Mobile Apps No Substitute For Website. Potential Campaign?

molerat

wmb194 said:

There are multiple ways to do it but using the 'Your Phone' Windows 10 app makes remote controlling an Android phone easy. It allows you to use your keyboard, mouse, resize the window to make it huge if you want plus other things.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/topic/your-phone-app-requirements-and-set-up-cd2a1ee7-75a7-66a6-9d4e-bf22e735f9e3

Just tried it and about the only useful thing I could do was delete photos on the phone, there was very little else available to do, nothing like what you describe. Usefulness must be very system dependent.

molerat

dggar said:

These last two paragraphs pretty much sum up my opinion. I recently got a Virgin credit card and can't find anyway of viewing the account on a PC. I only  got it generate direct debits for any current accounts that I might switch to so I may well give up on it. 

Virgin used to have web access and closed it down last year.  Their app is truly awful, about the worst of the banking apps I use.

Daliah

molerat said:

dggar said:

These last two paragraphs pretty much sum up my opinion. I recently got a Virgin credit card and can't find anyway of viewing the account on a PC. I only  got it generate direct debits for any current accounts that I might switch to so I may well give up on it. 

Virgin used to have web access and closed it down last year.  Their app is truly awful, about the worst of the banking apps I use.

Vote  with your feet then. After all, there are dozens of other credit cards in the market.

molerat

Daliah said:

molerat said:

dggar said:

These last two paragraphs pretty much sum up my opinion. I recently got a Virgin credit card and can't find anyway of viewing the account on a PC. I only  got it generate direct debits for any current accounts that I might switch to so I may well give up on it. 

Virgin used to have web access and closed it down last year.  Their app is truly awful, about the worst of the banking apps I use.

Vote  with your feet then. After all, there are dozens of other credit cards in the market.

I can live with it, one transaction a month = 1 DD a month, the only thing it is for.

wmb194

molerat said:

wmb194 said:

There are multiple ways to do it but using the 'Your Phone' Windows 10 app makes remote controlling an Android phone easy. It allows you to use your keyboard, mouse, resize the window to make it huge if you want plus other things.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/topic/your-phone-app-requirements-and-set-up-cd2a1ee7-75a7-66a6-9d4e-bf22e735f9e3

Just tried it and about the only useful thing I could do was delete photos on the phone, there was very little else available to do, nothing like what you describe. Usefulness must be very system dependent.

I have a Samsung phone but if you click on the picture of the phone in the Windows app in the top left of its window it should launch the remote desktop/control whatever you call it. IIRC it'll tell you to go to your phone to give it permission.

Anyway, don't get bogged down in the specifics of this particular program as there are other programs to achieve the same thing e.g., before this came along I used to use one call ApowerMirror.  My point is that one solution to the OP's complaints is to control the phone via a PC.

born_again

To give the OP a perspective. 98% on payments are made via online/app where I work. Vast majority are App based.
So that shows that the vast majority of customers are more than happy to use a APP. Now that is not just on a phone, but also on tablets/i-pads.

Every method of banking be that Branch, Online or APP costs money. App development is separate & totally different to online development. Including on how they interact with the core banking services. Which is why you can see differences in what features each method has.
Costs are the driving force, as well as which method the user base is wanting to use.

Think of it like contactless payments. Customer driven tech. Some people still do not like them & never will. They have vast advantages to customers & disadvantages to banks when customer loses card. But they are here now and will stay.

Some people will never use a App or Online banking. Going to be interesting times ahead. As it is not just something that is age related, as many older people are very well invested in new tech & methods.
Just not what suits some people.

Daliah

j.p said:

For me the main problem is app-based banking forces you to spend money to upgrade your device, at the point the requirements for the next version of the app means it won't install on your device any more (usually because it won't install on your version of the OS - operating system, such as Android - and on your device in turn the next OS version won't install). Then the version of the banking app you've got installed and was working fine till the day before refuses to run anymore unless you update it, and you're locked out. No upgrading your phone no access.

If banking was the only reason for getting a smartphone, I would, sort of, half agree with your argument. But in reality, you can do a huge number of tasks on your smartphone that you couldn't do with a PC, so you would want to get a smartphone for other reasons, too.

The argument that you need to upgrade your phone is really no different to having to upgrade your PC / laptop at some stage. Many people don't buy their mobile outright, so have an option to upgrade often at no cost, or they buy a second hand one. You can get an iPhone 6 (first released in 2014, now 7 years old) for as little as £60 now, and even a more recent iPhone X can be had for less than a price of a PC or laptop.

Keeping your Operating System up-to-date also goes without saying. For example, the current iOS version runs on devices as old as the iphone 6. So you can do your app banking on a 7 year old phone.

There is also no reason why you should wake up one morning and find you are locked out because you haven't upgraded. Unless you ask it not to, your phone tells you regularly about new OS versions, and they are easy to apply. Also, if a bank decommissions support to an old version of OS, they generally tell you well in advance, and the app/play store details which OS versions the supports. And there's still online banking, telephone banking, Post Office banking - so no reason why an old or broken or lost phone would mean no access to your bank account.

castle96

1st choice is PC. Large keyboard, easy, visual, large screen. Many + points. If both are available - fine! If app. only, I would bin that account and go somewhere else. Some peeps don't have the right/any phone. I am 70. It's not a Q of age for me, just convenience. A keyboard is easy. Tapping around with a large finger/having to correct every 3 letters on a silly little keyboard...aaarrgghh

Daliah

castle96 said:

1st choice is PC. Large keyboard, easy, visual, large screen. Many + points. If both are available - fine! If app. only, I would bin that account and go somewhere else. Some peeps don't have the right/any phone. I am 70. It's not a Q of age for me, just convenience. A keyboard is easy. Tapping around with a large finger/having to correct every 3 letters on a silly little keyboard...aaarrgghh

I am nearly the same age as you are, and I also have both, laptop and smartphone (and tablet). I admit, it was a bit late to app banking, as I used to have everything nicely set up on my PC, with AccountUnity (similar to First Direct Plus, or whatever it was called) showing me my balances on a single screen or two, and allowing me one-click logging in to any of my accounts. Then there were more and more bugs in AccountUnity, and it took longer and longer to getting them fixed, and eventually it became unusable. I looked at various alternatives - Yolt, YNAB, Emma, MoneyDashboard, MoneyTree etc - but none of these came anywhere close to AccountUnity, and none had plans to replace it. So I reluctantly started to use apps, because at least logging in was so much easier and faster than in online banking. I still use the one-finger-only typing still on my mobile, but then, that's much the same style I use on my laptop. I now use the apps 99% of the time, and only use online banking when the functionality isn't available in the app (e.g. making withdrawals from NS&I). I find banking apps just so much more easy to use than online banking, and increasingly, new functionality is only available in apps. Some of my financials are app-only, and I am very happy with that.

I do still prefer to use my laptop for some tasks, e.g. for writing or reading longer documents. When (if !!) I travel, the laptop stays at home and I take my tablet. I do have most of my banking apps on my tablet, too (some are limited to a single device), but that's more for backup purposes than for regular use.

penners324

Despite picks assertion the stats show the vast majority of people use banking apps for making payments.