as a web app, it can be installed on any device that has a browser. Dev doesn’t also need to publish his work in app/play stores which may require extra payment
And since it doesn’t have to be published in any app stores, it can be updated much more quickly and frequently.
No kidding I think it had like 4 updates yesterday 🤣
This. I pressed update on my Android, iPhone, and Desktop and it only took like half a second. This PWA is scary good.
I thought pwa were supposed to suck but I honestly haven’t even looked at any other apps because wefef works so well
The first time I found out PWA don’t suck is when I tried justchilltv last month. Another dope one
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I thinks it’s fair considering is pirating, many services get shutdown for showing everything without login. It let them know you are in their discord server
Just looked that up and now I’m debating cancelling all of my streaming subscriptions.
This is what blows my mind. PWAs have always been sort of ok. But wefwef is just <chef’s kiss.gif>
The first time I found out PWA don’t suck is when I tried justchilltv last month. Another dope one
that’s something i like with react native and over the air updates. In the app i ship at my job, when its only the javascript bundle that’s updated we can actually update without the user ever knowing, they just get a slightly longer load time on that startup of the app, making rather easy ensuring that no users are running out of date and broken code.
Good to know. I haven’t decided whether I want to learn RN, Flutter, or ionic. Lemaing towards RN.
I think for now that there are more jobs in RN, but a lot of people are passionate about flutter and we might as a shift in the market in the next comings year.
I would do freelancing and building my own apps so where the market goes makes me no difference. What’s really important to me is which is the better language to learn. And I’ve seen arguments for both sides.
Why does it take so long to push updates on AppStores?
generally Google play is rather fast, but Apple can be insanely slow sometimes. At my work we’ve had up to 6 working days to get approval of very minor updates. That’s the reason why technologies like react native with over the air updates have gotten as prominent as it has.
As someone who leads an app development team I’ve started liking pwas more and more the last couple of years. Especially for apps that doesn’t do more complex stuff than making api calls and rendering the result to the screen in the form of text.
I think they maybe have to be approved first so that people aren’t updating their apps with something malicious
So it is not as safe as downloading an app from the AppStore right?
No. The browser (which is the runtime that pwas use) is already a very limited environment with little to access to the system - and if the app wants to access something potentially sensitive, then the browser asks for permission. Even then it doesn’t have access to nearly anything that a native app can access.
That’s a good question. I’m not entirely sure of the answer to that. I suppose in a way it could be less secure because the dev could just decide to one day make the wefwef.app url into a malicious link. But at the same time, I don’t think a browser is granted as many permissions by default.
Using the Google Play Store as an example, there are still incredibly sketchy/suspicious apps on there even though they are approved by Google.
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I think from the point of view of speed/ease of development, the webapp makes more sense for now. Once it’s more stable, perhaps a native app is worth trying for performance reasons.
The portability is awesome. I switched to wefwef and had it going on all my devices in minutes. Web apps don’t have to suck. Apps also have more privacy implications than a PWA.
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This is the first web app that I have used which installs, updates, and works like it does. I literally had no idea that something so streamlined and efficient could be done in such a way. Hats off to the developer, I’ll gladly buy wefwef if he ever makes it available on the App/Playstore.
This, Justchill, and Seez are so good, they have me considering learning how to make PWA. I went down a ionic, react native, and flutter rabbit hole yesterday. Lol
What is Seez?
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Seez? At least put the url
Just google it. This isn’t a piracy thread so I’m not sure I can link it.
If everybody is asking, it’s because Google it doesn’t work… You are right about this is not a piracy community, but at least say the topic. For example, “justchilltv the tv shows and movies app”, or “Wefwef, the Lemmy PWA client”
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“It’s so good it should be something else” - can’t argue with that thought process
It’s so good it makes a lot of apps really disappointing.
I see a lot of duplicate comments. Is it a bug with wefwef?
I think it’s related to servers giving you an error message when posting a comment due to load, so you hit post again. Afterwards it turns out you have two comments because the first attempt actually worked
It’s so good it makes a lot of apps really disappointing.
I actually disagree. I love that it’s a lightweight web app.
I’ve never really used a mobile web app before but I’m very curious to see what the dev can do with it and what the limits might be. So far it’s been great! Not being on the App Store means faster updates. If something breaks the dev can fix it much quicker. It’s also fully cross platform. You can also install it on any device regardless of Android/iPhone and have the same experience.
In some desktop browsers you can install it to the start menu as well.
There are definitely advantages to native apps and I basically always prefer them, but wefwef is doing an absolutely amazing job and there are upsides to web apps as well (cross platform, updates, …).
I‘d probably also prefer having this app as a native app, but that means either wrapping it, which doesn’t give you many advantages, or rebuilding it entirely at which point you‘re using a different technology stack than the one people building this are so good at.
There are other people doing that and many of them have the same Apollo in mind while doing so. Let’s just wait and see what each one of them can do, I’m definitely excited :)
I think you mean: “It’s so good it COULD be a native app”
Came here to say this.
