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Anatomy of a Native Feeling HTML5 iOS App

justinvincent.com

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Re: Anatomy of a Native Feeling HTML5 iOS App

#51

Post by willmacdonald »

napoleond wrote: post #36
chewxy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I've tried Zepto as a drop-in replacement for JQuery once ... a long time ago. The results were disastrous (everything broke!) but I guess I'll try it again

It's still not a drop-in replacement, but it's close. You need to include more modules than just the core for eg. ajax or transition effects (the official modules are all available from http://zeptojs.com and/or the github linked there). I maintain a pretty hefty Backbone based web app where we use Zepto for mobile/non-IE to save on file size, and serve the exact same code but with jQuery for IE. In about a thousand…

You should have a look at this page for a comparison of javascript frameworks on mobile devices:

http://www.codefessions.com/2012/08/performance-of-jquery-co...

Re: Anatomy of a Native Feeling HTML5 iOS App

#54

Post by sktrdie »

brandon272 wrote: post #40

The reality is that the quality of any app depends on the skill set of the developer(s). Some of the native apps I use are wonderful, others are terrible. As a web developer who is currently on a mobile app project that uses HTML5 and PhoneGap, I have been pleasantly surprised that we have been able to create an app that, in my opinion, looks great, is wonderfully fast on newer devices, and is a pleasure to use. HTML…

The important bit is that HTML5 is a set of standard abstractions around complicated things, such as networking and data-storage, that should almost never be re-built from scratch by the developer.

It is extremely important that we build standards around these things. Unfortunately, it seems like these abstractions are only accessible through a JavaScript DOM environment, which makes them sort of useless if you need/want another language.

I think we need languages agnostic standards. That's at least my idea of the future of the web and desktop development.

Re: Anatomy of a Native Feeling HTML5 iOS App

#55

Post by brunnsbe »

chris_wot wrote: post #50
amadeus wrote: post #27

This app is so painfully a web app. Here's why. First thing I did, started dragging around when I was presented with some grey/brown screen (an intermediary between the load image and the web app actually being loaded?) so I got a nice little rubber bandy action on a grey screen. Web app. Since there is no normal iOS UI pieces, I find myself being more critical of it because it's unfamiliar. I tap the input for the d…

I tap the input for the dollar amount, I am presented with the default keyboard. Very crappy for entering dollar amounts. Web app. I seriously don't get why more developers don't use it.

If I remember correctly the support for the decimal separator is a mess between Android and iOS, I think it was so that iOS defaults to comma and Android to a dot which makes is difficult to write any cross-browser code with input-type number if it has to handle decimal numbers as well.

Re: Anatomy of a Native Feeling HTML5 iOS App

#56

Post by geon »

chris_wot wrote: post #50
amadeus wrote: post #27

This app is so painfully a web app. Here's why. First thing I did, started dragging around when I was presented with some grey/brown screen (an intermediary between the load image and the web app actually being loaded?) so I got a nice little rubber bandy action on a grey screen. Web app. Since there is no normal iOS UI pieces, I find myself being more critical of it because it's unfamiliar. I tap the input for the d…

I tap the input for the dollar amount, I am presented with the default keyboard. Very crappy for entering dollar amounts. Web app. I seriously don't get why more developers don't use it.

The last pic in the article says they did exactly that.

Re: Anatomy of a Native Feeling HTML5 iOS App

#57

Post by chris_wot »

brunnsbe wrote: post #55
chris_wot wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tap the input for the dollar amount, I am presented with the default keyboard. Very crappy for entering dollar amounts. Web app. I seriously don't get why more developers don't use it.

If I remember correctly the support for the decimal separator is a mess between Android and iOS, I think it was so that iOS defaults to comma and Android to a dot which makes is difficult to write any cross-browser code with input-type number if it has to handle decimal numbers as well.

Surely these advanced operating system environments allow you to localise decimal separators?

Re: Anatomy of a Native Feeling HTML5 iOS App

#58

Post by epo »

amadeus wrote: post #27

This app is so painfully a web app. Here's why. First thing I did, started dragging around when I was presented with some grey/brown screen (an intermediary between the load image and the web app actually being loaded?) so I got a nice little rubber bandy action on a grey screen. Web app. Since there is no normal iOS UI pieces, I find myself being more critical of it because it's unfamiliar. I tap the input for the d…

Pix or GTFO. Any internet windbag can make cheap criticisms. Show us some examples of what you regard as "a good web app".

Re: Anatomy of a Native Feeling HTML5 iOS App

#59

Post by beaucollins »

cheeaun wrote: post #19
beaucollins wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-webkit-overflow-scrolling:touch disables the feature where tapping the phone's status bar scrolls content back to the top. That has been a showstopper for most of the things I have worked on.

True. I wonder if there's a fix for this in PhoneGap, at least.

One workaround that was functional but subpar experience-wise:

Put a transparent UIView over the status bar and wire it up to call a javascript function on your UIWebView using stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString.

Re: Anatomy of a Native Feeling HTML5 iOS App

#60

Post by antoniopratas »

I don't mean to bust your balls here, because I really like HTML5 and believe that there's some potential there for making apps, but I just installed it, and when offline, the app does nothing besides showing me interface and a loading spinner. Forms will even work, but the view isn't updated and nothing really works.

When I have a connection on it works, but the app asked me for my location, I thought it would give me my currency based on my location, but instead it gave me nothing at all. So I tell you my exact location and get nothing back? Why did I allowed it then?

Overall it's not a really good experience, the modals are cool and the buttons are usable by the fingers, but can't ever mistake it for a native one.

PS: I tried to comment on the blog this exact comment here and the comments were already closed. Maybe too bad comments?

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