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Web Technologies Need an Owner

joehewitt.com

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Re: Web Technologies Need an Owner

#81

Post by freemarketteddy »

mahyarm wrote: post #29
freemarketteddy wrote: post #15

Truth hurts doesnt it! I think Joe is spot on.The web is already miles behind native mobile platforms.Personally I can vouch for iOS.The kind of stuff you can do on iOS now just in terms of UI is just impossibly hard to do with HTML5 or any other web platform. But then if you think about it.Its not surprising at all.Of course you will have a much more power on a native platform than a web platform which is built on t…

WebGL is picking up steam. Supported in Webkit and Firefox, with IE being the laggard (as usual). Once you have WebGL you have the building blocks needed for any kind of UI you want.

Yes WebGL is the first step....like OpenGLES ...next step would be something like CoreAnimation and CoreGraphics....then something like UIKit....(then something like Three20 haha!)

Although I think its very hard for any company including Google or Facebook to make something the matches the design quality of these frameworks....The real problem is that no one company or person is going to take this responsibility...and hence even a good attempt will end up looking like a clusterfuck....and that is exactly what Joe is trying to say!...the Web needs its Apple!

Not to mention that by the time something like UIKit exists for the Web Apple would be miles ahead!

Re: Web Technologies Need an Owner

#82

Post by freemarketteddy »

tlianza wrote: post #76
freemarketteddy wrote: post #15

Truth hurts doesnt it! I think Joe is spot on.The web is already miles behind native mobile platforms.Personally I can vouch for iOS.The kind of stuff you can do on iOS now just in terms of UI is just impossibly hard to do with HTML5 or any other web platform. But then if you think about it.Its not surprising at all.Of course you will have a much more power on a native platform than a web platform which is built on t…

> In my opinion in the future you will have a browser and type in a url but a native app will open in the browser window.These native apps will be built for different platforms.The web app will be shown by default if a native app hasnt been developed for that platform. That's basically the present, where sites detect your platform and prompt you to install an app if they wrote one. Is it so great? Are we going to wri…

Yeah thts true...But how cool would it be if the objective C code was loaded dynamically and run on the browser(or something like the Web Browser for apps)....No need to load any apps..just use em when you need them....Just like the Web...On the Android similarly the Browser will send Java Code.

I have thought a lot about making something like this...With the power of the Objective C Runtime I think it should possible!

Re: Web Technologies Need an Owner

#83

Post by freemarketteddy »

freemarketteddy wrote: post #82
tlianza wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In my opinion in the future you will have a browser and type in a url but a native app will open in the browser window.These native apps will be built for different platforms.The web app will be shown by default if a native app hasnt been developed for that platform. That's basically the present, where sites detect your platform and prompt you to install an app if they wrote one. Is it so great? Are we going to wri…

Yeah thts true...But how cool would it be if the objective C code was loaded dynamically and run on the browser(or something like the Web Browser for apps)....No need to load any apps..just use em when you need them....Just like the Web...On the Android similarly the Browser will send Java Code. I have thought a lot about making something like this...With the power of the Objective C Runtime I think it should possibl…

But yeah I agree...Writing different code for all these platform kinna sucks!..But the results are better!

Re: Web Technologies Need an Owner

#84

Post by nikcub »

wavephorm wrote: post #41

I think he is underestimating the quantum leap that web technologies have made in the past 2 years. Between canvas, audio & audio data, video tag, css3, websockets, webworkers, webgl, touchscreen events, and new server tech like nodejs... there are now so many new API's to learn and work with that most web developers haven't even started to catch up yet. There's a lot of room here, the capabilities of the permutation…

the problem is that most of the new features are just 'catching up' with what native apps and flash have been able to do for years now.

and we are still a long way from having all those API's (most of which flash and desktop did 10 years ago) available on most web browser installs

Re: Web Technologies Need an Owner

#85

Post by freemarketteddy »

joehewitt wrote: post #49
dangoor wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's already a problem. In fact, it is the problem. The web application 'platform' is poor, incoherent, and its proponents highly resistant to the sweeping changes that would be necessary to compete with a native, proprietary platform like iOS." Which "sweeping changes" are those? Changes like the ability to draw pixel-by-pixel? Vectors? 3D? (Canvas/svg/webgl) Changes like higher level form controls? Got some in HTM…

Yeah, the checklist of web technologies is getting longer, but that's only part of the solution. They don't all work together very well. For example, Alex Russell has been opining recently about the way DOM interfaces are awkwardly adapted to JavaScript due to the committee's insistence on targetting IDL. That's why the W3C could never have invented jQuery. I've been trying to duplicate native scrolling in iOS recent…

come back to iOS man!!...lets make browsers that dynamically load objective C Code like HTML!

