Yeah, it sucks because you can do really cool stuff with web apps these days but no, instead I need 140 native apps for basically every mobile service because their mobile websites are abhorrently designed and basically only exist to point you towards the app.
Oh, I’m fully aware. That’s honestly the kicker, they could host those apps on the web and have me be able to access everything through my browser, but no, instead I have to install their stupid apps just so they can harvest my data.
Ugh for the longest time the investment firm I use had one product locked away on their app. Thankfully I checked today and I can sign up and use it on the web!
I’ve mainly used Reddit on PC and only used apps for porn (because in-app autoplay is so much better). Them disabling NSFW from API completely makes it completely useless for latter. Really hoping lemmy becomes the new big thing where you can scroll, comment, and jerk off. Possibly at the same time.
METAs apps effin stink!
They’re buggy, have annoying habits and I can’t do a lot of the stuff I want.
The most annoying part of them is their instance on their handcrafted image selector which vaguely sorts content by date.
I’ve got 20 years of images on my phone. If I want to post an image to a comment that I took 10 years ago, I’ll be sitting there scrolling like a numbnut to find it. On web-apps I can just use the file browser or even Android extension to find the image I want in a way that makes sense.
This is the meme that made me create an account here.
Barely using reddit now, but I noticed these last days they were pushing lukewarm content to the top.
And a lot of content on phone web browsers was/is locked, could only read the first 2 or 3 answers.
It was some posts, a lot, not all of them. Maybe it was a bug at one time when they started to implement their new API changes. I don’t know, and I don’t care at the moment. :)
Oh my. That website is even better. Why isn’t that website the default in mobile browsers? I’m new, and I’m reading that now I need to create a new account in world (I’m in ml). Right?
And the quality of discussion gets lower every time I go on. Has been for years, incrementally, but the rate really increased after June 30. I used to be able to get pretty far down through 4 or 5 worldnews threads before I ran into something so stupid I closed the entire window, but now it happens on just about every thread I open.
I’m finding I kinda hate Lemmy on desktop without an RES equivalent though too. I miss being able to expand images and videos inline. Is there anything similar for Lemmy?
You got me scratching my head there ngl. If by inline expansion, you mean to say being able to show image in full size without clicking into details of the post, then I am seeing it’s already there. And so far I haven’t tweaked any UI settings on the website.
Oh neat, I was clicking the image, not the little image logo in the corner. Learned something new.
It still doesn’t let you drag to resize/zoom like RES does for images and videos, but better than what I was originally thinking. RES also works on image links in comments, which I don’t see in Lemmy yet.
Threads is view-only without the app, so no using it on PC. Probably because they wouldn’t be able to get as much data. I would never use it anyway but it’s so stupid.
And instagram is still a lot better than Twitter which just redirects you to nothing at all. Now I just wish news sites would stop linking to twitter because I can’t look at any of the garbage that’s been posted.
instagram usually doesn’t for just viewing profiles or posts but anything past that it’ll prompt you and there’s a big ass banner at the bottom asking you to sign in
After viewing a few posts it almost always blocks and asks me to login. For years. I just don’t go on Instagram anymore as a result.
Twitter and reddit, take notice
Wow. Did not know that. That’s crazy. Let’s cripple something running on a more powerful processor and with a bigger screen and full keyboard? That’s just backwards and terrible.
Not backwards for them maybe. They will frame it as being a mobile-optimized experience that captures your (whatever), but of course it is monitoring your gyro right now to determine whether you’re sitting upright, lying in your bed, or … something else.
Same with tiktok. they used to let you watch videos without the app, now they won’t let you unmute the video. one of my frineds keeps trying to send me tiktoks and i’m like, this is worthless.
I’m pretty happy to say I’ve only ever water one TikTok video and it was because it was the only place I could find that methed out crazy town fella sing butterfly
No, it works. You just slide a puzzle piece over, then it reloads. Then it plays muted, you have to unmute it and then it’s half-way through so you have to restart the video. There see, easy! And by the time you get to watch it in a tiny ass screen you have already seen it muted about 3-5 times give or take.
I used to feel that way but recently I was in Europe and https://www.qerko.com/en was everywhere. It was pretty great honestly. Instant app so I didn’t need to install anything. My party could split the bill however we wanted ourselves. If you had GooglePay or ApplePay it was one tap to pay. Pay and go whenever you want without having to flag anyone down. It was optional if you wanted you could ask for a bill.
As much as I hate installing restaurant apps I can get behind this experience.
And even then, I’m fine to browse a menu on a mobile-friendly site (as long as the restaurant is diligent about providing reliable wifi for anyone who might not have great signal). But when the code has me download a PDF, they can fuck right off. First of all, I don’t need the menu sitting in my cache or download folder. And when the PDF was clearly formatted for physical printing… Good lord. I’m not pinching and zooming this shit.
It’s so easy nowadays to slap some bootstrap and Angular together to build a web frontend. It will work on every device if you don’t do crazy cutting-edge shit. I cannot comprehend why companies dig native apps so much.
