this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
2465 points (99.0% liked)
Memes
45643 readers
1261 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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.
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.
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.