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Why LinkedIn dumped HTML5 and went native for its mobile apps

venturebeat.com

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Re: Why LinkedIn dumped HTML5 and went native for its mobile apps

#2

Post by arocks »

> We always have to support HTML5 because so much of our traffic comes from email. When we were [serving] a smaller group [of users], we were hoping we could duplicate all that mobile web work to make our clients faster in terms of code deploys.

This has been my experience as well. When you click on a link in an email, the LinkedIn site would take you to the login screen. This screen is so heavy that it takes an inordinate time to even render!

Clearly, they have tried to cramp in too much into their mobile experience. They should not duplicate the entire functionality but rather simplify it considering the smaller form factor. Building a much lighter version of their site would be the right direction for them, rather than building native apps.

Re: Why LinkedIn dumped HTML5 and went native for its mobile apps

#5

Post by colemorrison »

Was anyone else heavily on the HTML5 crew only to be rudely awakened to all these inconveniences? It seems like there's a constant, persistent migration away from HTML5 for mobile style devices...and while every dev group says something like "performance, debug tools, etc." However, I'd say that the ultimate reason to do so is because of user behavior - opening up safari mobile or chrome is not a "pleasant" experience when compared with a native app.

Is anyone else moving away from html5 to native? What I find odd about this is Paul Graham's whole "web software" is the future - and yet if "Mobile" future and mobile users favor "native software" ............. then it seems that native would be the future.

Of course, one can just say "yes, but native is becoming hybrid with web." And that's definitely true, but it still makes things very dependent upon the client and not as "platform agnostic" as a full web movement would be.

Re: Why LinkedIn dumped HTML5 and went native for its mobile apps

#7

Post by sorenbs »

Frankly, the linkedin mobile site sucked from a usability perspective. Login takes forever, and navigation is slow even on top end phones. About time they decided to do something about it. The most commen use case for me is I get a mail from linkedin on my phone, click the link. And now it takes more than a minute before I get to the content, including login, redirect and all. A mobile app is not going to solve this use case.

Re: Why LinkedIn dumped HTML5 and went native for its mobile apps

#8

Post by monsterix »

Honestly, it is kind of sad, rather disastrous, that a leading site such as Linkedin is unable to stir things up a bit and come out with the exact truth.

When he says "... we’re seeing that more and more people are spending more time in the app, and the app is running out of memory ..." what he means here is that memory allocation to the browser on iPad (for example) is too little to handle the volume of user interest.

Mark his words, users ARE interested to see the wild wild web through their browsers, even porn, but it is the vendors of these closed gardens that have made it difficult for everyone. This is certainly not the fault of HTML5/web developers, or lovers of open web, but only of the vendors who have not provided sufficient resources or enough support for web standards on their stack.

We're actually back into 1995, I think, with every other for-profit firm talking about its own "experience" and "standards" these days.

Edit: This discussion is meant specifically for browsers supplied on iPad/Android tablets. Not the desktop browsers which are not only good but also in an extremely competitive space (Thanks to Firefox!).

Re: Why LinkedIn dumped HTML5 and went native for its mobile apps

#10

Post by jordn »

Are HTML5 web apps still viewed as wise first move into mobile app development?

We're seeing companies consistently move from web to native... but generally only after hitting some performance barrier. Switching to native then seems to be like any other optimisation. So even if the web performance barely improves, does developing for web first still make sense (platform independence, rapid iterations etc) or should we be thinking native first?

I'd be interested in hearing whether LinkedIn and co regret going HTML5 in the first place.

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