All Web Developers Should Stop Doing This Immediately

A web developer made that page, but it wasn't his decision to put it there. I am going to go out on a very short limb here and say the web developer was on the few people advocating against blocking tablet users from using the normal website, since they actually understand how the web works.<p>In fact, when presented with the mandate that they needed a mobile app, the web developer probably just wanted to create a nice HTML5 site that could be served up in any tablet or mobile browser without the need to install a special app for their particular device. Know why? Because that is what web developers do.

Oh yes. We should also mention the horrible broken piece of crap called "Onswipe", that produces a slow, broken, confusing interface that also happens to limit screen space dedicated to reading and breaks built-in Safari zooming.<p>For some reason people think that they need to have a "Special Tablet Version". You don't! Just have a normal web site, we'll be fine!<p>The onswipe situation got so bad that whenever I encounter a site using it I immediately click "back" and never come back again.<p>UPDATE: Oh, I should also mention that half the time when trying to click "back" I actually click the silly Onswipe button in the upper left corner of the screen that <i>pretends</i> to be the back button but actually does something else (takes you to the main blog page I think). Cursing ensues.

It's really simple, I believe they serve up their videos with Flash which your tablet doesn't support. Flash for video isn't going away yet in many cases because HTML 5 video is still lacking all of the security features sites like this one require. So they did the next best thing, they built a custom app for your platform which gave them the security they desired and you a full user experience.<p>Edit: Just confirmed I can watch their videos on my Android tablet, thus it's just a lack of Flash that caused this. In fact on my ASUS Slider they are playing perfectly.

I didn't see the author of the piece mention it anywhere, but this is clearly because his friend sent him a link to a video which is delivered via Flash. 60 Minutes video segments on the CBS News site don't have any associated text below them. He'd have been better served by his friend sending him the link to the associated article instead.<p>(...or is this so blindingly obvious that it just doesn't warrant a mention?)<p>IIRC on the iPad, even YouTube links open the YouTube app. Not sure what happens if you don't have the app installed - does it ask you to download the app instead?<p><i>Edit</i>: I suppose one could make the argument that if the CBS News website can serve up different stuff to the iPad, then they might as well serve up what's compatible instead..

Like other's have said, this is <i>not</i> the developer's decision. In fact it was things like this that made me quit my job to go freelance.<p>Me and the other developers would spend literally hours explaining and re-explaining why links to external sites should not be opened in a new window. But because some marketing douchebag once said it was a good idea, our pleas went un-heard.<p>In short, don't blame the developers, admittedly a small portion of the blame is with them for not fighting hard enough, or being prepared to walk away. But the vast majority of the blame lies higher up the food chain.

This decision was made by sales / marketing. The people who pay the developer.<p>Go work at a big company where you are a cost center (they make their money from ad sales not your web innovation) and you'll get to implement the same dumb crap as this.

My pet peeve is deep links that get redirected to the mobile home page.<p>That and sites that open in "mobile mode" on a tablet. 10x7 should be plenty of pixels for your normal site.

There is a variant of this which is to auto-detect mobile browsers and redirect from "desktop" urls to the mobile <i>homepage</i>. This behavior is so massively brain dead it's ridiculous. If you're not going to do a smart redirect to the proper mobile version of the actual individual page then in most cases it's best to just serve up the desktop page.

That whole internet/hyperlink/REST thing that we developed over the last 20 years? That was just a stop gap while we transitioned from mouse pointers to capacitive touch screens. Now that we point with our fingers instead of our hands, we need to reinvent the architecture of shared information.

On my Galaxy Nexus I have an option "Load the Desktop version of this site". I don't see this option in the new Chrome Beta though. On iOS I had to jailbreak and install an SBSettings toggle to change Safari's UA, which restarted it, but then it worked more reliably than the one in my Android. But yeah, not having to root or jailbreak and getting the functionality I need is one of the long list of reasons I will never look back to Apple's ecosystem. The future is open, the future is web apps, and there is no place for closed ecosystems no matter how rich or extensive they may look now. Give people open tools and we can have more web apps than app store has apps in a very rapid time.

