If you have a recent phone, websites and PWAs are about as fast as native apps. I’m using a 2014 flagship Sony Xperia Z that came out with Android 4.4 and can barely run Android 13 — it will overheat and sytem UI (thankfully not apps) will restart if rendering stuff for too long. (The difference is staggering: basic old apps like Phyphox and static websites run indefinitely. Modern apps or JS-enabled pages like Voyager or 480p30 video for 10 minutes. Post-modern bloated crap or 720p30 video, 4 minutes. Imgur, new Reddit and 1080p video turn the phone into a hand warmer immediately and the framerate goes from 15 to <1 in 10 seconds, followed by a slew of ANRs and the battery percentage going down every 20th frame rendered. Should I have applied more heatsink compound after replacing the battery? Yes but I’d argue no app with a simple purpose and basic GUI should require 5 W to the CPU while running at half rate.)
A lot of pages aren’t designed for PWAs or mobile use whatsoever. For example, my 401k provider actually hides the login form when viewing from a mobile browser, so I have to switch it to desktop mode to get into it. They have an app, and it probably works w/o Google Play Services (haven’t tried, but there are no notifications), but the mobile app is pretty limited. Likewise for my HSA app, the website is more helpful than the mobile app is.
On my old phone, the web browser runs regular pages poorly, much less video, and it’s not even that slow of a phone (Android 11, 8 cores, 4GB RAM). So I totally understand older phones having issues. My current phone is a Pixel 8, so it’s plenty fast.
If you have a recent phone, websites and PWAs are about as fast as native apps. I’m using a 2014 flagship Sony Xperia Z that came out with Android 4.4 and can barely run Android 13 — it will overheat and sytem UI (thankfully not apps) will restart if rendering stuff for too long. (The difference is staggering: basic old apps like Phyphox and static websites run indefinitely. Modern apps or JS-enabled pages like Voyager or 480p30 video for 10 minutes. Post-modern bloated crap or 720p30 video, 4 minutes. Imgur, new Reddit and 1080p video turn the phone into a hand warmer immediately and the framerate goes from 15 to <1 in 10 seconds, followed by a slew of ANRs and the battery percentage going down every 20th frame rendered. Should I have applied more heatsink compound after replacing the battery? Yes but I’d argue no app with a simple purpose and basic GUI should require 5 W to the CPU while running at half rate.)
A lot of pages aren’t designed for PWAs or mobile use whatsoever. For example, my 401k provider actually hides the login form when viewing from a mobile browser, so I have to switch it to desktop mode to get into it. They have an app, and it probably works w/o Google Play Services (haven’t tried, but there are no notifications), but the mobile app is pretty limited. Likewise for my HSA app, the website is more helpful than the mobile app is.
On my old phone, the web browser runs regular pages poorly, much less video, and it’s not even that slow of a phone (Android 11, 8 cores, 4GB RAM). So I totally understand older phones having issues. My current phone is a Pixel 8, so it’s plenty fast.