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What's the point?What's the point?Posted Mar 1, 2012 17:43 UTC (Thu) by jmalcolm (guest, #8876)In reply to: What's the point? by khim Parent article: Mozilla announces HTML5-based phone
You can deploy HTML5 apps (by which I mean HTML/JavaScript/CSS), such as those made with PhoneGap, to the App Store, Android Market, and others. I do not want to debate the specifics of every case but there is no reason that an end-user even has to be aware that the developer used HTML5 as the platform.
The major advantage of HTML5 is that you only have to write one app. If I launch a start-up that requires mobile client apps I can write a half-dozen clients (one for each platform) or basically just one with HTML5. I might write a native client for my preferred platform and hit the rest with HTML5 even if my long-term strategy is native everywhere. That is simple expediency and management of scarce resources. The broad reach of HTML5 is a major advantage so stop saying it does not have any. For non-mobile apps, the whole fact that you do not have to deploy anything to reach a customer is another simply gigantic win.
I agree that the tools to develop HTML5 are not as mature. They are improving though and you can even get integration local storage, devices like GPS or camera, and other niceties. The whole point of things like B2G and Gaia is to blur the lines between what is possible with HTML5 and native. Not everybody wants to be an innovator but there are some rewards for doing so.
Now, I am not claiming HTML5 is a panacea. I further your point by admitting that, today in mobile, I prefer native apps both as a developer and a user. If I wrote them all, every app might follow this strategy:
http://blog.xamarin.com/2012/02/24/mwc_2012/
I also think that, in general, the best apps will always be native. I think that is possibly part of your point when you say "no good positive selling points" for HTML5. The thing is, there are other ways to differentiate your apps other than using every platform specific feature. Sometimes the differentiation has nothing to do with the app at all. The Kindle app for iPad is HTML5. Not only is it quite good but it would have to be truly terrible not to get used. People use it because they want to use Amazon not because of some exhaustive evaluation of similar apps.
I actually think it is pretty likely that MOST apps might eventually be written in HTML5. Certainly this has already happened on the desktop to a large extent. It will be the one platform pretty much every developer is guaranteed to know and that every device is certain to host. Unless you are doing something special, the question will be why giving up the benefits of HTML5 will be worth going native. The question is not "why HTML5" but rather "why not".
Or not. Time will tell.
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What's the point? Posted Mar 1, 2012 19:50 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] I also think that, in general, the best apps will always be native. I think that is possibly part of your point when you say "no good positive selling points" for HTML5. Not for HTML5. For B2G. I'm skeptical about the whole HTML5 hoopla, too, but there I can at least see some sense: write once, run everywhere, third time the charm (failure number one, failure number two). Well, may be. Who knows. I'm skeptical, but I see the point. B2G, on the other hand. Nope. Not yet, at least. I actually think it is pretty likely that MOST apps might eventually be written in HTML5. Certainly this has already happened on the desktop to a large extent. Hardly. Most desktop applications I'm seeing are written with traditional technologies - be it Civilization V, MS Office 2010 or even MS Visual Studio. XULRunner, Air and others flopped spectacularly. If you are talking about success of in-browser app, then these are popular for totally different reason: this is the way to create of "try-before-you'll-trust-it" application (traditional desktop app can do anything it wants with your computer while in-browser app can be run [relatively] safely even if you don't trust the author). Both Android and iOS offer non-HTML5-based solutions for this problem on mobile this this insanely huge advantage does not exist in mobile world. Unless you are doing something special, the question will be why giving up the benefits of HTML5 will be worth going native. What benefits? Try-before-buy is available on mobile without HTML5 inconvenience and as I already wrote history shows that cross-platform solutions remain popular only for a short time till the winning platform emerges. But well, it's hard to see what happens: perhaps HTML5 will indeed reach critical mass before winning platform will be determined - who knows? The problem: even if I suspend my disbelief and agree to temporarily believe in widespread HTML5 technology adoption (widespread, not ubiquitous! there are a limits for how much I can suspend my disbelief) I still can not see what's the selling point of B2G.
What's the point? Posted Mar 1, 2012 21:27 UTC (Thu) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link]
>> Unless you are doing something special, the question will be why giving up the benefits of HTML5 will be worth going native.
> What benefits? Try-before-buy is available on mobile without HTML5 inconvenience
iOS apps are not sandboxed, they are manually inspected by App Store people for malware and so forth. So you do have try-before-buy on iOS, but only because the App Store is curated. And curation is a problem as many developers have found, with Apple reviewers being slow or arbitrary in their decisions. Lack of curation is an advantage of HTML5.
> and as I already wrote history shows that cross-platform solutions remain popular only for a short time till the winning platform emerges.
I would argue the exact opposite. In the beginning, native apps win easily because native app platforms can be created and innovated with quickly. Later, standards-based cross-platform solutions appear, that eventually fill in the gaps between them and native apps, and then the benefits of being standards-based and cross-platform win out.
For example, we all used to use native mail apps once upon a time. Today, most of us use HTML5 webmail.
What's the point? Posted Mar 1, 2012 22:19 UTC (Thu) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link] For example, we all used to use native mail apps once upon a time. Today, most of us use HTML5 webmail.I'm curious if you have any pointers to data that supports this claim. You may well be right, but I would be a bit surprised. Around here (University environment) nearly everyone uses either a university- or gmail- based mail service. But they use native-mail-app-of-choice via IMAP or Exchange, not a web interface. Or maybe you were only thinking of smart phone Email access?
What's the point? Posted Mar 1, 2012 22:31 UTC (Thu) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link]
Well, data is hard to come by, if someone uses "gmail" then I assume they are using the webmail interface, but they can be using it through IMAP and a standalone client. Likewise if someone uses "outlook" then it might be the native client, or it could be the outlook HTML interface.
Personally, I don't think I know anyone that *doesn't* use gmail with it's web interface. The exceptions are yahoo and hotmail, also with their web interfaces.
Best data I can find is that gmail, hotmail and yahoo mail each have >300M users [1]. It's harder to measure usage of native email clients.
http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email-stat...
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