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Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

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Re: Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

#31

Post by scrod »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #28
scrod wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the chrome team is mostly reponsible for adding websocket, the file api, web workers... Oh, so these features are comparable in effort and scale to an entire web browser and HTML5-compliant rendering engine then? By your logic, Chrome is essentially KHTML + HTML5-fanboy-features. I guess that must mean Apple has been shipping a 2002-era build of Konquerer with each copy of Mac OS X then, huh? Because clearly We…

>Oh, so these features are comparable in effort and scale to an entire web browser Didn't Apple take the KHTML (Konqueror was a full fledged browser) code and then had to release their code because it was GPL. I remember reading about a complaint from the KHTML that Apple was releasing the code as a big blob and this was hindering KHTML integration.

> Didn't Apple take the KHTML (Konqueror was a full fledged browser) code...

WebKit has vastly evolved from the original KHTML library, to the point of being almost an entirely different product. The KHTML team has been pulling changes from WebKit (http://trac.webkit.org/browser) for many years now.

Re: Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

#32

Post by crag »

dstein wrote: post #5

I think we are close to the tipping point where a majority of developers begin to favor webapps to iOS native apps. I've seen this coming a mile away. Apple almost lost a big portion of its development community 2 years ago with that whole 3rd party development platform issue. Apple relented, and they are now turning a different crank with the big subscription tax. They are playing a game of monopoly here. It's the s…

What? MS lost to linux? The server (enterprise) market is the ONLY area where linux competes head-to-head with MS (or anyone really). And even in Enterprise there are plenty of MS shops.

If you bring up the fabled "linux desktop" I'm gonna start laughing. Though I am impressed at what the folks at Ubuntu are doing.

Also, when the iphone was first released Apple had no developer kit (API's). You could download guidelines on how to write a proper web app for the phone. But developers barked (and why not - look at the result) and here we are.

Actually Apple sort of fell into the app markets. They got damn lucky. Of if you want to believe that Steve Job's is divine, he's manipulated the whole transition from web app => dev kit => app store.

I'm glad to see us move fill circle. But you know we haven't. You could always design specific web apps for ios. Just log into the (free) Safari dev center and download the guild lines. How do you think smaller companies who can't afford a distribution agreement with Apple (did you know you can privately distribute your own apps? Of course you have to pay.. ;) ) did it? We wrote the apps in html5/js/css3 (based specifically on Safari) and host them on our own network (intranet & vpn).

Re: Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

#33

Post by fungi »

petercooper wrote: post #24
poutine wrote: post #21

If this is the best you can do with an HTML5 'app' then native apps have a long future. It's buggy, laggy, animations are wrong, graphics are low resolution in places, and user interface widgets are odd and non standard.

That's why I'd rather just have the regular old "Web" for stuff like this. There seem to be a lot of experiments to 'appize' Web sites for tablets and the like, and while most of them look better than typical Web pages at first glance, they're usually laggy and less immediate than if you'd just seen a regular web page in the first place (a common issue is scrolling.. if I get the dreaded 8 frames per second effect, I…

http://apps.ft.com/ftwebapp/ is slow as a dog, sure flash blob isn't helping.

but http://m.ft.com is clean, nice and fast. personally i often find the mobile version of sites nicer (in a similar way to the print view is often the best way to read a page)

edit: ugh you need to spoof your browser to access http://m.ft.com on the desktop.

Re: Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

#34

Post by ThomPete »

dstein wrote: post #18
ThomPete wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because their platform is superior to everything else out there. Because mobile apps is not even close to providing proper user experience. People expect snappy as hell execution on the iOS, the actual flow of the app is often more important than the looks. And in my experience the web apps just aren't there yet. Apple make no money on the app store it more or less goes to operations. You can call it a tax or you can…

Valid points, but the subscription tax is on top of application delivery fees. That's going too far, and I think we're about to see a watershed event where nearly all publishers begin to flee the App Store. Watch it happen.

But here is the question.

Do people buy the iPad because of the magazines or the magazines because of the iPad?

In other words. Does it really make a difference if they leave? Is that really anything to worry about? Will that really mean the end of native apps?

Again apple is not depending on the subscription apps to make money. It's the other way around.

Re: Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

#35

Post by crag »

mattmanser wrote: post #23
dstein wrote: post #5

I think we are close to the tipping point where a majority of developers begin to favor webapps to iOS native apps. I've seen this coming a mile away. Apple almost lost a big portion of its development community 2 years ago with that whole 3rd party development platform issue. Apple relented, and they are now turning a different crank with the big subscription tax. They are playing a game of monopoly here. It's the s…

We're really nowhere near it at all. The basic economics is that the app market and the exposure from actually being in the app market is just far too massive for that to happen. I'm also amazed at how often the myth that one day we'll all be using really crappy Html5 apps continues. Html5 compared to native apps done by an average developer just plain sucks, no amount of 'HTML5 web apps == AWESOME!' pretending and w…

You right. But you can't think of the html5 app as a device app. That's comparing apples to oranges. It's a web page, designed specify for IOS (Safari/Webkit).

BUT for companies who don't have the resources (or don't want them) is a nice way to get into the ios market. Of course, if you serious you better roll out xcode.