Maybe for some companies. For others the main draw card is push notifications and a big shiny icon for the product on your phone. Also, just FOMO when every other company has an app.
^ this. your browser is a user agent, it’s working for you, to protect you from any schmuck who you have the misfortune of visiting. it has strict built-in privacy and security guarantees, which, while in no way interfere with the app’s primary functionality, do interfere in their marketing bullshit and other kinds of spying.
with apps, you have none of that protective layer, instead there is a certain degree of implied trust which these parties love to abuse.
With a native app, the only thing you really need to send back and forth is some JSON data and let the app do the formatting for you. It’s a much better arrangement when your target demographic includes those with bad internet.
you can do that with a browser too. with service workers, it can also run without an internet connection and/or indefinitely cache the ui part so that it’s also just a json api. most websites already work in a very similar way, and even if it’s not intentionally set up this way, your browser will do its best to make it like this to keep your user experience snappy.
your browser just also protects you from certain level of system access that shouldn’t be granted to any random website you visit, and that’s what these apps want.
How is that any different from a web site? There are multiple caches between the browser and the server. The initial load (assuming a prior visit and no updates since) may be smaller than 1kB.
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Yeah, it sucks because you can do really cool stuff with web apps these days but no, instead I need 140 native apps for basically every mobile service because their mobile websites are abhorrently designed and basically only exist to point you towards the app.
Oh, don’t worry. All those “native” apps are just using chrome webview to display some webapp.
Oh, I’m fully aware. That’s honestly the kicker, they could host those apps on the web and have me be able to access everything through my browser, but no, instead I have to install their stupid apps just so they can harvest my data.
Try Sink It for Reddit, it’s a Safari extension that removes those nuisances
https://apps.apple.com/app/id6449873635
Do you really want to use the website, if you really need an extension because of that bullshit?
We are using the better version right now to discuss ways to [not] shoehorn the worse version back into our lives, lol.
Ugh for the longest time the investment firm I use had one product locked away on their app. Thankfully I checked today and I can sign up and use it on the web!
Sounds about right. Their site is bad, the app is bad… pure profit driven.
I’ve mainly used Reddit on PC and only used apps for porn (because in-app autoplay is so much better). Them disabling NSFW from API completely makes it completely useless for latter. Really hoping lemmy becomes the new big thing where you can scroll, comment, and jerk off. Possibly at the same time.
Goddamnit Reddit.
To this point, I wish Threads had a desktop UI.
METAs apps effin stink! They’re buggy, have annoying habits and I can’t do a lot of the stuff I want. The most annoying part of them is their instance on their handcrafted image selector which vaguely sorts content by date.
I’ve got 20 years of images on my phone. If I want to post an image to a comment that I took 10 years ago, I’ll be sitting there scrolling like a numbnut to find it. On web-apps I can just use the file browser or even Android extension to find the image I want in a way that makes sense.
Why would anyone use Threads?
Probably later. Even Instagram has Windows app.
why tf would you use it???
I work from home and don’t spend a lot of time on mobile.
Gross
This is the meme that made me create an account here. Barely using reddit now, but I noticed these last days they were pushing lukewarm content to the top. And a lot of content on phone web browsers was/is locked, could only read the first 2 or 3 answers.
Oh, they’ve gone full Quora?
It was some posts, a lot, not all of them. Maybe it was a bug at one time when they started to implement their new API changes. I don’t know, and I don’t care at the moment. :)
Check out https://m.lemmy.world
Oh my. That website is even better. Why isn’t that website the default in mobile browsers? I’m new, and I’m reading that now I need to create a new account in world (I’m in ml). Right?
No, you don’t have to create a new account.
Thank you sir. Definitely I’m going to try the app. :)
Wait, the app is not on Google play?
It’s a web app
And the quality of discussion gets lower every time I go on. Has been for years, incrementally, but the rate really increased after June 30. I used to be able to get pretty far down through 4 or 5 worldnews threads before I ran into something so stupid I closed the entire window, but now it happens on just about every thread I open.
I’m finding I kinda hate Lemmy on desktop without an RES equivalent though too. I miss being able to expand images and videos inline. Is there anything similar for Lemmy?
You got me scratching my head there ngl. If by inline expansion, you mean to say being able to show image in full size without clicking into details of the post, then I am seeing it’s already there. And so far I haven’t tweaked any UI settings on the website.
Oh neat, I was clicking the image, not the little image logo in the corner. Learned something new.
It still doesn’t let you drag to resize/zoom like RES does for images and videos, but better than what I was originally thinking. RES also works on image links in comments, which I don’t see in Lemmy yet.
Example 1
Example 2
Threads is view-only without the app, so no using it on PC. Probably because they wouldn’t be able to get as much data. I would never use it anyway but it’s so stupid.
You can at least view threads without logging in? That’s better than instagram usually forces login. Still won’t use it.