Without the restrictions of being on App Stores and going through reviews, devs can move so much faster. I feel like two or three times a day it tells me a new version can be grabbed, and it’s caught up to and bypassed the alpha/beta apps from Testflight which get updated once a week (if lucky).
It would be nice if wefwef supported Push notifications but I don’t think PWAs support that in iOS. But that’s the only reason that I can think of that would be an advantage (besides ease of install and marketing)
But making wefwef dependent on a centralized App Store is kind of antithetical to the fediverse.
Most PWAs I would rather use the native app but wefwef is probably the second best PWA I have ever used
That’s awesome news. Nothing is really holding wefwef from being able to have feature parity with Apollo then
People actually liked getting notifications from Reddit? That’s like the first thing I turn off when installing a Reddit app lol
I like being able to see replies and such in a timely fashion so that I can be helpful to my fellow users. I’m probably a bit abnormal as I don’t mute notifications on WhatsApp/iMessage group messages either and most people I know do.
You might already be aware, but Lemmy can send you an email every time someone replies to your comments.
Just go to Settings in Lemmy and make sure the ‘Send notifications to Email’ box is checked. Assuming you have notifications turned on with your email app, then you can be notified in a timely fashion.
I know it’s not as good as in-app notifications but it’s a workaround that is good enough for me.
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Yes and no, there are a great deal of good reasons that some OS features are only available to binary deployments, one such being that the code is sent through manual and automated testing by the platform holders. Ultimately some things can’t be made available to all apps running in WebKit or similar as the implementation isn’t scrutinised.
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I am a programmin’ folk, and I was even considering making a Lemmy reader for my own amusement, but wefwef is so good that I’m not going to bother. I wish I had time to learn React and the rest so I could contribute myself, but my brain is already full of frameworks and I’m afraid if I try to learn a new one, it will push out one that I actually need for my job.
As a web app I can (at least on iOS) rename it to something other than “wefwef”.
I’ve added it to my Home Screen, how do you rename it? (Not that I will) just wondering! Thank you for any help!
I’m not sure if you can after the fact, but when you’re adding initially you’re given the option.
Ah ok, got it. Thank you for replying quickly and letting me know! I was just curious.
woofwoof?
As an obsolete ass Android phone user, thanks for web app. Looking good. Please add lemm.ee
Ok I found the “other” server option now! Cool.
I think it works perfectly as it is now except for the Safari bug where swiping back a page makes it refresh the page and force you back to the top of it. I guess there’s nothing the wefwef devs can do about it but damn it’s annoying.
I never experience what you’re describing. You installed the web app to your Home Screen as instructed and you’re not just using it inside Safari, right?
Yeah I did that. But I’ve always had this issue even when using Safari by itself so I know it’s not a problem with wefwef. Safari just doesn’t seem to cache previous pages correctly for me.
Interesting, are you running on older hardware?
No. I got a iPhone 13 Pro.
Even more strange then. I’m using the same hardware and haven’t experienced that in either wefwef or general browsing in Safari.
Comments collapsing is not nice and snappy. Compare it to jerboa. These kinds of animations really make the experience feel slow.
It’s very snappy for me on iOS, perhaps you have to re-“install”.
Have you tried re-adding it to your home screen?
I’m amazed how well it works. Didn’t know a PWA could be this good. The only thing that I really miss is being able to save posts to check later, because I hide read posts.
I’m in wefwef, and my UI has a save icon.
It didn’t do anything hahaha. But the latest updates added the save feature!
I’d definitely prefer an app. I’ve run into a lot of freezing, actions not registering and a bunch of other small things that aren’t problems in dedicated apps.
Whenever a dedicated Lemmy app pops up I’ll probably be changing over
Yeah same here. Backspace being very laggy when editing comments is a major pain as well. Wefwef is my preferred app at the moment, but I’m waiting impatiently for the showdown between Artemis, Sync and Boost for my ultimate solution.
Where do you notice the freezing? Open an issue with details on the github page
For the record, I prefer wefwef being a web app (PWA). It’s amazing the flexibility, fast updates, how lightweight it is and being no-store dependent. That being said, I have a lot of freezing in my iOS (iPhone 13, iOS 16) device using Safari as webview. In Android (Realme, Android 12) using Edge as webview I’ve never had this problem. When it freeze in iOS, I have to swiping up to access the iOS App Switcher, then I tap on it to reopen it, and usually, the app unfreezes after that. Or sometimes I scroll from other screen area and after a 3 seconds it works. Btw, it only happens to me like 1 time every 2 days. Before the updates, it was more constant, so I think it has been improved
I’ve also had freezing up while scrolling through things, not all that infrequently but often enough to be noticeable. That said it’s a slick app most of the time so I’m curious to see if those performance glitches can be resolved or if it’s an unfortunate byproduct of it being a PWA and the browser being a limitation. Could also be my Lemmy instance being unresponsive, which has been the case at times, but the app not yet handling that gracefully due to being an early release.
Happy to wait and see. When it is flawless, which is most of the time, it’s beyond any web app I can recall using.
