My experience

Posted Jun 21, 2014 10:03 UTC (Sat) by niner (subscriber, #26151)
In reply to: My experience by dvdeug
Parent article: Android without the mothership

But why not use your _phone_ to access the bus company's web site? After all mobile web is one of the main uses of smartphones.

My experience

Posted Jun 21, 2014 10:35 UTC (Sat) by dvdeug (guest, #10998) [Link] (5 responses)

That implies I have a smartphone, and the question was why do people have smartphones. If you find that the bus company site is as easy to use as Google Maps, including accessing your current position, go for it.

My experience

Posted Jun 21, 2014 10:41 UTC (Sat) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link] (4 responses)

I understood the question to be about why do people need those specialized apps (e.g. for bus schedules): "Out of curiousity, how are any of those applications worthwhile?". That the original poster does not have a smart phone was just the reason for his ignorance about possible advantages. The question has also to be seen in the context of using Android smart phones without Google apps/accounts and thus without a large part of the choice of apps.

With the context now hopefully more clearly defined, I can only echo the original question: why does one _need_ all those specialized apps, if the services are usually available as web sites as well?

My experience

Posted Jun 21, 2014 12:07 UTC (Sat) by dvdeug (guest, #10998) [Link] (1 responses)

Why does one need anything? They work better then fighting with a webpage on the Android browser.

(I did not mention bus schedules. I mentioned the computation of finding the optimal set of bus routes and times to get from one place to another, a frequently very different problem.)

My experience

Posted Jun 21, 2014 13:11 UTC (Sat) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

One thing I wish did exist was "how much will I need this weekend on my transit pass?" Factoring in transfer rates and zones (e.g., Seattle) is non trivial :( . Montreal got it right and have unlimited passes for a weekend (though the price is steeper, I have zero worry about being stranded with 25¢ short).

My experience

Posted Jun 21, 2014 15:12 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

With the context now hopefully more clearly defined, I can only echo the original question: why does one _need_ all those specialized apps, if the services are usually available as web sites as well?

Because UI designed for a desktop is usually hard to use on a smartphone. And when companies are faced with a dilemma: to create a mobile web site or to create an app they often create an app—because it's simpler. Apple initialy favired mobile web, but quickly found out that it's just does not work.

Mozilla tries to make creationg of a mobile web sites as easy as creation of a mobile apps but gap still is stricking.

My experience

Posted Jul 2, 2014 13:41 UTC (Wed) by nye (subscriber, #51576) [Link]

>why does one _need_ all those specialized apps, if the services are usually available as web sites as well?

You mean like e-mail, feed readers, text editors, IDEs, word processors, image editors, games, etc?

Basically every application category has a web equivalent - why does one need any application other than a browser at all?