Updated: Mobile app infrastructure has been decommissioned

Question

Update #2

One last final update before we close the loop on this indefinitely.

When we announced this, we were intentionally vague about why the remaining mobile infrastructure was being decommissioned. As I had previously mentioned, the shrinking user base was a factor.

However, the major driver behind this decision was a vulnerability being exploited that allowed DDOS attacks on the network. Its removal was necessary to ensure stability to protect the network against further attacks of that nature.

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Update #1

Mobile has been shut down in its entirety as of December 12^th, 2022.

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Beginning immediately, you should know that we have begun decommissioning the remaining infrastructure connected to our mobile apps.

As you may know, our mobile apps have been unavailable on the Google Play and iOS App Store for quite some time. Those of you that still had the apps installed on your devices were still able to access and use them. After evaluating our logs, we noted that the apps had been used less and less over time, with current usage around no more than a few hundred overall users on the apps regularly.

Why now?

While a dwindling user base certainly factors into our decision, it is not the deciding factor. In the past, we didn’t mind keeping it up and running as it required minimal effort and investment. Recently it has become clear that keeping the mobile infrastructure up was beginning to interfere with the rest of our public network in a few ways, none of which are easily resolvable. In the interest of maintaining site stability and running things smoothly, we have decided to remove the remaining bits of the mobile infrastructure and consequently shut it down.

What does this mean for you?

Unless you were one of those still using the apps, nothing. If you were one of those last stalwarts, know that the apps will soon stop functioning as we sunset all remaining code supporting it. Not all code will be removed at once, so you may find that the app continues to work, but over time it will become more dysfunctional until there is no longer any supporting code on our end keeping it running. If you want to access Stack Overflow from your phone, you can use your mobile browser.

We appreciate all of you who utilized the apps in the past and found them useful for contributing to the network. If you have any questions, please let us know.

Answer 1

For me, the most important information is: when will the push notifications be shut off? I still find the native iOS app UI easier to write content in than the mobile UI, but I can live without that. For push notifications, there's no replacement yet.

After evaluating our logs, we noted that the apps had been used less and less over time, with current usage around no more than a few hundred overall users on the apps regularly.

Well, that is to be expected when you delist the apps from the store - right now it's not even possible to transfer them from an old iPhone to a new one. It's a bit counterintuitive to use that as an argument to switch things off. (I do understand the decision though, it was inevitable.)

Answer 2

If you want to access Stack Overflow from your phone, you can use your mobile browser.

I live in China, and I haven't figured out how to get a VPN working on my phone. I still use the Stack Exchange app without problems. But in a browser, it takes 2+ minutes to incompletely load a page (everything involving Google is broken). I made a video to show you what it's like: https://player.vimeo.com/video/762164456?h=f7b75adef4

• I first use the app, no problems.
• I then open my browser and read CNN, no problems.
• I then open stackexchange.com... and wait... then click a random question... and wait...

Logging in is impossible, and clicking "Accept all cookies" does nothing so I can't get rid of the popup blocking the screen.

Answer 3

Push notifications == engagement

I can directly trace my own drop in engagement here to the day push notifications stopped working on the iOS app, for whatever reason, and I couldn't get them to work again. Yes, there were other reasons, but this was a big systemic one.

Ya'll really need to consider a push notification story better than 'we send you emails after something's sat in your inbox for a half hour'.

Supposedly iOS now supports (or will support in the near future) the Web Push standard. Consider implementing that.

Or consider giving us a way through the API to ask for callbacks, then folks can build their own system.

But seriously, consider the implications of running a social network* in 2022 that has no push notification capability.

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_{* yes, yes, I know. But on this topic it's probably the right model to have in your head.}

Answer 4

I can't say I didn't see this coming... But please, if you do this, make the site at least remotely as usable as the app (and the app hasn't even been updated in ages!):

This is how this exact question looks in a browser (left) and the app (right) on an iPhone 12 Mini. Notice the insane difference in how much content there is, despite the fact that the app has never been updated to fill the screen of the newer phones, and the fact that I had to scroll down a bit in the browser to minimize its UI. Even without the bounty banner, it still wouldn't be close.

Answer 5

Y'all are making a mistake.

After evaluating our logs, we noted that the apps had been used less and less over time, with current usage around no more than a few hundred overall users on the apps regularly.

Well - there's a story about how they were doing statistical analysis on bomber aircraft

Y'all are seeing the red dots. The users who are so dedicated they keep a dead, delisted app running, sometimes moving APKs between phones and side-loading them. Heck, I was delighted my spare phone—which runs Android 6—ran the app perfectly, when it started crashing on Android 11 and 12.

And notifications are the one thing the app does. Not well, not perfectly, but it works when the app does.

