An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Mozilla • Hacker News Board

Re: An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Mozilla

#41

Post by tjoff » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 5:28 PM UTC

ma2rten wrote: post #40

tjoff wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that the general consensus was that you never wanted multiplatform anyway. Not because it can't be done but an app that looks and acts the same on both iOS and android (for instance) will suck horrible on at least one platform (but probably both). Apps which will update automatically? That's just as possible with native apps but you have the option to turn that off - because it's a bad idea for a lot of app…

Designing a good GUI is hard indeed and it requires a completely different skill set than the engineering task of writing a good OS/kernel/broswer. That is why ideally the two should be taken on by different teams in my opinion.

So the plan is to force the UI-team to work in javascript and that way automatically get rid of the kernel-guys?

No, but seriously, who does that today? (aside from one-man operations) And how is this going to help?

As to a third party GUI, I'm fond of the idea in for instance the android world. Instead of manufacturer-specific user interfaces, why not a third party interface developed by an independent company that doesn't produce phones. As it is now manufacturers care more about being unique than good and google doesn't put enough effort in it because everyone will change it eiterway.

But there are serious obstacles to succeeding with that and I don't see why that has anything to do with the development-side of it.

Re: An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Mozilla

#42

Post by israelpasos » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 5:29 PM UTC

This definitely blurs the line between calling an app native or web based, at least from a business-marketing standpoint. However, far more interesting is to see the waves of innovation that APIs have created. APIs are becoming the personality of computer systems in the sense that they allow interaction and shielding from the outside world. As long as developers know how to interact with a system's personality they can now build just about anything. Furthermore, experience is becoming the new IP so I believe that such technologies will bring more and more experience innovation by providing easier and faster paths for high-level programmers to contribute to the ecosystem.

Re: An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Mozilla

#43

Post by Trezoid » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 5:30 PM UTC

jpravetz wrote: post #22

stasm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 'the Web', i.e. a set of HTML pages with some CSS and JS, with access to a few newly developed APIs, like the one for dialing the phone, but running locally on the device, not remotely.

Does anyone know how the sandboxing works to allow a camera, gallery and dropbox app to access the same locally stored image files? Or for local contacts to be shared?

A media API is being developed (in co-operation with the W3C) to allow exactly that.

Further, apps will be able to request "trusted app" status to run with less cross domain restrictions.

Re: An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Mozilla

#44

Post by johnrob » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 5:36 PM UTC

cageface wrote: post #27

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HTML5, or perhaps better termed "emerging web technologies" are an incredibly heavy stack. You have 3 different means of markup being parsed from the get-go: HTML/SGML, XML and JSON. HTML is a quite lightweight component, OK. But then you get CSS. CSS used to be simple, but it's getting incredibly complex with tons of new standardised features and vendor prefixes. Initially it just drew lines and boxes in colour with…

Any serious candidate for an operating system is going to be complex. Personally I'm a little dismayed at current efforts to turn the browser into yet another cross-platform utopia. Some things will always be better native and pushing all this junk into the web browser just gets in the way of making basic things like a sane layout model that much more difficult.

Then just stick with the DOM and XHR APIs. Those alone have been consistently crushing most desktop applications since ~2003.

Re: An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Mozilla

#45

Post by Trezoid » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 5:37 PM UTC

veeti wrote: post #18

The user interface doesn't look very smooth. It doesn't matter how good the UI looks (and it does look good) if it doesn't feel right.

It's improved significantly since that video.

Re: An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Mozilla

#46

Post by Trezoid » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 5:40 PM UTC

tjoff wrote: post #34

sp332 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't perform better. But at the low end, you don't need to bootstrap a java VM (like Android) just to check your email and browse the web etc. You can do the little things on less hardware.

No, but you have to bring along a whole browser just to interpret code that checks the mail... Anyway you spin it the low end that can't manage android will never in a million years be able to run an "OS" in javascript. There is a reason they demo it on a SGSII ;)

They had another device running it which really was much worse then the SGSII, but with a much smaller screen it doesn't make for great video.

Re: An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Mozilla

#47

Post by Zirro » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 5:41 PM UTC

awolf wrote: post #38

There are a lot of "looks promising" comments here. Am I the only one who thinks this does NOT look promising? Aside from games, rendering a markup language is one the most taxing things we do on our mobile devices. When I get handed a new phone to play with, the first thing I do is load a non-mobile optimized website and see how it scrolls. This worst-case scenario is a good indicator for how laggy and jittery a mob…

If B2G wasn't performing well at this stage, I doubt they would push forward with it as hard as they are. The transitions and scrolling between "home-screens" shown in the video look quite smooth to me.

Re: An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Mozilla

#48

Post by johnrob » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 5:41 PM UTC

I love the mentality behind this effort. More stuff can and should be done in the browser on mobile devices. For this to succeed, the most important problem is not exposing mobile hardware (camera, gps, etc) - it's user input. The cornerstone of the web is typing a url into the address bar, and typing is still a miserable experience on phones. Clicking links on touchscreens isn't exactly stellar either (hence the new verb 'fat-fingering'). If someone can solve these problems, the browser stack is already powerful enough to do to phones what it already did to the desktop.

Re: An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Mozilla

#49

Post by rooshdi » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 5:41 PM UTC

awolf wrote: post #38

There are a lot of "looks promising" comments here. Am I the only one who thinks this does NOT look promising? Aside from games, rendering a markup language is one the most taxing things we do on our mobile devices. When I get handed a new phone to play with, the first thing I do is load a non-mobile optimized website and see how it scrolls. This worst-case scenario is a good indicator for how laggy and jittery a mob…

I am skeptical that this will ever deliver a sufficient user experience when compared side by side to other mobile OSes.

Wasn't the same sort of thing said about the desktop vs the web? Sufficient is the key word here. If the experience is good enough, where users are willing to overlook design quality for the sake of not having to worry about constantly installing and updating apps, then this should do the job. Convenience is king.

Re: An entire Mobile OS built using HTML, CSS and JS - by Mozilla

#50

Post by Random_Person » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 5:48 PM UTC

Is everything cached to the device? What are my limitations in "airplane mode"?

I don't mind the concept of making cross-platform apps. My limited knowledge of HTML/CSS has shown me that while it is extemely difficult to make robust content look good across multiple browsers/platforms, it IS possible... but will developers really have the access to multiple platforms to test their UI on?