Re: Web Technologies Need an Owner

#86

Post by spektom »

freemarketteddy wrote: post #15

Truth hurts doesnt it! I think Joe is spot on.The web is already miles behind native mobile platforms.Personally I can vouch for iOS.The kind of stuff you can do on iOS now just in terms of UI is just impossibly hard to do with HTML5 or any other web platform. But then if you think about it.Its not surprising at all.Of course you will have a much more power on a native platform than a web platform which is built on t…

The future is already here - Java applets.

Re: Web Technologies Need an Owner

#87

Post by akie »

joehewitt wrote: post #32
philikon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because when Microsoft was the only browser vendor, the web evolved really quickly... OWAIT

I clearly stated you need more than just a single owner, you need a single owner that is competent and cares. We can't just snap our fingers and have that, but I'm hoping to at least help people to start thinking about it.

So you want to have a benevolent dictator, basically. If you look at actual dictators ('single owners') and the ratio between "benevolent" and "not-benevolent" you'd see that those are pretty rare. Singapore had one. Steve Jobs was one. But usually, I guess, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Re: Web Technologies Need an Owner

#88

Post by polshaw »

bad_user wrote: post #79
nupark2 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you'd say 'unquestionably,' short of a very loose definition of what makes an application. People spend 8 hours a day using desktop apps -- word, excel, outlook, GIS software, development tools, whatever. They read their email and twitter and consume content throughout the day on their mobile devices. At home they play video games, read books, comics, videos -- all using 'apps' on their TVs, mobile d…

I migrated from Thunderbird to GMail, and from Word/Excel to Google apps. The only desktop apps I'm still using, besides development tools and the actual browser, is a PDF reader + Skype + iTunes + the file manager + Gimp / Photoshop for editing my personal pictures (before uploading them to Flickr). On my Android phone I use native apps for online services, mostly because bandwidth is a problem and native apps have…

> It would actually be stupid implementing Photoshop in the browser.

Not that I completely disagree, but sumopaint.com is one of the most impressive web apps i've seen.

Re: Web Technologies Need an Owner

#89

Post by simonhamp »

Ultimately, I think there is some truth to what Joe is saying. We have already seen the web stagnate under the reign of IE6 - almost a decade of no real innovation.

As web developers, we are limited by what the browsers are capable of. That's not to say we don't desire more... hence why a good proportion of devs and designers are using the very latest technology even though it hasn't been fully ratified by it's standards bodies.

People _want_ to innovate on the web. With every single one of the other platforms, the web comes for free - they have a browser and a working HTTP stack.

I think the challenge is protecting users. The fact that web is such a widely-used platform means even small changes to the supporting technologies can have vast security repercussions.

It's not ownership that's the problem - it's fear. What we need is a browser vendor that's prepared to stick it's neck out, to be daring with the technologies.

Also fear of accountability... as soon as you become the leader in the browser wars you become accountable for a huge proportion of the world's web experience. This was why IE stagnated.

So as a browser vendor, who do you cater for? The billions who just use your software, or the few-million who want to innovate on it?

This is why taking ownership is not an option. I would argue that browser vendors would actually prefer to have an equal proportion of users. If Android and iOS had that sort of reach, they would face the same problem. The difference being that some platforms actually make more money out of a wider reach.

This changes the dynamic somewhat - of course the owners of those technologies want to innovate, it's a huge income stream. But if someone took charge of the web, who would get all of the money? Who would pay?

So there's little incentive for ownership and in fact the last few decades have proven that there doesn't need to be ownership of the web to make it work. All we need is someone to stick their neck out - just like Apple did with the iPhone.

Re: Web Technologies Need an Owner

#90

Post by polshaw »

mapgrep wrote: post #10

"Let's face facts: the Web will never be the dominant platform." Hewitt's post hinges on that statement, presented without supporting evidence. But actually the Web is already dominant among the platforms Hewitt mentions (Web, Windows, iOS, and Android). Relevant stats: Web - 1.7 billion users as of July, given that 880 million people go to the single busiest website publicly measured by Google, and this site has a "…

I find it interesting how you are so quick to separate windows XP from windows 7, but ignore browser differences. 99% of apps work on both windows versions and 95% identically, something that definitely can't be said for browsers.
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