Link tags: droid

The web on mobile (a response) | Clagnut by Richard Rutter

Rich suggests another reason why the UX of websites on mobile is so shit these days:

The path to installing a native app is well trodden. We search the App Store (or ironically follow a link from a website), hit ‘Get’ and the app is downloaded to our phone’s home screen, ready to use any time with a simple tap.

A PWA can also live on your home screen, nicely indistinguishable from a native app. But the journey to getting a PWA – or indeed any web app – onto your home screen remains convoluted to say the least. This is the lack of equivalence I’m driving at. I wonder if the mobile web experience would suck as badly if web apps could be installed just as easily as native apps?

Let websites framebust out of native apps | Holovaty.com

Adrian brings an excellent historical perspective to the horrifying behaviour of Facebook’s in-app browsers:

Somewhere along the way, despite a reasonably strong anti-framing culture, framing moved from being a huge no-no to a huge shrug. In a web context, it’s maligned; in a native app context, it’s totally ignored.

Yup, frames are back—but this time they’re in native apps—with all their shocking security implications:

The more I think about it, the more I cannot believe webviews with unfettered JavaScript access to third-party websites ever became a legitimate, accepted technology. It’s bad for users, and it’s bad for websites.

By the way, this also explains that when you try browsing the web in an actual web browser on your mobile device, every second website shoves a banner in your face saying “download our app.” Browsers offer users some protection. In-app webviews offer users nothing but exploitation.

My comments to Competition and Markets Authority on mobile browser competition - Alistair Shepherd

A thoughtful response to the current CMA consultation:

The inability to compete with native apps using Progressive Web Apps fully—particularly on iOS—also has a big impact on my work and the businesses I have worked with. Progressive Web Apps are extremely accessible for development, allowing for the creation of a simple app in a fraction of the time and complexity of a native app. This is fantastic for allowing smaller agencies and businesses to innovate on the web and on mobile devices and to reach consumers. However the poor support for PWA features by Safari and by not allowing them in the App Store, Apple forces app development to be difficult, time consuming and extremely expensive. I have spoken with many companies who would have liked an app to compete with their larger competitors but are unable to afford the huge costs in developing a native app.

Get your response in by Friday by emailing [email protected].

I Replaced My Native iOS App with a Cross-Platform Web App and No One Noticed

It turns out that in 2022, for a lot of apps, the dream of write once run anywhere has finally arrived.

Every year browsers and web technologies become more capable and more powerful. Every year there are more kinds of app that you can make cross platform.

So before you start your next project, why don’t you take a look at cross platform web apps. Maybe they aren’t right for your project, but maybe, like me, you’ll discover that you can code once and run everywhere. And I think that’s amazing.

Build a Better Mobile Input

This is such a handy tool for building forms! Choose different combinations of type, inputmode, and autocomplete attributes on input elements and see how that will be conveyed to users on iOS and Android devices.

Indexing your offline-capable pages with the Content Indexing API

A Chrome-only API for adding offline content to an index that can be exposed in Android’s “downloads” list. It just shipped in the lastest version of Chrome.

I’m not a fan of browser-specific non-standards but you can treat this as an enhancement—implementing it doesn’t harm non-supporting browsers and you can use feature detection to test for it.

Less… Is More? Apple’s Inconsistent Ellipsis Icons Inspire User Confusion - TidBITS

The ellipsis is the new hamburger.

It’s disappointing that Apple, supposedly a leader in interface design, has resorted to such uninspiring, and I’ll dare say, lazy design in its icons. I don’t claim to be a usability expert, but it seems to me that icons should represent a clear intention, followed by a consistent action.

PWA asset generator based on Puppeteer.

Automatically generates icons and splash screens based on Web App Manifest specs and Apple Human Interface Guidelines. Updates manifest.json and index.html files with the generated images.

A handy command line tool. Though be aware that it will generate the shit-ton of link elements for splash screens that Apple demands you provide for a multitude of different screen sizes.

PWA2APK- Convert PWA to APK file - Appmaker.xyz

This seems to work quite nicely: convert your progressive web app into an APK file that you can then submit to the Google Play store (you’ll still have to go through all the hassle of submitting the app, but still).

I tested this with The Session and sure enough, it looks like it’s available to download from Google Play.

Registering as a Share Target with the Web Share Target API  |  Web  |  Google Developers

Well, this could be very handy for Huffduffer!

Chrome’s NOSCRIPT Intervention - TimKadlec.com

Testing time with Tim.

Long story short, the NOSCRIPT intervention looks like a really great feature for users. More often than not it provides significant reduction in data usage, not to mention the reduction in CPU time—no small thing for the many, many people running affordable, low-powered devices.

Disable scripts for Data Saver users on slow connections - Chrome Platform Status

An excellent idea for people in low-bandwidth situations: automatically disable JavaScript. As long as the site is built with progressive enhancement, there’s no problem (and if not, the user is presented with the choice to enable scripts).

Power to the people!

#davewentandroid - daverupert.com

Yeah. Fuck this. That’s creepy. Technically I opted into this feature because Google Maps asked “Google Maps would like to know your location, YES or NO?” Of course my answer was “YES” because, hey, it’s a fucking map. I didn’t realize I consented to having my information and location history stored indefinitely on Google’s servers.

I began all the work of disabling this “feature” but it seemed like a fruitless task. Also worth noting, Google Maps for iOS keeps Location History as well.

A Love Letter to CSS

My argument is relatively simple: creating a comprehensive styling mechanism for building complex user interfaces is startlingly hard, and every alternative to CSS is much worse. Like, it’s not even close.

Installing web apps on phones (for real)

Henrik points to some crucial information that slipped under the radar at the Chrome Dev Summit—the Android OS is going to treat progressive web apps much more like regular native apps. This is kind of a big deal.

It’s a good time to go all in on the web. I can’t wait to see what the next few years bring. Personally, I feel like the web is well poised to replace the majority of apps we now get from app stores.

kdzwinel/progress-bar-animation: Making a Doughnut Progress Bar - research notes

This is a thorough write-up of an interesting case where SVG looks like the right tool for the job, but further research leads to some sad-making conclusions.

I love SVG. It’s elegant, scalable and works everywhere. It’s perfect for mobile… as long as it doesn’t move. There is no way to animate it smoothly on Android.

Your Private Encrypted Browser | Tenta Browser

A browser for Android that specifically touts privacy and security as its key features.

Progressive Web Apps and our regressive approach | Christian Heilmann

So remember when I was talking about “the ends justify the means” being used for unwise short-term decisions? Here’s a classic example. Chris thinks that Progressive Web Apps should be made mobile-only (at least to start with …something something something the future):

For now, PWAs need to be the solution for the next mobile users.

End users deserve to have an amazing, form-factor specific experience.

I couldn’t disagree more. End users deserve to have an amazing experience no matter the form-factor of their device.

Issue 596729 - chromium - Do not show the app banner unless the Manifest has a display set to standalone or fullscreen - Monorail

I am shocked and disgusted by this arbitrary decision by the Chrome team. If your Progressive Web App doesn’t set its manifest to obscure its URL, you get punished by missing out on the add to home screen prompt.

Google is declaring war on URLs again.

Android Instant Apps and the web - Broken Links

I’ve been poking around at Google’s information on “instant apps” since they announced it at Google I/O. My initial impressions mirror Peter’s.

Either they allow access to more device APIs (which could be a massive security hole) or else they’re more or less websites.