31–40 of 57 posts
From my tests on the iPhone, Mobile Safari-based web apps do not have responsive interfaces as compared to native ones. Safari adds a delay when you do things like tap link or button - I'm not sure why, it's probably to disambiguate tapping the link with some other action, since Safari can expect the user to be scrolling and zooming as well on top of any interface element. Because of this, I find UI that mimics nativ…
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Without describing what phones/operating systems you're expecting to target it's difficult to get specific. You will absolutely run into rendering issues between different mobile browsers, this will likely never go away, but the good news is the majority of the more recent mobile browsers are based off of, or will be, WebKit. If you go the Mobile Web application route and don't limit your scope to more recent phone O…
Well, we'd basically want to target them all! Given that people change their phones more often than their PCs, one would expect the installed mobile browser base to 'fresher' than the PC one. In other words, over the medium term (say 2 years) the rendering issue should hopefully fade away. It's just a question of timing - when is it going to be OK to go 100% HTML5? (assuming, of course, the app is not particularly co…
If you're asking when 100% of the phones in your possible market will have browsers on them that are HTML5 aware/capable, I couldn't begin to guess. I don't think that will happen soon, but it's certainly happening at a faster rate than I ever thought it would be. This is the kind of question that can have a paralyzing effect however. If you want to provide a mobile gateway to your existing service you should go for it and you should implement to target the phones you expect the majority of your users to be using.
It was pointed out earlier, but it bears repeating, plan for what's out there right now. HTML5 has a lot of momentum in the browser space, but that doesn't mean it will be adopted in a uniform manner. Limit your scope if you have to, something is better than nothing, but right now the state of mobile browsers is in flux and I wouldn't recommend depending on 3rd parties to create a desirable environment for you.
The App Store / Marketplace is a very important distribution channel, which I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss. Downloading an app in today's modern phone is almost as frictionless as entering a website.
An app store is great for consumers, it sucks for developers. Especially the iOS AppStore where people spend huge amounts of time and money for an app that has a good chance of being rejected for any number of arbitrary reasons. And vendors like Apple go to great lengths to make extra sure your app code is not portable to other platforms, so it's not like you can share significant amounts of code between, say, Android, Windows, and iOS apps.
Enter HTML (5) mobile apps, which work basically the same across all platforms. Sure, you have to make adjustments for different capabilities, but that will even out over the next few years. Basically HTML 5 finally fulfills the promise of Java after all these years. Of course, there are a lot of apps that simply cannot be built with HTML yet, especially games...
So even something straightforward like, say, smoothly animating a pinch zoom on an image, is just shy of impossible on a mobile browser. Add any complexity to your scene, then try to animate it and you'll quickly start reconsidering building a native app.
Sound is another non-starter in an HTML5 app. iPhone (& iPod touch) will only play audio fullscreen. iPad's Safari will play one audio clip at a time, but only as a direct result of a user action. Video is also out, since Apple devices will only play it fullscreen.
Depending on what you're building, you might not need any form of animation or sound. But if you do, now is not the time to make the move to HTML5 if you want your thing to work on mobile devices.
wv = Ti.UI.createWebView({url:index.html}); win = Ti.UI.createWindow(); win.add(wv); win.open();
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Well, we'd basically want to target them all! Given that people change their phones more often than their PCs, one would expect the installed mobile browser base to 'fresher' than the PC one. In other words, over the medium term (say 2 years) the rendering issue should hopefully fade away. It's just a question of timing - when is it going to be OK to go 100% HTML5? (assuming, of course, the app is not particularly co…
Ahh, I had assumed you were talking about a brand new application/service. If, as you mentioned in a reply to another comment, you're just exposing an existing web service to mobile phones then simply providing a mobile alternative to that service gets you a large percentage of your likely user base for a minimal effort. If you're asking when 100% of the phones in your possible market will have browsers on them that…
As regards focusing on what the stack looks like now rather than making an educated guess as to the not-too-distant future, here I have to disagree. Our business is all about well-reasoned gambles, and it seems pretty clear HTML5 will win the day for all but the most complex / intensive apps, so it really only boils down to timing.
Highly-respected VC Mark Suster made a similar point when he advised people to "skate where the puck is going" http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/10/17/skate-where-th...
Here is an example of where exactly what you are asking has been done to good effect. By inserting a line of code in your normal website, we detect which device you are on and redirect you to a HTML5 + Jqtouch version of the site which acts and looks a lot like a native app (especially on the iphone) See http://www.pocketdiner.co.uk We've had no problems so far so the answer to your question is yes - HTML5 is mature…
- The transitions are very slow and response times are too big.
- Pinch zooming a picture results in corrupting the design - overlapping buttons and labels and so on...
- You cannot use the Menu button
- You need a constant Internet connection to be able to work with the application
- The address bar shows all the time and takes a lot of place on the screen
The App Store / Marketplace is a very important distribution channel, which I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss. Downloading an app in today's modern phone is almost as frictionless as entering a website.
For the average developer, using the App Store as a distribution channel is like playing Russian Roulette with your resources. If you don't have considerable marketing money to ensure your app makes it to the top of the iTunes category, your app will simply be buried beneath the horrible user interface of the App Store. It's a little better as far as Android is concerned but not much. An app store is great for consum…
Of course, if you have a non-mobile web app and are offering a mobile companion, web version it's fine, but if you're building a standalone iDevice app that you want to charge for, AppStore is the only viable option.
Here is an example of where exactly what you are asking has been done to good effect. By inserting a line of code in your normal website, we detect which device you are on and redirect you to a HTML5 + Jqtouch version of the site which acts and looks a lot like a native app (especially on the iphone) See http://www.pocketdiner.co.uk We've had no problems so far so the answer to your question is yes - HTML5 is mature…
This is a perfect example why web apps are still nowhere near native apps. For example (testing with a HTC Desire): - The transitions are very slow and response times are too big. - Pinch zooming a picture results in corrupting the design - overlapping buttons and labels and so on... - You cannot use the Menu button - You need a constant Internet connection to be able to work with the application - The address bar sh…
This would seem to be one of the biggest issues. Regardless of the function of the app, having it become really laggy/jumpy when connection loss occurs would be a non-starter for me.
From a marketing perspective - I know lots of people and blogs who monitor the app store for new apps and try them out. An HTML5 app means that you will not have access to this crowd.