Comments on: Web-based Apps vs. Apps Built on Web Standards

By: Brett Q.

Brett Q. — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 06:31:48 +0000

Well ya know…one good thing about the good ol’ Windows Mobile platform, as broken as many people think it is, is the fact that there are great developers out there like Torch Mobile. They are bringing the latest Webkit browser to Windows Mobile that has one of the highest Acid scores of any other mobile browser. Their latest release has the foundation to support HTML5. So, I think Windows Mobile will cope if this is the direction that developers choose to go.

http://www.torchmobile.com/blog/

By: Doug Petrosky

Doug Petrosky — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 02:39:50 +0000

I fully understand the distinction you are making but safari was supporting HTML 5 when iPhone 1.0 shipped (mobile safari did not yet). Developers knew that local data/database access would become available and yet they didn’t call to Apple to get HTML 5 support in mobile safari they asked for a full development platform. WHY? Well for one thing compiled code is much faster than interpreted code!!! For another, even though you can do TONS of things with current web standards you can still do TONS more with lower level API’s.

I’ll put it this way… You will not see Doom on the Pre any time soon.

Now on the other side you do finally have write once and run on multiple devices as long as you don’t use any OS specific hooks which everyone will need to do to write really cool applications. Even something as simple as location services will be device dependent. So, it is interesting but IMHO it will not generate the buzz of the current iPhone App store. And if I’m wrong, the good news is that all of these applications should be available for the iPhone too. Ether way, it seems like the Pre has a tough fight ahead of it.

By: Joseph O'Laughlin

Joseph O'Laughlin — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:57:18 +0000

I’d want a side-slider form factor to get bigger keys and reasonable two-thumb ergonomics. The landscape screen in that mode allows a bigger font.
My ppc 6700 has an on-screen phone pad in candy-bar orientation. Why can’t this desirable configuration be replicated?

By: Dylan

Dylan — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:24:54 +0000

Any word if the application would be able to update itself through App Cache? I would presume so. If the update process could be made interaction free, transparent to the user, it would be another advantage compared to regular apps and put it on par with web-based apps.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:14:05 +0000

“What’s the bennifit of a webos app? If there is no difference to the end user what’s the point other than allowing any Kid who can make a web page to make a palm app?”

There isn’t really a benefit, other than the sheer number of people who know how to write web pages and are already familiar with those standards, languages and environments.

It really wouldn’t take much on Apple’s part to allow developers to being writing similar web-standards based applications for the iPhone. The underlying technology is already present in OS X.

By: Cirrob

Cirrob — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:45:51 +0000

What’s the bennifit of a webos app? If there is no difference to the end user what’s the point other than allowing any Kid who can make a web page to make a palm app?

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:56:24 +0000

“Are developers now going to have a change of heart because Palm has climbed on board the web-standard apps bandwagon?”

This is not the same thing. Web based apps are not the same thing as web-standards based apps.

Apple wanted developers to create web-based apps that would run off a web server somewhere on the Internet, which means the user had to be connected in order to access and use those applications and the developer had to have a server hosting the pages. The Palm Pre will run local web-standards based applications, in much the same way Dashboard currently runs widgets in OS X. Dashboard is basically just a layer for running local web-standards based applets (with a few non-standard hooks).

By: Dave S

Dave S — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:47:06 +0000

I think WebOS on the Pre will be successful if the make enough of the underpinnings of the phone available for developers. When I think of apps I run most on my WM device most could be available through html and java script. The things that would keep me from switching would be the availability of offline gps apps(like TomTom and Topo!)and offline divx video players.

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:46:49 +0000

Steve, the notion of “web apps” was rejected, not “apps based on web standards”. That’s the core difference that I tried to outline above.

Those rejected “apps” weren’t apps at all. They were links to server-side web pages & apps that required connectivity. Perhaps I’m not explaining the difference well.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:44:54 +0000

For these same reasons, I also believe modern open engines based off new standards will begin to over take proprietary run-times such as Java, AIR, SilverLight and Flash.

You also don’t need a web server to run the web-apps if all you are using is standard browser technologies such HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which are all implemented client-side. The web server is [was] used to serve pages, store data and do pre-processing, none of which is needed when viewing (running) local pages (applications).

By: Steve W, Indialantic FL

Steve W, Indialantic FL — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:41:40 +0000

I thought that the developer community rejected the notion of web-standard apps. Didn’t Apple propose that web-standards be the basis for iPhone apps when they announced the iPhone at MacWorld 2007? Didn’t developers reject web-standard apps in favor of Cocoa apps?

Are developers now going to have a change of heart because Palm has climbed on board the web-standard apps bandwagon?