https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=Mifield 2026-04-30T08:16:15Z User contributions MediaWiki 1.30.0 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1174:_App&diff=27954 2013-02-15T08:53:38Z

<p>Mifield: /* Explanation */</p> <hr /> <div>{{comic<br /> | number = 1174<br /> | date = February 15, 2013<br /> | title = App<br /> | image = app.png<br /> | titletext = If I click 'no', I've probably given up on everything, so don't bother taking me to the page I was trying to go to. Just drop me on the homepage. Thanks.<br /> }}<br /> <br /> ==Explanation==<br /> This comic is about how web sites design special versions of their pages<br /> optimized for viewing from mobile devices — by developing an app and prompting mobile views to install it.<br /> <br /> Usually, the mobile version of the web page is made separately<br /> from the regular version, so it's<br /> often incomplete.<br /> The app used to view it has also some<br /> other serious usability problems (e.g. it can't be zoomed),<br /> so it's usually better to just view the regular version<br /> of the web site with a regular browser even when accessing<br /> the web from a mobile device.<br /> <br /> In the comic, a mobile device user is trying to do just that:<br /> visit the regular version of web page through a regular browser.<br /> However, the site keeps on insisting that the user<br /> really should &quot;download our app to visit<br /> an incomplete version of our website<br /> where you can't zoom&quot;.<br /> If the user chooses &quot;no&quot;, it isn't really a &quot;no&quot;, but rather a<br /> &quot;no, but ask me again every time&quot;; so this pop-up is going<br /> to get really annoying very soon.<br /> <br /> In the title text, there's a reference to yet another very serious<br /> usability problem of the mobile version of web pages:<br /> the only page one can really see is the home page,<br /> and whenever the user tries to get anywhere else in the site,<br /> the server loses track of the navigation and sends the user<br /> back to the home page to start over again.<br /> This is the same effect described in<br /> [[869: Server Attention Span|comic 869]]&lt;nowiki /&gt;.<br /> <br /> ==Transcript==<br /> :[a popup window on top of a webpage displayed in a smartphone browser]<br /> :Want to visit an incomplete version of our website where you '''can’t zoom'''?<br /> :'''Download our app!'''<br /> :[OK] [No, but ask me again every time]<br /> <br /> {{comic discussion}}<br /> [[Category:Comics with color]]<br /> [[Category:Computers]]</div>

Mifield