Mobile shift: You’ve probably underestimated just how big this is • Hacker News Board

Re: Mobile shift: You’ve probably underestimated just how big this is

#91

Post by jbail » Tue, Jan 24, 2012, 9:23 PM UTC

angrycoder wrote: post #83

jbail wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not inertia, but it is an easier context-switch, IMO. If you made an "app browser" that allowed better searching (type the first letter and the app appears --- tap to open it), sorting (like bookmark folders) and easy navigation between apps, you'd be presenting me a much better experience than the current process of finding and switching between apps on your phone. That said, I still think pure mobile web could…

> If you made an "app browser" that allowed better searching (type the first letter and the app appears --- tap to open it) The iPhone has this. Just swipe right on the home screen. > and easy navigation between apps On the iPhone, double tap the home button and you get a taskbar of your running apps. > Why couldn't Apple allow mobile web apps to be sold in the app store? It's an icon that opens a web page. It could…

Good points on iPhone. I've used PhoneGap and it's great, but that's not exactly what I'm getting at. I'm thinking of a mobile web app that doesn't have to live inside a webview wrapper. This could happen someday when the OS provides a JavaScript API for accessing camera, gps, etc --- and could use the html manifest as a means for "downloading" the app. This would, in my ideal dream world, also allow the app publisher to make app changes at will without waiting for an appstore review.

Re: Mobile shift: You’ve probably underestimated just how big this is

#92

Post by ozataman » Tue, Jan 24, 2012, 9:29 PM UTC

It is true that mobile usage is going through the roof and there is no doubt there is a legitimate gold rush happening right now.

Nevertheless, I would like to raise a few points/questions with the reasoning in this analysis, somewhat in defense of the web:

1. Mobile apps provide a different mix of functionality when compared to the web (particularly on our PCs). Quite a few mobile apps are simply games, various time no-value-add time sinks and other similar non-connected activities. Hence, I am unsure about the merit of comparing 60 minutes inside of a web browser to 60 minutes on a mobile app. (On the other hand, perhaps facebook usage more than compensates for all this)

2. One reason mobile usage is so high is that our smartphones are always with us and many of us chronically play with them when we have more than a 15 second pause. Again, I am unsure about the "quality" of the interaction during these times.

3. It seems that many mobile apps - the huge hits notwithstanding - solve small, yet meaningful problems in a cool way. This is great, but it eventually yields a lackluster impact - both financially and in terms of the effect on society - and it makes for a real tough proposition to develop mobile apps as a team (read multiple people) and expect to sustainably "grow" a business. Yes, the barren solution space is huge, but the bang for the time spent is also smaller on average. In contrast, the web now provides really large flexibility in solving a range of problems at various depths.

4. It also seems that several impressive startups are leveraging the mobile platform as an add-on to their web-based presence, another channel to solve problems on or a value enhancer to the tech. There is 0 doubt in my mind that mobile is here to grow in this sense.

All in all, applications that leverage mobile have a large empty space to fill. However, people should not just jump into mobile because it seems to be the "rage".

Re: Mobile shift: You’ve probably underestimated just how big this is

#93

Post by Animus7 » Tue, Jan 24, 2012, 9:35 PM UTC

jbail wrote: post #91

angrycoder wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you made an "app browser" that allowed better searching (type the first letter and the app appears --- tap to open it) The iPhone has this. Just swipe right on the home screen. > and easy navigation between apps On the iPhone, double tap the home button and you get a taskbar of your running apps. > Why couldn't Apple allow mobile web apps to be sold in the app store? It's an icon that opens a web page. It could…

Good points on iPhone. I've used PhoneGap and it's great, but that's not exactly what I'm getting at. I'm thinking of a mobile web app that doesn't have to live inside a webview wrapper. This could happen someday when the OS provides a JavaScript API for accessing camera, gps, etc --- and could use the html manifest as a means for "downloading" the app. This would, in my ideal dream world, also allow the app publishe…

> This would, in my ideal dream world, also allow the app publisher to make app changes at will without waiting for an appstore review.

This is the main reason it won't happen; app store review is one of the key parts of Apple's positioning.

Re: Mobile shift: You’ve probably underestimated just how big this is

#94

Post by brador » Tue, Jan 24, 2012, 9:50 PM UTC

robryan wrote: post #90

pg wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean domains that cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars? I think those "days" never existed, in the sense that it has probably always been a mistake.

For things like stripe/ path I think the investment in a memorable domain might pay off. I'm sure it helped Dropbox after they got their one, although not sure of the price paid. I would agree on generic ones like business.com

Agreed. Brandable domains are the way to go. But the buyers are few, which keeps the value low, until they're branded that is.

