kiwix / overview

https://kiwix.org
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PWA vs native readers #112

Open benoit74 opened 2 weeks ago

benoit74 commented 2 weeks ago

Now that pwa.kiwix.org has great support for Android / Firefox (in addition to Chrome) - kudos @Jaifroid and maybe others - it looks to me that the difference between native apps (at least on iOS / Android) and pwa.kiwix.org is getting smaller and smaller.

See https://www.reddit.com/r/Kiwix/comments/1gi310s/kiwix_pwa_enhancements_with_firefox_and_android/ for details about the announcement.

Given the significant costs we have to maintain native Android / iOS apps and our limited budget, my (very naive and open) question is what is left missing on pwa.kiwix.org which justify to continue investing in native apps? I'm pretty sure we are not yet at the stage where we can abandon native apps, but I really would like to gain better visibility on what is missing.

On a personal basis, pwa.kiwix.org is now sufficient for my very limited usage on Android.

kelson42 commented 2 weeks ago

For me it is a clear "no" for many reasons, the most important being:

Jaifroid commented 2 weeks ago

Thank you for the complimentary comments, @benoit74, but I agree with @kelson42 that it is absolutely essential to maintain a diverse app ecosystem. Diversity is strength! Here are some reasons:

Those are just some reasons off the top of my head. And @kelson42 is right that even with the recent advances in PWA API support in browsers, there are plenty of contexts in which a single app simply cannot deliver. But as an ecosystem, our range of apps cover nearly all needs.