• Godort@lemm.ee
    178·
    3 months ago

    The reason this is done is because you can see everything your browser is doing, but you can’t see everything an application is doing without disassembling it.

    I want very much to go back to websites. Apps are stupid.

    • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
      53·
      3 months ago

      the reason is children. for some reason the most recent generation of kids requires apps instead of sites. god forbid they have to remember an address.

      just look at the fuckload of people who cant use lemmy without an ‘app’

      this is one of my peeeves

      • NorthWestWind@lemmy.world
        37·
        3 months ago

        My high school computer teacher once ranted about this to us. He said the younger students are lacking the basic concepts of computer stuff. They are spoiled too much to not even know what a file browser is.

          • MrQuallzin@lemmy.world
            21·
            3 months ago

            Eeh, I see it as a gray area. Majority of millenials, myself included, grew up learning about novel technologies as they developed. We learned how to use desktop computers and browse the internet during a ‘golden age’ of innovation. They became part of our everyday lives and are second nature to us. The next generations don’t fully have that experience but are expected to natively know their way around a computer since they’re so ubiquitous in our lives. In reality, they know how to use smart phones and chromebooks but aren’t getting the experience of working on a real desktop computer.

            Regarding teaching kids the basics, I’d put it on the schools, not the parents. Do schools still have computer labs? That’d be where proper computer skills should be taught. If parents can help at home that’s great, but I don’t think it should be expected that every kid is going to have a real computer at home to learn on (versus phones, tablets, chromebooks, etc).

      • Serinus@lemmy.world
        18·
        3 months ago

        One of the reasons I like apps for Lemmy is for notifications.

        Coincidentally, one of the reasons companies like apps is for notifications.

        • BaroqueInMind@lemmy.one
          17·
          3 months ago

          Your mobile browser supports notifications per site like an app. It even supports custom icons per site when the notification pops up.

          You don’t even know if the telemetry leaving your phone to the app server is using TLS encryption, you just let them hail-mary football-throw send it.

          I don’t understand why we insist on bending over and freely giving away our data to fucking apps.

          • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
            3·
            3 months ago

            I don’t understand why we insist on bending over and freely giving away our data to fucking apps.

            Some people are extremely averse to the discomfort of the slightest speedbump in their computer/phone usage and are more than willing to give their “worthless” data in return.

      • Nelots@lemm.eeEnglish
        16·
        3 months ago

        One benefit an app for something like Lemmy offers is significantly better customization.

        • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
          5·
          3 months ago

          thats a copout for the site sucking. lemmy looks like someone forgot the css. one of the reasons i chose mbin, its not fugly and very user-configurable. .

          no app required

          • gwen@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            4·
            3 months ago

            one of the reasons i picked dbzer0 is that the layout just looks Better (ie doesnt look like someone forgot the css) :]

      • Vespair@lemm.ee
        10·
        3 months ago

        I mean, I think part of it is because they grew up interacting with apps because parents were, mostly rightly, restricting their children from use of the greater unrestricted web. Every modern parent I know had children who knew which apps on mommy or daddy’s phone they were allowed to touch - their games or youtube kids or whatever. These apps provided easy safeguards for parents to rein in their child’s internet experience. Even if these methods weren’t perfect in their attempt (Elsagate and all that), this was still good practice for allowing your child access to modernity in the times you couldn’t fully devote your time to overseeing their activity with relative confidence they were probably not watching wildly inappropriate content.

        In a perfect world parents and educators would also be devoting time to teaching their child to navigate the internet and allowing them monitored (with physical eyeballs, not tracking) online browsing time, but I don’t think we can rightly fault the kids for not having received that. Rather than grumbling about the situation, I think we’d be better served accepting it for what it is and instead approaching the topic from a stance of: how do we teach them better behavior and help them unlearn these bad habits?

        edit: typo

          • Vespair@lemm.ee
            2·
            3 months ago

            I’m aware, but I do it to ensure readers that the content of my message hasn’t changed in the time since the edit, I’m just cleaning up the syntax. It’s a matter of attempting to provide a consistent face.

      • Infernal_pizza@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8·
        3 months ago

        If it’s a service I use regularly on my phone like Lemmy then an app usually does provide a better experience. The UI is usually better optimised and they tend to load faster. However if I’m only using it once, or if I’ve just visited your site then stop trying to get me to use the fucking app! That goes for Reddit as well, I have the app installed but if I’m just trying to view a post because I googled something I don’t want to be forced into the app

      • calcopiritus@lemmy.world
        6·
        3 months ago

        I’m not a child. But I already have an entire OS running on my phone. Why would I run a browser on top (with all of its UI clutter) so I can use an app.

