Amount of store apps on my phone: zero.
My wife has an app that is basically a card holder. Instead of pulling out a loyalty card, she pulls up the one app that has all of them scanned/copied. It’s great.
Nice. I used to have a handful, and now I just don’t bother with the loyalty program at all. My local grocery’s program is mediocre at best (discount at a gas station I don’t use) and isn’t even required to get discounts, so I don’t bother. And they don’t even need an app, just a phone number, so I just refuse to tell them my number because I’m getting zero value from it.
Likewise for pretty much everything. The only one I actually use is Target, and that’s because I get 5% off using their debit card, plus some random discounts through the app. I don’t go there very often, but when I do, I’ll generally time it when there are some good discounts to stack (usually it’s for birthdays or school, and I have a month or so leeway in when I go).
So yeah, no store apps for me.
The first, if it’s Kroger, don’t have to use a phone #, or yours at least. But honestly I’d recommend not getting groceries there.
No, we avoid our local Kroger store (different name here), but when we go, I use my parents’ number since they go there a lot and frequently use the fuel rewards. Our local grocery is supplied by Associated Food stores, which has the “Food Club” and related store brands.
The main options in my area (Utah) are:
- Kroger sub-brand Smith’s - not very convenient in my area, but the stores are large and have everything
- Associated Food brands - smaller, more plentiful stores
- Walmart/Sam’s - I avoid like the plague, but they’re just as plentiful as AF brands
- Target - crap quality and high prices, not an option at all
- Costco - good selection and great quality for the price
- random specialty shops - higher price, but niche selection
Most of our spending goes to Costco, most of the rest goes to specialty shops, and we fill in the gaps with the local grocery chain. We spend something like $100/month at the grocery store, so it’s not worth interacting with their loyalty program.
One big supermarket chain here has an app where you get a few cents bonus discount on already discounted items with the app coupon. The in-store announcement praises it as the first place of some insitute’s supermarket app ranking. Even if that institute were legit, the ranking fair and the spot well-deserved, I always felt like that’s a competition with no winners.
I legitimately do not have enough space on my phone to install all the crappy bloatware of all the stores I go to. They quite literally ask the impossible of me.
I have yet to see an app that does something a website could not do…
Push Notifications, Mediacontrol with locker screen…
most apps are just containerized websites.
You know why?
Cause browsers do a lot to protect your data from invasive sniffing.
but if you containerize it in an app, you can remove all those pesky safety measures Which lets you turn a customer into a product by siphoning up all their data and information.
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I work in a manufacturing environment. A few years ago they decided they needed a company social media app. They hired, or more likely were sold the idea by Salesforce and built this stupid ass website, then went on a fucking War campaign to get people to install the app on their phone.
They demanded. They begged. They removed functions of HR to the app exclusively. When we protested they simply said no, no room to negotiate, no give. You will use the app or you will not have access to certain information required to do your job. When they closed the plant one day and posted it on the app, they threatened to write up an entire shift that showed up to work anyway without knowing any better.
Because apparently, when you get up at 4 am the first thing you’re supposed to do every day is check an app on your phone to see if you have work that day.
They used to just push out a robo call.
When we have committee meetings with HR they go something like this.
HR: how can we get you guys on the app Committee: how can we retrieve these functions from the app HR: you can’t Committee: that’s your answer.
There have been at least 6 versions of this meeting that I have been a part of.
Most of my coworkers are older than me. Few of them have fancy phones, generally the most basic phone you can get. A number of my coworkers are on parole or work release and have limited access to smart phones for one reason or another and literally have no access to the app.
I was chatting with one of the IT gals recently and apparently resistance to the app is pretty widespread. When I said “venture capital IT firm” she gave me a high five.
They want everyone using this thing and maybe 15% of the company has it. Then they switched to Workday.
It hasn’t gone well.
I’m surprised you guys havent started the push of “If you are going to force us to have this app for essential day to day work, then you need to provide us with phones to put it on, because we can not be expected to devalue our personal devices with excess work related use”
I did mention at one of these meetings that we wouldn’t give them space on our personal devices for free, it did not change their tune. The union has been hammering them on it during negotiations but I doubt they’ll budge on that and we have bigger issues to deal with so they won’t let it be a sticking point.
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Clarify the app is required by the company (hr) for your job duties as mentioned when it was stated every employee’s responsibility to ensure the work site is open via a phone app. They’ll be happy to confirm that.
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Go see your master agreement about tools supplied by company. That will be in even passable contracts because it’s usually an audit issue.
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Ask company for tool as per contract. “This device here is not a work device and is neither secured nor managed by I.T.” was what we said.
