patrick.net

I love this. Apps are starting to ruin the web. Yes, apps can provide some things that the web does not do well, but if I'm on the web, give me some fucking html content. Don't push your stupid app, and make logins optional.

This is potentially worse:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/stocks-trim-losses--facebook-vs--ebay-and-ad-block-battle-150745882.html
Ad blocking battle
Companies are expected to spend about $170 billion world-wide on digital advertising this year and they are starting to get tired of all us consumers blocking many of those ads. Now the Interactive Advertising Bureau is trying to find ways to fight back including lawsuits aimed at the companies that make ad blocking software.

That's bullshit.

And, getting back on subject, why do I need a fucking app when I can just use a browser to get the same information (like TV schedules or weather, etc).

The folk wisdom, plus what consultants and tech blogs say about this, is to minimize friction: no sign-up page, no "FAQ" or "Products" to search for in pull-downs. Anything not on your front page is worth 75% less. Anything which requires extra clicks, let alone an app installation, will get far fewer visitors.

For some reason, many companies like clip art and mission statements on their landing pages, indicating that - surprise! - upper management and marketing departments are not always smart.

Quora had better be getting something really golden in exchange for channeling people to app installation. Maybe retention and participation is higher once that app bridge has been crossed? There are likely teams of marketing types who could show me hours of PowerPoint explaining their thoughts on this.

The mobile world is really screwy.

zzyzzx says

And, getting back on subject, why do I need a fucking app when I can just use a browser to get the same information (like TV schedules or weather, etc).

For an individual company (Facebook, New York Times, Tumblr, Quora) they are far more efficient on mobile platforms for both the user and the company. For the company, they need not try to deal with the limitations and incompatibilities among browsers - they can create menus and buttons crucial to the interface they want to present, and they have more control. For the user, there is less visual noise and better readability and performance, if the app has been built well. Web browsers don't gracefully handle a wide variety of functionality on tiny screens: they can't be all things to all sites.

The problem is that the user is burdened with installation of many, many apps, and then with organizing them. It's a cluster****, and it's going to get worse.

I now spend more than half my mobile time on apps. Amazing.

Also, don't fucking switch me to you fucking "mobile" site when I'm browsing from my phone - I fucking want the full fucking version of your fucking site! Looking at you, PG&E.

Wolfram Alpha? Giggle!

Looks as if they are trying to commit organizational suicide.

Don't give me a mobile layout when I'm browsing on a computer, fucknuts. I don't want to scroll down forever just to get at your contact info. And can the three horizontal bars in the top right corner of your site when I'm browsing from a computer, too. Put back in a real freaking horizontal menu.

For that matter, don't give me garish fisher price primary colors on your site because a website for a computer web-browser shouldn't be optimized for mobile. Also, MS, Windows 8 is not a Mobile OS, so spamming upteen primary color blocks across the main screen is dumb (thank god for Classic Shell).

Is this a trial balloon? Are you pondering a patnet app?

The flipside to all this is "ruining the desktop web" which is what TL is referring to you. In case you weren't paying attention, GOOGLE MANDATED that all websites be mobile ready under threat of losing their search ranking. And the losers (I mean users) are then left with the Fisher Price web...

APPHOLES!!

Our company just spent 3 months converting everything to a responsive site. One site for any device; no lost information or funky reformatting. Fuck mobile. That's so 2012.

I rejected apps on the first try. You want my contacts and browsing history in exchange for your pain-in-the-ass app that is going to clutter up my phone??

HydroCabron says

Is this a trial balloon? Are you pondering a patnet app?

yes, considering a mobile app, mostly just to learn about mobile programming myself. but then, the difference between mobile-optimized web pages and apps seems to be shrinking. you can run quite a bit of javascript in the browser these days, and like Philistine says, a web page is the same for all devices, which saves tons of development time. and you don't ever have to get anyone to upgrade anything. the page just changes on the next load when you change it on the server.

so what does an app get you that a mere web page does not?

* access to contacts (so you can do spammy things like "share this app with ALL your friends with one click")
* access to gps, camera, compass, microphone, speaker and other hardware (some of those available in HTML 5?)
* ability to notify the user with a bing or buzz when a comment appears
* don't need to register via email, since phone has an identity
* takes up screen space, so is more visible and easier to click than a bookmark in a browser (an ugly marketing kind of fact)
* is easy to cache information, so the app works even when offline. the caltrain schedule app is great for this reason.

YesYNot says

Yes, apps can provide some things that the web does not do well

And what is that exactly? An app, by and large, is mostly UI. You can do almost any fancy UI trick you want these days with an AJAX library like JQuery. All the back end stuff is the same for both websites and apps...the real tricks are in the middleware and services that connect all the databases and update the app in real time. In fact, there are sites where you can just take your JQuery website and turn it into an "app" -- that is, an icon on a Android screen. Ok, yes, if you do want to keep data on your phone, like in the old days when Contacts were on the SIM card, an app can manipulate that better than a mobile website. But today even contacts are stored in the cloud (and see below on FDR). [Example of JQuery doing App stuff on Mobile: http://demos.jquerymobile.com/1.4.0/map-geolocation/ ]

Speaking of Android, I've been having trouble with both my tablet and phone.

