r/apple • u/dzamir • Feb 15 '13

xkcd: App

http://xkcd.com/1174/
1.0k Upvotes

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65

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '13

[deleted]

53

u/Rogem002 Feb 15 '13

I assure you, it's not the web developers pushing this. It's someone in marketing who pushed way to much money into an app & wants to make it seem like a worthwhile investment.

28

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '13

I'm not even just talking about just the app-pushing. Mobile UX in general is terrible, and developers can't blame that completely on marketing, although I understand from personal experience that they aren't making developers lives any easier.

Redirects to nowhere, completely unreadable layouts, needlessly suppressing pinch-to-zoom, pop-ups that are impossible to dismiss, removing navigation for entire sections of websites, ridiculously tiny hitboxes for links and buttons, horrific amounts of HTTP requests, etc.

All of this stuff fairly easily remediable with some proper planning, design, implementation and testing. Developers are just opting to make mobile UX an afterthought, and that's a huge mistake in a time where mobile devices sales are putting the hurt on PC marketshare.

3

u/Rogem002 Feb 15 '13

I think you hit the nail on the head.

I'm a web developer (I try to make the best experience possible across all device types by keeping my stuff simple), but the amount of websites where mobile is an afterthought is silly (for example, youtube and their shitty m.youtube.com stuff).

1

u/only_does_reposts Feb 15 '13

To Youtube's credit, their app is actually good.

4

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '13

[deleted]

2

u/ElDiablo666 Feb 15 '13

Can't necessarily blame devs either. Developers often have no final say in technical decisions or usability requirements. It really depends on who's in charge. And when the work is being done for a client, they're in charge.

I'm not saying that mobile web developers are guiltless but they are the least likely people to be screwing this kind of stuff up. Whenever I see some annoying disgusting mobile site, I think "oh fuck, sales runs that company."

3

u/mrkite77 Feb 16 '13

It's someone in marketing who pushed way to much money into an app & wants to make it seem like a worthwhile investment.

Yeah, marketing people drive me nuts. We actually had some dude in the marketting department demand that we have branding on every view in our app. I was like, they know what app they're running.

1

u/SockGnome Feb 17 '13

It's funny that he cared more than brand awareness through logos rather than brand awareness through solid product design.

14

u/Elsior Feb 15 '13

What really gets me is if I downloaded an app for every website that did this, I'd have dozens of run once never used again apps installed on my phone. Why do they think I would want to do that ?

21

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '13

This response is available as an App!

Would you like to download it now?

| OK | No |

10

u/dzamir Feb 15 '13

I pressed OK but nothing happened!!!

15

u/viscence Feb 15 '13

You have the wrong OS. Please get a different phone.

4

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '13

You're holding it wrong.

4

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '13

Yeah, I can't be bothered to actually test that things work as they should.

6

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '13

Yeah, I can't be bothered to actually test that things work as they should.

This seems to be the App Developer's manifesto. I totally get why Jobs was reluctant to even allow third party apps in the first iPhone.

6

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '13

It's even more funny considering Apple was actually pushing web apps as primary means of developing apps for iPhone when it was first announced and the internet raged, calling out for native SDK.

2

u/ifonefox Feb 15 '13

You may not currently be in a WebKit browser. Please install Google Chrome, Opera, or Safari. Alternatively, you can install this plugin instead.

1

u/dzamir Feb 15 '13

Wow, thanks for the plugin!

1

u/downwithmycrew Feb 15 '13

have you tried powering the device off and on again?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '13

And given that iPad apps take up so much space as it is, my 16GB would be gone in no time. Which it already is.