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I've written quite a few apps for both iOS and Android.

While I'm not an Android user, when I build an Android app I try to embrace the platform's strengths. I try to understand best practice, and follow the designs encouraged by Google. The resulting apps often look and behave completely differently between iOS and Android because the platforms are so different.

I have mixed opinions about a lot of Android's design philosophy, but there's no way I would build an Android app that didn't conform to the platform. Because I expect Android users enjoy consistency too.

There's probably some elitism in there. But there still is no web app on macOS or iOS that feels good, consistent and integrated in the same way that a good native app feels.




> But there still is no web app on macOS or iOS that feels good, consistent and integrated in the same way that a good native app feels.

Part of that though is because they _don't_ allow PWAs. Contrast that with Android, where it's now entirely possible to make a PWA so deeply integrated into the OS that the average user can't even tell it's not a native app: https://blog.chromium.org/2017/02/integrating-progressive-we...


> Contrast that with Android, where it's now entirely possible to make a PWA so deeply integrated into the OS that the average user can't even tell it's not a native app

Oh, but quite many will be able to tell after 5 seconds of using it. The rest will realize the moment the Internet connection drops temporarily.


> The rest will realize the moment the Internet connection drops temporarily.

Nope. A properly-written PWA will continue working just fine when the user goes offline, just like a native app would.


Most native apps that rely on a web service backend are pretty unusable when the connection goes offline.




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