If 90% of users are on phones why are 90% of developers making web apps?
Discussion
Because of gatekeepers 😂
Because phones have browsers
This. You can access websites from anywhere. You can only access apps from phones.
Apple app review guidelines plus you need to KYC to be a developer on App Store , progressive web apps are a way to bypass this.
Maybe develop on Android instead.
Apple needs to die.
🤔Why are they easier to create?
Tried this battle long ago.
92% of the world is mobile. Laptops and desktops are mainly used for school and gaming now.
Nostr needs more mobile devs.
1. It's a lot easier to make a web app.
2. Devs are extremely biased towards using computers instead of phones, even though very few people prefer that option.
3. The Nostr support/base libraries/signers/etc on the web is way better.
Now that Google is retiring chromeos with the plane to switch laptops to Android. I'm excited to see how that changes the ecosystem; although, I think it will change it slowly.
I've really enjoyed using my galaxy in dex mode.
Yeah, sitting at my laptop all day. Mobile phones make me blind, fr.
We're basically volunteers, so building things we'd use ourselves is a big motivator.
They are holding out for the return of the web.
because its easy. Unfortunately it’s just a bad tool for the job, which is why I’m trying to build a better browser for nostr apps.
I am user, only use mobile rarely.
I want to build go multi platform gui. I can do it. Just need time.
I will make it because fuck you.
I’ve been experimenting with a remote signer app for iOS similar to amber using iPhone’s credential provider api. It could be pretty nice. (Autofill a nip 46 event without leaving the app. similar to how a password manager autofills a password text field) I’ve hit a roadblock due to the face that there’s no great way for an app to pass in the connect url into my remote signer. Apple sandboxes the hell out of apps which would be much easier on web. Not giving up though. I’m thinking of using the clipboard copy/paste to make it work.
Much harder to de-platform a web app. If you don't play by the app stores policies, they kick you out of the app store. The web is open.
barrier to entry
php.
php.
And how much money you spend on the phone or on the computer? My purchases are usually on the computer and when paying for stuff with the phone it is a qr code that opens a webpage that then opens an app x)
Yeah, you right.
They could be doing PWAs
Interesting observation, I had not known that.
Do devs care what users want?
Maybe the have an idealized vision of people using browsers on mobile, which would be cool, but actually is a shitty experience in general
I just think most devs, at least those I’ve encountered here, are more interested in their own pet projects instead of actually what users want and need. That’s cool and all for them. Sucks for the users though.
It's not possible to know what users want, therefore developers should work on what they think will good.
But even if it was possible, if it was known that users wanted a _bad_ thing, should developers work on that anyway? Or should they instead work on a _good_ thing?
“It’s not possible to know what users want…”
That’s where so many devs here go wrong.
huge difference between what users think thay want and what they really want.
I understand that you want gifs 😂 But you need to understand that if it's that easy to do, it would have been done already.
25+ years in the business and rarely saw a good idea from an "user". Businesses tend to generate good use cases. Let the devs handle the implementation.
#preach!
Because PWA is the way to go.
It really ain’t
apple devs are the ultimate cucks thats why. so that leaves a self respecting dev with two miserable choices, spend all their time reaching the 30% android or hail mary a PWA.
My wife does EVERYTHING on the go, on her phone. She has a 2015 macbook air she never uses.
Devs should realise, women on the go is the target audience.
Would be interesting to learn what exactly she does, because I cannot do anything meaningful on a phone.
Pandering to wimmins is popular, wat is wrong with you?
But no, seriously, I support this defense of desktop apps. Also why coracle and nostrudel I prefer. Right now on coracle mobile while out co0ecting the post.
Yeah this is real. My wife rarely uses a computer, almost always on phone.
This isn't only women. There's plenty of people who only interact online this way.
There's probably a strong bias amongst software devs, that think people spend a lot of time on a laptop or desktop because they do.
Happy with mobile client. But I can't find a desktop client which does what I want... 🤷🏻♂️
I'm not talking specifically about Nostr apps, by the way, and this was an honest question, not rethorical.
Miscellaneous thoughts:
- Javascript and the web are easy/cheap to develop
- Javascript apps are easy to convert to "native" apps
- Phones are terrible for using software and bias towards dark patterns. People don't explicitly believe this, but a business application that only works on a phone is probably going to be a non-starter
- It depends on who your users are, and what your app is
- Web is more common when starting, and apps get built after a company succeeds. Early users are more engaged, and willing to suffer non-optimal tech for something that solves their problems.