The author does not _want_ to download an app because it is "antisocial use of public bandwidth". What exactly is social use of the bandwidth then? Is this kind of attitude common?

<i>"Why do so many web developers think that tablets are an excuse to break the functionality of the web?"</i><p>Web developers have been breaking the functionality of the web for years. A lot of 'feature-rich' web apps today are almost unusable on a mobile device, much less for a disabled person. So instead of making a 'mobile friendly' version of their site, they made an app.<p>Maybe some day they'll find it cheaper and easier to just make one site that works for all devices. But that probably sounds crazy.

it is totally awesome when sites offer a crappy ancient mobile version of the site that doesn't actually remember the page you wanted to go to.<p>it is even more offen when they offer a crazy javascript version of the site that crashes if you try to "swipe" to the next page.

They're a scourge. In Terms of overall annoyance, it's ironic that Apps are quietly ecoming the new Flash.

Useful titles, that work well in RSS and search need to be enforced, else we will get a situation like Reddit's front page, which is currently full of meaningless clickbait titles.

CBSNews (powering Gamespot and a load of other content sites) are f---ing terrible at mobile interaction. View a site link on a mobile device and they'll serve you a mobile version of their front page. That's it.<p>You've then got to click 'full site' to see the full frontpage and set your preference cookie, and then press back a few times to retry your original request.

You know what else bothers me on mobile browsing. There are some websites where I can't zoom in on the iPhone. I've tried researching it so I could make a bookmarklett or something to disable that, but I can't find what's causing it. Does anyone know?

This also put forward the problem of table and mobile apps behaving as isolated information processing silos.<p>I wouldn't say it breaks the web, but it is clearly missing a fundamental and significant property of the web and from this perspective it is a regression.

This isn't just on tablets but all mobile devices to some extent. People assume a context based on the browser's user agent string. A good tradeoff is a banner at the top of the page, with a link to the app.<p>I've also seen people remove information from a site for mobile users as its less important. If content isn't important to show to some users then it's likely it shouldn't be shown at all.<p>Another assumption web developers make is that mobile users won't be browsing certain pages that advertise a mobile site or app. I've seen many blog posts saying "check out our new mobile sites at <i>m.example.com</i>", using the bold tag to show its a URL instead of an HTML link.

<i>A friend sends me a link to a 60 Minutes segment she feels it's important I watch. I'm on an iPad -- not that it matters ... There is no alternative -- no way to click through to the video or text that I was after</i><p>Somewhere like this: <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7398478n" rel="nofollow">http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7398478n</a> ?<p>...<p>&#60;div id="flashvideocontent"&#62;<p>So, <i>no</i> there is <i>no way</i> to click through to the video you were after because you are on an iPad, and iPad's do not have Adobe Flash. That means if you want to see the link that your friend sent, then you are going to have to download an app. Blame Apple and Adobe, not the website.

I have been fortunate enough that when my bosses come to me and say "we want an iPhone app" I can explain why this is a bad business decision and they listen to me. A native app should not just be a little button for your web content.

Awesome, I'm not the only one that hates apps that are nothing more than a browser for a single website. What are people thinking, that we like to have a separate app for every website we enjoy visiting? Have they actually ever used a smartphone/tablet?<p>If your website links to other sites and you load that in Safari again? Guess what, you just lost me. I'm not going to close Safari and load your app again, whereas closing a new tab would have returned me to your site. The same thing happens when your in-app browser just isn't up to scratch: I'll have to copy-paste the address into Safari and I'm annoyed and gone.

A few days ago I had an article that was popular on HN. I was watching my live Analytics tracking and saw that I had an inbound referral from "chat.stackexchange.com"- I looked up the full URL, and tried it in my browser.<p>Just like that, I was in the chat room discussing the topic of my post with the people that had found it. It occurred to me that if they were using almost any other kind of chat system (like an app, but also including IRC) I would never have been able to do that. It's a shame, but I suppose there are also privacy concerns at stake.

