as a web app, it can be installed on any device that has a browser. Dev doesn't also need to publish his work in app/play stores which may require extra payment

This is the first web app that I have used which installs, updates, and works like it does. I literally had no idea that something so streamlined and efficient could be done in such a way. Hats off to the developer, I’ll gladly buy wefwef if he ever makes it available on the App/Playstore.

“It’s so good it should be something else” - can’t argue with that thought process

I actually disagree. I love that it’s a lightweight web app.

I’ve never really used a mobile web app before but I’m very curious to see what the dev can do with it and what the limits might be. So far it’s been great! Not being on the App Store means faster updates. If something breaks the dev can fix it much quicker. It’s also fully cross platform. You can also install it on any device regardless of Android/iPhone and have the same experience.

There are definitely advantages to native apps and I basically always prefer them, but wefwef is doing an absolutely amazing job and there are upsides to web apps as well (cross platform, updates, …).

I‘d probably also prefer having this app as a native app, but that means either wrapping it, which doesn’t give you many advantages, or rebuilding it entirely at which point you‘re using a different technology stack than the one people building this are so good at.

There are other people doing that and many of them have the same Apollo in mind while doing so. Let’s just wait and see what each one of them can do, I’m definitely excited :)

I think you mean: "It's so good it COULD be a native app"

It would be nice if wefwef supported Push notifications but I don’t think PWAs support that in iOS. But that’s the only reason that I can think of that would be an advantage (besides ease of install and marketing)

But making wefwef dependent on a centralized App Store is kind of antithetical to the fediverse.

Most PWAs I would rather use the native app but wefwef is probably the second best PWA I have ever used

I’d definitely prefer an app. I’ve run into a lot of freezing, actions not registering and a bunch of other small things that aren’t problems in dedicated apps.

Whenever a dedicated Lemmy app pops up I’ll probably be changing over

As a web app I can (at least on iOS) rename it to something other than “wefwef”.

As an obsolete ass Android phone user, thanks for web app. Looking good. Please add lemm.ee

I'm amazed how well it works. Didn't know a PWA could be this good. The only thing that I really miss is being able to save posts to check later, because I hide read posts.

100%

I think it works perfectly as it is now except for the Safari bug where swiping back a page makes it refresh the page and force you back to the top of it. I guess there’s nothing the wefwef devs can do about it but damn it’s annoying.

Dude, I didn't know PWAs could be so good. I'm running the OG Google Pixel and the performance is excellent!

I still have it installed on my phone but have found it to be quite laggy when scrolling content so i don't use it much. I keep checking every so often in hopes that clears up though..

I'm not saying that the PWA is horrible, but I think a native app would be better too. Really, the only issue I have with it is the refresh rate. For some reason, the display randomly switches to 60hz, especially when sliding to go to the previous page.

Using the developer options to see the current refresh rate does not represent this, but you can clearly see it. I feel that a native app would be able to force 120hz throughout the app.

The only reason I say this is because, when first tried to install the PWA from Kiwi Browser which was pretty smooth but switched to 60hz here and there. I thought this was because of Kiwi Browser so installed the PWA from Chrome. When I did that, it was fully in 120hz only, completely unusable, so I went back to the Kiwi PWA

Edit: the refresh rate is fine while in Chrome browser, it's only in the installed PWA that the refresh rate goes to shit. Anyone who has a 120hz display knows that even going back to 60hz for a second is jarring.

I mean it works great as is. What do you not get right now that you’d get as an app?

It’s promising, but right now it’s a buggy disaster. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There’s a lot of features coming and hopefully it’s stabilized to compare with other apps that are already out- but right now, it’s not even close to ready.

I can’t believe how well it runs on iPhone, way smoother than the Mlem TestFlight app. I think this wasn’t an option for Reddit 3pa because once you try to monetize, if it’s not on the App Store you’re getting steamrolled. Anyways since that doesn’t seem to be an issue here it seems like a great solution.

Would be interested to hear from the devs how they plan to expand in the future.

Mixed experience so far. Love the interface but for some reason the content fails to load at time even though it works on browser or Mlem. Case in point, this comment was made in Mlem because the community failed to load in wefwef. Hopefully this gets fixed.