I was thinking somewhat along the same lines
Recently read Resilient Web Design, got inspired and told our UX designers in our requirements docs we want mobile first
Then we get into check in meetings and I’m seeing desktop layouts and I’m like wtf guys
My partner (dev) is like yo let’s just roll with it I can make this mobile later… and this will be faster/cheaper
So I compromise and say fine but as we do this I want to be able to understand clearly how this fits on mobile in the future.
And it’s reasonable… the issue keeps coming up (i.e. I keep asking) and if there’s no obvious solution we change something to acknowledge future mobile
…But at the end of the day we’re now making a web app first with desktop layouts lol 😩
I'm a big fan of mobile-first layouts, nothing is worse than trying to use something for desktop on mobile and seeing it completely broken. Maybe I'm contradicting myself here, but the exercise of designing for mobile really helps refine IA assumptions
agreed. if it breaks on mobile design has failed
Os emuladores de Android são mais pesado que Chrome
Boomers with money use web apps.
Mobile is for the poor plebs.
Because you can use web apps on your phone or on desktop.
Everything with a screen and an Internet connection, also has a browser.
And most people can't discern between a PWA and native phone. Lots of "native" apps are just mini browser windows, anyway.
I don't think there are many web apps packaged as native apps that have much success, because they are so bad even users notice. Can you name a few?
Ask myself this constantly. Almost all social media consumption is on phones.
In my case, single reason: I don’t want to ask permission to publish an app
You don't need any permission. Obtainium, nostr:npub10r8xl2njyepcw2zwv3a6dyufj4e4ajx86hz6v4ehu4gnpupxxp7stjt2p8 or just direct manual APK downloads work very well.
But you wouldn’t be targeting 90% of users anymore.
Users don't prefer webapps on mobile, I think that was the point
I get it and agree, but the majority of mobile users are also exclusively using the official stores (in iOS they don’t have a choice). If I remember installing from APK on android (it’s been a while), you have to ignore a bunch of scary pop ups from the OS.
Don’t get me wrong though, I do think native apps provide better UX, cause you don’t have the indirection of a browser between you and the device. And Zapstore is a very cool way to distribute those apps!
But for now, I see web apps as the best way to avoid App Store bureaucrats and their shenanigans, while still reaching most users.
Good point!
OK, so you have added another requirement. Not only you must not have to ask for permission, you also must target 90% of the users.
We are in somewhat of a conundrum now, because 90% of the users don't really know how to deal with webapps in a mobile browser, they only understand native apps or simple webpages. Also most webapps suck horribly on 90% of the phones in the world, because their bloated JavaScript requires performance-minded development and high-end phones in order to work.
and late adopters don't matter, anyway
Well, I interpreted the point of the discussion as why would devs chose webapps when that doesn’t provide the most reach.
I think your point about users not knowing how to deal with web apps applies equally to not knowing how to deal with alternative stores - and in ios is not possible at all.
However, a web app can still be used as a regular website in the browser, even if the user can’t figure out how to add it to the Home Screen.
I do agree with the rest you said. Webapps do provide a worse experience on mobile.
For Zapstore this is technically true, I need to whitelist developer npubs in the relay.
But that won't always be the case, in a future release I'll add relay selection and more relays to choose from - with different policies/tradeoffs
Us too.
PWA is the answer! No app store barriers. Cross-platform compatibility. Offline capabilities. Push notifications. Home screen integration. Optimized for mobile devices. Responsive design. Single codebase. Web developer friendly. No installation friction. SEO-friendly. Faster loading times. Lightweight. Integrated mobile features.
No NFC support on iOS though
Um. PWAs never seem to work well. Servers allow for proper caching of data.
Freedom.
Freedom? You're literally working on a proprietary Google VM sandbox and you need an authorization from ICANN to join.
What do you see a viable alternative to DNS and ICANN?
When nDNS servers and nhttp? (nostr DNS servers and domains)?
Wen nostr devs-of-trust? Then run nostr code from distributed events on relays, signed by the devs.
And making an app for iOS and/or Android is better ?
Piracy exists thanks to the web, like I said, freedom.