Isn't the real problem here that instead of an honest statement about why the app needs to be downloaded (ie. no Flash on the iPad), something looking like an advertisement is served instead? That the author assumed the worst might be due to the apparent dishonesty rather than any paranoia on the author's part.<p>Of course, the problem might be a little more complicated, because some less adept users seeing that a website will not load on their device might blame those who made the website.<p>Still, CBS's solution clearly isn't the one making lemonade out of lemons.

Have you tried using a different browser and changing your user-agent?

Another thing: we need a "tablet" mode for websites, that is distinct from "mobile." Several websites assume I am on a phone when I visit them with my Galaxy Tab, and enforce the use of a tiny font. Perhaps ironically, on these "mobile" websites, zooming seems to be broken, whereas on regular websites I can double-tap and it will zoom in to make the font size bigger and reflow the paragraph to fit my device. Examples are Slashdot and Live Journal, but there are others.

Even though IMDB have a mobile site (automatically redirects you to m.imdb.com), it STILL prompts you to download the app every single time you visit. Extremely annoying.

This decision has nothing to do with web developers. These are the kinds of choices made by those who don't understand the usability implications of their decisions.

&#62; Why do so many web developers think that tablets are an excuse to break the functionality of the web?<p>ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION, ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION, INTERNET, PROCESS_OUTGOING_CALLS, READ_CALENDAR, READ_CONTACTS, READ_HISTORY_BOOKMARKS, READ_PROFILE, READ_SMS, READ_SOCIAL_STREAM, SUBSCRIBED_FEEDS_READ<p>user: scroll, scroll, grumble, scroll, scroll, scroll, finally!, ALLOW

Native apps do have a persistence advantage over HTML. My apps for the WSJ, FT and Economist download entire issues for availability offline. I haven't seen that done in HTML.<p>In terms of web breakage, these all offer urls to the same article on the web page, so they don't break the web going into the sites. I haven't seen them use outbound links.

It's not just tablets, I get that junk on my other android and iOS devices (nook, phone, etc) all the time now.<p>For some reason the news sites seem to be the worst offenders.<p>It feels very much like the paywall thing that devastated so many newspaper sites a few years back. Despite having highly desirable content, they just don't get the internet (still).

Web developers need conscientious objector status when tasked with building features they know are bad for the web.

The cynical answer is because once you install an app they can<p>* Push ads to you even when you're not viewing their content * Read your address book<p>I hate it too. I also hate sites that ask me to install their app every time I visit. No, I don't want the IMDB app nor do I want the Rottentomatoes app, etc etc..<p>Unfortunately the majority seem to love it :-(

Web developers may not be responsible but they are sensible enough to advocate against such an approach. I have also come across the same issue on my Android phone and even after installing their stupid app, I still get prompted to download it. I gave their app the minimum possible rating.

The irony is that their app will probably just be a framed browser view anyways...

IMO this is part Safari's fault for not giving you the option of acting like a desktop browser and not being able to run Flash. The former can be solved by downloading a different ipad browser.

Isn't there a user agent switcher for iPad? That would seem to be the easy fix for such annoyances. (I don't have an iPad, but it seems like an obvious thing that would be available.)

Or: All Technical Savvy People Should Stop Buying A Device Entirely Built Around Apps Over The Web And Then Complain They Have To Download Apps.<p>(or buy it and don't complain, that's fine too)

Is there any way to change the user agent on the iPhone or iPad? Maybe someone could start a proxy for iPhones that could do this?

Equally frustrating: when the no scale attribute is set for sites that are not optimized for viewing on mobile or tablet screens.

All Content Posters Should Start Writing Headlines That Don't Remind Me Of Reddit.

&#62; It feels like vandalism. This is what hackers do.<p>He lost me here. Too bad it was almost the end of the article and I also agreed with him.

This has nothing to do with web developers, they don't make the decisions there. A bunch of marketing bimbo's do.

It's too uncommon to find this kind of article(rants) on Technology Review.

Is there a way to change your User-Agent in the iPad browser?

Totally wrong forum/place to complain. Here at HN people love that a lot! Because there was some time ago some post where on iPad I arrived on app download page - so I posted comment a'la "what shit is this" and got massively downvoted for that.