use web sites. Thing about the phone is you often don't know the deals ahead of time and don't get special offers for being part of their little business cult.
That is why I use desktop mode on phone whenever it is possible. I hate mobile version of web pages... also because they are sometimes very limited.
As a web developer, I know about the large amount of apis which can make your website a near native app. And many companies should use these features.
Completely agree but companies care less about the user experience and features to the control a native app provides.
Meanwhile: Progressive Webapps with local storage, push notifications and access to nearly every phone sensor: Am I a joke to you?
With modern PWAs websites should be capable of running nearly as well, but many companies are choosing not to make use of this
Making it easier for apps to data mine your personal information and other data you don't want to share.
Let's talk about how the apps love to ask to take over basic functions of your phone (at least on Android), like being your Home Screen or Messaging app. Once they do that, you'll be bombarded with ads and notifications to a degree you've never seen before, and they have access to basically everything you do on your phone or store on your phone. The 'use our app' culture is supporting a lot of scummy exploitative behavior.
I have all notifications off except from Whatsapp. Best decision ever
With a few exceptions most apps are just a browser that only allows you to visit the specific website minus useful features like multiple tabs, bookmarking, translation, etc. If a site nags me too often to use their app (or enable notifications, or sign up to a mailing list) I will just stop using it...
I recently got an A7 Lite Tab.
It automatically brought over the apps from my phone.
I had noticed about running out of storage on day 1, "maybe delete some photos."
APPS... Few things actually HAVE to be an app but every company is pushing you to have this bloated software.
This is really accurate, It has been proven that an app using deep linking (from web browser to app essentially) has an 6X higher conversion rate than the same app without deep linking, this also boosts app downloads by 6%.
I had a thought about this, with the issues with app reviews from both Apple and Google, and wanting to have purchases on mobile, would Floatplane benefit from being a PWA instead of a dedicated app?
iOS doesn't handle PWAs very well... Which is ironic when you consider that the first iPhone didn't have an app store (or any means of installing third-party software). Steve Jobs and his team thought PWAs with shortcuts on the home screen were better than native apps, so they told developers to "make iPhone-shaped web pages that look and behave like apps" (not a direct quotation). But this system didn't work very well, and the second version of iOS introduced the App Store.
Video streaming pretty much always works better in apps on mobile devices though. I prefer using my web browser over an app for most things, but if i'm gonna watch streamed video on my phone or tablet i always prefer an app
@@InventorZahran There are a couple of PWAs I use on iPadOS, including Visual Studio Code. Seems to work just fine as long as the site is properly built for it.
If their website is that poorly written, i don't wanna try their app
"But this works better in our app!"
They would probably be better off not doing this. Most people would respect them more for not doing this.
But they'd make less money so no. Do it. Doitdoitdoit!
I have seen more instances of bad apps that perform terrible when on phone than their own website. So using apps is not going to give better performance.
You know what makes websites faster? Programmers who give a crap about what they are doing, and maybe even know a little bit about it too.
But that costs money, and today companies want free lunch/rentism, profiting without spending almost anything.
I can confirm. Everyone in my field just takes pre-made stuff and their code is bad even with that. I on the other hand love to do stuff my scratch and my code is always as optimal, bullet-proof and easy to read as possible. My stuff always runs really good and no glitches. I've had stuff released still on version 1.0 because there is nothing that needs fixing.
I don't mind asking. I do mind when they disable the use of a webpage and DEMAND you use the app. But that's what desktop mode is for.
"assuming you haven't opted out"
TikTok has entered the chat.
In short, they want to profile you and sell your usage to ads company
My least favourite example of this is the youtube studio app. "The experience is better in the app" 🤓! Basically half of the functions of the website are removed or really cumbersome to access. That's why i always have "request desktop site" enabled
You forgot to mention that using an app requires you to create an account and login. What you don't want to do either but just browse for some quick news.
The worst is when it's a website you use a lot and you hope the app is faster, but the app ends up being the exact same as the website and just as slow. I'm looking at you Best Buy and McMaster Carr.
I really dislike how certain websites I visit a few times a month for a minute or so keeps pestering me about downloading their apps, I'm just gonna use the website for a minute or two. It doesn't matter why they want us to download their app, if I wanted to download the app I would've downloaded it. For some strange reasons, some websites run much better than their awful apps.
Guesses:
- monitoring+tracking
- performance measures of an app team finding out they’re superfluous
Oh and doing actual app things like video streaming and full screen games I guess
the other reason is to lock you into certain features. apps cost certain portions of your memory limit of your phone, meaning you must delete certain if you want new ones but full. there are also certain services asking you to create account to use it at all. if you are an addict to mobile games, you often see gigabytes of total data needed per *single game,* so it does affect you and its endurance.
i have been using microSDs for my phone multimedia and to backup almost everything in my PC, especially my livestream replays. today's specification standard is nearly as fast as common internal storage, but they are dropping it from phones anyway because cloud is "more profitable per gigabyte month".
