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"After the public cleared out and the rest of us were gathered in front of the stage, I started urgently going on about how web apps are terrible, and wouldn’t

"After the public cleared out and the rest of us were gathered in front of the stage, I started urgently going on about how web apps are terrible, and wouldn’t show the true potential of the device. We could do so much more with real native access!" Where was Carmack when everyone was forcing us to listen to "web apps are the future of mobile"? He could have ended that HN debated instantly.

robotresearcher 9y ago
> Where was Carmack He was in the debate at the origin, speaking firmly and directly to the key players, as your quote shows.
overcast 9y ago
Web apps are the future, how many more stupid native apps must I install to get basic textual and photo information? The only right answer is universal apps(the web).
- untog 9y ago
  Any absolute answer is wrong here. Native apps will likely always have a place when OS/UI integration are paramount. But web apps will become a lot more prevalent than they have been previous as more and more hooks are exposed to the native core. Which is a good thing for everyone.
  - XorNot 9y ago
    I'd argue the issue is that a lot of "native" apps are basically a webapp in a native wrapper on mobile (and desktop now - thanks Electron!). I don't really know the best way to delineate what should and shouldn't be a web app, beyond a vague notion that my daily news rotation should be in the browser.
  - taoistextremist 9y ago
    Yeah, there's certain things that native apps make a lot more sense for (e.g. messaging apps like Facebook Messenger where you want notifications to come up similar to text messages), but certain things really don't need anything more than the mobile website you look at (for example, at least for some people, mobile Wikipedia over the app).
    - untog 9y ago
      > (e.g. messaging apps like Facebook Messenger where you want notifications to come up similar to text messages) Actually I'd argue the web is great for that too. On Android you can already implement a messaging app, complete with notifications, on the web. I wish people like my bank used it. I don't want to install their native app because I barely ever use it, but would I like to get urgent notifications from them every now and then? You bet I would.
      - taoistextremist 9y ago
        I personally don't like relying on my browser for notifications. I like having native apps because usually fine tuning notifications for them is easier in that respect, things that while I imagine are possible through the web browser, probably aren't going to be done on a web app. It's also just an organizational thing since I don't like to have a list of a bunch of tabs, but having a handful of apps isn't too bad to navigate through. Just because there's been a lot of progress in making web apps do things that were more natural for native apps, doesn't mean that it's the best way to go about something. I get the wish for more support for web apps, though. I just switched over from a near 4-year-old phone that was replete with security updates and other un-removable stuff in the storage which prevented me from having a lot of apps installed (especially as so many insist on a large footprint in internal storage), so I increasingly used my web browser to access things. After the switch, though, you can bet I downloaded a bunch of apps I had deleted.
- redial 9y ago
  How many websites are you gonna have to "install" to get basic textual and photo information, whatever that means?
  - overcast 9y ago
    Zero? Websites don't ask to install when I visit them.
- xfer 9y ago
  What's "basic textual and photo information"? You have already installed one called the browser, to get some information.
  - overcast 9y ago
    Do I need to explain what text, and photos are?
  - passiveincomelg 9y ago
    Yes, and the browser should be enough in many cases, but the holder of that information tries to force their app on everyone. One of the most annoying examples of that for me is accepting a new connection on LinkedIn from my phone. I want to tap on the link in the email and be done. Instead it redirects me to the store, I close it, try again. Sometimes it works, sometimes I give up and do it later. Another example is Facebook. :)
- ksk 9y ago
  >how many more stupid native apps must I install to get basic textual and photo information? You're conflating the web with web apps. Those are two separate things. If web apps are to be the future, bloating up the browser to the size of an OS to get native-app level functionality sounds like a dystopian future to me. I don't want my browser to access my GPU, I don't want by browser leaking my LAN IP, I don't want my browser communicating with USB devices on my machine, etc, etc... Also, nobody (yet) has been able to create a GUI/Client App standard for cross-platform delivery that performs well across different hardware architectures and operating systems which are designed and optimized for completely different things. That makes sense because the "one size fits all" way of doing things is terrible for performance among other things. >The only right answer is universal apps(the web). The only "right" answer is that we should tolerate specific web apps only when the benefits outweigh the costs.
sp332 9y ago
I think the current course, which is making decent web APIs that open the "potential of the device" to web apps, is going to get us the advantages of both.
ropeadopepope 9y ago
> Where was Carmack when everyone was forcing us to listen to "web apps are the future of mobile"? > He could have ended that HN debated instantly. This is going to be difficult to hear, but online debates are essentially for entertainment purposes only. Arguments had on the internet rarely affect our industry as a whole. Arguments had in person between people of power and influence are far more effective, time efficient and can affect entire industries (even countries!) in profound ways. No amount of technology beats face to face communication. No amount of technology replaces individual power and influence.
- MperorM 9y ago
  Of course they don't affect the industry as a whole, however they do affect the people who read HN. Reading a debate on the dangers of over-reliance of DOckers today made me realize that I should consider alternatives for my next project. Reading about a new awesome technology, might make someone go out and do a project with said technology. While that doesn't affect the industry as a whole, the debates sure are useful for the people reading and participating in them
- duncan_bayne 9y ago
  I can attest to this, having spent a great deal of effort here and on a W3C list arguing against EME. I was aware of the "online argumentation is entertainment" rule but hadn't appreciated the rule's broadness until then. A good rule of thumb is that a "consultative process" is a smokescreen unless the people being consulted have voting rights amongst those doing the consulting.
Tloewald 9y ago
It was quite obvious to us at the time that Apple was planning to provide a native SDK but hoped to mollify third-party developers with "web apps" while Apple got their house in order (having barely managed to get the phone done on schedule). As it happened, the reaction to web apps was so negative they ended up releasing their SDK hastily (which anyone who went through the pain of using it for the first couple of years can attest to). One of the common mistakes people have when discussing Steve Jobs is mistaking what he said for what he believed. (We see this confusion constantly in the news, where "The Whitehouse believes" is used to describe something in a press release.) He knew how to stay on message, and he knew that saying "our SDK will probably be released in alpha form in a year and be somewhat stable in two years" was off message. It's also fairly clear that if he had had a bunch of arguments about something and reached some provisional conclusion, he wasn't going to have much patience with an argument he had previously encountered and beaten to death from someone random.
- BearOso 9y ago
  He knew how to stay on message, and he knew that saying "our SDK will probably be released in alpha form in a year and be somewhat stable in two years" was off message. Reminds me of “we couldn’t get the fingerprint sensor under the screen working, so we had to quickly come up with an alternate authentication method, and that required this hideous notch” vs “Face ID is the newest, best thing ever.” They still try to hide it when things don’t go their way.
  - bobbles 9y ago
    Spoken like a true 'never used an iPhone x' user
  - saagarjha 9y ago
    > we couldn’t get the fingerprint sensor under the screen working, so we had to quickly come up with an alternate authentication method, and that required this hideous notch I think you should try using iPhone X before you comment on it.
ojr 9y ago
depends on the team, a web app can still run, 32 bit apps like the one Carmack built are deprecated
- saagarjha 9y ago
  Not necessarily true. Given source code, it's often possible to create binaries that run on modern computers, and it's often the case that web apps stop working because something they depended on disappeared or someone broke backwards compatibility.
- nto09eint3nt 9y ago
  You know, until the server for the app is taken offline, which is far more frequent of an occurrence than a big move like taking your app from 32 to 64-bit which has been spread over literally a decade.