        If I’m going to use an app often, for more than a couple minutes each time, I’m gonna use an app. If I’m just visiting a site for the first time, or I’m just going to stay there a couple seconds (search engines), I’m using the web browser.

        Browsers are for browsing the web. Apps (run by the OS, not by a web browser) are for doing things.

        • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
          8·
          3 months ago

          Browsers are for browsing the web. Apps (run by the OS, not by a web browser) are for doing things.

          hahahahhahhaahahha

          im deep in the corporate, non-app web-based environment. this comment is so out of touch. i get that its your POV, but its not even close to the broader reality that most apps are just packaged websites and that browsers are nearly fully virtual machines and incredibly capable.

          again, the apps exist generally because they want to capture more data than the browser allows (they are exploiting you). theres very little functionality that cant be run in the browser directly.

          • calcopiritus@lemmy.world
            1·
            3 months ago

            That sounds like a shit app. I just don’t use those. And if I have to use them, it’s rarely enough that they fall into browser’s scope.

        • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
          6·
          3 months ago

          A large quantity of apps are thinly disguised browsers “stuck” on a specific web page and with extra tracking and data collecting capability. I’d wager all shopping apps are this.

      • P4ulin_Kbana@lemmy.eco.br
        2·
        3 months ago

        I prefer using Lemmy with an app because apps are better designed for my screen than an website. It’s kind of rare finding an website that looks good on portrait.

        • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
          1·
          3 months ago

          right, the lemmy website is garbage. many others are not. i have zero issue using mbin, accessing lemmy content without an app on my mobile device in portrait.

          no app needed, but its because mbin is designed as modern sites should be. dynamically scaled to the requested interface.

          again, if your website isnt absolute garbage no app is required.

      • averyminya@beehaw.org
        1·
        3 months ago

        Apple brainwashed us with iPod 3Gs and apps

        Also people can use Lemmy without apps, it just doesn’t have all the same features in the UI which is why people use wrappers

  • bitwolf@lemmy.one
    149·
    3 months ago

    I hate that websites will purposely block a perfectly working website feature if it sees you’re on a mobile just to refer you to their mobile app.

      • pooberbee (they/she)@lemmy.ml
        10·
        3 months ago

        Laurel Hill is a historical cemetery with a few historical figures buried there. Actually, I think Adrian Balboa’s fictional grave is there, too. The app has audio tours and information about the architecture and stuff.

          • pooberbee (they/she)@lemmy.ml
            1·
            3 months ago

            Probably, but making it an app allows users to pre-download the whole thing beforehand so they don’t need to depend on cell data when they’re out in a field.

            • primrosepathspeedrun@lemmy.world
              3·
              3 months ago

              but I… it… it’s a PDF, its stored on my phone. I downloaded it. I actually still have it, if I need to prove I was on the train. its not in the app anymore, but I still have it here.

              you know you can’t make a PURCHASE on an app without network access, right? like, it has to interact with your bank and generate the code (and that’s done on their server, so you can’t make yourself free tickets) and update “this ticket is valid” in the system. the app is literally just a web site with fewer features. all the important math happens on the server. usually, not even a timetable is stored locally, and it still has to be retrieved from the network, it doesn’t even cache, I bet. I could check, but I would have to find my phone.

                • primrosepathspeedrun@lemmy.world
                  1·
                  3 months ago

                  download the whole thing

                  all the functional parts are server calls, app or website. all of them. buying a ticket involves authenticating with both the owner’s server and my bank. that’s a network thing. can’t download my ticket til I do that, site or app. even looking at a timetable (i dont see where in the app I can do that? but point to point trips) on the app doesn’t work when im in airplane mode, but I know for a fact my browser caches, and if I’ve looked recently or left the page open, it will still be there when I come back.

                  there’s no advantage of an app, unless you’re doing fancy graphics shit, which eats battery like a mother fucker and makes low end devices much more unhappy.

        • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
          1·
          3 months ago

          But I don’t want a app to get audio tours.

