I've always seen mobile web apps winning over native mobile apps in the long term. Jacob Nielsen described as much last week as well but was careful not to put a timeline on it.[1]
Hopefully this project helps make it happen sooner than later.
Open Web Device
41–50 of 97 posts
Re: Open Web Device
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
And how well they deal with security. I look forward to the day when a malware-distributing webpage can pwn millions of phones without being detected... EDIT: uh, downvotes?
MY first reaction was about security as well. This change of paradigm is a recipe for disaster if security is not considered from the beginning because most of the assumptions change. If it's not done carefully (things like segregation between apps, access control to privileged JavaScript, etc)... it is going to pretty painful.
Firefox already has all that. A good part of the browser is written in JS which runs with high privileges (full filesystem access, full network access, etc) while the code on websites doesn't. It already has systems for unprivileged JS to request access to certain privileged APIs (location, localStorage, etc). "Apps" - websites - are already segregated and run in their own sandbox.
Re: Open Web Device
#43Wow, what a thing to wake up to! At the heart of the Open Web Device is Mozilla's Boot2Gecko project. I just joined up with Mozilla on B2G a couple weeks ago and it's been an honor to work alongside so many amazing people, with a great goal: building a truly open mobile ecosystem. If you guys have any questions about B2G itself, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer.
Isn't this similar to Apples initial idea with the first iPhone? Everything would be a "Web App"
Re: Open Web Device
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
MY first reaction was about security as well. This change of paradigm is a recipe for disaster if security is not considered from the beginning because most of the assumptions change. If it's not done carefully (things like segregation between apps, access control to privileged JavaScript, etc)... it is going to pretty painful.
Firefox already has all that. A good part of the browser is written in JS which runs with high privileges (full filesystem access, full network access, etc) while the code on websites doesn't. It already has systems for unprivileged JS to request access to certain privileged APIs (location, localStorage, etc). "Apps" - websites - are already segregated and run in their own sandbox.
I know, and we have constantly lived along the edge of the cliff because of that. From a perspective of security it was a very poor design decision. By making those decisions you create a big security burden, the attack surface is very large, the impact of bugs is very large. These are the types of security consideration that have to happen at design time. In this case I would like to know more about, maybe it's being considered but not being discussed.
Re: Open Web Device
#45Until I use this, I'm going to hold off on the excitement everyone seems to have for it.
The tagline is "The Device the developer community is waiting for." That's great for the developer community. Unfortunately, the developer community is a small minority of people and honestly, people don't really care if their device is easy to develop for. People care how good their device is. If a device is easy to develop for, but it's slow, or clunky or crashes all the time or doesn't have features that people expect out of a mobile device, what's the point?
Re: Open Web Device
#46Wow, what a thing to wake up to! At the heart of the Open Web Device is Mozilla's Boot2Gecko project. I just joined up with Mozilla on B2G a couple weeks ago and it's been an honor to work alongside so many amazing people, with a great goal: building a truly open mobile ecosystem. If you guys have any questions about B2G itself, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer.
Isn't this similar to Apples initial idea with the first iPhone? Everything would be a "Web App"
Sort of. The key difference is that B2G is aiming to allow web apps to do absolutely anything a native app can do, whereas on the iPhone it was just intended to augment the native experience. That's how I see it, at least.
Re: Open Web Device
#47Until I use this, I'm going to hold off on the excitement everyone seems to have for it. The tagline is "The Device the developer community is waiting for." That's great for the developer community. Unfortunately, the developer community is a small minority of people and honestly, people don't really care if their device is easy to develop for. People care how good their device is. If a device is easy to develop for,…
Personally, I have not been waiting for another Html driven platform. I don't like Html/Css as a UI framework, I just think it's highly overrated.
Things I like better: Qt/Qml, Wpf because they are much more precise (meaning, I don't have to use an opaque type like "DIV" as a placeholder for a list-view or something else that I really wanted).
Re: Open Web Device
#48While I think the idea is interesting, I will say what I always say in these situations: Talk is cheap. I wish people would announce projects when there is actually something to look at rather than just having a vague list of goals. It's like the "I have a great idea for an app and just need somebody to do the software development". I always like to think of products consisting of 15% Idea and 85% implementation.
Here's footage of the device in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAaH5vikEOM
Re: Open Web Device
#49Until I use this, I'm going to hold off on the excitement everyone seems to have for it. The tagline is "The Device the developer community is waiting for." That's great for the developer community. Unfortunately, the developer community is a small minority of people and honestly, people don't really care if their device is easy to develop for. People care how good their device is. If a device is easy to develop for,…
Personally, I have not been waiting for another Html driven platform. I don't like Html/Css as a UI framework, I just think it's highly overrated. Things I like better: Qt/Qml, Wpf because they are much more precise (meaning, I don't have to use an opaque type like "DIV" as a placeholder for a list-view or something else that I really wanted).
I don't necessarily think HTML and CSS make for good languages to design UIs with, but it beats the hell out of learning a new language, stack, and tools. I can use mostly the same tools and workflow to create apps as I would for making sites. That's one reason I can't wait for Windows 8. The promise of HTML5 apps, even if they're using IE as the runtime, is friggin sweet.
Re: Open Web Device
#50Wow, what a thing to wake up to! At the heart of the Open Web Device is Mozilla's Boot2Gecko project. I just joined up with Mozilla on B2G a couple weeks ago and it's been an honor to work alongside so many amazing people, with a great goal: building a truly open mobile ecosystem. If you guys have any questions about B2G itself, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer.
web standards is greate but what if I want to port my multiplayer game that uses bluetooth for the communication between devices. How will B2G handle bluetooth and can my B2G app use it?