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Meta's in-app browser tracking
Counterargument to yesterday's post about PWAs vs. native apps: Instagram and Facebook are injecting tracking scripts to their in-app browsers! It looks like they're doing this by using a webview, rather than the embedded Safari view, to show the web within the Instagram/Facebook app.
This is eminently not a problem if you're using Instagram or Facebook in the browser, rather than using the mobile app. Similarly, if you use the "Open in Browser" option for links in Instagram/Facebook, they won't be able to track you there, either. The tracking code is only embedded in webviews launched by the Instagram/Facebook app.
Obviously blame lies at least a little bit with Apple for making this sort of thing possible—which sort of works at cross-purposes to their argument that Safari is the only viably secure browser on iPhones.
(Interestingly, this tracking behaviour isn't found on the in-app browser on WhatsApp—another Meta property.)
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Play.gl
PWAs are great! They allow applications to be deployed across a whole range of devices with extremely little overhead. But it feels like most mobile web-based applications—like Notion, for example—eventually go the way of native mobile applications—like Notion, for example.
Every now and again, though, an application really gets the web experience right: proper support for touch events, smooth animations, no tap-vs-click jank.
Play.gl is one of those apps. Okay, it's not particularly sophisticated: it's an app where you jump from pillar to pillar based on how long you hold down your finger. But it feels good; it feels immediate in the way that native apps feel more immediate. When you're done, it presents you with a carousel of benefits of Galeries Lafayette's Go for Good initiative, and the carousel feels native. It feels exactly the way that it would in a native app.
Talking about how things "feel" probably isn't helpful, but the difference between PWAs and native apps is hard to quantify. But you know it when you feel it.