It’s about integration, the amount of actions it takes to do something in a single app is vastly reduced compared to having to juggle multiple apps. For example, you want to go out for food with your friends. With WeChat, you can message your friends, find a restaurant on the map, book it, etc. all completely seamlessly. This is a really good video explaining the benefits https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSMFnJnY7EA
Have you ever tried to use one of those superapps? It’s still a clunky experience overburdened with dozens of useless UI elements eating up screen estate of what I actually care about, and then whenever I wanted to do something for which there’s no sub-app in the super-app it would be difficult due to lack of integrations with “the outside”. That’s even before we question the idea of putting all the eggs functionality in one basket centralized app with one developer entity, allowing them to ultimately control all aspects of one’s online life.
And more philosophically, I’m surprised that as a functional dev you prefer one big tightly coupled combine to a collection of small but useful on their own utilities lightly coupled to produce more than the sum of their parts.
There are trade offs to each approach. However, it’s clear that super app approach has won in China, and the video I linked explains why.
And more philosophically, I’m surprised that as a functional dev you prefer one big tightly coupled combine to a collection of small but useful on their own utilities lightly coupled to produce more than the sum of their parts.
Because it’s the opposite of that in practice. This approach decouples the UI functionality from the functionality of each individual app which becomes a plugable service. This way you can trivially build workflows that involve multiple apps and chain their functionality any way you like. Coupling the UI to the business logic of an application is a fundamentally wrong design decision in my opinion.
Also, this doesn’t have to be done as an app. It can be done at OS level. This way apps can work following Unix philosophy where you can create pipelines involving different apps and do scripting using them the same way you can do with command line utils. I’m surprised that a dev would have trouble understanding the benefits of doing this.
No, I’m describing user experience here. Apps with APIs don’t solve this problem unless there’s a UI on top of these APIs that makes the experience seamless to the users.
Yes, and then somebody has to build an app that uses these APIs to provide a unified UI to the user. That is precisely the missing piece. Hope that clears things up for you man.
Yeah, and that’s not the model of a super app. A super app provides APIs that it forces it’s sub apps to use, as opposed to building an app that unifies a given app’s published APIs.
It’s literally just a “platform” under a different name, meaning that it’s a tech company trying to build a closed layer that they control that everything is forced through so that they can eventuallg put up a tollbooth and commit highway robbery.
It’s what Apple tried to turn iOS into before the EU slapped the fuck out of them.
Yes, it is a platform that provides a common set of APIs that allow different apps to be unified within a single UI. This has nothing to do with closed layers, it’s not different from the APIs app devs have to use on Android or iOS.
Android, Windows, MacOS, Linux, et al provide you APIs for interacting with the operating system, for instance if I want to send a request over the network, I tell the operating system to send this request through the network card.
But they do not dictate what I draw for my app on the screen, how I send messages between apps, or really anything at the application later. The OS APIs are there as an interface between the hardware and the application layer and that’s it.
Like I said, iOS tries to dips it’s finger far into the application layer and make itself a platform to have more control, not let apps compete with Apple’s apps, and so that they can charge you at every application interaction.
It is a story as old as tech. We build a wonderful open internet based on open standards, so social media companies come in and built a closed network on top of that so that they can control everything. Operating systems have historically been designed by big nerds as relatively open platforms, so what happens? Apple comes along and tries to turn iOS into a closed platform and everyone else comes along and tries to build a closed OS platform (a ‘super app’), on top of the existing open platforms.
Super apps and their design is 100% about enriching the controlling company and nothing else.
And I’m explaining to you that having a unified interface is a benefit from user perspective because now each app is basically a service behind a single consistent UI layer. Perhaps thinking of how a browser works might help you understand this. It’s pretty clear you’re just doing demagogy here instead of actually trying to understand the tradeoffs.
Android provides an API to present your app in the system and launcher, and UI toolkits to present a consistent UI and UX. Apple does too, more forcefully. A “super app” is just inserting another layer.
Same thing you can do in the Google app ecosystem, but in that case we say ‘hey maybe I don’t want this company to know everything about me, my plans, and what I like’.
Except you can’t. The scenario I outlined requires juggling a bunch of apps and it’s way more effort in practice. Try doing that sometime and you’ll see how clunky it feels.
I can literally go on the calendar, add a location which will interface with the maps app, which can give me reviews, menus, directions, etc. Add people from my contacts, who use any type of email and cal they like (not limited to WhatsApp users) and have an email sent off with an ICS file to add to their calendar of choice. Provide a drive attachment in the same calendar invite if there was something to discuss with this meetup…
Feeding all my info to a Chinese app isn’t going to somehow improve that. My larger interest is in breaking up the aggregation of data by a single entity.