And advertisement on RUclips have this too, "This is the app your phone is hungry for" weird
Websites forcing me to use their phone app just to view one single article, then that app forcing me to create an account, makes me wish there was a cloud-based virtual Android phone or tablet I can download the app into that's isolated from my real phone without having to deal with Android's multi-user feature not allowing me to share apps and other data across user accounts.
And then there are those companies who make an app that is actually worse than the website.
Worst part is when websites do this when I am on a desktop and their website is only an ad for the app, can't do anything on the website and it's not like they have a windows/macOS app.
I feel most websites run faster than their app counterparts.
Apps from websites are ALWAYS crap. Less functions, harder to navigate etc..
Often apps are just a tiny browser running the website. Good thing, I downloaded the app in those cases
You absolutely can make a web page feed notifications yo your browser even if the page is off, assuming your browser allows for it and that this functionality is not switched off. I used to get double notifications that way a lot back in 2013-2018 era before I bothered to learn to block it and then bothered to actually block it on every new phone I'd get
company: please download our app! / subscribe to our newsletter!
me: *proceeds to stop using the website*
company: *surprise pikachu face*
They actually like seeing you leave since you're not open to giving them everything they want. They prefer people who are mindless drones who obey and open their doors, locks and wallets as soon as they're asked.
And this is why I purposefully go out of my way to avoid apps on my phone. Especially RUclips, it's simply pathetic and the only benefit it gives you is being able to see chat in a stream. Infuriatingly annoying to the point where I made sure to uninstall everything I could and borderline jailbreak new phones to put these trash apps in my glass orb.
The next site that blocks my view to get me to download an app is getting perma-blocked by my adblock
How about they work on the website instead of using it as an excuse to violate my privacy.
"Ads loaded from some far away servers" - if you want a snappy website, then don't add ads to your website..? Native ads are laggy too, although browser ads are impressively poorly optimized.
"A webpage that isn't well written" - I mean, the native app is subject to the same quality requirements for it to run well.
"Apps can store vital informations on your phone locally" - So can webpages, with proper caching or with the local storage API. I guess the advantage here for native apps is that they can store DRM-ed content locally with the knowledge that the operating system will seal those files away on unrooted devices.
Some companies just re-package their website as an electron app for android. So besides giving it an actual icon and easier access to the device's APIs, there will be no performance benefit.
Love the work y'all at LMG do, great quality content, thank you! If you are looking for another Techquickie topic, I've always wondered what exactly is going on under the hood when you click "perform maintenance" on Windows with each generation?
My own mother said it best. "If I kept every single one of your school papers, I would have school papers all over the house. No phone, tablet or computer can handle all the company's apps. As a rule of thumb, if the company has a website, why would I download the app? Then again, with a ever growing abundance of old cell phones that work only on Wifi, maybe I should look into filling up those old phones.
Atleast single channel who still makes short and crisp videos
How many apps can you put on your phone? It seems to me after a while this would get a little nuts.
3:49 Ooh... Insomnia cookies. I always forget they deliver.
(kinda demonstrating your point...)
Many companies convert their browsers apps into what looks like native apps. There are technologies available that preserve performance cross platform, it depends on skill and whether there's an existing app or a brand new one is being developed.
I just want the website but OH, THERE IS AN APP UGHHHHH. Like my iPhone has enough space for gajillions of apps.
3:09 Raising Cane's baby!
I'll never download an app because of those messages, they all have the same trust-worthiness feeling as "there's hot X in your area" ads.
There's nearly always a way around them and the few that don't, well I just don't bother with them at all any more. For me it's a simple case of 'you need me, I don't need you' mentality. There's loads of other sites out there that offer the same or better content, those mobile spam apps just push me to look for better.
Loved the Picard engage!!! Kudos to whoever thought about it.
Make It So!
3:33 😆
Don’t run out of ideas please. I love this channel. Find ideas or ask from the viewers. Make videos on printer or smthng. Or tech history
My iPad has a too old IOS version and I cannot update RUclips anymore, and that app says it needs to be updated. So I am forced on the brower; Fun fact: I can drag the video slider to the end on ads skipping them in second there!
The 32bit iOS version of RUclips worked for years without any updates. It probably still would work if RUclips didn't decide that it was vitally important to hide the dislike counter.
I was able to click on a video before the pop-up leading me to the app store and it would run the video fine.
I did learn that apps are coded for performance. I'd never thought it being the case, considering how slow a 2 years old smart phone works. I guess, they aren't slow on purpose, and big companies give their best, so that you don't need to buy a new model so frequently.
