[TicklishTiger]

Are there many applications these days which are not available as a "web app" aka website?

If we (developers) go for a "website first" approach, there is not much the device manufacturers can do against people using our products.

From a business perspective, is there a strong incentive to develop apps at all, when you already have a website?

Any stories of startups that had a running website already and then boosted their usage by an order of magnitude by adding apps for the various appstores?

[boudewijnrempt]

We make four to six times as much through the Windows Store than we get through donations on the krita.org website; with about 80,000 downloads through the website, and about 2000 downloads through the Store...

[pbhjpbhj]

Do you know why? It might seem obvious, but corporate users for example who want to support development often can buy a product that they couldn't donate to -- so greater income doesn't necessarily show that people more likely to pay prefer Windows Store, that might just be the easiest way to pay.

Tax for independent purchasers can change the way one will pay -- like if you're a UK charity I can donate and get you Gift Aid (if you use the scheme; a government increase in the money you get), or purchase and show it as a deduction in my taxes.

Obviously you know your users better than I, but I wonder if you've surveyed/canvassed to understand their motivations?

[tekdude]

> Are there many applications these days which are not available as a "web app" aka website?

Pretty much no, with a few exceptions:

1. Any kind of hardcore gaming

2. Any kind of CPU/memory/disk intensive media production software (though this is becoming less so)

3. Any kind of infrastructure application; you wouldn't run a web server or database in the browser (yet)

[fr2null]

4. Any kind of application that needs to interface with a server that doesn't support TCP (webRTC kinda solves that, but not really, at least not yet)

5. Any kind of application that needs to feel fast. I have a pretty fast phone & computer, but I really feel the difference between a web app and a native app. A bit of data viewing is alright on the internet, but real productivity for prolonged periods of time? I'd rather have a native app.

6. Anything at all that needs to interface with your device. Web apps are extremely locked down, and for good reason, but this does mean that you can't use them as a file manager for instance.

Applications that only need to display, search and edit some data are absolutely fine as a webapp. Anything else gets a lot harder. Although I do feel like we are slowly shifting to more and more web based apps. For better or for worse.

[kyriakos]

even office applications the web based offerings are years behind their native desktop versions. they are good for some basic work but if you need to do proper work you have to use the desktop versions in most occasions.

[colinmorelli]

> Any stories of startups that had a running website already and then boosted their usage by an order of magnitude by adding apps for the various appstores?

I'm not sure why an order of magnitude should be the effect we're chasing. Doubling would be phenomenal, even a 10% lift could be massive depending on your current size. The only threshold you need to hit is that the value gained from building the apps exceeds the cost to build them. Certainly that can happen at much less than 10x growth.

With that said, the problem is that this is an infeasible proposition for businesses. Ignoring any specific tasks that are actually just better when run native, many users of high-touch apps (used at least once per week, for example) get real value from having a native experience. If your competitors have it and you don't, you'll likely lose users because of it. Asking Facebook to drop the Instagram app because we want to stick it to Apple is only going to help Snap.

In theory, there is potentially some future hope for WebAssembly and PWAs, but if/when they get to the point where they can truly replicate a native experience, I see no reason why Apple wouldn't restrict them the same way that they do native apps. That is, unless a court rules against it or legislation changes.

[AgloeDreams]

Many things just don't work well in the Web. Notably games or productivity tools that are expected to be fast and always available. The hey app in question also has a (REALLY FAST, seriously its like a 99% lighthouse score!) website but the App is much faster than it and 'feels right'

[magicalhippo]

> Are there many applications these days which are not available as a "web app" aka website?

I hope you mean "are there many application these days which cannot be replaced with web app". The majority of desktop applications are not available as web apps.

I'd say the majority of several dozen applications I use on a daily basis could not be replaced with a web app, at least today.

Of course with web browsers becoming their own operating systems, most of the applications could in theory become web apps...