In-app web views
It’s nice to have a built-in webview for previewing links without leaving the app. Apple Mail feels out of date in this regard — always jumping you over to Safari to open links made sense in 2007. It feels outdated in the App Store world of today, where everyone is used to web pages opening in an in-app webview in just about every app that contains links.
I hate these, and I’m surprised to see Gruber say this. I turn them off whenever I can, and am constantly frustrated by apps that don’t allow me to turn them off (Reeder, in particular).
The problem is consistency (or lack thereof): every app has its own idea about what a web browser should be, and what features it should have. It destroys muscle memory, and it’s annoying when I try to use a feature of Safari that isn’t there or works differently.
I’ve always thought of in-app web views as an annoying holdover from before iOS had multitasking or fast app switching (which was a long time ago)–just one of those things that keeps on going due to inertia, long after the original purpose of its existence is gone.
Moreover, accepting the non-standard trend of showing all web pages inside an app, instead of ever sending them out to Safari where they belong, is an admission of the failure of iOS’s app-switching functionality. I’m further surprised that Gruber doesn’t see this as more of a problem. Personally, I think there is much room for improvement, but a double-push of the home button followed by a single tap in the bottom left of the screen is still preferable to me over a messy, inconsistent experience. I guess I’ve just gotten used to going through these motions, cumbersome though they are. I never could get used to wildly differing UIs for the same thing. Again: muscle memory.
Apple should do one of two things:
- Create a standard way for apps to show a ‘Safari sheet’ that has not only the content of a web page, but all of the features and standard UI controls of the Safari app, with the same on-screen placement as the Safari app. (Kind of like the Mail composing sheet you see everywhere.)
- Fix app switching, so that more people are willing (or able) to use it, and developers don’t feel the need to keep building these ugly hacks.
Until then, I’m going to keep grumbling every time I have to do several extra taps for ‘Open in Safari’.