madison

The Apple Core

Jason D. O'Grady & David Morgenstern
Home / News & Blogs / The Apple Core

Developers defecting from App Store to HTML5

By | December 16, 2009, 9:27am PST

Summary: There’s a movement afoot by developers to HTML5-based Web apps, instead of iPhone native apps. Look ma! No review process!

Developers dissatisfied with waiting three weeks (or longer) to have their apps and updates available on the App Store are turning their attention to the Web and flocking to HTML5.

For the uninitiated, HTML5 is the new standard from the W3C that allows supporting browsers like Mobile Safari (after iPhone update 2.1) and Safari 4 on the desktop to display inline audio and video (like that this) without having to use a plug-in like Flash. Firefox has promised support HTML5 in future releases.

HTML5 also features an offline application cache that allows you to archive or star a message in Gmail - even when there’s no Internet connection. Google’s Alex Nicolaou explained some of the nuances of how HTML5 and WebKit pave the way for mobile web applications:

Having the ability to store your data and actions offline isn’t much good if you can’t start the application while offline. So besides making use of the database API, we needed a way to get the application itself loaded without an internet connection. The HTML5 specification comes to the rescue here, with an application cache that is capable of storing all resources in your web app so that the browser can load them while offline.

Robert Scoble interviewed Carl Sjogreen from Nextstop, a Web site for sharing cool things to do near you. In it they discuss why Nextstop rolled out its service as an HTML5 Web app, instead of an iPhone native-app.

Some reasons Nextstop likes HTML5:

  1. Rapid iteration. If they code a new feature tonight, you get it tonight. No waiting three weeks for you to get their latest.
  2. It prepares their systems for building a native app. Why? Because apps can include a Safari browser instance inside, so all of this work is reusable, even if they do a native app.
  3. It’s easier to build and debug because you don’t need to do a lot of specialized coding to make the native app work properly.
  4. It fits into the greater web easier for users. In an iPhone app it can be jarring to take users out to a web browser, but if they already are in the browser they are used to going to other pages and back again using Safari’s navigation.

Another benefit to HTML5 that Sjogreen is politely omitting is that his app will also run on millions of other smartphones out there, like the Droid and the Pre - instead of just on the iPhone.

What’s your take on Web apps versus native iPhone apps?

Tip: Scobelizer

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily e-mail newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

More from “The Apple Core”

Topics

Apple iPhone, Developer, Apple Safari, Web Application, Web Browser, HTML5, Web Browsers, Smart Phones, Internet, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Jason D. O'Grady

Jason O'Grady is a journalist and author specializing in mobile technology. He has published six books on Apple and mobile gadgets and his PowerPage blog has been publishing for over 15 years.

Disclosure

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady is the creator and editor of O'Grady's PowerPage, which has been publishing mobile technology news since 1995. He maintains an advertising relationship with the following legacy advertisers on the PowerPage:

  • Amazon Associates
  • Google Adsense
  • Tekserve

    • Advertising on the PowerPage is brokered by a third-party agency (BackBeat Media) and he recuses himself from these negotiations.

Biography

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady developed an affinity for Apple computers after using the original Lisa, and this affinity turned into a bona-fide obsession when he got the original 128 KB Macintosh in 1984.

He started writing one of the first Web sites about Apple (O'Grady's PowerPage) in 1995 and is considered to be one of the fathers of blogging. He has been a frequent speaker at the Macworld Expo conference and a member of the conference faculty. He also co-founded the first dedicated PowerBook User Group (PPUG) in the United States.

After winning a major legal battle with Apple in 2006, he set the precedent that independent journalists are entitled to the same protections under the First Amendment as members of the mainstream media.

O'Grady is the author of The Nexus One Pocket Guide, The Droid Pocket Guide, The Google Phone Pocket Guide, and The Garmin nuvi Pocket Guide (Peachpit Press), the author of Corporations That Changed the World: Apple Inc. (Greenwood Press), and a contributor to The Mac Bible (Peachpit Press). In addition, he has contributed to numerous Mac publications over the years, including MacWEEK, Macworld, and MacPower (Japan).