One thing I notice is that the Factory Data Reset is the new Ctrl-Alt-Del or even worse, wipe disk and reinstall. It's been several times where things that should work don't and the support department tells me to do an FDR. Even more surprising is that it often works -- at the expense of having to set up and configure everything all over again. Why doesn't Google get the same amount of grief for this that Microsoft got for blue screens?

The other problem with Android devices is storage. My old phone came with 1G on board. No problem, I just add an SD card right? Nope. The phone is bricked...I could not move any apps to the SD card, so all I had to work with was 1G which with all the Google stuff allowed me to add exactly one app of my choosing. I just updated to an Alcatel OneTouch with 8G which is running Android 5 (this is the phone I just had to do an FDR on). My tablet is also Android 5. And that's fixed the space problem right? No! You still can't move apps to the SD. In fact, it's worse than before because even people who root and use the utility apps to move programs to the SD card can't do so any more! The Android 5 design is that only data be stored on the SD card...which is great, except it requires all the app developers to implement them that way. And they haven't! That means you have to buy a device with enough onboard storage from the get go. The only thing the 32G SD card does is store photos. Which, by the way, are now more easily stored on the cloud! And if you think this is me having trouble and "not figuring it out" a quick visit to the Android forums will show you how many are afflicted by the problem. (And there are probably many more who never install a single app on their phone ever...I think the average person uses one app...text messaging...the same as they did on their flip phone. Android's biggest utility being adding a software keyboard to the screen.)

Bottom line. Google gets a free pass for things that people would excoriate Microsoft over!

John Bailo says

The Android 5 design is that only data be stored on the SD card...

I am looking to buy a low end smartphone, and your above comment does explain a lot. I was figuring that either that was the case or it wanted you to fill up the existing memory before using the SD card. Something like that. Hard to say since I have never had a smartphone before. I want the SD card to store music and documents since I am going to use it as a MP3 player and USB stick. I figure 8GB inboard should be enough for me since I won't install very many apps.

zzyzzx says

I want the SD card to store music and documents since I am going to use it as a MP3 player and USB stick.

That would work so long as you can control how/where the data is stored.

With Android and 8G by the time it finishes installing all the default Google apps, you're left with about 3.5G for your own apps.

Now if you install something like a music service, or in my case, Kindle for Android, where it may download a lot of data, then you'll start to feel the squeeze. Some apps also download graphic images locally to make them speedy.

However if you are talking about images and mp3s that you control and will just play with a generic player then yes, you can easily make use of the SD card. It's only when an app uses a lot of local storage and does not make use of an SD card that space starts to get eaten away.

John Bailo says

Now if you install something like a music service,

Any cellphone I would buy would have a built in FM tuner, like the Motorola and HTC phones. No streaming for me! Just plug in the headphones and it uses that as an antenna. Only a moron streams what they can get for free using an antenna.

zzyzzx says

built in FM tuner,

For me the car radio works great.

In fact that's another of peeve. Even though I have this music service on my phone, it's still way simpler to get to the music I want, with more consistent quality, to turn on the classic rock station, KZOK. To make my phone work, I have to connect it up, start it up, search for music (making sure it doesn't drain the phone battery).

Oh, and another Android fault that plagues many people is sound. Mostly sound that is too low. You have to go spelunking around just to find various system volume limits. Even then, I find I can't get the same power out of my phone piped into the Aux port as with my simple FM radio. Using it at home, where I can futz around with searching for music and stream it through my Chromecast to a soundbar, it more worthwhile.

In addition to these Android faults, I found a new one this week. Bluetooth. I have a Bluetooth earpiece and it worked with my old phone running 4.1 But when I replaced my phone with an Android 5 phone, the bluetooth sputtered and cut out a lot. Must be my cheap phone right? No...again, a simple web search finds many people with the same problem...all related to Bluetooth getting worse with going from Android 4 to 5! How does that happen? How does a major company making the most used OS in the world release a major version with problems not getting solved or getting worse?! And yet there is little or no public criticism for Google?

Obligatory:

John Bailo says

For me the car radio works great.

It's for when I am using the phone not in the car.

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_703DGNFLY2/AudioQuest-DragonFly-v1-2.html?tp=59309&awkw=75622180825&awat=pla&awnw=g&awcr=47439278185&awdv=c

That's $150

Mr Happygoluckofus says

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_703DGNFLY2/AudioQuest-DragonFly-v1-2.html?tp=59309&awkw=75622180825&awat=pla&awnw=g&awcr=47439278185&awdv=c

Which is more better?

http://www.arcam.co.uk/mini.htm