A lot has been said recently about why folks might not want to install a native app when the web version would suffice or in some ways be better.
- No, I Won’t Download Your App. The Web Version is A-OK. | Sid’s Blog
- Your App Should Have Been A Website (And Probably Your Game Too) - Rogue Engine Adactio—The web on mobile
- The (open) web is good, actually
Apps interact with law in precisely the way that web-pages don’t. “An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to defend yourself against corporate predation”
This is an interesting case of the counter argument: Microsoft engineer says native apps are back, and it could finally revive Windows 11’s fight against web apps
I think that’s a slightly different use case though. This sounds to me like Microsoft building native desktop apps and even parts of the Windows UI as web views and the performance hasn’t been great.
Dear websites, please stop asking me to download your mobile app
- I can open multiple tabs/windows
- Very few app support signing into multiple accounts. I can do this with multiple browser profiles or instances
- Bookmarklets or extensions
- Can bookmark anything or save the url whereever I want
- I can copy text from any part of the app
- Easy to save images and sometimes video
- A searchable history