When he's not writing about Apple for ZDNet at The Apple Core, he enjoys spending time with his family in New Jersey.

Talkback Most Recent of 47 Talkback(s)

  • Web apps all the way!
    That's what open standards are for.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    CapitalismAteItself
    16th Dec 2009
  • HTML5 not a standard quite yet. Give it a couple years...
    Implementors should be aware that this specification is not stable. Implementors who are not taking part in the discussions are likely to find the specification changing out from under them in incompatible ways. Vendors interested in implementing this specification before it eventually reaches the Candidate Recommendation stage should join the aforementioned mailing lists and take part in the discussions. The publication of this document by the W3C as a W3C Working Draft does not imply that all of the participants in the W3C HTML working group endorse the contents of the specification. Indeed, for any section of the specification, one can usually find many members of the working group or of the W3C as a whole who object strongly to the current text, the existence of the section at all, or the idea that the working group should even spend time discussing the concept of that section.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Johnny Vegas
    16th Dec 2009
  • More like a decade...
    HTML5 is a huge, gargantuan, monolithic spec. It will take more than a "couple years" to get two compatible implementations of each part of the spec, and a full test suite.

    They would be much better off splitting it into smaller segments that can go through the recommendation process at their own pace. Some parts would be pretty close today while others need a lot of work.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    PB_z
    16th Dec 2009
  • Yeah, it's not an instant thing.
    On the other hand, there is no absolutely
    requirement for a full, 100% compliant HTML5
    browser in order to deliver applications based
    on HTML5. Case in point: Palm's WebOS, already
    doing just this, based on Javascript and their
    take on enough HTML 5 features to make apps
    possible.

    There are a couple of critical bits here. One
    is local storage, which is a rather trivial
    part of HTML5 to implement. The other is the
    applications cache.. the way you can store the
    app locally, rather than require net access for
    every program. There are management issues not
    even addressed in HTML5 itself, but this is
    also a very basic function very easily
    implemented.

    And of course, something Apple could not
    implement or remove, if they really want to
    thwart the use of web apps on the iPhone. Given
    all the web compromises they've made already,
    in the interest of building a hard dependency
    on the iTunes store, these will be relatively
    minor things.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    dave@...
    17th Dec 2009
  • Looks like Apple was right...
    sort of. When the first iPhone came out they wanted app's to be web based (NOT HTML5), and it now appears the developers have come full circle happy
    ZDNet Gravatar
    mrlinux
    16th Dec 2009
  • Pluses and Minuses
    It certainly was the best thing going at the time. All the Cocoa folks in
    the audience groaned because they were itching to leverage their
    advantage in having worked with the frameworks. But, I buy the
    speculation that in the late months of 2006, Apple changed its mind
    about how to get applications onto the iPhone.

    On the app store side, you have a market where buyers are looking for
    sellers. You still have to find a way to get mindshare outside of the
    store. Still, as barely organized and swamped by numbers it is, there
    are for greater numbers of web applications out there on the world
    wide web and Google or Bing are the imperfect channels for people to
    discover what is available to meet their needs.

    Native interfaces can be more responsive so they have that going for
    them. Web apps using HTML5 are mobile and pc friendly. Except you-
    know-who is notably adamant about being the one person with the
    browser that kinda does web standards, has a different request
    object, uses a different DOM, and is explicitly sitting on their hands
    about HTML5. Sadly, as a web developer, you have to do extra work
    (read spend extra money) to not cut off the 60% of the customers who
    use that browser (assuming your web application appeals to a
    demographic that is a perfect slice of the world.)
    ZDNet Gravatar
    DannyO_0x98
    16th Dec 2009
  • RE: Developers defecting from App Store to HTML5
    I hate web apps and have never seen one that provided a superior
    experience to a native app. Not a single one. But because Apple
    demands control of every thing we load on our iPhones developers
    are going to do an end run an we'll have more crappy web apps
    instead of great native apps. Thanks again apple. The google
    phone is looking better daily.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    rshol
    16th Dec 2009
  • then buy one
    and stop whining. If enough people agree with you, Apple will change
    their practice.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    frgough
    16th Dec 2009
  • Re: Quality over quantity
    The whole noise about the app store process is really media driven. And ZDNet
    is unfortunately fully backing up this trend.

