Making Facebook's native mobile app faster using HTML5 • Hacker News Board

Re: Making Facebook's native mobile app faster using HTML5

#21

Post by spydum » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 3:28 PM UTC

marknutter wrote: post #18

spydum wrote: post #16

I suspect they misunderstood the "HTML5 is not ready" statement. Indeed, HTML5 can perform, and the future is bright. However, as plenty of people in the comments here have mentioned, for mainstream devices.. it's not ready. The frameworks are still coming up a learning curve, the hardware devices out there are still struggling to adopt proper HTML5 support and decent performance. Those points alone lend credit to th…

Yes, but it will be ready, and the question is will devs and firms that have invested all their time into native development be ready too? It would be prudent to be ahead of the curve when the horizon is so clearly visible.

The problem with being a platform that serves such a large audience (indeed, one that gets paid based on the eyeballs it can sustain) is that you need to cater to the largest range of devices and their performance. It's the same reason enterprises still support such obscure browsers and OS's (XP/IE6). They just aren't willing to sacrifice the overall experience of those who are slow to upgrade in favor of pushing the technology forward.

Re: Making Facebook's native mobile app faster using HTML5

#22

Post by tterrace » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 3:29 PM UTC

They take offense to Zuckerburg's "HTML5 isn't quite there yet" comment but in order to keep their implementation quick they had to build a custom iframe framework in addition to their TaskQueue and AnimationQueue implementations to replicate the fb timeline. It seems like that was part of Zuck's point - why would a company with a deadline take on all that technical debt to replicate things that you essentially get for free on a native platform?

Re: Making Facebook's native mobile app faster using HTML5

#23

Post by marknutter » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 3:33 PM UTC

tterrace wrote: post #22

They take offense to Zuckerburg's "HTML5 isn't quite there yet" comment but in order to keep their implementation quick they had to build a custom iframe framework in addition to their TaskQueue and AnimationQueue implementations to replicate the fb timeline. It seems like that was part of Zuck's point - why would a company with a deadline take on all that technical debt to replicate things that you essentially get f…

You're forgetting one small point: you have to write two (or more) native apps once you go that route. Hence the reason Facebook's Android native app came out roughly 6 months after their iOS native app did.

Re: Making Facebook's native mobile app faster using HTML5

#24

Post by catshirt » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 3:34 PM UTC

micampe wrote: post #10

Why do we see plenty of articles saying that HTML5 can be as good or better than native code and no actual applications doing it? Facebook and Google tried and miserably failed, LinkedIn and Twitter are probably the ones closest to actually doing it, but users still prefer the native version, why? One I think is a big reason is clearly visible in the video: scrolling physics are different. It's annoying and feels wro…

> "no actual applications doing it?"

hahahaha

Re: Making Facebook's native mobile app faster using HTML5

#25

Post by technoslut » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 3:35 PM UTC

marknutter wrote: post #8

The future is bright for HTML5 apps, clearly. There will come a time when everyone's phone is fast enough to run apps like the FB clone Sencha made and the need for native apps will start to diminish. However, we're still in the transition period where there are a sufficient number of older phones on the market that don't run HTML5 apps well, so until they are filtered out your best option is still native. I do hope…

>The future is bright for HTML5 apps, clearly. There will come a time when everyone's phone is fast enough to run apps like the FB clone Sencha made and the need for native apps will start to diminish.

I believe you're wrong. The question isn't whether HTML can keep up with what exists today but what is offered in the future natively.

We are already living in a world with data caps and it will be so for the foreseeable future. That alone hinders the capabilities of the web. We're not even including the distrust that consumers have for paying for something unless it is through a system owned by Apple, Amazon, Google and MS. This is even including Gen Y users.

I have no doubt that the web is the future but the future is a ways off. There are just too many obstacles that are in the way currently.

Re: Making Facebook's native mobile app faster using HTML5

#26

Post by marknutter » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 3:35 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #20

marknutter wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but it will be ready, and the question is will devs and firms that have invested all their time into native development be ready too? It would be prudent to be ahead of the curve when the horizon is so clearly visible.

