[welterde]

I tried with a normal IRC client on Android. And like I said it also works with my Jabber client, which I have been running for years now and never had problems with missed notifications or anything there, despite it also requiring a open TCP connection to work.

The only thing is it's less nice for the _other_ irc users in the channels if they don't have filtering setup to get rid of those extra joins/quits if you are in a bad connectivity area (unless you are running a server that itself hides them). But for onboarding that makes no difference at all.

However the sore points come a bit later with most servers having no server-side history, integrated bouncer, etc. (which would all require a bouncer or tmux+weechat, which I totally agree is not for everyone)

If you want all that you are limited to exactly one ircd currently (Oragono) that has integrated bouncer (so no need to run weechat/znc to stay "connected"), server side history (same history on all your devices and also not loosing anything on disconnect) and multi-session support (being online with multiple clients using same nick). Some of those features are slowly diffusing to other ircds and from there to irc networks, but that takes time.