And that’s precisely what makes it so much more clunky than just being able to do all of that right within the chat you’re having with your friends. I’m glad you’re so much happier feeding all your info into Google though, because it’s totally not facilitating aggregation of data by a single entity. 🤣
@yogthos I’ll give it a watch. Regardless, a good operating system should be capable of such seamless integration. That’s why “Super apps” are an operating system in a trenchcoat.
An operating system doesn’t solve the problem because it’s fundamentally a UX problem. You can look at a super app as an OS that also handles the UI layer and apps are just APIs below that layer. This is not how the OS works on Android or iOS however where each app couples its API with its own UI.
@yogthos You misunderstand. If you make a “Super App”, you ARE making an operating system. Yes most OS’s have UX problems that prevent this level of integration, but the critical difference is that you’re giving complete control to a single entity.
The client-server pattern perpetuates power imbalances, and “Super apps” make that problem much much worse.
No, I don’t misunderstand. I’m explaining to you that the nature of this operating system is different because there’s a single unified UI backed by a bunch of APIs. The critical difference is that you have a unified UX that results in better user experience. It has fuck all to do with giving up control to anything. You don’t seem to understand the subject you’re attempting to debate here.
@yogthos No need to use strong language, I understand what you’re trying to say.
As a UX dev of over 10 years, UX is important but secondary to safeguards against being toyed with by power-tripping tech bros. That’s why I use fedi, that’s why I build with ipfs instead of http.
There’s nothing I need so bad that I would give up my digital freedoms.
I completely agree with you. This could be done at the OS level if everybody would agree on a common API. This what I’m trying to explain here, the concept of a unified UX experience is a net positive for the users, and it doesn’t need to be implemented as an app. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.
It’s about integration, the amount of actions it takes to do something in a single app is vastly reduced compared to having to juggle multiple apps. For example, you want to go out for food with your friends. With WeChat, you can message your friends, find a restaurant on the map, book it, etc. all completely seamlessly. This is a really good video explaining the benefits https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSMFnJnY7EA
So, similar to Emacs?
lol sure
Have you ever tried to use one of those superapps? It’s still a clunky experience overburdened with dozens of useless UI elements eating up screen estate of what I actually care about, and then whenever I wanted to do something for which there’s no sub-app in the super-app it would be difficult due to lack of integrations with “the outside”. That’s even before we question the idea of putting all the
eggsfunctionality in onebasketcentralized app with one developer entity, allowing them to ultimately control all aspects of one’s online life.And more philosophically, I’m surprised that as a functional dev you prefer one big tightly coupled combine to a collection of small but useful on their own utilities lightly coupled to produce more than the sum of their parts.
There are trade offs to each approach. However, it’s clear that super app approach has won in China, and the video I linked explains why.
Because it’s the opposite of that in practice. This approach decouples the UI functionality from the functionality of each individual app which becomes a plugable service. This way you can trivially build workflows that involve multiple apps and chain their functionality any way you like. Coupling the UI to the business logic of an application is a fundamentally wrong design decision in my opinion.
Also, this doesn’t have to be done as an app. It can be done at OS level. This way apps can work following Unix philosophy where you can create pipelines involving different apps and do scripting using them the same way you can do with command line utils. I’m surprised that a dev would have trouble understanding the benefits of doing this.
You’re literally just describing apps that have open APIs and can integrate with each other.
That used to be the norm here too. The problem is entirely one of capitalism encouraging anti-competitive walled gardens.
No, I’m describing user experience here. Apps with APIs don’t solve this problem unless there’s a UI on top of these APIs that makes the experience seamless to the users.
Yeah man, that’s called an application.
MSN Messenger had an application, ICQ had an application, both had APIs though, so you then had third party apps that integrated and unified them.
Yes, and then somebody has to build an app that uses these APIs to provide a unified UI to the user. That is precisely the missing piece. Hope that clears things up for you man.
Yeah, and that’s not the model of a super app. A super app provides APIs that it forces it’s sub apps to use, as opposed to building an app that unifies a given app’s published APIs.
It’s literally just a “platform” under a different name, meaning that it’s a tech company trying to build a closed layer that they control that everything is forced through so that they can eventuallg put up a tollbooth and commit highway robbery.
It’s what Apple tried to turn iOS into before the EU slapped the fuck out of them.
Yes, it is a platform that provides a common set of APIs that allow different apps to be unified within a single UI. This has nothing to do with closed layers, it’s not different from the APIs app devs have to use on Android or iOS.
