Personally:
- I find it odd to need an app for a service entirely reliant on off-phone data.
- I like my phone battery life. I avoid apps if I can help it. Web page links all over my home screen.
Well, a browser is an app for services entirely reliant on off-phone data :-)
Just a generic one, slower, more battery hungry, with less platform conveniences and access to native APIs.
Which is what I was trying to say though I did it poorly I guess. :-) Why do I need an app when the website will do just fine?
"slower, more battery hungry, with less platform conveniences and access to native APIs"
I think the efficiency loss is traded for the lack of always on services and privacy invasion common in native apps these days.
The important function of the web browser is the sandbox effect.
My mum wont install an app unless she has to. In my eyes this has failed the grandmother test.
https://www.mobiloud.com/blog/mobile-apps-vs-the-mobile-web#....
Not to mention there's no "grandmother test" as some kind of ultimate marketing gatekeeper, unless you market adult pads or something. I'm pretty sure lots of billion dollar industries fail the "grandmother test" too (youth-oriented ones, self-selectively so).