this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2023
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Most apps would do fine without a website. Most everyone has a phone, but a fair number of people don't have a desktop or laptop. And pretty much everyone who has a desktop or laptop also has a phone.
A number of currently popular apps don't have a website, let alone a mobile friendly website.
You’re missing the main point: A web app works for both desktop and phone users. A mobile app doesn’t.
And I, for one, don’t have a smart phone, though I’ll admit I’m lonely in this position.
A webapp sometimes works fine for phone users. There are things that websites can't do on mobile. For example, on iOS, only the latest OS version has support for push notifications from PWAs, and even then, they can't make noise or vibrations. They are always delivered silently. PWAs are also always rendered with WebKit on iOS. WebKit doesn't support a number of features.
Yes, a mobile app doesn't help desktop users, but there are waaaaaaaay more mobile users than desktop users.
I mean, for an email app, that’s kind of a big deal.
Only if you absolutely need some crucial bit of information the moment it arrives, in which case, email isn’t for you, since messages can take up to 3 days to arrive.
I like having noisy push notifications for certain emails. I apologize if that’s not ok.
You are not 100% alone. I technically have a smartphone but use it as a mini (5") tablet. My SIM is in a feature phone because greedy T-Mobile (Telekom in Deutschland) will not give me more than 1 MB/day for a decent price.
That depends on what kind of service you provide.
Games more complex than 2048, video calls? Sure.
Short video platform? Maybe.
Commerce? Absolutely not.
Yes, that's why I said most instead of all. And to be clear, I'm not a fan of apps without websites, that's just how things are.