The Website vs. Web App Dichotomy Doesn't Exist | jakelazaroff.com
The Website vs. Web App Dichotomy Doesn't Exist | jakelazaroff.com
A one-dimensional spectrum can't sufficiently capture the tradeoffs involved in web development.
You know what really irks me? Lately people are using the terms “website” and “app” synonymously and there’s just no reason for it.
I was on the phone with customer service for my grandmother a few weeks ago, and the agent on the phone kept saying that my grandmother needed to go “on the app” to set her router name. I went three rounds with the agent explaining that my 94-year-old grandmother didn’t really have a phone capable getting to the app before I realized that the agent meant website, but was still saying “app”.
The improper usage of the words is far more an issue than the discussion about whether JavaScript is creating an application experience that is no longer a “website”.
I get that my generation is aging out of the “target audience” for tons of things, but I’m willing to stand my ground on this one til the day I die. An app and a website are two different things. 😡
Another one that gets me is "portal". I'm often asked to create a this portal or that portal, but once I finally get them to describe the requirements it's just a standard web form or static web page.
Is anything a legit portal? Or are you saying people should just stop using the term altogether? What's the difference between a portal and a website?
Webapp is pretty well understood though. As long as there has been WWW there have been webapps.
Well that’s just goes back to the crux of the article. At what point is the web_site_ a web_app_?
But, more to the point “app” entered the casual lexicon about 15 years when smartphones became ubiquitous. If you’re speaking to someone and they say “is there a web_site_ I can use, like on a laptop?” and they respond with “yes, there’s an app”, it’s not a matter of webapp versus website, but of lack of understanding that not everything that showcases the internet is an “app”.
As an engineer who builds web sites / apps, I can assure you that no, they are not two different things.
For instance, the non profit news organization that I'm working for right now has a website, an android app and an iOS app, with all three being created from the exact same code base that is mostly JavaScript files.
Hell if you have to use the Google Chat app for work (their equivalent of slack / teams), you install it by literally just adding the website to your desktop.
Hell, with new additions to browsers like Web Assembly, and WebGL, you can literally run custom low level assembly or c++ style code in a web browser, code that is just as efficient as native code running directly on the OS.
The primary difference between a website and an app is just the method of distribution (how it's code gets to your phone).
how its* code gets to your phone
Remember when progressive web apps were gonna be the next big thing? KaiOS remembers.
They'd be a lot more of them if iPhone supported the technology better.
I say that as someone who's pitched PWAs to companies, but since many of the managers and owners seem to be in on the Apple ecosystem, demos often aren't that impressive. Having to answer "kinda" to can they do x questions doesn't go down well.
I'm using the Kbin pwa on an iPhone and it works much better than I expected it to, I don't know they must have better support now. I think the functionality should be more than enough for many companies and much cheaper than a custom native app
Notification support for PWAs on iOS should come soon and that's far and away the biggest showstopper rn.
PWAs are still a thing, we're just waiting for Apple to open the walled garden.
I'm excited for PWAs personally as this will allow everyday apps to run on devices not running Android or iOS, like Linux phones.
I'm confused about where development of PWAs is even going. Between the two and a half big browsers, only Chrome/Android seem to be adopting them seriously, I've seen people complain about Firefox not doing a great job, and I have no idea about Safari (but on iOS, I can see why Apple would have a huge incentive to prevent people from bypassing their Developer account fees)...
I'm right now browsing the fediverse and writing this from the Kbin pwa. It seems to work quite well, with some quirks that I guess could be polished, but overall better experience than most installed apps that should be a website instead
They're still a thing. If your work uses Google Chat instead of Slack / Teams the only way to install an app version is as a PWA. A company I recently worked for just got most people to use the Outlook PWA instead of the traditional desktop client, and I frequently use Spotify and Soundcloud's PWAs. One of the more popular backend API testing apps is hopscotch which is entirely a PWA, and this was also written on Voyager for Lemmy.