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My company is making a native app for smartphones, which is just using a web view directly linked to one of our web pages.

I'm very skeptical about our approach and looking for better one if exists. Technically, web apps can be accessed via mobile browsers, which is included to all mobile OSs. So this app seems redundant to me.

I'm not an app developer(I'm a web developer btw), but I also heard it is hard and takes a long time to submit apps to app stores, especially in iOS since their policy forbid this kind of apps. To workaround this, our iOS app has a foldable dock containing some links that web app has. Too many hassles for a small thing.

My only guess is, it is easier for customers to use apps rather than using mobile browsers and googling to find our websites and bookmark them.

Is this a good approach? What are the alternatives for better UX?

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  • Your definition of, or understanding of "shortcut apps" may be incorrect... For instance, on Android at least, "shortcut apps" include native phone apps that let you create/manage shortcuts to other native phone apps (above and beyond what is built into Android), not just web shortcuts.
    – TripeHound
    Commented Apr 26, 2018 at 8:36
  • @TripeHound Then web shortcuts using native app will be OK?
    – user2652379
    Commented Apr 26, 2018 at 8:39
  • What do you mean by "will be OK"? Technically possible? Useful? More useful than any built-in facility? Sufficiently more useful for someone to get/pay for your app to do it? In fact, the whole question is a little unclear... are you asking us to justify why your company is doing what it's doing? (Hint: ask them!) or why shortcut apps exist at all (Ans: at least in part because (some of them) can do more than built-in equivalents)? I think you need to focus on what you really want to know, otherwise you risk closure for being unclear / too broad.
    – TripeHound
    Commented Apr 26, 2018 at 8:47
  • @TripeHound Sorry. I meant 'will it be OK to make it more understandable to others' since shortcut apps may be incorrect and misleading.
    – user2652379
    Commented Apr 26, 2018 at 8:49
  • @TripeHound To your other question(I'll add this to my question), I'm very skeptical about our approach and looking for better one if exists. I'll abandon shortcut apps word to make it more clear.
    – user2652379
    Commented Apr 26, 2018 at 9:02

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You can try progressive web apps. They are a method of converting your webapp into a real app, which is accessible even without a network, and they feel like a native app.

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There are a lot of apps out there using a webview to display the mobile version of that website that was designed to look like a native app. You can also create a Javascript Interface that basically allows you to access some native android features from within your web javascript (e.g. You can trigger a toast message from your webpage, more info here).

This practice is "Ok" for a low budget company or a start-up and yes, clients find it easier to access your services on only one tap rather than opening the browser and searching.

But it's not the path I would encourage. The appropriate way of loading information from web to your app (and this is accepted in IOS too) is via JSON or similar.

PS: A “webview” is a browser bundled inside of a mobile application producing what is called a hybrid app.

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