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500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

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Re: 500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

#21

Post by dirkstoop »

malnourish wrote: post #13
ajg1977 wrote: post #12

A better article would be "Why Wired Didn't use HTML5 for their iPad App". Since that probably wouldn't have the same link-bait worthy title, I'll write one here. Why didn't Wired use HTML5? 1) a) it was built by Adobe who build it on Flash to begin with, b) the tools just aren't there yet. c) because of #2. 2) Why is the app 500MB? Because all the rich content (images, movies, audio) are bundled into the app so you…

Less than 500MB? A serious question.

There's absolutely no reason for it to turn out smaller. The meat of the app is in the media.

I make cocoa apps, and I'm pretty sure that the 'native' part of the app — the part of it that could be ditched by linking to WebKit instead – weighs in way under 10 megs

Re: 500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

#22

Post by wmf »

ajg1977 wrote: post #12

A better article would be "Why Wired Didn't use HTML5 for their iPad App". Since that probably wouldn't have the same link-bait worthy title, I'll write one here. Why didn't Wired use HTML5? 1) a) it was built by Adobe who build it on Flash to begin with, b) the tools just aren't there yet. c) because of #2. 2) Why is the app 500MB? Because all the rich content (images, movies, audio) are bundled into the app so you…

Why is the app 500MB? Because all the rich content are bundled into the app

The article says that rich content isn't the source of the bloat:

Each full page is a giant image – there are actually two images for each page: one for landscape and one for portrait mode.

If the app stored text as, you know, text then presumably it would require significantly less space. Eliminating the portrait/landscape duplication would also save space.

Re: 500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

#23

Post by alex_c »

petercooper wrote: post #17

Clause 3.3.1 states: Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine This means that any "interactive" elements must either be written directly in Objective C, or you're confined entirely to WebKit. If you don't fancy building new Objective C apps every time you roll out an issue of your magazine, you have two options.. do it entirely in WebKit…

I don't really understand your point, can you elaborate? That's all that's being discussed here - native app vs. HTML5 (or some hybrid, which is perfectly valid under 3.3.1).

Re: 500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

#24

Post by ajg1977 »

petercooper wrote: post #20
ajg1977 wrote: post #12

A better article would be "Why Wired Didn't use HTML5 for their iPad App". Since that probably wouldn't have the same link-bait worthy title, I'll write one here. Why didn't Wired use HTML5? 1) a) it was built by Adobe who build it on Flash to begin with, b) the tools just aren't there yet. c) because of #2. 2) Why is the app 500MB? Because all the rich content (images, movies, audio) are bundled into the app so you…

If the app had been based on HTML5 it would have been a 'mare to cache all of the content locally for offline viewing. HTML5 does offer local storage, but not in a way that would allow sites to cache 500MB of content. And even if they could, do you really want to wait 20 minutes for that Pixar feature to download over 3G? You can build an iPhone OS app that contains all of the data to be rendered by a Webkit UIWebVie…

I refer you to my last sentence: What would be the benefit in this when tools for building rich HTML5 apps are non-existent?

Re: 500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

#25

Post by DrSprout »

wmf wrote: post #22
ajg1977 wrote: post #12

A better article would be "Why Wired Didn't use HTML5 for their iPad App". Since that probably wouldn't have the same link-bait worthy title, I'll write one here. Why didn't Wired use HTML5? 1) a) it was built by Adobe who build it on Flash to begin with, b) the tools just aren't there yet. c) because of #2. 2) Why is the app 500MB? Because all the rich content (images, movies, audio) are bundled into the app so you…

Why is the app 500MB? Because all the rich content are bundled into the app The article says that rich content isn't the source of the bloat: Each full page is a giant image – there are actually two images for each page: one for landscape and one for portrait mode. If the app stored text as, you know, text then presumably it would require significantly less space. Eliminating the portrait/landscape duplication would…

Perhaps I'm being overly cynical, but if their intent was to show what a load of nonsense Apple's insistence that native apps are better is, it sounds like they couldn't have done a better job.

Re: 500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

#26

Post by andybak »

DrSprout wrote: post #25
wmf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the app 500MB? Because all the rich content are bundled into the app The article says that rich content isn't the source of the bloat: Each full page is a giant image – there are actually two images for each page: one for landscape and one for portrait mode. If the app stored text as, you know, text then presumably it would require significantly less space. Eliminating the portrait/landscape duplication would…

Perhaps I'm being overly cynical, but if their intent was to show what a load of nonsense Apple's insistence that native apps are better is, it sounds like they couldn't have done a better job.

Did you RTFA? You could have made this a native app using the webkit control and bundled all the content in a 10th of the size.

Re: 500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

#27

Post by fab13n »

"Why Wired Didn't use HTML5 for their iPad App?"

Because consumers are not trained to pay for web sites, whereas they're trained to pay AppStore-delivered apps, that's why.

80% of iPhone/iPad applications, both accepted and rejected ones, would work great in HTML5; the figure is of course much higher for applications that might have been written in flash.

But discussions about Apple's languages, SDK or even hardware platforms are moot; the game changer for companies is the AppStore, and access to this AppStore is the only thing they truly care about. They can, but don't want to, distribute most of their stuff over plain old HTTP. What they can't is getting paid for doing so.

Re: 500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

#28

Post by andybak »

ajg1977 wrote: post #24
petercooper wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the app had been based on HTML5 it would have been a 'mare to cache all of the content locally for offline viewing. HTML5 does offer local storage, but not in a way that would allow sites to cache 500MB of content. And even if they could, do you really want to wait 20 minutes for that Pixar feature to download over 3G? You can build an iPhone OS app that contains all of the data to be rendered by a Webkit UIWebVie…

I refer you to my last sentence: What would be the benefit in this when tools for building rich HTML5 apps are non-existent?

That's funny. As far as I can tell all the tools that are used for HTML (text editors and IDE's mainly) seem to be working pretty well for HTML5. And if you mean WYSIWYG then that market is dominated by Dreamweaver and even that has added HTML5 support.

Re: 500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

#29

Post by andybak »

dirkstoop wrote: post #21
malnourish wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less than 500MB? A serious question.

There's absolutely no reason for it to turn out smaller. The meat of the app is in the media. I make cocoa apps, and I'm pretty sure that the 'native' part of the app — the part of it that could be ditched by linking to WebKit instead – weighs in way under 10 megs

I got the impression that even the text was stored as a graphic.

Re: 500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

#30

Post by jaxn »

ajg1977 wrote: post #12

A better article would be "Why Wired Didn't use HTML5 for their iPad App". Since that probably wouldn't have the same link-bait worthy title, I'll write one here. Why didn't Wired use HTML5? 1) a) it was built by Adobe who build it on Flash to begin with, b) the tools just aren't there yet. c) because of #2. 2) Why is the app 500MB? Because all the rich content (images, movies, audio) are bundled into the app so you…

I just read through this issue of Wired on my iPad while on a plane. It was neat to be able to have the videos and such without an internet connection.

However, the real reason it is 500MB is the same reason the paper copy is so many pages...

It is about 50% advertising.

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