4 ms·

Native Android vs Html5

31 points by cygwin98 15y ago

cleverjake 15y ago
There is very little depth to this. And what is there is ostly opinion and conjecture. Prsonally, I think that Google has had some of the best android apps available (though having their api access would make most competant devs improve their apps). It's also the only time vie heard anyone suggest that chromes would take over android. Nooooo way this is happening for at least a number of years. They are two very different platforms attempting two very different goals.
- shareme 15y ago
  they are not different goals, android and ChromeOS have the ultimate Google corporate goal of placing a moat around their search/ad business by giving way $1 billion in r&d through android Os and Chrome OS
  - cleverjake 15y ago
    And a hammer and screwdriver both are there to secure things, that doesntmean they do it the same way or are interchangeable. Neither or replacing either anytime soon.
mikeryan 15y ago
Its interesting a friend of mine runs the team that does the Netflix PS3 app. The "app" is actually a webkit implementation with one destintation - Netflix". They love it for embedded devices. Particularly platforms where you have to go through a certification process. They get the "browser" cleared once and then can update the app on a regular basis. It allows them to do a lot of A/B testing, they get quick updates out etc.
- nupark2 15y ago
  Netflix's web developers might enjoy working on the HTML5-based app, but (at least on iOS) the user experience is poor: - Scrolling is slow, jerky, and is less useful than standard scrolling (for instance, there's no inertia). - The application uses none of the standard UI components, and the components they use are poorly implemented and difficult to use; Netflix is failing to take advantage of the UI R&D you get for free when you use standard OS components (eg, see inertia above). - The application's UI is very very slow to load compared to native apps; since nothing is local, everything has to be fetched. There's a lot more that a proper critique of their UI would involve, but in short, I'd say that Netflix is placing the enjoyment of their web developers over the happiness of their actual users.
  - DenisM 15y ago
    Check out Sencha Touch, in particular the "kitchen sink" demo. They have inertial scrolling and a whole bunch of other stuff.
    - nupark2 15y ago
      Between Qt, Swing, and even SWT's attempt to expose native widgets, you'd think that it would be well established that emulating native components (especially behind a generic API) never produces a result on-par with an application written against the real native APIs. I just quickly tested the Sencha demo on an iPad 1. In terms of just the scrolling, Sencha Touch seems unable to implement glassy-smooth scrolling of a simple text-only list view -- something that was achievable on the original non-3G iPhone. On top of that, their UI looks like a poor clone of Apple's, is slow to respond to interaction events, implements jerky-at-best animations. In short, it is obviously non-native, to the detriment of the user experience; it performs poorly, provides a lesser user-experience, uses non-default widgets, and will constantly be playing catch-up with the native APIs and UI.
      - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
        Emulating native UI is definitely the wrong approach; it only highlights your apps weaknesses. However I think you're overstating the important of things like scrolling inertia; users do not mind this too much. It's shown by the fact that they all choose "inferior" experiences on the desktop when they log into their Yahoo Mail and Hotmail account; or worse, just use pop3. Users will choose a solution 1) That they know about, 2) that meets their needs, 3) that is easiest. UX is probably 4th. Trivialities like page transitions and scrolling inertia only matters to the SXSW crowd.
Osiris 15y ago
If this is the case and webapps are the way of the future, why doesn't Android include a way to package a web app for deployment through the market and to have an icon that can be used on the device like any other native app? As far as I know, right now web apps have to be accessed through the browser, which means setting up bookmarks and web apps have very little access to the hardware on the device. Perhaps what the article should be saying is that we should develop for WebOS because it's all HTML/CSS/JS and therefore much easier to develop for since it's all web-based.
- jasonparallel 15y ago
  Check out http://www.phonegap.com/ http://www.phonegap.com/ for packaging html based apps for the platforms. As a added bonus you get access to native app features through javascript.
  - Osiris 15y ago
    I suppose my point was that if HTML5 was important for Android, that Android would include the support for web apps in the platform with no outside dependencies.
    - jasonparallel 15y ago
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f2Zky_YyyQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f2Zky_YyyQ Google IO vid on the topic
- nimrody 15y ago
  Since Chrome already has an 'appstore' for web-applications, I think it is safe to assume similar facility will find its way into Android devices. This will probably bring more native capabilities and will let the user allow/restrict the application in terms of accessing the device HW. It will also make it easier to monetize such applications -- assuming they somehow prevent users from downloading the apps and bypassing the appstore.
  - 15y ago

