[jinzo]

I'm running a small service, sub 150 users, no online signup kind of business, B2B. Small EU country. 95% of users ask 'do you have an mobile app?' in first 5 minutes of onboarding. Telling them how to install a PWA (and what it is and so forth) is an uphill battle. Unfortunately App Stores rule the non technical crowd.

[cybrox]

This is not an accident. This is exactly why Apple (and Google also) have made the PWA experience bad for years. They must force users to believe their app store is the only source of programs.

[mehagar]

For Apple, sure. But Google has been leading efforts to make the PWA experience good. In origin trial right now is the ability for websites to install PWAs: https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/MSEdgeExplainers/blob/main/....

This would make it much easier to find and install web apps than the current method.

[pipo234]

To many users, an app seems to be perceived as the blessed way to access the web. While on a mobile, they are mostly a way to organize symlinks or bookmarks. Except, off course a web browser does its best to protect the user while most apps don't.

Meanwhile I continue doing the Lords work by telling kids that apps are not the internet. Hopefully, that 95% percentage will eventually decrease.

[didntcheck]

It's not users who are pushing this. It started off with just superfluous but optional apps of websites. Now every year I find there is something I used to be able to do, which I now must own a smartphone to do. And it's not just getting discounts at coffee chains, it's increasingly stuff like accessing healthcare plan benefits, or verifying my identity for banking

A few sites throw up a blocking screen to download the app, which disappears once you spoof a desktop UA. But the big problem is businesses now having no web interface at all

[pipo234]

Very good point, though I believe it's both market push and consumer expectation.

Because we have such limited control over our devices, they effectively provide the security of a jail locking down what users can do. That is appealing from a healthcare or banking perspective because it obfuscates the client-server API and gives exact control over the UI. As a bonus, the coffee chain gets to glean lots of details from your phone that would be unavailable in a browser.

As individuals we can do little more that push back: don't let yourself be trapped by coffee chains (go to a different one) and bother your bank's service line about having to use their app. The rest is up to government intervention, I fear.

[curt15]

>To many users, an app seems to be perceived as the blessed way to access the web. While on a mobile, they are mostly a way to organize symlinks or bookmarks. Except, off course a web browser does its best to protect the user while most apps don't.

That is an education problem. What do school computer courses teach these days? Do schools even have computer literacy classes anymore? Do they still teach students about the internet?

[charcircuit]

The OS is what protects the user. Have you ever seen the prompts asking the user if they want to share their location?

[addandsubtract]

This made me realize, Firefox needs to create a launcher that just creates PWAs out of bookmarks (or vice versa). That way, people get the "app feel" without needing to download every single app.

[pjmlp]

Why do they need to install a PWA?

We do mobile friendly Web UIs, that is enough.

Their customes, employees, go to the respective company website, get a responsive UI for their device, done, the services require to be online anyway.

[roysting]

It’s about convenience in most cases; an “app” to tap on, not a URL to remember and enter or a bookmark to save, name, file, and locate.

Just like apps in general, PWAs are mostly a mobile heavy modality. Bookmarks and the browser is largely still fine on laptop/desktop, but even there you see the app design language start prevailing with things like bookmarks and “recent sites” being presented like app icons.

[eloisant]

Even if it's not a PWA, on both iPhone and Android you can create an "app icon" that will open a URL in a chromeless window. It's as simple as tapping "Add to home" from your browser.

So you get your "app" to tap on.

[greiskul]

It's not about power users. It's about regular users and the patterns they have learned.

The mobile ecosystem was built in a way to funnel all users into apps. That's the experience that is optimized for use, that's the experience users feel safe and secure. Barriers were put in place on what apps are even allowed to do (like not having alternative app stores, or a browser in iOs that is not just a webview of Safari). This created an enviroment where developers and companies are forced to develop to this ecosystem, and pay the Apple tax, since that's where the users are. And an alternative system is impossible to be created since Apple uses it's power at the hardware and operating system level to make alternatives impossible.

And someone will probably come and say that this is all users choice to be locked down in the walled garden. That the walled garden is keeping the users safe, so therefore it is only fair that Apple gets to capture 30% of all digital economical activity.

[johnisgood]

I swear it is so alien to me. Tapping on an app is equivalent to tapping on a link in my bookmarks.

[billynomates]

You could even have a button on website to install an icon on the launcher which goes directly to the site in a webview

[mehagar]

So they can potentially work offline and deliver push notifications.

[pjmlp]

Very few applications actually need push notifications, a large majority is only annoying users with upselling, or user engagement.

[dns_snek]

They said that the users are asking for it.

[layer8]

The users are asking for an app on the app store, not a PWA.

[layer8]

Notifications.

[pjmlp]

Aka upselling and user engagement.

[layer8]

Some things I do want to get notifications about, including from Patreon, whose notifications are perfectly fine, configurable with appropriate granularity. I don’t get any unwanted notifications there.

[oneeyedpigeon]

There may be a time where we have to push back, though, and this may be it. "There is no app" may sound terrifying now, but once we've educated users, it will only get less scary, until we might actually claim back some ownership of our own stuff from the likes of Apple.

[roysting]

This may just be more of a design and communications challenge for you, than your users. I have seen several design templates that use various forms of visuals to assist the user through the “add to Home Screen” process, which is just three steps; Share—-> More —-> Add to Home Screen. It Is arguably even a faster process than going through the App Store, even if users may be more familiar with it.

You could accompany it with some copy explaining how it keeps the service efficient and affordable, i.e., possible stating if you were to offer an app you would have to increase the price by 75% to pay Apple their fee and for the extra costs.

I suspect other arguments for PWAs would not really matter, like that you have no need to track them or use other abilities an app affords, etc. Most people only care about very few things engineers actually care, let alone know about.

I’ve always been an advocate of PWAs whenever it makes sense and will even design and architect to that objective. But even when I would deal with clients, I think the real “up hill battle” is that apps allow for higher fees and charges because they’re more work and come with greater expenses for for-profit apps, so there has been very little incentive to spread general user awareness about the “add to Home Screen”/PWA.

It’s a bit of a paradox, but I guess that seems to be an under-appreciated driver in something like “advanced consumer capitalist economies”, where the “rational actor” simply does not exist anymore.

[Fokamul]

What kind of users are these? Power-users or normal users (Android etc.) or dum..Apple users?

Because in my circle, power-users and beyond. Everybody is angry with apps needed for everything, you want buy bread in store, "do you have our app?" It's a meme here. And in our local subreddit, 600k users. Sentiment is the same.

We also tried to bypass stores apps with generating new accounts and distributing QR/cards for free to everyone. It was kinda popular.

And problems are more real with each day, eg.: scammers have their work way easier, since dumb users can take a huge loan directly from banking app in their phone.

Also small EU country, btw.

[poulpy123]

By definition power users and beyond are a minority

[billynomates]

BTW, you don't need the app store for that. You can use Firebase App Distribution which doesn't require you to go through the review process.

Basically you just ask their email address and add it to a list in Firebase. Upload your ipa to firebase and the user will receive an email with a link to download

[prmph]

Not sure I understand. So people don't use websites anymore?

Specifically, do people not use websites that have rich/complex data driven functionality anymore?

If they do, I'm wondering what determines whether an application is seen as needing a mobile app vs being ok as a regular web app.

[pydry]

>95% of users ask 'do you have an mobile app?' in first 5 minutes of onboarding

Did you ask them why?

[qingcharles]

Ehh. OnlyFans is a multi-billion dollar mobile business that has no app.