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Ask your shop steward to ask the union to explain to the company that their HR is demanding the use of tools the company will not then provide, which is a concern under section 17p5b.1 “proper tools and training as provided during workday for onsite work required by employees”
If they’re dicks you can try to hit them up for training on how to use the phone.
Teams is why we all have fancy pixel7 company-issued phones. TEAMS. And, since only one guy is on standby after-hours, the rest of them are shut off at 4:49 pm. So lame.
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Someone should analyze the app and see what permissions it needs, cause it could be a much bigger sticking point than anyone realizes if its spying on your phone activities.
Harvest data more efficiently for our corporate overlords :)
Nobody makes your download any damn app. You can just not do it.
I remember getting a boarding pass from an airline that was only offered in their app or printed at the airport, no email/download image/PDF option. I didn’t have to install their app, but I would have had to waste time at the airport otherwise. I removed it when I was done and left it a negative review.
Bro wtf. I can’t pay for a parking spot without a feckin app.
In many cases this means avoiding the service altogether. So long as you are good with that, then yeah by all means, don’t download it or use the service. I don’t use plenty of services because I don’t want their app. Instagram is one of those.
Yeah but then they might pull a Reddit and make their mobile web experience shittier and shittier in hopes of sheepdogging people into the app.
If customers are telling a business what they want, and that business sabotages it to force customers to begrudgingly accept what the business wants, that’s not a customer problem, that’s a dumbass corporate idea
We’ve been on a carousel for decades now where some behemoth platform is stable and good and uncontested, then some braindead visionary gets on board and tries to leave their mark, and the entire base leaves like rats on a sinking ship. And the new thing we all run to eventually gets huge and some braindead visionary tries to fix what isn’t broken. Endlessly
Couldn’t even get into a baseball game recently without having to download an app
I swear that has to be illegal
Tell that to 2FA apps for banks and enterprise security systems.
My bank demands sms.
I want my own authentication app so I can access my account even if my phone is missing/dead
Should be. I bought tickets on the official website but they would not accept receipt or even verification from that website. Needed a qr code and only way to get it was with app. Had to step out of line, download the app, remember login I had generated from website, login and pull up the qr codes for my tickets.
If the apps wouldn’t be slow React Native or whatever “multiplatform framework” crapware, then I’d actually say that well designed, native Swift UI (iOS) or Material (Android) apps can enhance the user experience for a lot of services that are otherwise offered via website. Native integrations with shortcuts, widgets, fully supporting accessibility features of the OS etc.
The problem is most apps are just low-effort web app conversions.
The problem is most apps are just low-effort web app conversions.
If only that. Web apps are relatively well sandboxed. Most dedicated apps (that should be websites) are designed to harvest as much data as they can and spam you with notifications/ads.
Hell I use my garden diary selfhosted service via a wepapp (hortusfox).
Just put a direct link on my homescreen. With the included favicon it almost looks like a native app.Yep! Most of my “apps” are just web app shortcuts or self hosted PWAs
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And then you go to the website on your phone and you get “Install our handy dandy little app” pop-ups every time you open a new page. If only they wouldn’t do that.
Isn’t that the promise of App Clips? iOS and Android both allow you to run a mini app temporarily for shopping and not cluttering your system.
The most ironic part…
… an ad for an app for the article…
Do most people even know what a phone app is??!
And the app is just a glorified website (Electron app).
But I mean, you gotta install an app if you want that functionality. The key thing is if you do or do not have full control of that app. While you allow it freedom in your 🤳📱, is it doing stuff you are not aware of that you don’t want it to do. Like I found an app to do a sound sweep. Great, but will it go thru my contacts while I’m at work? It is going to learn about who I work with because it has blue tooth access. That’s just nefarious shitty business that should be illegal. Either tell me what it does or don’t do anything other than want you say it does. I also write my own apps for photography stuff and I wouldn’t want to have to go ask a judge if I can please use my phone for specific programming I want to do.
download our app
Nah
delete account…
Literally me
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You know what else is overrun? Paywalls or other “requirements” where I need to signup and/or pay to access something that should be free.
Don’t get me started on those fullscreen ad interstitials that force me to watch an ad I’m not interested in before I can continue either.
Let’s face it, the Internet today fucking sucks and it’s partly to do with these so-called news outlets like the Atlantic.
I miss the days when barely anyone heard of the web. Sure, it wasn’t as feature rich, but then again, those features are overly abused in the name of capitalism anyway. It’s like those strip malls that have nothing but shitty restaurants, nail salons, and tax preparers. Gone are the days of fun stores like hobby shops, comic book stores, local mom & pop toy stores.
They just sucked the fun out of it all. 😡
I have to look for datasheets quite ofen and every damn company requires you to log into their shitty login system to get them.
It’s exhausting