    Fueled by the media and some high-profile developer comments, the whole
    thing has been blown far, far out of proportion.

    In all honesty, and I am talking out of experience (I am a published,
    professional iPhone developer), the review process is neither that monstrous
    nor that slow.

    And despite that the whole of the modern computer journalism is dead-set on
    trying to convince the public that web apps offer the same experience as
    desktop apps, the fact is that they do not.

    And you know what? Consumers know that, as well. Try to convince the
    millions of satisfied iPhone users to replace their beautiful native user
    experience with clunky, slow, not-quite-there web apps.

    The web is a great platform. The web is here to stay. But the web is just a piece
    of the puzzle of modern IT and not the end-all, be-all of it.

    Please, ZDNet try to be more objective and less sensationalist.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    cookeecut
    17th Dec 2009
  • More ZDNet nonsense
    The headline says "Developers [plural] defecting from app store...."

    First, they only cite one developer. Second, that developer was never on
    the App Store in the first place, so how could they defect?

    Apple offers both html and app store as a way to create web apps. Why is
    it a big deal that one developer chose one of the approved methods over
    the other (especially since html was the FIRST method offered by Apple
    and the preferred one for many years)?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    jragosta
    16th Dec 2009
  • Apples prejudice against flash so unfair
    They are killing flash wherever they can, I think. If microsoft
    behaved the way they are, people would be up in arms. And
    this obvious development makes a joke out of the
    justification that flash needs to be stopped because it is a
    way around the app store. It just means that the apps using
    HTML won't have quite the slickness and usability that could
    be acheived with flash - users lose.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    paul@...
    16th Dec 2009
  • I agree. They really should be opening up Flash, not forsakening it.
    And, yeah, if MS acted that way then people would be up in arms.

    Is Flash truly an insecure platform?! With ActionScript? Not that I currently know of...
    ZDNet Gravatar
    HypnoToad72
    16th Dec 2009
  • Flash has a horrible history of security vulnerabilities, not to mention
    lock ups, crashes, cpu hogging. If apple had allowed flash or java we'd have already huge pwnd botnets and millions of users locked out of their phones or off the net. Yeah the app store sucks but at least it's better than that...
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Johnny Vegas
    16th Dec 2009
  • But..... Flash sucks
    HTML 5 will do more things than flash and it will do them without some
    hokey plugin. I hate flash, I hate flash applications, I hate the fact that
    adobe has not thrown it into the open yet. HTML 5 rocks!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    aplman
    9th Jan 2010
  • There are millions of non-iPhone smartphone
    browsers that can handle HTML5? Really?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    frgough
    16th Dec 2009
View More Comments

Talkback - Tell Us What You Think

Formatting +
BB Codes - Note: HTML is not supported in forums
  • [b] Bold [/b]
  • [i] Italic [/i]
  • [u] Underline [/u]
  • [s] Strikethrough [/s]
  • [q] "Quote" [/q]
  • [ol][*] 1. Ordered List [/ol]
  • [ul][*] · Unordered List [/ul]
  • [pre] Preformat [/pre]
  • [quote] "Blockquote" [/quote]
Click Here

The best of ZDNet, delivered

ZDNet Newsletters

Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox

Facebook Activity

Blog Roll

Blog Archive

White Papers, Webcasts, & Resources