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The Decline of the Mobile Web

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Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#141

Post by lugg »

cousin_it wrote: post #133
habosa wrote: post #108

I think Facebook is an instructive example here. They tried for a long time to make their native app (for Android, anyway) just a wrapper over the mobile web client, but they could never get the performance all the way there. They went native and have seen great results. They resisted as long as they could but eventually the products had to diverge. I'd say 80% of developers who choose native do so for performance, a…

Sure, native apps have better performance on mobile. But the same thing is true on desktop, yet the web somehow stays popular on desktop. That suggests that the behavior of platform owners (Apple and Google) is the real reason for the popularity of apps on mobile, and performance is just a distraction.

Only in the last few years has SAAS applications really taken over native. Native has only been taken over so recently due to abundance in network latency and javascript engine improvements.

We've also been pushing for web app models as developers as a collective quite hard. Not so much with the mobile side of things (all got dollared eyes maybe?) We will likely see a push back into the web side of things once mobile browsers become less painful to use and more powerful in what they can do.

In other words, "decline of the mobile web", yea right. (don't forget half the article was about how we're spending more and more time in mobile web over desktop web.)

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#142

Post by altcognito »

Or... people don't make mobile specific websites, they make a website that adapts to mobile and label it responsive.

Also, I don't goto the web for anything I would do with an app generally speaking. Camera, calendars.

The device makers don't have a huge incentive to improve web browsers either, they have a store in which they want to take a piece of your earnings.

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#143

Post by IpxqwidxG »

Iftheshoefits wrote: post #97
IpxqwidxG wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trust me you can provide consumers all of this... 1. Pleasant to work with, 2. Performant enough, 3. Butter smooth usability ... with HTML5 and decent browser support (and significant effort of front-end developers no doubt) without having to download an app on your mobile. Native SDKs are important, I agree with you, but future isn't in them.

It really depends on what you want to do. If all you're interested in is presenting a static(-ish) web page with some "extra" interaction, then sure. If you want to do anything that harnesses the hardware or computing capability of the device, or anything more complicated the most basic HTML-based UI, then native apps are the way to go. This is independent of whether we're talking about mobile or desktop.

I really hope WebGL is adopted for the computation intensive apps, but yes you're right for most consumer needs basic static(-ish) HTML5 format would be sufficient.

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#146

Post by vivekjain10 »

While I'd love to see web replace native apps, I don't see that happening in the near future. With the kind of innovation happening in the mobile space (iBeacon, Android Wear, Background Fetch etc.) it's probably impossible for the web to keep up.

But there is certainly a bubble in the app space which will bust sooner or later. Not sure what will be the next big thing though. Web does not seem like a candidate.

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#147

Post by yblu »

marknutter wrote: post #131
bsaul wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This demo from sencha touch has always seemed dubious to me. I remember having coded extremely basic mobile web app with this framework and having had layency issues from almost day one. My guess is that what they are doing with their framework to get to this result is pretty far from a normal use.

Agrees but it was written by the people who created the framework so I'm sure they're much more aware of how to keep it performant.

Then again, you don't need to be the creators of Cocoa Touch to build high-performance iOS apps.

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#148

Post by charliemagee »

pbreit wrote: post #120
IpxqwidxG wrote: post #9

In my opinion mobile web is yet to arrive, we have just gotten HTML5 standards finalized only about an year ago. While native has had roughly seven years lead when it comes to providing quality online experience, web apps can beat native easily. And no it's not that web apps or web development or talent for mobile web development is limited or is the bottleneck. The bottleneck is usually the vendors and support of st…

Uh...didn't he web have a 20-30 year head start?

Nope. Native apps are an evolution of desktop installed applications. They came way before the web was in Tim Berners-Lee's headlights.

Re: The Decline of the Mobile Web

#150

Post by faddotio »

I think this is the price we pay for hewing to the party line of only permitting non-breaking incremental changes on the Web.

Would this still be the case if Web development wasn't a broken matrix of browser and OS versions powered by a language which people are constantly trying to paper over with abstractions? (Seriously, it's like a person you'd only have sex with as long as you'd put a paper bag over their head.)

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