robotresearcher 9y ago

> Where was Carmack He was in the debate at the origin, speaking firmly and directly to the key players, as your quote shows.

overcast 9y ago

Web apps are the future, how many more stupid native apps must I install to get basic textual and photo information? The only right answer is universal apps(the web).

untog 9y ago
Any absolute answer is wrong here. Native apps will likely always have a place when OS/UI integration are paramount. But web apps will become a lot more prevalent than they have been previous as more and more hooks are exposed to the native core. Which is a good thing for everyone.
- XorNot 9y ago
  I'd argue the issue is that a lot of "native" apps are basically a webapp in a native wrapper on mobile (and desktop now - thanks Electron!). I don't really know the best way to delineate what should and shouldn't be a web app, beyond a vague notion that my daily news rotation should be in the browser.
- taoistextremist 9y ago
  Yeah, there's certain things that native apps make a lot more sense for (e.g. messaging apps like Facebook Messenger where you want notifications to come up similar to text messages), but certain things really don't need anything more than the mobile website you look at (for example, at least for some people, mobile Wikipedia over the app).
  - untog 9y ago
    > (e.g. messaging apps like Facebook Messenger where you want notifications to come up similar to text messages) Actually I'd argue the web is great for that too. On Android you can already implement a messaging app, complete with notifications, on the web. I wish people like my bank used it. I don't want to install their native app because I barely ever use it, but would I like to get urgent notifications from them every now and then? You bet I would.
    - taoistextremist 9y ago
      I personally don't like relying on my browser for notifications. I like having native apps because usually fine tuning notifications for them is easier in that respect, things that while I imagine are possible through the web browser, probably aren't going to be done on a web app. It's also just an organizational thing since I don't like to have a list of a bunch of tabs, but having a handful of apps isn't too bad to navigate through. Just because there's been a lot of progress in making web apps do things that were more natural for native apps, doesn't mean that it's the best way to go about something. I get the wish for more support for web apps, though. I just switched over from a near 4-year-old phone that was replete with security updates and other un-removable stuff in the storage which prevented me from having a lot of apps installed (especially as so many insist on a large footprint in internal storage), so I increasingly used my web browser to access things. After the switch, though, you can bet I downloaded a bunch of apps I had deleted.
redial 9y ago
How many websites are you gonna have to "install" to get basic textual and photo information, whatever that means?
- overcast 9y ago
  Zero? Websites don't ask to install when I visit them.
xfer 9y ago
What's "basic textual and photo information"? You have already installed one called the browser, to get some information.
- overcast 9y ago
  Do I need to explain what text, and photos are?
- passiveincomelg 9y ago
  Yes, and the browser should be enough in many cases, but the holder of that information tries to force their app on everyone. One of the most annoying examples of that for me is accepting a new connection on LinkedIn from my phone. I want to tap on the link in the email and be done. Instead it redirects me to the store, I close it, try again. Sometimes it works, sometimes I give up and do it later. Another example is Facebook. :)
ksk 9y ago
>how many more stupid native apps must I install to get basic textual and photo information? You're conflating the web with web apps. Those are two separate things. If web apps are to be the future, bloating up the browser to the size of an OS to get native-app level functionality sounds like a dystopian future to me. I don't want my browser to access my GPU, I don't want by browser leaking my LAN IP, I don't want my browser communicating with USB devices on my machine, etc, etc... Also, nobody (yet) has been able to create a GUI/Client App standard for cross-platform delivery that performs well across different hardware architectures and operating systems which are designed and optimized for completely different things. That makes sense because the "one size fits all" way of doing things is terrible for performance among other things. >The only right answer is universal apps(the web). The only "right" answer is that we should tolerate specific web apps only when the benefits outweigh the costs.

