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Apple is claiming that the app store is break-even. That it benefits them only indirectly by making iOS a more attractive choice. If that is true, and HTML5 wo

by Peaker 14y ago

Apple is claiming that the app store is break-even. That it benefits them only indirectly by making iOS a more attractive choice. If that is true, and HTML5 worked better with iOS than with Android, that would work well within that strategy. I think perhaps there are other reasons for poor HTML5 support on the mobile platforms.

zmmmmm 14y ago
> it benefits them only indirectly by making iOS a more attractive choice Since you agree it benefits them - and your use of the word "only" is deceptive here; having the best app catalog is no marginal thing, it is an enormous benefit, often cited as the primary reason Android tablets have struggled and why WP7 failed - why don't you think that benefit - which exists primarily because HTML5 still sucks for mobile apps - incentivises them not to improve browsers? It would be trivial for both Google and Apple to remove a large number of the barriers to HTML5 apps replacing native apps. But they don't, and it's been long enough that time is not an excuse.
ThomPete 14y ago
Apple don't want the app store to be anything but break even. They have it because it's a way to make money where it really matters which is the hardware.
hdragomir 14y ago
wooga chose to focus on iOS because of the less fragmentation. I work on Pocket Island, at wooga.
cageface 14y ago
iOS has by far the best support for HTML5 of any mobile platform. If Apple felt threatened by HTML5 I'd expect to see a lot more evidence of sabotage.
- MatthewPhillips 14y ago
  What are you basing this on? At minimum Chrome and Firefox have better html5 support, as they have near parity with their desktop counterparts. I don't have the numbers but I'd guess Opera Mobile has better html5 compatibility as well.
  - cageface 14y ago
    I'm talking about the browser shipping with the system, which is what 99% of the people using the device are going to use and where web apps are going to live or die. Once Android starts shipping with Chrome stock things will be different.
    - MatthewPhillips 14y ago
      I really doubt it has significantly better html5 support than the Android browser, if it's even better at all. But goal posts moving aside, your point was that Safari is somehow evidence that html is important to Apple, when viewed in the context of the entire industry it's above average. Lots of companies are doing good things with html in mobile, even Rim.
      - cageface 14y ago
        Mobile Safari is head & shoulders better than the stock Android browser, which is really a piece of shit. This is abundantly documented all over the web. Just ask the Sencha guys how much fun they've had trying to get acceptable performance out of Android. Judging the companies by the browser they put in front of users, Apple cares more about HTML5 than anybody else. Like I said, if Google can get mobile Chrome out there I'll revise my assessment.
      - paulirish 14y ago
        The difference is enormous between Android Browser and Chrome: http://beta.html5test.com/compare/browser/android40/chromemobile.html http://beta.html5test.com/compare/browser/android40/chromemo... This just captures features, speed is an order of magnitude.
- kunle 14y ago
  Not claiming that iOS support for HTML5 is bad, just that I find it hard to believe that Apple will ever invest as much in HTMl5 as it does in native, and by extension, that Apple will ever make sure HTML5 is at feature parity to native. At some stage and for some subset of use cases (I think particularly with apps like news media for example) it will matter less and less, but for anything that is intensive, I just dont see an argument for why HTML5 will ever function at parity.
  - cageface 14y ago
    To be honest I'm a little puzzled by Apple's efforts with Mobile Safari. It would seem to be much more in their interests to make it suck. By best guess is that Apple doesn't really care about the native app market that much per se and they'll do whatever it takes to sell their hardware.
    - DeepDuh 14y ago
      I think you got it exactly right. Of course they want to keep having the best native App catalogue, but for those devs who DO decide to go the mobile web app route they don't want to block their users from using it on iOS devices, since this would lower their satisfaction with iOS. Conversely, they don't support flash because of the poor / non existant mobile hardware support which leads to bad performance and -again- unsatisfied users. With this move they want to force developers to use either html5 or native apps. You can say lots of things about their app store policies, but their html5 adoption strategy is pretty rock solid and it's good we have a giant of Apple's calibre behind this in order to nudge the ecosystem in that direction.
      - novalis 14y ago
        With their lack of mobile flash plugin support, Apple just made flash executable wrapped apps to be profitable through the app store, I wouldn't go about categorizing Apple's calibre on profit related decisions. "but for those devs who DO decide to go the mobile web app route they don't want to block their users from using it on iOS devices, since this would lower their satisfaction with iOS." Establishing that they did block a plugin on the browser is a first step. The rest is simply a side effect of js being supported on the browser combined with the flash cold cut, is there some extra benevolance we should thank Apple for when their Canvas implementation is afflicted by the same trouble a flash vm would run into inside a safari mobile browser ? Also devs go the web app route way in ways apple has no voice in or control over, as much as they try. As it should be. Let us not forget such amazing experiments as the introduction of the quicktime plugin and how that opened the door for things like flash shockwave itself, and we all know how well that went. Revisionisn and a good nanny brand delivered narrative won't make safari mobile canvas any more apt, sadly. Or a commercial brand any less profit seeking. As it should.