I tried switching over to Tyler Wong's Stack for Stack Overflow; it's excellent and getting better, but I miss two things. Most of my 'mobile' time involves lookups (which this is good for), moderator work and notifications. I can effectively moderate on a phone or tablet. I miss notifications mainly and there isn't any way to get near real-time notifications for SE. I even made a feature request to have notifications added there. (There's an iOS app called crew that claims to do notifications, but I don't have any iOS-capable systems.)

But we are here not to mourn the mobile app, but to finally bury the skeletonised remains of the rare app that died of extreme old age and neglect, finally. It's a testament to the good work of the old mobile team that it ran so far, and finally got did in by - in Android's case the bug report library.

Y'all are not making a mistake by killing the app. However, work on the inbox is the perfect time to start thinking about and building a notification system. It's part of the inbox infrastructure. It's an essential part of the experience for all those little red dots and a good many other people. Y'all are making a mistake by not seizing the opportunity to finally build this back in.

Answer 6

Please notify app users directly

I see this question is featured, which means it will show up on every page — for everyone who isn't using the app. Anyone who only uses the app would have to visit this very site (Meta) and scroll through to this very question in the short time frame before the app stops working to see this announcement. (To be fair, I know of one app-exclusive user who apparently did just that.)

When the feed was shut down, one last message was sent using it. Can that be done here too? See Turning off the mobile feed for the Stack Exchange app

Answer 7

Will the end-point https://stackexchange.com/hot-questions-for-mobile also be shutdown?

I ask because I run a service on Glitch to feed hot questions into several Chat rooms around the network. See How can I add Hot Network Questions (HNQ) to a chat room feed? for its features. Currently its data is sourced from the hot-questions-for-mobile JSON payload. If that data is no longer provided I have some challenges to keep my "customers" happy and served.

If there is an easy / low-impact network-wide alternative I'm happy to look into that off course.

Answer 8

Recently it has become clear that keeping the mobile infrastructure up was beginning to interfere with the rest of our public network in a few ways, none of which are easily resolvable. In the interest of maintaining site stability and running things smoothly, we have decided to remove the remaining bits of the mobile infrastructure and consequently shut it down.

Can we have some more details about it? As far as I know, the mobile apps:

• Generated personalized feed that was too heavy on performance (already deprecated)
• Use undocumented v2.3 API that I'm not sure if it impacts the performance due to the already reduced accessibility to the apps, comparing to some community projects that also use the API and possibly more intensive.
• Have their own Hot Meta Posts endpoint that I'm also not sure if it also impacts the performance, while the per-site and homepage also shows them due million visitors.
• Push notification, maybe this one is hitting the performance?

Otherwise, what are they?

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If you were one of those last stalwarts, know that the apps will soon stop functioning as we sunset all remaining code supporting it. Not all code will be removed at once, so you may find that the app continues to work, but over time it will become more dysfunctional until there is no longer any supporting code on our end keeping it running.

Can we have the timeline/order for the features that will get disabled first?

• 2022-10-26: disabled registrations on Stack Apps, disabled write access (apps are on read-only mode)

Answer 9

What about my drafts?

While I usually don't actively use the app anymore, it's still doing something important, storing my old, unfinished drafts. I have many. Do I need to do anything to keep these safe? If I do need to get them off the app, how can I bulk export?

(To answer my own question: The drafts are accessible without a network connection, which means that it will still be possible to access them through the app, no matter what changes on SE's side. Probably a good idea to at least start offloading them — wouldn't want to be logged out of the app suddenly with no way back in.)

And are there any plans to have a draft feature that won't randomly fail to save the last 30 minutes of work I've done when composing a post? This is very important for mobile, when switching apps or even tabs in the browser can force the page to suddenly reload.

Answer 10

The Hot Network Questions page is not mobile-friendly, making the app the only way to comfortably browse hot questions on the phone.

The app has a nice, pretty interface for browsing Hot Network Questions on a mobile device. The current web interface, however, doesn't. This is what the HNQ page looks like (scaled down from the insane resolution of my phone to simulate the phone's physical size on a typical PC screen):

Needless to say, this is a strain on the eyes and cumbersome to use.

My point being: A few well-placed, mobile-friendly CSS instructions would probably go a long way towards people not needing the app any more.

Answer 11

Is it possible the reason of no use was a lack of publicity for the app?

This could have been the greatest app in the world but if (1) no one knows about it and (2) those that do are not getting updates (performance, usability, etc.) then the app probably is dying for reasonable cause.

I should also point out that being a lowly non-reputable person (i.e. not as active as some), I have limited abilities to contribute to some of this discussion, so if there was actual valuable input to be gained, reputation restrictions may limit the ability to provide that input in some context (i.e. I couldn't provide a comment but apparently can provide an "answer" - which from my experience will probably get downvoted before too long). I know this is a meritocracy but still, even newbies occasionally will have valuable input to provide.