Dropbox, pre startup, would you even have paid the $10 for it? Not sure...but now? of course.

What makes a brandable domain? For one worders like stripe/path and all, it's easy, but dropbox? How could someone have predicted it's "brandability"?

Re: Mobile shift: You’ve probably underestimated just how big this is

#95

Post by kylebrown » Tue, Jan 24, 2012, 9:52 PM UTC

yblokhin wrote: post #48

Can anyone tell me if this is a nicely wrapped Phonegap or a completely new commercial framework that does the same thing as Phonegap?

Looks like a new framework that does the same thing as phonegap. The 'thin native wrapper over html5 webview' isn't actually that hard to do (even for multiple platforms). I prefer to roll my own because, last time I tried PhoneGap, the extra bloat made my app sluggish. It was much more responsive in a minimal custom wrapper.

Re: Mobile shift: You’ve probably underestimated just how big this is

#96

Post by rafcavallaro » Tue, Jan 24, 2012, 10:04 PM UTC

jarcoal wrote: post #59

steder wrote: post #25

I think the article is buying into the notion that the web can never be as rich an experience as the native application. I think that the last few years of explosive growth in terms of cloud services and web applications have made it pretty clear that web applications are a viable alternative. Why won't web applications work for mobile devices as well? Is the argument simply that the app market is less crowded? Is a…

I don't think the web can ever be as fast moving as a native environment. That's one of the major downfalls with being compatible with all platforms.

Add to this the fact that it is very much in the interest of one of the larger mobile players, Apple, to keep the native experience superior to the html5 mobile browser experience in order to differentiate their iOS offering from a generic "mobile web browser." For example, WebGL is only available for iAds, not for mobile Safari web apps, while openGL is of course available to native iOS apps.

Re: Mobile shift: You’ve probably underestimated just how big this is

#97

Post by prostoalex » Tue, Jan 24, 2012, 10:08 PM UTC

robryan wrote: post #90

pg wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean domains that cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars? I think those "days" never existed, in the sense that it has probably always been a mistake.

For things like stripe/ path I think the investment in a memorable domain might pay off. I'm sure it helped Dropbox after they got their one, although not sure of the price paid. I would agree on generic ones like business.com

Dropbox yes, as they have a desktop-centric product, but Path? Even if you remember which one of the cool TLDs they decided to go with (US Commercial, Tonga, Lybia, British Indian Ocean), the site itself is a redirect to app store, something you go to by default if you're on an iPhone.

Re: Mobile shift: You’ve probably underestimated just how big this is

#98

Post by robryan » Tue, Jan 24, 2012, 10:17 PM UTC

brador wrote: post #94

robryan wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For things like stripe/ path I think the investment in a memorable domain might pay off. I'm sure it helped Dropbox after they got their one, although not sure of the price paid. I would agree on generic ones like business.com

Agreed. Brandable domains are the way to go. But the buyers are few, which keeps the value low, until they're branded that is. Dropbox, pre startup, would you even have paid the $10 for it? Not sure...but now? of course. What makes a brandable domain? For one worders like stripe/path and all, it's easy, but dropbox? How could someone have predicted it's "brandability"?

They couldn't but someone did have the domain originally, after it had started becoming a brand.

Re: Mobile shift: You’ve probably underestimated just how big this is

#99

Post by robryan » Tue, Jan 24, 2012, 10:19 PM UTC

prostoalex wrote: post #97

robryan wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For things like stripe/ path I think the investment in a memorable domain might pay off. I'm sure it helped Dropbox after they got their one, although not sure of the price paid. I would agree on generic ones like business.com

Dropbox yes, as they have a desktop-centric product, but Path? Even if you remember which one of the cool TLDs they decided to go with (US Commercial, Tonga, Lybia, British Indian Ocean), the site itself is a redirect to app store, something you go to by default if you're on an iPhone.

Yeah, I guess for the average user it might not matter much. For me it projects the clean design and simplicity of the whole thing. If I see path.com pop up on Twitter it is much more likely to grab my attention than somerandomtwoworddomain.com

Re: Mobile shift: You’ve probably underestimated just how big this is

#100

Post by checker » Tue, Jan 24, 2012, 10:41 PM UTC

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #58

djb_hackernews wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "native" facebook app is just an html5 webapp believe it or not.

I have no trouble believing it, which is a big part of why it has such terrible ratings and reviews now, as compared to when it was native. And from what I understand, Facebook has done a lot of significant engineering to try and improve the performance while keeping it mostly HTML5. Mobile web apps aren't ready.

It was agonizingly slow on my iPhone 3G for a while until a recent update that makes it palatable.