I know this is a prototype, but if each app is going to load in a new Firefox window, with the full chrome, no thanks. If it opens a new window without the chrome (or at least without the tabs), it might be ok.
[deleted]
Introducing Ubuntu Web Apps: setting the web free of the browser
51–60 of 82 posts
Re: Introducing Ubuntu Web Apps: setting the web free of the browser
#52Currently I can only see these as yet another way to lose a little bit of your privacy. But I'm also a debian kind of guy so... :P
Only if you use these services. They are offering integration with them, far from forcing you to use them. And if you were already using them these features are an amazing boon and don't affect your privacy at all. Using cloud based apps may affect your privacy but that is independent of this.
"Using cloud based apps may affect your privacy but that is independent of this."
Yes, you're probably right. But will ubuntu be developing code for specific apps like gmail and twitter or will that be codded by the web app developers? If it's the former than you'll probably not have many choices.
Re: Introducing Ubuntu Web Apps: setting the web free of the browser
#53It would be great to be able to easily and privately install the server part of the webapp. My hope by seeing the title is that canonical would have come with a system to do that.
Re: Introducing Ubuntu Web Apps: setting the web free of the browser
#54It's not a new idea, but I think it is finally the idea's time. There was Prism, and there's FluidApp for OS X. There was also MS's active desktop as others have pointed out.
Re: Introducing Ubuntu Web Apps: setting the web free of the browser
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rewatch the video, it's more than just a shortcut.
Yeah, I'm referring more iOS. I think the idea of "webapps as a first class citizen" is a bit of a red herring. Web apps will never be first class citizens (especially not on a phone) because they fail simple performance tests. I think what OSs ought to aim for is what Android does, a smooth integration of offline and online modes. Ubuntu does this somewhat , iOS not really at all (though it is successful in the way…
I think you're being short-sighted. There's nothing inheritantly different about mobile that prevents web apps running as well as they do on the desktop. You are aware that on the desktop JavaScript engines like V8 can keep up with any garbage-collected language, right? There are a few reasons why things are progressing slower on mobile, among them:
1) There is very little browser competition on mobile. Users are either unaware of or don't see the benefit to downloading an alternate browser, and as a result the OS vendors have less of an incentive to improve their browser rapidly. On the desktop browsers like Firefox and Chrome release a new version every few weeks, whereas on mobile the OS vendors release once or a twice a year.
2) The JS engines haven't been optimized for ARM as heavily as x86. We'll get there though.
These are very much short-term problems. And despite that, you can write performant mobile web-apps today. If you have an iOS device you should try out the game X-Type: http://www.phoboslab.org/log/2012/06/x-type-making-of which is written by a fellow HNer. It is extremely snappy, even when played without the assistance of Nitro.
Re: Introducing Ubuntu Web Apps: setting the web free of the browser
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
"web applications to first-class citizens alongside the native apps. Android fails at this pretty badly" Android isn't "failing" at something that it isn't trying to do. Web apps generally suffer from low performance when trying to do anything moderately complex on a mobile device. If you must use web technology to create apps on Android, there is webView in the sdk for you. Many web apps that have tons of users like…
You're missing what's right in front of you; the fact that web apps suffer from bad performance on Android is a prime example of how it is failing. Perhaps Google doesn't care about web apps, but that would be a huge turnaround from just a few years ago when it was one of the web's biggest proponents.
I have an iPad and web apps suck on it too. What is your benchmark for good performance? I'm being serious as I'd love to be able to have a legitimate mobile outlet for high performance web applications.
Re: Introducing Ubuntu Web Apps: setting the web free of the browser
#57I hate to nitpick, but that choice of background music strikes me as rather.. poor.
Re: Introducing Ubuntu Web Apps: setting the web free of the browser
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
"web applications to first-class citizens alongside the native apps. Android fails at this pretty badly" Android isn't "failing" at something that it isn't trying to do. Web apps generally suffer from low performance when trying to do anything moderately complex on a mobile device. If you must use web technology to create apps on Android, there is webView in the sdk for you. Many web apps that have tons of users like…
You're missing what's right in front of you; the fact that web apps suffer from bad performance on Android is a prime example of how it is failing. Perhaps Google doesn't care about web apps, but that would be a huge turnaround from just a few years ago when it was one of the web's biggest proponents.
It's the prime example of how JS and HTML is a failed model for efficient application implementation. It is not an example of Android's failing.
Re: Introducing Ubuntu Web Apps: setting the web free of the browser
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're missing what's right in front of you; the fact that web apps suffer from bad performance on Android is a prime example of how it is failing. Perhaps Google doesn't care about web apps, but that would be a huge turnaround from just a few years ago when it was one of the web's biggest proponents.
It's the prime example of how JS and HTML is a failed model for efficient application implementation. It is not an example of Android's failing.
I think it has less to do with this and more to do with them not focusing their efforts on that front. It isn't like their current dev stack is the pinacle of performance either. Give it a few years and I'm sure they'll have native Dart applications which will be just as performant.
Re: Introducing Ubuntu Web Apps: setting the web free of the browser
#60I know this is a prototype, but if each app is going to load in a new Firefox window, with the full chrome, no thanks. If it opens a new window without the chrome (or at least without the tabs), it might be ok.
Well, most of those webapps will likely navigate/open external websites. I would love to have a hacker news window by default, so that external links i open there are nicely managed within the hackers news app. So, the tab bar is a plus, if you ask me. The address bar and the new tab icon, should be removed though. Better yet, the new tab icon, should open he base url, or some other logical url: for gmail it could be…
To be honest if I clicked on a link in a "GMail app" I'd expect it to open a new "full" browser window (or a new tab in an existing browser window). You'd have to be able to distinguish between internal and external links, of course, but the domain name is a workable heuristic.
The ability to open new tabs should probably be configured on an app-by-app basis. Opening tabs of mail is a pretty sensible idea, but a game developer using HTML5 would likely want to prevent that. Ditto the location bar. (I agree that the user should be able to override these settings.)