So you want to save energy? Ditch web apps and go native, boffins say Eggheads at Vrije Universiteit (VU) in the Netherlands recommend that people with Android devices use native apps rather than web apps when viewing popular sites like ESPN, Pinterest, Spotify, and YouTube because native apps are more energy efficient. That may seem obvious to some but you know what they say: the difference …
Web versions are designed to run badly. They want you to use their app because they can track you and spam you with ads. Why would they make it easier to use a web browser with an ad blocker?
LinkedIn is a good example. It's barely usable in a browser, and uses a huge amount of resources, on a mobile or desktop device. In the app it runs better but you can't turn off the annoying video posts.
Then again, YouTube runs fine and has no ads.
A lot of apps are just front ends to web pages anyway.
"Based on our results, we advise users to access internet content using native apps over Web apps, when possible to optimize the battery life of their devices," the boffins state in their paper.
Well, duh! Being a simple engineer, this should be another kick in the cloudybollocks. So iwant to move a pic from an iPhone to a PC. iHave to power up the radio, send the pic to Apple, then send it back instead of just copying it across to PC via USB or WiFi.
So they're saying if we want to run apps on smutphones or laptops, we should run them locally and save on network, transmission and remote processing energy costs? Who knew? If only we could..
"So iwant to move a pic from an iPhone to a PC. iHave to power up the radio, send the pic to Apple, then send it back instead of just copying it across to PC via USB or WiFi."
I setup an small webserver in my local network and then upload from iPhone to PC, no Apple / international routes involved. OpenBSD + httpd + PHP. Or Linux + Apache + PHP.
I setup an small webserver in my local network and then upload from iPhone to PC, no Apple / international routes involved. OpenBSD + httpd + PHP. Or Linux + Apache + PHP.
Yep, but still needlessly complicated. Decades ago, that could be done with just by crossing pins 2 & 3, and 7 straight through. For simple tasks like that, no servers are needed, which is also true for a lot of stuff that enforces cloud dependencies.
you do realise they are talking about garden walled useless apple shit!
Yep. It's an ancient going back to the client-server vs P2P or thick vs thin clients. If all I want to do is communicate from A-B, why introduce C, if that's unnecessary? I've also seen 'standalone' apps where the client is effectively a web interface talking to a web server on the same device. I guess that's convenient to develop, if the app is both single and multi-user, but I'm not a dev. It just seems to me that it can create needless bloat vs maybe a thinner client.
The bigger problem is still forcing server functionality into a 'cloud', eg the discussion a few days ago about why a 3d-printer needs the 'cloud' to print instead of a local app/server.
Last I checked this wasn't the case for Electron, and a lot of "native" apps are based on that, so in that case a perfectly fair comparison.
(I was shocked to find out that not only is it running Chrome, but it's even downloading the entire webapp JS etc. every time you launch it -- no cache!)
Pretty much when "existing" was replaced with "extant". You see that word everywhere now, especially when people want to seem educated. I fail to see what's wrong with existing. Especially since you can say that it existed at one point, but no more. How do you that with extant ? It exted ?
Bollocks.
Get off my lawn !
Not more privacy conscious , just easier to block. An app will ask permission, and then refuse to work if you don't give it permission. A web app or just a website accessed via the browser directly, can be restricted. Consider how many apps ask for many and broad ranging permission outside the scope of strictly necessary but won't work at all if you refuse any of them. As the article said, there's little to no network level blocking available on mobile phones but web browser level blocking is possible.
If The Register had a web ap it would have to be The Best. The commentariat would be all over it and 30 seconds after it was released there would be the first report "El Reg Slurper" if that is the case. Know your user!
When a South American country launched a radio ham satellite there was a theory that it was cover for some sort of spy satellite. I can think of nothing more likely to be blown than hookey radiation purporting to be for the benefit of amateur radio enthusiasts.
A web app only runs when you are using it. My DDG browser clears all data upon exit or after 30 minutes of inactivity. Native apps run in the background, constantly monitoring you. Whenever I need a ride sharing app, I install it, get the ride, and then delete it. If I leave it installed, it keeps spamming me with messages in the notification area.
is just a scam.
Being connected 24/7 costs money even if you have an 'unlimited' contract for your network. Power and other stuff all cost money.
This constant 'verifying [insert product name here] is a real PITA. The same goes for cars especially Tesla's. Because they are online all the time, His Majesty Elon the 1st can simply wave his hand and your... (ok, you might have paid money for it but it is not really yours) wonderful computer on wheels is bricked.
"They say that while it may not be realistic to expect that developers will choose between native and web apps solely on the basis of energy consumption and performance, web apps should serve mainly for user acquisition and not platform interaction."
By just having their apps website as a place to get people to download the native app as they suggest to save on a tiny bit of power, means for people like myself who prefer to access applications when I am at home from my laptop or desktop PC rather than on my phone I usually cannot, as the developers rarely produce native apps for Linux and often not even for Windows. They just target Android and iOS.
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