But there are plenty of applications where the html5 wep app makes sense. Like a company hosting it on their intranet (we do.. marketing data mostly). FT (print media) is another. Actually, I bet FT they had an easier time writing the web app then they did their ios app (which sucked.. I had it). And I wonder why the NYT, WSJ (etc, etc) haven't dropped their ambitions and move to an html5 web app.

As a side note.. most of the print media company apps suck. I mean they are just terrible. I can think of only a few that are ok: USA Today, the Economist. I mean just look at the reviews of the NYT app. It's a joke. Want a bigger joke, go look at the Ars Technica app. My god.. a tech journal can't even get it right.

Re: Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

#36

Post by patrickaljord »

scrod wrote: post #22
patrickaljord wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It must be frustrating for the WebKit team when their engineering advancements are taken for granted and attributed to Chrome The chrome team makes more commits than the Apple webkit team. I know number of commits don't mean much but the chrome team is mostly reponsible for adding websocket, the file api, web workers and more. Also don't forget webkit itself is based on KDE's KHTML.

> but the chrome team is mostly reponsible for adding websocket, the file api, web workers... Oh, so these features are comparable in effort and scale to an entire web browser and HTML5-compliant rendering engine then? By your logic, Chrome is essentially KHTML + HTML5-fanboy-features. I guess that must mean Apple has been shipping a 2002-era build of Konquerer with each copy of Mac OS X then, huh? Because clearly We…

> Oh, so these features are comparable in effort and scale to an entire web browser and HTML5-compliant rendering engine then?

Strawman, I never said the Chrome team deserved all the credit, or that KHTML did for that matter. All I meant was that the WebKit team didn't deserve all the credit as it's clearly a shared effort between the three of them, not to mention Nokia and others. Also my initial comment was answering a post mentioning HTML5 features.

Re: Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

#37

Post by recoiledsnake »

Anechoic wrote: post #9
dstein wrote: post #5

I think we are close to the tipping point where a majority of developers begin to favor webapps to iOS native apps. I've seen this coming a mile away. Apple almost lost a big portion of its development community 2 years ago with that whole 3rd party development platform issue. Apple relented, and they are now turning a different crank with the big subscription tax. They are playing a game of monopoly here. It's the s…

> I think we are close to the tipping point where a majority of developers begin to favor webapps to iOS native apps Isn't this pretty much what Apple wanted in the first place?

No, that's what Apple says, to placate users demanding Flash support.

Re: Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

#38

Post by cooldeal »

scrod wrote: post #31
recoiledsnake wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Oh, so these features are comparable in effort and scale to an entire web browser Didn't Apple take the KHTML (Konqueror was a full fledged browser) code and then had to release their code because it was GPL. I remember reading about a complaint from the KHTML that Apple was releasing the code as a big blob and this was hindering KHTML integration.

> Didn't Apple take the KHTML (Konqueror was a full fledged browser) code... WebKit has vastly evolved from the original KHTML library, to the point of being almost an entirely different product. The KHTML team has been pulling changes from WebKit ( http://trac.webkit.org/browser ) for many years now.

Of course a product would evolve in 9 years, that doesn't mean that the credit for the full browser goes to Apple. If so, then why did they have to fork KHTML in the first place? Of course, KHTML benefited too, because of the LGPL/GPL licensing, but that doesn't change facts now.

Instructive link, Apple praising KHTML and reasoning why they used it http://lists.kde.org/?l=kfm-devel&m=104197092318639&...

So, saying that Google took Apple's full browser is not really true, Chrome mostly took Webcore, they have their own JS engine and their own UI chrome(!), and WebCore has a lot of roots in KHTML

Re: Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

#39

Post by sid0 »

ThomPete wrote: post #13
dstein wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah if anyone can point out why Apple will be able to continue it's dominance over mobile apps with a 30% tax I'd really like to hear why.

Because their platform is superior to everything else out there. Because mobile apps is not even close to providing proper user experience. People expect snappy as hell execution on the iOS, the actual flow of the app is often more important than the looks. And in my experience the web apps just aren't there yet. Apple make no money on the app store it more or less goes to operations. You can call it a tax or you can…

Because their platform is superior to everything else out there.

This seems like opinion presented as fact. I've used iOS and currently own an Android phone, and there's no doubt in my mind that the Android UX is miles ahead of the iOS UX. Of course, I include things like a browser with sync to desktop (Firefox) in my definition of UX, since things like that affect the experience I have while using the product quite a bit.

Re: Financial Times Won't Give Apple A Cut, Drops iOS for Web App

#40

Post by recoiledsnake »

dstein wrote: post #10
zzleeper wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Meta] Funny to see that your post has been grayed out, even though it's logical and makes a point. I would expect people who disagree to reply instead of downvoting. And yes, even though your topic is controversial, it passes the guidelines criteria.

Yeah if anyone can point out why Apple will be able to continue it's dominance over mobile apps with a 30% tax I'd really like to hear why.

Consumers don't know and don't care about it until it affects them. Apple has been picking on the small guys like Readability and Flow reader. https://www.iflowreader.com/Closing.aspx while silently approving updates to Kindle and Netflix.

Let them go after Netflix and Kindle with the shakedown (June 30th is the deadline).

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