- December 18, 2009
- Posted by: admin
- Categories: Agile Applications, Blog, Business Dynamics
The iPhone app rejections for content-related reasons may soon be a thing of the past, thanks to new Web-app technologies that let iPhone developers work around the official app store.
There’s been a bit of a debate and discussion in the iPhone developer community, led in part by developundit John Gruber, about “Web apps” versus “native apps” on the iPhone. Up until recently, in my mind, Web apps were hideously inferior to even the most pathetic native app, 
largely because of their inability to store data locally on the phone and function when AT&T’s notoriously-unstable network decides to take a holiday. Gruber has more esoteric, but important concerns about user interface.
But recently, developers have (re?) discovered some major ways around the App Store’s policies, thanks to Web technologies.
•A few weeks ago, some enterprising pornographers blew through the App Store’s prohibition on pr0n by launching the Sex App Shop, which uses HTML5-like technology to create native apps that reside on your device, but use Safari as a code interpreter. The same technology had been used previously for a magic-tricks app, but porn tends to catch people’s attention.
•Finally, and this is probably most important, Gruber is promoting an Apple API called PastryKit, which appears to give more and better UI control to Web app developers than we’ve seen before.
To some extent, this is why we gave a Technical Excellence Award to Palm’s WebOS – like Palm, Apple seems to be finally merging the worlds of “Web app” and “local app” in innovative and useful ways.
Obviously, native code is still better for a lot of things, such as games. But these somewhat-new Web technologies seem like a great alternative for folks frustrated by the App Store’s content-based rules. Are we going to see more iPhone developers going the Web route to create “virtual” native apps from here on out?
Reference: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2357276,00.asp
8 Comments
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I don’t see an easy path to develop for multiple platforms here, PastryKit is too different from anything else out there. I think xmlvm is the way to go.
Links:
http://xmlvm.org/overview/
This also begs the question as to whether apps are really necessary. A browser application is sufficient for many of these purposes. With flash or silverlight, at what point is an install actually necessary?
Apps are needed to access sensors, bluetooth or to interact with native apps. Many applications don’t have those needs. If it’s just content, why not web applications?
Also if content is the issue, even an app can still pull content down over the web. The content doesn’t have to be part of the initial offering.
What then is the real issue?
We then have the real need to vet apps, to be sure they are what they claim to be and there is some formalism for reaching the developer if they are not. The opportunity to cause harm through spyware or other types of exploits could be greater and not less on a cell phone.
You are Correct! HTML5 and JavaFX are going to be the way to deliver in 2010!
Links:
http://www.mindtaffy.com
http://www.Mountain-Forest.com
http://www.WallaceJackson.com
The fact is, mobile networks just can’t handle Web Apps. At least AT&T can’t. Ever try and use a web app on your iPhone? It’s just a horrible, slow experience.
Also, Safari on iPhone can’t handle animation and graphics like a native app can. We are a *LONG* way of from mobile web apps going mainstream–we’re still in the infancy of it on desktops.
Also, the mobile consumer is trained to find content on the AppStore. Discovery is going to be a problem when you’re trying to train the user to fumble around on the web, find your page, then bookmark the app to an icon and run it later.
BTW–the coolest web app I’ve seen so far is that Pie Guy game on the iPhone. Only works on the 3Gs though. A full blown pac man clone running locally on our device as a web app. But it still has issues.
Links:
http://theappleblog.com/2009/11/26/pie-guy-web-apps-as-viable-alternatives/
Yes, you now can build web apps for iPhone using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Look this Free book “Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript”:
http://freecomputerbooks.com/Building-iPhone-Apps-with-HTML-CSS-and-JavaScript.html
More on iPhone books (all Free):
http://freecomputerbooks.com/specialMobileDeviceBooks.html
Links:
http://freecomputerbooks.com/Building-iPhone-Apps-with-HTML-CSS-and-JavaScr…
http://freecomputerbooks.com/specialMobileDeviceBooks.html
http://freecomputerbooks.com/
From what I’m reading here why even develop for the iPhone? If the AT&T 3G experience is so horrible and the so-called coolest app is a game, what’s the point? IMHO I’ll stick with my Blackberry Storm. The iPhone is a toy.
iPhone a toy? – wake up 🙂
Not to burst your bubble but…
The reason why native apps work on the iPhone so much better is because it goes back to 1990’s client server technology. You can build a really rich native app that judiciously sends back to a server for the bare minimum amount of data to work well. You can control how much data is actually sent on the 3G network to a very small amount. Webapps still need to send ALL of their data including HTML, Javascript, images etc to the phone on every page rendering. Not sure how much Safari caches but you get the point.
But each app should be looked at individually based on need. There is not one size fits all for webapp vs native app. Personally for a great user experience like multi-touch on the iPhone then the native app is the ONLY way to go.
Just my two cents…