On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 8:10 PM, Grant Holland <grant.holland...@gmail.com>wrote:
> Owen, > > How do you square your pro-HTML5 position with Facebook's backtracking om > HTML5 - and returning to the world of actual applications? > Evolution. Smartphones initially used apps, there really was no other alternative. I'm talking pre-iPhone .. Treo, RIM, Nokia etc. But when html5 etc caught up, there was conflict, mainly because the handset mfgrs didn't want to provide access to the latest stunt they had (better camera, gps and so on). But the browser has always had an advantage: its everywhere .. even on TVs nowadays. So hip app providers started back to the future: providing web-first, with apps secondarily. A cute example of the merge occurred with Kindle on iOS. Apple insisted on a cut of transactions made in-app. Amazon bristled at that, naturally, so they provided a web-app kindle: works on all devices (even TV) and is easy to maintain. They do still provide apps but the fallback is always there, and the UI experience is often better than the apps. And you don't have to have yet another login: in-app and on-web. Also, remember, I'm sensitive to the unholy trinity: OS provider, handset mfgr, and carrier .. who's in charge? With a back-to-the-web phone, I feel that I've got a lot more control than with my draconian iPhone and my dysfunctional and chaotic Android. Its the same experience everywhere, and as a developer, I'm back to not having to get in the middle of the Apple, Google, Amazon, RIM, Nokia, ... wars. Just the web, standards all the way down. In terms of FB, they will find a way to do what they want whatever the environment. I'm not very facebook-y, so that may not be your question, but from 50K feet, I'd prefer to not to create an artificial divide -- apps vs webapps, especially when the web will always win out. -- Owen
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