31 points by cygwin98 15y ago

There is very little depth to this. And what is there is ostly opinion and conjecture. Prsonally, I think that Google has had some of the best android apps available (though having their api access would make most competant devs improve their apps). It's also the only time vie heard anyone suggest that chromes would take over android. Nooooo way this is happening for at least a number of years. They are two very different platforms attempting two very different goals.

shareme 15y ago
they are not different goals, android and ChromeOS have the ultimate Google corporate goal of placing a moat around their search/ad business by giving way $1 billion in r&d through android Os and Chrome OS
- cleverjake 15y ago
  And a hammer and screwdriver both are there to secure things, that doesntmean they do it the same way or are interchangeable. Neither or replacing either anytime soon.

mikeryan 15y ago

Its interesting a friend of mine runs the team that does the Netflix PS3 app. The "app" is actually a webkit implementation with one destintation - Netflix". They love it for embedded devices. Particularly platforms where you have to go through a certification process. They get the "browser" cleared once and then can update the app on a regular basis. It allows them to do a lot of A/B testing, they get quick updates out etc.

nupark2 15y ago
Netflix's web developers might enjoy working on the HTML5-based app, but (at least on iOS) the user experience is poor: - Scrolling is slow, jerky, and is less useful than standard scrolling (for instance, there's no inertia). - The application uses none of the standard UI components, and the components they use are poorly implemented and difficult to use; Netflix is failing to take advantage of the UI R&D you get for free when you use standard OS components (eg, see inertia above). - The application's UI is very very slow to load compared to native apps; since nothing is local, everything has to be fetched. There's a lot more that a proper critique of their UI would involve, but in short, I'd say that Netflix is placing the enjoyment of their web developers over the happiness of their actual users.
- DenisM 15y ago
  Check out Sencha Touch, in particular the "kitchen sink" demo. They have inertial scrolling and a whole bunch of other stuff.
  - nupark2 15y ago
    Between Qt, Swing, and even SWT's attempt to expose native widgets, you'd think that it would be well established that emulating native components (especially behind a generic API) never produces a result on-par with an application written against the real native APIs. I just quickly tested the Sencha demo on an iPad 1. In terms of just the scrolling, Sencha Touch seems unable to implement glassy-smooth scrolling of a simple text-only list view -- something that was achievable on the original non-3G iPhone. On top of that, their UI looks like a poor clone of Apple's, is slow to respond to interaction events, implements jerky-at-best animations. In short, it is obviously non-native, to the detriment of the user experience; it performs poorly, provides a lesser user-experience, uses non-default widgets, and will constantly be playing catch-up with the native APIs and UI.
    - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
      Emulating native UI is definitely the wrong approach; it only highlights your apps weaknesses. However I think you're overstating the important of things like scrolling inertia; users do not mind this too much. It's shown by the fact that they all choose "inferior" experiences on the desktop when they log into their Yahoo Mail and Hotmail account; or worse, just use pop3. Users will choose a solution 1) That they know about, 2) that meets their needs, 3) that is easiest. UX is probably 4th. Trivialities like page transitions and scrolling inertia only matters to the SXSW crowd.

Osiris 15y ago

If this is the case and webapps are the way of the future, why doesn't Android include a way to package a web app for deployment through the market and to have an icon that can be used on the device like any other native app? As far as I know, right now web apps have to be accessed through the browser, which means setting up bookmarks and web apps have very little access to the hardware on the device. Perhaps what the article should be saying is that we should develop for WebOS because it's all HTML/CSS/JS and therefore much easier to develop for since it's all web-based.

jasonparallel 15y ago
Check out http://www.phonegap.com/ http://www.phonegap.com/ for packaging html based apps for the platforms. As a added bonus you get access to native app features through javascript.
- Osiris 15y ago
  I suppose my point was that if HTML5 was important for Android, that Android would include the support for web apps in the platform with no outside dependencies.
  - jasonparallel 15y ago
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f2Zky_YyyQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f2Zky_YyyQ Google IO vid on the topic
nimrody 15y ago
Since Chrome already has an 'appstore' for web-applications, I think it is safe to assume similar facility will find its way into Android devices. This will probably bring more native capabilities and will let the user allow/restrict the application in terms of accessing the device HW. It will also make it easier to monetize such applications -- assuming they somehow prevent users from downloading the apps and bypassing the appstore.
- 15y ago