But it wouldn’t only work on Android. It would also work on Windows and Unix and any other niche operating system that can run a browser (my Blu-ray recorder has a browser in it). There’s a whole world outside Apple/Android. This message brought to you by a browser running on Windows…
That’s theoretically true, but in practice, the desktop experience (screen size, interaction model, etc.) is sufficiently different that adapting it to mobile to get an app-like experience is not that different from building a separate app.
It’s not at all like building a separate app. All the back-end code is identical - all you have to do is make the mobile version not take up as much screen-space, and that’s not much work. e.g. on desktop I use icon and text, but on mobile icon only.
Then why do you think most business are already writing a separate Android app rather than just optimising their mobile website?
But “make the mobile version not take up as much screen-space” is not as simple as simply zooming out and just hiding some icon labels. And just the fact that people interact by touch rather than with a mouse and keyboard is already a major adjustment.
Anyway, I’ll leave it at this, since I feel like there’s not much to gain here for me from the discussion anymore :) Cheers!
But it wouldn’t only work on Android. It would also work on Windows and Unix and any other niche operating system that can run a browser (my Blu-ray recorder has a browser in it). There’s a whole world outside Apple/Android. This message brought to you by a browser running on Windows…
That’s theoretically true, but in practice, the desktop experience (screen size, interaction model, etc.) is sufficiently different that adapting it to mobile to get an app-like experience is not that different from building a separate app.
It’s not at all like building a separate app. All the back-end code is identical - all you have to do is make the mobile version not take up as much screen-space, and that’s not much work. e.g. on desktop I use icon and text, but on mobile icon only.
Then why do you think most business are already writing a separate Android app rather than just optimising their mobile website?
But “make the mobile version not take up as much screen-space” is not as simple as simply zooming out and just hiding some icon labels. And just the fact that people interact by touch rather than with a mouse and keyboard is already a major adjustment.
Anyway, I’ll leave it at this, since I feel like there’s not much to gain here for me from the discussion anymore :) Cheers!