          I want a app to make their body spin 360 degrees. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

  • gerryflap@feddit.nl
    72·
    3 months ago

    Most of these memes are ironic, but this one is actually true. These apps could just be websites, but instead they’re bloated spyware

      • sparkle@lemm.ee
        5·
        3 months ago

        Don’t get rid of ordering online, I have bad vision and like sitting for 30 minutes deciding what to buy and how much is way too much to spend on the food I’m getting

        • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          3 months ago

          As a programmer who used to fix accessibility problems with iOS apps, I’d like to say that one good thing about apps vs. websites is that apps are generally much better than websites for people with vision problems. But they aren’t! At least the ones I was fixing sure weren’t.

  • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
    49·
    3 months ago

    Unironically this. There’s nothing these stupid apps do that they couldn’t do on a fucking browser from 2018. If you want people to use the stupid app over the site, then please have only the stupid app and ditch the “just pretending it works” site and for fuck’s sake, don’t make the stupid app a javascript mess, because THAT could’ve been a fucking site instead.

  • FrozenHandle@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz
    34·
    3 months ago

    I am really confused about this meme template, didn’t its usage used to be satirical (not sure if that’s the right word)? I remember seeing ones like “Nobody ever needed maths”, but recently I am seeing them inverted where the subject matter is actually criticised for being useless. Instead of claiming something useful to be useless. Can someone explain? when did the usage shift?

    • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
      5·
      3 months ago

      Lychee, a slicer software for 3D printing, immediately comes to mind. It’s a fucking electron app. It also only works if you login to a fucking account, even the free version, because fuck you. Oh, and free users have to sit through 30 seconds of advertising whenever they click “Slice”, because fuck you again

    • unfnknblvbl@beehaw.org
      3·
      3 months ago

      But also, MFW somebody turns a perfectly usable desktop application into an internal website that ends up only working on one browser…

  • bitball@lemmy.world
    33·
    3 months ago

    there is an alternate universe out there where every shitty social media website has good rss services and doesn’t degrade you for not using the app

  • timestatic@feddit.org
    29·
    3 months ago

    Please pair this with: Stop forcing me to make an account for your useless fucking service. It’s a pain in the ass and only serves your corpo tracking while I get nothing in return

  • adavis@lemmy.world
    26·
    3 months ago

    So I bought a new mouse, of course it came with RGB nonsense. Before purchasing I checked it could be disabled.

    Software to control RGB? 300MB. Who knows what the hell else that’ll be doing.

    Plugged it into my Linux laptop, download OpenRGB, 1.7MB application that supports more than just this brand. Turn off the rgb, click save to device.

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
      7·
      3 months ago

      Same energy - whole different thing. I remember in 2005 having to install a special printer software. You can install the drivers, but to understand error messages, you needed “the suite”.

      So furious at the ordeal, I hoped that the future, we don’t have to deal with this.

      Apparently the future hates us and we are STILL dealing with this

  • Zacryon@feddit.org
    26·
    3 months ago

    One of the most ironic things is if you willingly download the app version of a website, hoping it would speed things up and reduce internet data usage, just for the app to be using WebView or some other micro-browser engine which will essentially be the same as if you were visiting the website using your browser as before.

    Thanks for nothing.

    • 4lan@lemmy.world
      4·
      3 months ago

      The few times I visit Facebook I just do it from a web browser on my phone, I’m not letting them spy on me 24/7 just so I can check on a couple groups

  • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
    24·
    3 months ago

    Controversial opinion. I love apps.

    (Only because in my company, we created a app team to hire more developers and while our website absolutely doubles as a really fucking good web app, we hinder it in order to keep our app developer homies employed.)

    • Biezelbob@programming.devEnglish
      42·
      3 months ago

      im convinced 99% of app development is just for enhanced tracking and telemetry. Most are a browser in app anyway

      • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.worldEnglish
        13·
        3 months ago

        I used to work for a very large cable company. All of our apps were championed by VPs who had strong personal connections to InfoSys, who got most of the contract work to create and maintain them. Almost nobody actually used the apps - the developers used various tricks to enormously inflate the apparent numbers of users. So essentially they were a mechanism for one large corporation to siphon millions of dollars from another large corporation. My life became a lot happier when I finally realized this and stopped giving a shit about anything.

  • HexadecimalSky@lemmy.world
    23·
    3 months ago

    Bro, my city just made an app it has a news button, a quick link to city code compliance and a quick form for reporting illegal fireworks. City is depreciating email newsletter and website for app and facebook. and I hate so many places advertising decent deals behind apps. I am not downloading an app for every fastfood chain and grocery store. Stopped going to del taco, mcd and Wendy’s over shitty apps.