This is a beautiful looking app, but I can't help thinking it exemplifies everything that is wrong with modern web development.
Firstly, why is this a native app and not a website? Oh actually, it is a website: https://thepoetrycorner.app , except some parts of it (search?, accounts?) don't seem to be working in the browser.
The poem itself is 769 characters of plain text, including the title, attribution, and line breaks. 769 bytes.
The webpage is 810 kilobytes, in 25 files.
The app is 39.3 megabytes.
The App store page says there are "more than 30,000 poems to explore". I bet you could fit all 30,000 in less than 39.3 MB if you tried.
Looking in web inspector I see lots of JSON files loaded on every click. I wonder if it works with JS disabled. It does? Page weight drops to 56.6 KB, which is quite reasonable. So why did all that JSON need to be loaded?
This could have been a really clean and lightweight website. The content is plain text with an occasional image. It's perfect for plain HTML. Instead it's a 40 MB native app. The road not taken, indeed.
I’ve wanted to build one for a while, I’m a web dev by trade so a side-project is a good time to try out some new tech.
Secondly, I love the web but I find it’s revenue models a bit too indirect, e.g. advertising. People are simply more likely to set up a subscription for an app rather than a website. And I really didn’t want to monetise it via ads.
The json files loading on the site is actually just Next.js preloading the content for instant page transitions.
The site is mainly used for sharing poems with people who don’t yet have the app installed. I’m intentionally keeping the app a first class citizen as that’s just what I wanted to do with this project.
If size is a worry for you, then you might enjoy Poets' Corner[1] which has been going since 1994. The design of the site might not be 2020s chic, but at the end of the day it's the words in the poems that count (though many poets would argue that the white space between the words is just as important).
Firstly, why is this a native app and not a website? Oh actually, it is a website: https://thepoetrycorner.app , except some parts of it (search?, accounts?) don't seem to be working in the browser.
Lets see what the pages are like. Here's one: https://thepoetrycorner.app/robert-lee-frost/the-road-not-ta...
The poem itself is 769 characters of plain text, including the title, attribution, and line breaks. 769 bytes.
The webpage is 810 kilobytes, in 25 files.
The app is 39.3 megabytes.
The App store page says there are "more than 30,000 poems to explore". I bet you could fit all 30,000 in less than 39.3 MB if you tried.
Looking in web inspector I see lots of JSON files loaded on every click. I wonder if it works with JS disabled. It does? Page weight drops to 56.6 KB, which is quite reasonable. So why did all that JSON need to be loaded?
This could have been a really clean and lightweight website. The content is plain text with an occasional image. It's perfect for plain HTML. Instead it's a 40 MB native app. The road not taken, indeed.