Seriously. I don’t want to install something on my phone when the dev is just using a WebView, if that’s what it’s called. When the app is basically just a website with the browser hidden.
What’s the reason for that? To attach the customer? To sell the app for money? Is there more ad revenue that way? Do you reach more people?
(Are there any good reasons for it, too? Security, maybe?)
I always assumed the reason was to get more tendrils into your phone for that sweet sweet data $$$ and allowing themselves more control over shoving notifications in your face.
Do I sound bitter?
Sometimes they can get more data out of your phone through an app then through your default browser.
Or feed you more ads.
Those are actually websites, with embedded site and embedded browser, see: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_(software_framework)
Thats why those are slow, unstable, and huge (in occupied storage)
not on mobile, they generally use the native browser engine. at the very least it’s not electron on ios/android
I believe Spotify did this back in the day in order to hide as much of their AB testing from Apple who is essentially a competitor due to iTunes.
Having much of the UI delivered via web also makes it easier to deploy updates as no software update is necessary.
