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> I wish now that Jobs had gotten his way in the beginning, and all of the apps would be web apps The IPhone ecosystem would be nowhere near what it is today i
by aikah 11y ago
> I wish now that Jobs had gotten his way in the beginning, and all of the apps would be web apps
The IPhone ecosystem would be nowhere near what it is today if not for native apps. It would have been a serious mistake. People want native apps because the mobile web sucks for anything a bit more complex than displaying text or simple forms. And web APIs on mobile in general still suck. Caching sucks, The DOM is still slow and cannot deeply interact with phone features or hardware.
The mobile web has failed since native apps are still required. Every web tech base mobile OS have failed. Firefox OS for mobile has failed.
- neotek 11y agoI imagine that if all apps were web apps, then we'd have solved all of the issues you mention. Necessity is the mother of invention, etc.
- aikah 11y agoWe wouldn't have solved anything due to limitations of the web stack. There is no way to make it run fast on a $100 handset. The native stack on the other hand can run pretty fast on low hand devices.
- rokhayakebe 11y agoPeople want native apps because the mobile web sucks for anything a bit more complex than displaying text or simple forms. Which is exactly what most apps (not games) do.
- pcwalton 11y agoThis is a problem with browsers, not with the mobile Web technologies. Browsers are designed with a legacy, slow architecture. This can change without changing the Web APIs much, if at all. Native technology stacks aren't really that great either, and I think that native has some fundamental disadvantages when it comes to performance, especially around graphics.