And instagram is still a lot better than Twitter which just redirects you to nothing at all. Now I just wish news sites would stop linking to twitter because I can’t look at any of the garbage that’s been posted.
instagram usually doesn’t for just viewing profiles or posts but anything past that it’ll prompt you and there’s a big ass banner at the bottom asking you to sign in
After viewing a few posts it almost always blocks and asks me to login. For years. I just don’t go on Instagram anymore as a result. Twitter and reddit, take notice
Wow. Did not know that. That’s crazy. Let’s cripple something running on a more powerful processor and with a bigger screen and full keyboard? That’s just backwards and terrible.
Not backwards for them maybe. They will frame it as being a mobile-optimized experience that captures your (whatever), but of course it is monitoring your gyro right now to determine whether you’re sitting upright, lying in your bed, or … something else.
Safe bet if you are on threads, Lemmy, or Reddit, you’re probably pooping.
It’s fundamentally backwards. I miss times when tech people ran technology.
I meant threads in this case.
And yes I am literally pooping. Goddamn diarrhea.
We’ve got movement on this one, stay alert people!
I feel like an idiot for not knowing this, but website do you go to to read Threads?
I tried going to “threads.net” but it’s just a link to download the app?
You can view threads profiles by typing threads.net/@username, for example threads.net/@meta
Wow that meta profile is cringe. When did platforms start having personalities?
I will never use Pinterest because of this shit. I just want to see the pic I found on Google, I will not download your bullshit to see it.
Same with tiktok. they used to let you watch videos without the app, now they won’t let you unmute the video. one of my frineds keeps trying to send me tiktoks and i’m like, this is worthless.
I’m pretty happy to say I’ve only ever water one TikTok video and it was because it was the only place I could find that methed out crazy town fella sing butterfly
I don’t have an account and I watched videos with sound today on both mobile and desktop and honestly that shit is better without sound.
No, it works. You just slide a puzzle piece over, then it reloads. Then it plays muted, you have to unmute it and then it’s half-way through so you have to restart the video. There see, easy! And by the time you get to watch it in a tiny ass screen you have already seen it muted about 3-5 times give or take.
This is extremely true for modern social media sites. Normal news sites used to push their apps too, but I guess this fad has passed.
Social media? Bitch, this is the average restaurant experience now! OH We HaVe OuR meNu On OuR aPp
Yeah and you have no goddamn signal here GIVE ME A FUCKEN MENU
I walk into a restaurant that has an app, I’ll never go back again. What a horrible way to try to find food.
I used to feel that way but recently I was in Europe and https://www.qerko.com/en was everywhere. It was pretty great honestly. Instant app so I didn’t need to install anything. My party could split the bill however we wanted ourselves. If you had GooglePay or ApplePay it was one tap to pay. Pay and go whenever you want without having to flag anyone down. It was optional if you wanted you could ask for a bill.
As much as I hate installing restaurant apps I can get behind this experience.
Yeah. Fuck restaurants that expect me to scan a damned qr code for a fucking menu.
And even then, I’m fine to browse a menu on a mobile-friendly site (as long as the restaurant is diligent about providing reliable wifi for anyone who might not have great signal). But when the code has me download a PDF, they can fuck right off. First of all, I don’t need the menu sitting in my cache or download folder. And when the PDF was clearly formatted for physical printing… Good lord. I’m not pinching and zooming this shit.
I don’t really mind them pushing the app. Just don’t make the mobile site shit or redirect to the app
website immediately forgets this setting
laughs in Firefox Mobile
Thank the gods for Firefox.
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shudders
It’s so easy nowadays to slap some bootstrap and Angular together to build a web frontend. It will work on every device if you don’t do crazy cutting-edge shit. I cannot comprehend why companies dig native apps so much.
D A T A H A R V E S T I N G
Maybe for some companies. For others the main draw card is push notifications and a big shiny icon for the product on your phone. Also, just FOMO when every other company has an app.
that’s also doable on the modern web without an app. service workers go brrr
in fact, the same companies do this all the time on their desktop sites, because no one’s gonna install kfc.exe to order some chicken
Apps without a bunch of trackers are few and far inbetween
^ this. your browser is a user agent, it’s working for you, to protect you from any schmuck who you have the misfortune of visiting. it has strict built-in privacy and security guarantees, which, while in no way interfere with the app’s primary functionality, do interfere in their marketing bullshit and other kinds of spying.
with apps, you have none of that protective layer, instead there is a certain degree of implied trust which these parties love to abuse.
With a native app, the only thing you really need to send back and forth is some JSON data and let the app do the formatting for you. It’s a much better arrangement when your target demographic includes those with bad internet.
you can do that with a browser too. with service workers, it can also run without an internet connection and/or indefinitely cache the ui part so that it’s also just a json api. most websites already work in a very similar way, and even if it’s not intentionally set up this way, your browser will do its best to make it like this to keep your user experience snappy.
your browser just also protects you from certain level of system access that shouldn’t be granted to any random website you visit, and that’s what these apps want.
How is that any different from a web site? There are multiple caches between the browser and the server. The initial load (assuming a prior visit and no updates since) may be smaller than 1kB.
I agree, just not with their app