People use the browser very regularly and don't realize it because it's an embedded webkit. A classic example is people sharing articles on social networks.
Native apps are a bad experience for this kind of application because they are not ephemeral. If everything in your environment has an app associated with it, then your phone will be clogged with hundreds or thousands of apps, 99% of which you never open. You want a transaction-cost free model for envirnonmental interaction, the same as 'surfing' the web. No persistent cost for experimenting or trying something out.
The whole idea of "installing" stuff has really regressed computing back to the 90s. The web introduced the idea of emphemeral applications which are cached, so that you never need to manage the memory of your device.
I'd like to see mobile native apps adopt Web-style model. You can pin the cache and permanently install apps that are important to you or have giant resources (like huge games), but most of your apps should backup-and-delete themselves on the fly when coming into disuse and space is needed.
I'm sick of being asked to rate apps, and sick of having to delete apps to make space.
Steve Jobs once said "if you see a task manager, they blew it" Because people shouldn't have to manage the kernel resources of their phone. To that I would add, "if you see an install button, they blew it", because people should not have to manage their flash memory.
I thought the nightmare of cleaning up your computing devices went out with utilities to clean Windows drives and registry in the 90s.
I agree with you. The problem as I see it is iOS-induced obsession with hardware I accelerated special effects. It's easy to make a web app that's silky smooth and has highly optimized paths for interaction, but iOS worshipping has caused us all (web and native developers both) to abandon interaction design for special effects design.
Sad to think that 2000-2010 was actually the golden age for genuine focus on interaction design. Ironic too that Apple was the company who killed it.
I should add: Apple generally does great interaction design. But they bundle it with expensive special effects and visual design. Everyone else tries to copy all three, but they can't, because it's insanely hard to do all three. Thats Apple's moat. And when mortal dev shops bump up against the "interaction/effects/visual, pick two" bargain, interaction is often the first one to go because it's the one that doesn't come through in a demo. And they're relying on the parallax effects to wow their client/boss. Plus they want to feel like they're going for the moonshot "Apple-quality" bar so their ego can get a boost. And honestly most people stop doing interaction design the moment they get a picture in their head of what their app could be. We become emotionally wedded to interactions the minute we invent them. God forbid we actually pay attention to the friction in our users' lives and put those things at the top of our prioritized lists.
I think we need a return to boring, native-to-the-web software with superb interaction design. And sacrifice pretty fonts and sacrifice 3d parllax effects and sacrifice animation, except where it is truly impacting comprehensibility (and not just feel).
I would disagree. I know a lot of "normal people," and most use their browser to google or search using their preferred engine or a particular website, as well as load links from emails, or visit websites on the go.
Personally, I'm not sure that using a particular company or product's app really saves me any time. Half the time, the app takes forever to load or is so non-properly story-boarded, that I resort to google anyway. Maybe I'm the outlier.
Native apps are a bad experience for this kind of application because they are not ephemeral. If everything in your environment has an app associated with it, then your phone will be clogged with hundreds or thousands of apps, 99% of which you never open. You want a transaction-cost free model for envirnonmental interaction, the same as 'surfing' the web. No persistent cost for experimenting or trying something out.
The whole idea of "installing" stuff has really regressed computing back to the 90s. The web introduced the idea of emphemeral applications which are cached, so that you never need to manage the memory of your device.
I'd like to see mobile native apps adopt Web-style model. You can pin the cache and permanently install apps that are important to you or have giant resources (like huge games), but most of your apps should backup-and-delete themselves on the fly when coming into disuse and space is needed.
I'm sick of being asked to rate apps, and sick of having to delete apps to make space.
Steve Jobs once said "if you see a task manager, they blew it" Because people shouldn't have to manage the kernel resources of their phone. To that I would add, "if you see an install button, they blew it", because people should not have to manage their flash memory.
I thought the nightmare of cleaning up your computing devices went out with utilities to clean Windows drives and registry in the 90s.