by Peaker 14y ago

zmmmmm 14y ago

> it benefits them only indirectly by making iOS a more attractive choice Since you agree it benefits them - and your use of the word "only" is deceptive here; having the best app catalog is no marginal thing, it is an enormous benefit, often cited as the primary reason Android tablets have struggled and why WP7 failed - why don't you think that benefit - which exists primarily because HTML5 still sucks for mobile apps - incentivises them not to improve browsers? It would be trivial for both Google and Apple to remove a large number of the barriers to HTML5 apps replacing native apps. But they don't, and it's been long enough that time is not an excuse.

ThomPete 14y ago

Apple don't want the app store to be anything but break even. They have it because it's a way to make money where it really matters which is the hardware.

hdragomir 14y ago

wooga chose to focus on iOS because of the less fragmentation. I work on Pocket Island, at wooga.

cageface 14y ago

iOS has by far the best support for HTML5 of any mobile platform. If Apple felt threatened by HTML5 I'd expect to see a lot more evidence of sabotage.

MatthewPhillips 14y ago
What are you basing this on? At minimum Chrome and Firefox have better html5 support, as they have near parity with their desktop counterparts. I don't have the numbers but I'd guess Opera Mobile has better html5 compatibility as well.
- cageface 14y ago
  I'm talking about the browser shipping with the system, which is what 99% of the people using the device are going to use and where web apps are going to live or die. Once Android starts shipping with Chrome stock things will be different.
  - MatthewPhillips 14y ago
    I really doubt it has significantly better html5 support than the Android browser, if it's even better at all. But goal posts moving aside, your point was that Safari is somehow evidence that html is important to Apple, when viewed in the context of the entire industry it's above average. Lots of companies are doing good things with html in mobile, even Rim.
    - cageface 14y ago
      Mobile Safari is head & shoulders better than the stock Android browser, which is really a piece of shit. This is abundantly documented all over the web. Just ask the Sencha guys how much fun they've had trying to get acceptable performance out of Android. Judging the companies by the browser they put in front of users, Apple cares more about HTML5 than anybody else. Like I said, if Google can get mobile Chrome out there I'll revise my assessment.
    - paulirish 14y ago
      The difference is enormous between Android Browser and Chrome: http://beta.html5test.com/compare/browser/android40/chromemobile.html http://beta.html5test.com/compare/browser/android40/chromemo... This just captures features, speed is an order of magnitude.
kunle 14y ago
Not claiming that iOS support for HTML5 is bad, just that I find it hard to believe that Apple will ever invest as much in HTMl5 as it does in native, and by extension, that Apple will ever make sure HTML5 is at feature parity to native. At some stage and for some subset of use cases (I think particularly with apps like news media for example) it will matter less and less, but for anything that is intensive, I just dont see an argument for why HTML5 will ever function at parity.
- cageface 14y ago
  To be honest I'm a little puzzled by Apple's efforts with Mobile Safari. It would seem to be much more in their interests to make it suck. By best guess is that Apple doesn't really care about the native app market that much per se and they'll do whatever it takes to sell their hardware.
  - DeepDuh 14y ago
    I think you got it exactly right. Of course they want to keep having the best native App catalogue, but for those devs who DO decide to go the mobile web app route they don't want to block their users from using it on iOS devices, since this would lower their satisfaction with iOS. Conversely, they don't support flash because of the poor / non existant mobile hardware support which leads to bad performance and -again- unsatisfied users. With this move they want to force developers to use either html5 or native apps. You can say lots of things about their app store policies, but their html5 adoption strategy is pretty rock solid and it's good we have a giant of Apple's calibre behind this in order to nudge the ecosystem in that direction.
    - novalis 14y ago
      With their lack of mobile flash plugin support, Apple just made flash executable wrapped apps to be profitable through the app store, I wouldn't go about categorizing Apple's calibre on profit related decisions. "but for those devs who DO decide to go the mobile web app route they don't want to block their users from using it on iOS devices, since this would lower their satisfaction with iOS." Establishing that they did block a plugin on the browser is a first step. The rest is simply a side effect of js being supported on the browser combined with the flash cold cut, is there some extra benevolance we should thank Apple for when their Canvas implementation is afflicted by the same trouble a flash vm would run into inside a safari mobile browser ? Also devs go the web app route way in ways apple has no voice in or control over, as much as they try. As it should be. Let us not forget such amazing experiments as the introduction of the quicktime plugin and how that opened the door for things like flash shockwave itself, and we all know how well that went. Revisionisn and a good nanny brand delivered narrative won't make safari mobile canvas any more apt, sadly. Or a commercial brand any less profit seeking. As it should.