A few times lately when I open SDMB on my phone (in Chrome) I get a little pop-up message at the top saying “Install Straight Dope Message Board”. I usually ignore it, but it happened again this morning and I got curious, so I went to the Google Play Store and searched for “Straight Dope” but got no hits. So, what exactly is my phone trying to get me to install? (Samsung Galaxy S23 FE if it makes a difference.) And maybe more importantly, who is trying to get me to install it? The Straight Dope? Samsung? Google?
That’s a web app, it’s basically a shortcut to the web site. It’s Discourse (the software running SDMB) that’s offering to install it.
Prior thread on this:
The phone app is how I use SDMB all the time now. Click the button, here I am, here you are.
Interesting. I never saw this before I switched to a new phone about a month ago, but the old phone was several Android versions behind so maybe that had something to do with it.
I’ve had the same android for years and that popup just started for me recently too. It’d been a couple years since I’d last seen it.
IME, just swipe it upwards to dismiss and after a dozen ish nags it’ll quit bugging you.
Sorta, but not quite. It should actually download a copy of the interface, and run it from the phone.
In this case, that app is useless without you being online, since it needs to download all the posts and such. So it is effectively just like a bookmark (as your phone will cache the interface stuff). But you might download a webapp that can be used offline–like a card game or something.
Every time my Samsung Galaxy phone has a system update, all of my web app icons disappear and have to be reinstalled. I like having the shortcut icons on my home screen, but it’s a nuisance to have to keep reinstalling them.
Genuine internet shortcuts should not be disappearing on updates. If you browse to the page in your browser and choose to save the page on your homepage, does that survive an update? All mine do on my Samsung Galaxy.
No icons representing URLs are not true PWA web apps, but the rest of the truth is those PWA things actually don’t benefit you the user. They’re just a way for a commercial entity to deliver a web UI on the cheap that makes it harder for you to click away to their competitor.