Yes.
TBH Developing custom apps (especially for Android) is a huge pain
I refuse to make a mobile app unless I'm over paid in bitcoin only and tax free to do it.
All this work on nostr and lightning is charity work for me anyway,
WTF add more Bureaucrazy Apple pain to what is already hard labor? 😈
Well I'm glad to hear that, I HATE apps but am forced to use a phone for nostr things because there is not proper computer alternative. E.g.. amethyst is the best working client but I can only do half an hour before my eyes and brain hurt from the tiny screen and buttons
Because people are afraid to learn a new language or they boss is like mine that says "everyone knows delphi theres no need to make the app with flutter or whatever other language".
Thats why 90% of web apps are not usable
because we're still at the point where the browser is the everything app that works seamlessly across systems and users already understand how it functions and how websites generally work inside of it, supposedly on a layer with restricted access to the whole device. Apps require more trust or heavy usage for a user to warrant installing and giving additional exposure to the wider OS (at least I perceive it this way). At the same time, coding for the browser is basically unrestricted of gatekeepers and compilers and specific hardware, device shape or even coding skills to have something up and running everywhere.
tldr: less friction
Yes..
Sensorship resistance
90% of developers like js
Because fuck app stores
It's personal now nostr:npub10r8xl2njyepcw2zwv3a6dyufj4e4ajx86hz6v4ehu4gnpupxxp7stjt2p8.
nostr:npub10r8xl2njyepcw2zwv3a6dyufj4e4ajx86hz6v4ehu4gnpupxxp7stjt2p8 is open and permissionless, absolutely an exception to the walled gardens I refuse to subjugate myself to. Keep up the great work Zapstore!
No app store needed. Just give me a GitHub repo and we are Gucci
Agree
mobile dev is harder than it should be
Because I've spent the last 2.5 months arguing with Apple to even get a developer account set up for White Noise, AND I STILL DON'T HAVE ONE.
The rest of my time over the last month has been debugging arcane strangeness in Android.
For the most part, building on mobile sucks. And most people don't like to chew glass.
I think most people do like to chew glass and I have a lot of evidence for that.
Also, White Noise is not being developed using the expected mobile stack, so you would also be debugging arcane web strangeness if you were to develop a web app in Haskell or whatever.
Web apps are easier and more funny to develop, you can mix different frameworks and skills, starting from really basic and growing up. They are quicker to test and share too, and this also highly improve the development speed. HTML and CSS allow to have really nice designs and UIs, even if often bad development make them a little slow compared with native.
Mobile development has a much higher barrier to entry.
Incumbency bias. 💁♂️
Point of entry for a lot of users on social media are links in bio and the majority of users (at least in the US) spend most of their time on social media. Competing with scroll is pretty challenging for most
I use my phone a lot, but I prefer to still do plenty on my desktop, like nostr. It's much easier to type and I like the bigger screen, so I still see a market in the web app world.
because according to #Pareto, is the 10% that moves everything. simple as that
because web apps can be used on any phone, while phone apps can only be used o nthe phones they where made for.
good point there's not a single good mobile nostr client.
it either performs terribly or looks terrible. Just make something *pretty* and in dart/flutter so it works everywhere... it's really not hard, I'd do it if I had time to do it
You probably know that in Brazil it's likely even higher.
Irony !!
do people download app? I go straight to the browser.
A better question is why are 90% of users using something compromised from the beginning...
I think developers have an unconscious bias, thinking that normal people use laptops/desktops a lot, because they do.
This isn't real for most people. Plenty of people just use mobile devices exclusively, or near enough.
I doubt 90% of developers are making web apps, but are 9x more making web apps than mobile apps? Conceivably https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/developer-profile/#4-developer-type though that might hinge on whether "full stack" is understood to be _web_ front+back end (full stack: 30.7%, mobile: 3.4%). Note that Desktop is not even an option; possibly the reason for more developers working in web than mobile rhymes with the reason more developers are working in mobile than desktop?
I'd consider that a hopeful thing given commentary like https://infrequently.org/2024/10/platforms-are-competitions/ or maybe the flipside is that web bloat is a cause of so many developers working on web apps!?
You can use one development environment¹ to offer an app to iOS, Android, desktop users and even to alternative mobile OSs like #SailfishOS.