sp332 9y ago

I think the current course, which is making decent web APIs that open the "potential of the device" to web apps, is going to get us the advantages of both.

ropeadopepope 9y ago

> Where was Carmack when everyone was forcing us to listen to "web apps are the future of mobile"? > He could have ended that HN debated instantly. This is going to be difficult to hear, but online debates are essentially for entertainment purposes only. Arguments had on the internet rarely affect our industry as a whole. Arguments had in person between people of power and influence are far more effective, time efficient and can affect entire industries (even countries!) in profound ways. No amount of technology beats face to face communication. No amount of technology replaces individual power and influence.

MperorM 9y ago
Of course they don't affect the industry as a whole, however they do affect the people who read HN. Reading a debate on the dangers of over-reliance of DOckers today made me realize that I should consider alternatives for my next project. Reading about a new awesome technology, might make someone go out and do a project with said technology. While that doesn't affect the industry as a whole, the debates sure are useful for the people reading and participating in them
duncan_bayne 9y ago
I can attest to this, having spent a great deal of effort here and on a W3C list arguing against EME. I was aware of the "online argumentation is entertainment" rule but hadn't appreciated the rule's broadness until then. A good rule of thumb is that a "consultative process" is a smokescreen unless the people being consulted have voting rights amongst those doing the consulting.

Tloewald 9y ago

It was quite obvious to us at the time that Apple was planning to provide a native SDK but hoped to mollify third-party developers with "web apps" while Apple got their house in order (having barely managed to get the phone done on schedule). As it happened, the reaction to web apps was so negative they ended up releasing their SDK hastily (which anyone who went through the pain of using it for the first couple of years can attest to). One of the common mistakes people have when discussing Steve Jobs is mistaking what he said for what he believed. (We see this confusion constantly in the news, where "The Whitehouse believes" is used to describe something in a press release.) He knew how to stay on message, and he knew that saying "our SDK will probably be released in alpha form in a year and be somewhat stable in two years" was off message. It's also fairly clear that if he had had a bunch of arguments about something and reached some provisional conclusion, he wasn't going to have much patience with an argument he had previously encountered and beaten to death from someone random.

BearOso 9y ago
He knew how to stay on message, and he knew that saying "our SDK will probably be released in alpha form in a year and be somewhat stable in two years" was off message. Reminds me of “we couldn’t get the fingerprint sensor under the screen working, so we had to quickly come up with an alternate authentication method, and that required this hideous notch” vs “Face ID is the newest, best thing ever.” They still try to hide it when things don’t go their way.
- bobbles 9y ago
  Spoken like a true 'never used an iPhone x' user
- saagarjha 9y ago
  > we couldn’t get the fingerprint sensor under the screen working, so we had to quickly come up with an alternate authentication method, and that required this hideous notch I think you should try using iPhone X before you comment on it.

ojr 9y ago

depends on the team, a web app can still run, 32 bit apps like the one Carmack built are deprecated

saagarjha 9y ago
Not necessarily true. Given source code, it's often possible to create binaries that run on modern computers, and it's often the case that web apps stop working because something they depended on disappeared or someone broke backwards compatibility.
nto09eint3nt 9y ago
You know, until the server for the app is taken offline, which is far more frequent of an occurrence than a big move like taking your app from 32 to 64-bit which has been spread over literally a decade.