I just watched this video ( http://gigaom.com/2011/09/27/facebook-mobilize-2011/ ) where Facebook's head of mobile product talks (a tiny bit) about using HTML5 in their mobile products instead of all native development to keep pace with launches on the Facebook desktop site. Check out the video at ~16 minute mark.
As if by magic, this story was just published: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_facebook_mobile_wil...
Are writers scouring our discussions looking for topics for their readers?
I'm fairly certain that the Facebook iPhone app does not UIWebViews to render anything. Their fast-scrolling tableviews are painstakingly crafted from scratch, natively, and (I believe) still use Joe Hewitt's framework for complex view rendering. I know some guys on the Facebook iPhone app team and they're die-hard Cocoa developers, I can't see them ever saying "screw it" and using a UIWebView with HTML.
Go to your profile and swipe left on a wall post and observe the "Remove" button and its animation. Now go to the bottom of your wall, and tap on the "See more posts..." cell. Notice that the activity indicator is an animated GIF. Open the app frequently and you'll see certain elements in the UI automatically changing without downloading an update. Or check out m.facebook.com and play around with the news feed that i…
Hmm, they're not using the native UITableView animation for editing, but that doesn't mean it's HTML. It's just clunky animation, mostly because each cell is doing a lot of drawing translation due to it all being three20. Also, the "see more posts" cell at the bottom is a TTTableMoreButtonCell (https://github.com/facebook/three20/blob/master/src/Three20U...) I believe.
I know that Facebook is very pro-HTML5 but I don't think there are any views in the native iPhone app that are not native UIKit or based on three20. I'll ask around, would be nice to now if there's any shared code at all on their end.
I think PhoneGap is doing great work, they're obviously getting better, and I don't mean to diminish what others have poured so much effort into. But, are there any successful apps made with PhoneGap? Writing apps in HTML5 is constantly hyped, but there isn't a single HTML app out of the dozens on my iPhone except Netflix. PhoneGap's app gallery doesn't have a single app I've heard of. (The Netflix app isn't too plea…
The new LinkedIn and OkCupid apps are primarily HTML5 based. Not quite the same, but every new release of the Facebook app seems to have more of its existing views replaced by HTML5 counterparts.
And I uninstalled the OKC app within a week of them making the switch. Changing it to every action being roundtrip-based made it unusably slow. A total misstep, if you ask me.
Upload your website, download a native app. What is wrong with this picture? If you can build your app as a web app and don't require hardware access then I'd think twice whether a native app is required.
It's about being found in the app stores. That's where people look for stuff on their phones, that's where you need to come up if you have something you want on someone's phone. Of course there is a lot of down-side to this, but it is what it is. I wish the App Stores, particularly the Android Market, would create a much more elaborate system of categories allowing people to narrow their browsing down to exactly what…
This brings up an interesting point: is there anecdata regarding appstore presence being a gateway/entry-point for a website? That is, first the app, then the website?
I think PhoneGap is doing great work, they're obviously getting better, and I don't mean to diminish what others have poured so much effort into. But, are there any successful apps made with PhoneGap? Writing apps in HTML5 is constantly hyped, but there isn't a single HTML app out of the dozens on my iPhone except Netflix. PhoneGap's app gallery doesn't have a single app I've heard of. (The Netflix app isn't too plea…
Just wait till Spine Mobile is released on the 4th of October at FOWA: http://cl.ly/Aa4V http://cl.ly/Aa7P
Looks great maccman. Here's a little more context if you're not sure what he means by "Spine Mobile".
The new LinkedIn and OkCupid apps are primarily HTML5 based. Not quite the same, but every new release of the Facebook app seems to have more of its existing views replaced by HTML5 counterparts.
I'm fairly certain that the Facebook iPhone app does not UIWebViews to render anything. Their fast-scrolling tableviews are painstakingly crafted from scratch, natively, and (I believe) still use Joe Hewitt's framework for complex view rendering. I know some guys on the Facebook iPhone app team and they're die-hard Cocoa developers, I can't see them ever saying "screw it" and using a UIWebView with HTML.
Some, but not all, table views were replaced with web views a few months ago. News Feed is one example that is now HTML.
How much effort needed to convert my single html with few javascript files to be app-store eligible. I think there is more to just using the phonegap http://www.mockuptiger.com/a/123wireframe.php
cool web app. i think the difficult part of converting it for mobile would be the screen size necessary to work effectively and possibly getting the touch gestures to work properly for moving and resizing the controls.
I think PhoneGap is doing great work, they're obviously getting better, and I don't mean to diminish what others have poured so much effort into. But, are there any successful apps made with PhoneGap? Writing apps in HTML5 is constantly hyped, but there isn't a single HTML app out of the dozens on my iPhone except Netflix. PhoneGap's app gallery doesn't have a single app I've heard of. (The Netflix app isn't too plea…
Our app (Zite for iPad) is 90% HTML5+js and (I think) is reasonably successful.
Is it made in phonegap though? ie. The only native control on your app is a web browser window?
HTML5 is JavaScript. Without JavaScript, HTML5 is just a few semantic HTML tags (like header and section) and a few extra form input attributes (like required and placeholder). As far as JavaScript frameworks go, you could use Sencha or jQuery Mobile or one of the other few dozen frameworks out there --- or you could roll your own. I've been doing mobile web development for about a year now. I've done both PhoneGap a…
I can't see why anybody would actually use jQuery Mobile and Sencha for web app development. I've tried them last week and they were impressive on a desktop browser. On a mobile device, not so much. Both jQuery Mobile and Sencha feel slow, very slow. The animations are choppy. Response times on clicks are way too long. Everything flickers like mad. Focus borders are drawn at all the wrong places. I can actually feel…
I've been using phonegap and jQM since pre-alpha, and I've found it to be a near-native experience on the iphone and impressively responsive on android and palm. I think the alpha version had some flickering, and it is a bit slower on android, but if there is "mad flickering" something likely wasn't done right.