Yes it absolutely is different.
Android, Windows, MacOS, Linux, et al provide you APIs for interacting with the operating system, for instance if I want to send a request over the network, I tell the operating system to send this request through the network card.
But they do not dictate what I draw for my app on the screen, how I send messages between apps, or really anything at the application later. The OS APIs are there as an interface between the hardware and the application layer and that’s it.
Like I said, iOS tries to dips it’s finger far into the application layer and make itself a platform to have more control, not let apps compete with Apple’s apps, and so that they can charge you at every application interaction.
It is a story as old as tech. We build a wonderful open internet based on open standards, so social media companies come in and built a closed network on top of that so that they can control everything. Operating systems have historically been designed by big nerds as relatively open platforms, so what happens? Apple comes along and tries to turn iOS into a closed platform and everyone else comes along and tries to build a closed OS platform (a ‘super app’), on top of the existing open platforms.
Super apps and their design is 100% about enriching the controlling company and nothing else.
And I’m explaining to you that having a unified interface is a benefit from user perspective because now each app is basically a service behind a single consistent UI layer. Perhaps thinking of how a browser works might help you understand this. It’s pretty clear you’re just doing demagogy here instead of actually trying to understand the tradeoffs.
I think that’s called an operating system
This functionality certainly can be provided by an operating system, but that’s not how it works on Android or iOS currently.
Android provides an API to present your app in the system and launcher, and UI toolkits to present a consistent UI and UX. Apple does too, more forcefully. A “super app” is just inserting another layer.
This video explains the actual tangible differences in US from user perspective https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSMFnJnY7EA
Same thing you can do in the Google app ecosystem, but in that case we say ‘hey maybe I don’t want this company to know everything about me, my plans, and what I like’.
Except you can’t. The scenario I outlined requires juggling a bunch of apps and it’s way more effort in practice. Try doing that sometime and you’ll see how clunky it feels.
I can literally go on the calendar, add a location which will interface with the maps app, which can give me reviews, menus, directions, etc. Add people from my contacts, who use any type of email and cal they like (not limited to WhatsApp users) and have an email sent off with an ICS file to add to their calendar of choice. Provide a drive attachment in the same calendar invite if there was something to discuss with this meetup…
Feeding all my info to a Chinese app isn’t going to somehow improve that. My larger interest is in breaking up the aggregation of data by a single entity.
And that’s precisely what makes it so much more clunky than just being able to do all of that right within the chat you’re having with your friends. I’m glad you’re so much happier feeding all your info into Google though, because it’s totally not facilitating aggregation of data by a single entity. 🤣
Said I can, not that I do. Not that I should expect the .ml CCP shills to understand anything outside of the tankie sphere.
Dronies try not to act like clowns challenge impossible.
@yogthos I’ll give it a watch. Regardless, a good operating system should be capable of such seamless integration. That’s why “Super apps” are an operating system in a trenchcoat.
An operating system doesn’t solve the problem because it’s fundamentally a UX problem. You can look at a super app as an OS that also handles the UI layer and apps are just APIs below that layer. This is not how the OS works on Android or iOS however where each app couples its API with its own UI.
@yogthos You misunderstand. If you make a “Super App”, you ARE making an operating system. Yes most OS’s have UX problems that prevent this level of integration, but the critical difference is that you’re giving complete control to a single entity.
The client-server pattern perpetuates power imbalances, and “Super apps” make that problem much much worse.
No, I don’t misunderstand. I’m explaining to you that the nature of this operating system is different because there’s a single unified UI backed by a bunch of APIs. The critical difference is that you have a unified UX that results in better user experience. It has fuck all to do with giving up control to anything. You don’t seem to understand the subject you’re attempting to debate here.
@yogthos No need to use strong language, I understand what you’re trying to say.
As a UX dev of over 10 years, UX is important but secondary to safeguards against being toyed with by power-tripping tech bros. That’s why I use fedi, that’s why I build with ipfs instead of http.
There’s nothing I need so bad that I would give up my digital freedoms.
The is a non nonsequitor, because having a single UI framework has little to do with power tripping tech bros.
@yogthos I’m not even talking about UI frameworks anymore, but the UX and client-server or distributed models that you’d build with them.
You can’t build a super-app without also creating a massive power imbalance.
I completely agree with you. This could be done at the OS level if everybody would agree on a common API. This what I’m trying to explain here, the concept of a unified UX experience is a net positive for the users, and it doesn’t need to be implemented as an app. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.