Seriously. I don’t want to install something on my phone when the dev is just using a WebView, if that’s what it’s called. When the app is basically just a website with the browser hidden.
What’s the reason for that? To attach the customer? To sell the app for money? Is there more ad revenue that way? Do you reach more people?
(Are there any good reasons for it, too? Security, maybe?)
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If they have an app they can gather far more personal data from you (and your device) that they can then turn around and sell
Also it adds a link to their website right on your phone.
And far fewer people have adblockers that block ads in apps.
This exactly. Just ask for some location rights in the app and get access to wifi also.
Most users don’t mind giving an app a large amount of access and in doing so, a lot of personal information gets exposed.
If you have a choice, use a website.
Some people are missing the forest for the trees here
Having a businesses app on your phone is better regular advertising than anything they could ever pay for.
They just want an excuse to make you look at their logo and think about their business as regularly as possible
I want apps to be apps again.
On my desktop I have browser tabs for WhatsApp, messenger, Skype, gMailChatTalkHangouts and slack. I know slack’s app was ass but I miss the rest.
I want a discrete app that doesn’t crash with chrome and which sits in my tooltray so I don’t have to fucking search for it whenever something makes a noise (ctrl-alt-a). I want to see it from the blink in the corner and not by scanning 31 windows of 7 groups of 12 tabs each.
Often times I just give up and hope it also makes my phone spork too so I can grab it there.
I would say in some cases, people are conditioned now to expect an app, even if it’s basically a website. I think in a mobile context, most non-techy people don’t normally think to open up a browser and say, browse Amazon or something. Instead they go for the Amazon app on their phone, and browse/shop/whatever there.
I wouldn’t say this is exclusive to phones either. I once worked on a product that was essentially web-native, but they had to ship a desktop app because their market expected it, even though it was only a web-view wrapper to the website. No offline storage, no difference in behaviour, or need for some specific API; nothing. I guess you try explaining to boomers that a web-view desktop app is unnecessary.
The data vacuuming and additional marketing are just added benefits for the app developer, if they go down that path (they usually do).
So they can make your phone go bingedybeep and show you more adverts, while slurping up any data the browser doesn’t usually let them access.
We had a project once that ran completely fine as a website except for the ability to scan bar codes. That one thing forced us to create an app and the rest of the app was just showing the website.
Ad revenue. It is harder to block ads on mobile than it is on desktop.
If a company require me to download or install something I ammost likly looking up their direct competitors
…who usually require you to download their app, too - sadly