0:29 If you use a webapp you wont notice a difference between an app and an webapp. Why do you compare apps with websites? Twitter for example has an webapp, it does not rely on page refreshes and has local storage that it uses. There is also a thing that is called pwa progressive web apps that are able to render as fast as native stuff. But today you wont notice a difference.
Webapps are able to store information in local space too. And the access to webcams and operating systems is also not that of an issue.
As a webdev i can tell one size fits all can look and feel better than different apps for different os, if you know how to do it.
WebApps ftw!!! Dont need spy apps that are able to access my sensors secretly.
Pi-hole still works to block ads and some forms of tracking even with apps. Certain streaming apps will fail to serve ad rolls if you run over a pi-holed network. So we are not entirely helpless.
The whole tracking things is the reason why I dislike how apps are seemingly being pushed now. One of our local stores offers “discounts”, but ONLY if you download the stores app. These discounts are advertised in-store.
Also, it seems that you don’t get a discount, but a rebate.
I f you’re going to advertise a discount, just give me the discount.
I actually looked at the stores app today, and my suspicions were confirmed. Their app page in the App Store shows that they don’t collect anything that can’t be used to directly identify or track you.
Got a notification just as you were talking about notifications. Thought for a second RUclips added the ability to vibrate the phone
Everyone wants *their* app downloaded, which clogs your phone, which then the solution is to "buy a bigger phone", and the cycle continues, which is why I refuse to give up my phone with a micro sd slot despite my family insisting I "upgrade".
Thanks for such an informative video. Makes me even more happy about not having a phone.
That's like not using a fork because it's possible to stab yourself with.
@@1IGG LOL. That's not why I don't have a phone. I don't have a need or interstress in them. And even if I did,0 they're too expensive, and where I live I don't get a signal.
When a website puts that pop-up and tries to force you to use their app, you just don't use that website, backup to Google and find one that doesn't do that. You're voting with their paychecks, and when they lose enough money they'll realize their flaw and stop or not realize and go out of business.
Some sites like autodoc (car parts in Germany) will automatically open your app store (in my case android) and find their app so you just have to download it. It will also open in the app if you have it on your phone.
Remember when smart phones were new and people wrote apps that did cool shit for the fun of it? I thought phone apps were amazing and awesome and they would change the world. Now you'd pretty much have to break my arm, waterboard me, and threaten to harvest one of my kidneys against my will to coerce me to install your app. Companies are assholes.
I fall into the category of people that did already know everything in this video, but what can I say, I'm a simple man. I see tech quicky, I clicky
One of the better uses for an app I had to download was a healthcare app for my healthcare provider that would you used to generate a QR code to transfer your personal data when you checked in. Saved a lot of minutes of data entry and made everything go more smoothly. Especially since it also did push notifications for things like your COVID test. Negative. Yay!
Downloading tacobell and getting an urge to get it just because you have an app but then not getting it so you don’t contribute to the problem is some strong discipline. The problem inhale with apps is that they are not even better than sites, it’s that website are purposefully made bad on purpose to say the app is better to make you download it and sell data etc
Apps are still chock full of adverts. Usually trying to get you to install another useless app, or the advert in the linking script is so badly/maliciously written it crashes you phone.
I had one card game that secretly installed a gambling app from the advert playing in the linking script.
If you haven't got a functional website, you will never get a cent from my wallet.
Websites can send push notifications, but seldom do they completely stop working if you deny permission, apps frequently do.
Another issue with app is the extra memory it takes and all the updates. It makes no sense to have an app for every website, especially places were you only read article or services you rarely use.
1:38 * cough* discord *cough *
1:40 I've watched so many videos of yours that I can immediately detect when you're about to throw in your advertisement so my hand instinctively reach for the mouse and click forward like 1 min. lol
My habits mean I never buy anything through an app. Always a website usually eBay or Amazon.
With features like localStorage, local db, notification passthrough and service workers, the advantages of native apps is fairly overblown. Add into that how a well developed webpage is much more platform agnostic and way easier to maintain and deploy, and it's pretty damn clear that apps are substantial extra effort they happily invest _not_ for your benefit (most of the time). The vast majority of exceptions are actually doing something a web app can't as a central feature.
Another reason that was missed here is Google Adwords. The more users on the app the less are clicking through from Google or other search engines which the company pays for promotion on with a per click basis.
Source: I'm on one of the App Dev teams at a large travel website.
Can you explain that a little more? It's nice to hear from actual developers themselves.
They also want you to download many apps in order to change your phone every 2 years and become more and more tied into their system. If you have used smartphones for the last 10 years, you're feeling comfortable using a ton of apps for every service you do and you don't need and even when you actually start understanding the situation, you don't have the will to change anything. Unfortunately, the whole society is now addicted to these smartphones even though a proper computer will always be superior.