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We already have a native and universal computing platform, the web, and yet we're stuck in 2007 writing code for Apple and Google! Is there any real movement o

We already have a native and universal computing platform, the web, and yet we're stuck in 2007 writing code for Apple and Google! Is there any real movement on iPhone or Android moving to replace native apps with offline web apps? Any competitor on the horizon? Apple and Google are being very Microsoftesque in dragging their feet towards the inevitable.

alexashka 9y ago
There's a thing called battery life and frames-per-second. iPhone was initially supposed to be web-apps, then reality set in. You're under the assumption that 'big bad men are keeping us down', whereas in reality, if you don't want your phone to run out of battery, handling website animations and transitions, the best you can hope for is hybrid, as Basecamp has done.
- staunch 9y ago
  Yes, that was a reasonable and accurate explanation in 2007 or 2009. It's decade later. I'm using Safari for hours at a time in web apps with video and JavaScript. Performance is excellent. Battery life is sufficient. Now let me run these same web apps offline with embedded web servers or cached data!
  - mixedCase 9y ago
    Which phone and how long does the battery last? I find it us developers tend to readily dismiss low-end, even "middle of the road" hardware when we ourselves use high-end hardware.
    - staunch 9y ago
      Fair point, I am using a modern phone, but I think most phones created in the last ~3 years are at this point now.
simonh 9y ago
Except that the web was never designed to be a universal computing platform. It's a hypertext document navigation system with a hacky, horrible, opaque and insecure scripting language bolted on to the side. An actual distributed cross platform application development and distribution system wouldn't look anything like the web we have today. At least I seriously hope it wouldn't.
- staunch 9y ago
  There aren't many grand designs in computing systems in general. Most evolve from humble beginnings. The web has been evolving since the 90s, and it can keep going.
  - simonh 9y ago
    Yes, absolutely, but it's still nowhere near being the one true answer to all the world's software development and deployment woes. This article on who they developed the Basecamp app is excellent. I'm toying with a similar approach in a little interactive adventure app I'm writing in Pythonista. Except of course that Pythonista isn't really native at all, but still I'm using a webview to display location descriptions and various choices as links, but native controls for things like inventory management and displaying various stats.
    - oblio 9y ago
      > Yes, absolutely, but it's still nowhere near being the one true answer to all the world's software development and deployment woes. One could argue that besides its original flaws, the web platform has been hobbled and maybe downright sabotaged by the platform owners (Microsoft, Apple, to an extent even Google). Javascript could have been cleaned up 10 years ago, same for many other web concepts still in use.

alexashka 9y ago

There's a thing called battery life and frames-per-second. iPhone was initially supposed to be web-apps, then reality set in. You're under the assumption that 'big bad men are keeping us down', whereas in reality, if you don't want your phone to run out of battery, handling website animations and transitions, the best you can hope for is hybrid, as Basecamp has done.

staunch 9y ago
Yes, that was a reasonable and accurate explanation in 2007 or 2009. It's decade later. I'm using Safari for hours at a time in web apps with video and JavaScript. Performance is excellent. Battery life is sufficient. Now let me run these same web apps offline with embedded web servers or cached data!
- mixedCase 9y ago
  Which phone and how long does the battery last? I find it us developers tend to readily dismiss low-end, even "middle of the road" hardware when we ourselves use high-end hardware.
  - staunch 9y ago
    Fair point, I am using a modern phone, but I think most phones created in the last ~3 years are at this point now.

simonh 9y ago

Except that the web was never designed to be a universal computing platform. It's a hypertext document navigation system with a hacky, horrible, opaque and insecure scripting language bolted on to the side. An actual distributed cross platform application development and distribution system wouldn't look anything like the web we have today. At least I seriously hope it wouldn't.

staunch 9y ago
There aren't many grand designs in computing systems in general. Most evolve from humble beginnings. The web has been evolving since the 90s, and it can keep going.
- simonh 9y ago
  Yes, absolutely, but it's still nowhere near being the one true answer to all the world's software development and deployment woes. This article on who they developed the Basecamp app is excellent. I'm toying with a similar approach in a little interactive adventure app I'm writing in Pythonista. Except of course that Pythonista isn't really native at all, but still I'm using a webview to display location descriptions and various choices as links, but native controls for things like inventory management and displaying various stats.
  - oblio 9y ago
    > Yes, absolutely, but it's still nowhere near being the one true answer to all the world's software development and deployment woes. One could argue that besides its original flaws, the web platform has been hobbled and maybe downright sabotaged by the platform owners (Microsoft, Apple, to an extent even Google). Javascript could have been cleaned up 10 years ago, same for many other web concepts still in use.