> Every web app I've used has required a painful sign-up process, which is usually where I bail out of the process. Way more friction than an app store install.
That signup process can be made better. Nothing fixes the pains of having to download a large app over a potentially slow/spotty network, sacrifice an unknown amount of privacy, then having to twiddle a variable amount of options to get the thing to stop sending you notifications about every single action or event, then after a week of use, having to re-download the large app again because of updates.
> Nothing fixes the pains of having to download a large app over a potentially slow/spotty network
You mean like the 12 MB it takes to load a Google Sheet? At least with a native app, once it's downloaded you know it's there and it won't go into an indeterminate state if you happen to try to use a feature that hasn't been loaded yet.
> sacrifice an unknown amount of privacy, then having to twiddle a variable amount of options to get the thing to stop sending you notifications about every single action or event
These are not issues when you have iOS's permissions model
> These are not issues when you have iOS's permissions model
Which is 13.9% market share currently.
Unless Apple wants to make budget devices (they don't), this world does not exist, and it won't any time soon.
> You mean like the 12 MB it takes to load a Google Sheet?
Although I realize we are speaking in hypotheticals, and generalizing the type of apps people use (I realize there are smaller ~2 meg apps), the average size of an iOS app is 20mb, and the average android app is 7mb. You pointed out an exceptional use case, not the most common.
That signup process can be made better. Nothing fixes the pains of having to download a large app over a potentially slow/spotty network, sacrifice an unknown amount of privacy, then having to twiddle a variable amount of options to get the thing to stop sending you notifications about every single action or event, then after a week of use, having to re-download the large app again because of updates.