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by gridlockd 2273 days ago
Why would users have to pay extra?

If right now you have a web app with paying users, that means you have an accounting system of paying users.

You could publish a "native" app that simply serves that web app through a web view, using those same accounts.
1 comments
vetinari 2273 days ago
The issue is elsewhere: you need to pay your developers to develop the second app. You would most probably need to bring in one more team, for each native platform.

Will you get new users from that? If yes, they will pay for that (in principle). If not, just some existing users would migrate? Then you just increased your cost without increasing your revenues. So you would need to gain enough new users to make it worthwhile.

* * *

In a nutshell, it is the same reason why Adobe won't port their apps to Linux. They already have all the users that need their software, and while it would be nice for some of their users to migrate, it won't bring anything to Adobe.

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gridlockd 2273 days ago
You don't need a dedicated developer to ship a WebView app. That's the whole selling point behind tech like Cordova. Most of your code can stay the same and most likely all of it will stay Javascript (or whatever you are transpiling to it).

Again, if you are actually affected by this issue right now, you have a web app that is more or less trivially ported to a web view app. Your user don't have to migrate, they already have accounts, they just need to download the app again, this time from the App Store.

> In a nutshell, it is the same reason why Adobe won't port their apps to Linux.

Linux is a non-market for Adobe apps. On the other hand, if you have an offline PWA right now, you most likely already have iOS users that you would probably lose if you start confronting them with this "7 days and your data is gone" bullshit.

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searchableguy 2273 days ago
Why is nobody mentioning that distribution of apps is behind apple's doors and they can stop you from distributing anything they don't like or want for any reason?

On android, you can side load apps. On iOS, you can't.

You have to pay 30% cut if you are doing payments.

You have to adhere to their reviews and design guidelines. Which is OK but not ok if you are a small team and your users are fine with somewhat lacking app.

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