It was also clearly visible 3 years ago. It's nice to be an HTML5 advocate, but lets be realistic, it's 3-4 years before HTML5 will be coming even close to native in performance or tooling. In the meantime all those native developers will be kicking your ass in earnings and functionality.

> In the meantime all those native developers will be kicking your ass in earnings and functionality.

There's no need to get testy. There's no reason why HTML5 proponents can't implement some or even all of their apps in Native code (as I do). Without getting into a religious war, though, it's important to understand where the puck is going in addition to where it is currently.

Re: Making Facebook's native mobile app faster using HTML5

#27

Post by level09 » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 3:37 PM UTC

This is cool, however, I'd say HTML5 has a bright future regarding web-based apps, or apps with a specific use case where you pull some data and display it in a list/table view etc .. HTML5 will never be as capable as native if you have many other use cases (ex: image/video processing, music recognition ) ..

Re: Making Facebook's native mobile app faster using HTML5

#28

Post by marknutter » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 3:37 PM UTC

spydum wrote: post #21

marknutter wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but it will be ready, and the question is will devs and firms that have invested all their time into native development be ready too? It would be prudent to be ahead of the curve when the horizon is so clearly visible.

The problem with being a platform that serves such a large audience (indeed, one that gets paid based on the eyeballs it can sustain) is that you need to cater to the largest range of devices and their performance. It's the same reason enterprises still support such obscure browsers and OS's (XP/IE6). They just aren't willing to sacrifice the overall experience of those who are slow to upgrade in favor of pushing the…

You don't have to support obscure markets if you don't want to. I'd say covering iOs 5+ and Android 2.3+ is going to cover an area most companies would be pretty happy with.

And let's not forget that OS fragmentation affects Native developers just like it does HTML5 developers (especially on Android).

Re: Making Facebook's native mobile app faster using HTML5

#29

Post by marknutter » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 3:39 PM UTC

technoslut wrote: post #25

marknutter wrote: post #8

The future is bright for HTML5 apps, clearly. There will come a time when everyone's phone is fast enough to run apps like the FB clone Sencha made and the need for native apps will start to diminish. However, we're still in the transition period where there are a sufficient number of older phones on the market that don't run HTML5 apps well, so until they are filtered out your best option is still native. I do hope…

>The future is bright for HTML5 apps, clearly. There will come a time when everyone's phone is fast enough to run apps like the FB clone Sencha made and the need for native apps will start to diminish. I believe you're wrong. The question isn't whether HTML can keep up with what exists today but what is offered in the future natively. We are already living in a world with data caps and it will be so for the foreseeab…

I'm not sure I understand the connection to data caps. HTML5 allows you to cache apps and data locally, and wrappers like Trigger.io and Phonegap allow you to run an HTML5 app completely on the client without any reliance on data from an outside network.

Re: Making Facebook's native mobile app faster using HTML5

#30

Post by technoslut » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 3:41 PM UTC

marknutter wrote: post #12

micampe wrote: post #10

Why do we see plenty of articles saying that HTML5 can be as good or better than native code and no actual applications doing it? Facebook and Google tried and miserably failed, LinkedIn and Twitter are probably the ones closest to actually doing it, but users still prefer the native version, why? One I think is a big reason is clearly visible in the video: scrolling physics are different. It's annoying and feels wro…

I think it's a mix of FUD and reality. It's true that for most older devices HTML5 apps just don't perform very well, but they are slowly disappearing from the market. Google hasn't "miserably" failed, they use the same basic strategy that LinkedIn does; namely, a they make hybrid mobile apps where they mix both native and HTML5 components to get the best performance and flexibility. It's worked quite well for them.

>Google hasn't "miserably" failed, they use the same basic strategy that LinkedIn does; namely, a they make hybrid mobile apps where they mix both native and HTML5 components to get the best performance and flexibility. It's worked quite well for them.

Maybe I'm mistaken but Google released an official Gmail app on iOS that was basically HTML. Everyone hated it. The same goes for the situation with GMaps. Virtually no one used the web app and now Google Maps is the top ranked free app.