"It works better in the app": Terence Eden criticises Google's half-finished apps

Tech blogger Terence Eden has published a short, sharply worded post about Google's habit of leaving basic functionality out of its mobile apps. The example he gives is mundane but telling: he wanted to subscribe to an events calendar. He had the calendar URL, a Google Pixel phone running Android 17 and an up-to-date Google Calendar app — and found that the task is impossible in the app.

Google's own documentation says it can't be done

Eden points to Google's support page, whose screenshot states plainly: "To subscribe to a new calendar, you must use a computer web browser. You can't subscribe to a calendar in the Google Calendar app for Android, iPhone, or iPad." He calls the omission serious, noting that adding such a feature is not a hard engineering problem: add a button, open a text field, validate the URL, save.

He did find a workaround: opening calendar.google.com in desktop mode in the phone's browser, adding the calendar there, after which it appeared in the app. That the feature works — and simply is not exposed in the app — is the core of the complaint.

The structural problem with apps

Eden, who has written software for Symbian, BlackBerry and Palm devices, argues the underlying issue is old: apps are hard to update. Every new feature, or even a new page, must be tested across a thousand devices and then distributed to users, a process that takes time. The only real solution is for the app to pull fresh functionality from a remote source — "at which point you've reinvented the Web browser".

He acknowledges that some things still require a native app, and adds that browsers are closing the gap: a site can add a home-screen icon itself, and offline functionality is available on the web too.

Not only Google

The criticism is wider: many companies want a permanent place on users' home screens and assume people cannot manage browser bookmarks. The result, he writes, is half-finished apps, and repeated offers that "it's easier if you use our app" that end with the user being pushed back to the web for anything outside the app's narrow limits.

His conclusion is not a demand to abandon apps, but a request to finish them: "If you want an app, fine. Do it. Just finish the job please."