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I haven't used Firefox OS, but I've wrote PhoneGap apps for iOS and Android, and the biggest problem is just that it puts the developer experience before the en

I haven't used Firefox OS, but I've wrote PhoneGap apps for iOS and Android, and the biggest problem is just that it puts the developer experience before the end user experience and that seems backwards to what makes a great product. Yes, using the same code everywhere is cool, but if it takes longer to load, is less responsive, and has a worse experience, you have saved yourself time, but made something worse. I imagine it like a 3D printed plastic hammer. If I want a cheap toy for my kids maybe it's great, but if I'm putting a new roof on my house I want a real hammer, forged in steel, etc. You know, so that I can have the best tool for driving nails into wood. I don't care that it would be cheaper/faster to make a plastic hammer, I care about a tool that is great. I know that properly executed and with enough processing power, maybe performance is a mostly non-issue, but in my experience mobile JS dev isn't there yet and it's not remarkably better this year than last. I hope this Firefox OS thing works out for Mozilla, but until the perf issues are solved, it's not going to be too exciting.

Touche 13y ago
> I haven't used Firefox OS, but I've wrote PhoneGap apps for iOS and Android, and the biggest problem is just that it puts the developer experience before the end user experience and that seems backwards to what makes a great product. I strongly disagree with your definition of "user experience". I believe that changing phones and having to install different apps, with different UIs, or possibly doing without one because the new phone doesn't have an equivalent, is a bad user experience. This is my opinion as a user, not as a developer.
- Tloewald 13y ago
  So, as a user, you don't change phones to one that forces you to do without your favorite apps, learn a new UI, and so on.
  - Touche 13y ago
    The fact that I need to worry about this at all is a bad user experience.
    - Tloewald 13y ago
      Because you expect to buy any product at any price and for everything to Just Work — fantasy.
    - benburton 13y ago
      You must have a really tough time renting cars.
      - erichocean 13y ago
        Or using remote controls.
- poolpool 13y ago
  So you prefer an objectively worse experience across all two serious platforms in case you switch? How often are you jumping between iOS and android that this is an actual, real concern?
  - Touche 13y ago
    I disagree that all web apps are "objectively worse". I use HackerWeb[1] because I believe it to be better than any of the Android apps I've tried.. [1]http://hackerwebapp.com/ http://hackerwebapp.com/
    - girvo 13y ago
      To be perfectly fair, HackerWeb is the best web application I'm terms of cross platform performance I have ever ever seen. Edit, wait oops I thought you meant http://hn.premii.com http://hn.premii.com but HackerWeb is well done too!
      - Touche 13y ago
        "To be perfectly fair" implies that it shouldn't count. Does the Premii app demonstrate what can be done given the effort?
        girvo 13y ago
        To achieve those results requires a lot of effort, and hardcore optimisation. Native coding gets you the same results, minus all that effort (as long as you're okay with targeting one platform), so yeah I was sort of saying it doesn't count IMO :) That said, I'm building all my applications using web tools, Facebooks React allows for some amazing native performance, cross platform! If the views are decoupled enough, you can get two UIs with the exact same logic client and server side, with near native performance to boot. Now it's not there yet, but it's super close, and once tooling is built up to tackle this use case with the new tech and architecture (client side), then I think it'll be a very big deal!
- gobengo 13y ago
  It seems to me that switching phones is .0001% of the user experience. Loading the app, tapping things to switch views quickly, etc is the vast majority.
  - Touche 13y ago
    Of course, many users don't think about lock-in until they buy a Roku and discover all those movies they bought on iTunes won't play on it, but I think about it every single time I install an app. That's why I prefer apps that don't burden me with the worry.
- air 13y ago
  User using multiple applications on a single phone is quite a lot more common use case than user using single application on several phones. I'd opt for making the common use case consistent.
Iftheshoefits 13y ago
I think you're looking at it backwards: App consumers aren't interested in well-crafted apps. Consumers treat mobile apps like "gladware": they want cheap and disposable/replaceable. This plays very well with companies' desire for cheap production. Hence the steady march toward the commoditization of web app development and the "war" on native, especially in the mobile space.
- froo 13y ago
  > the "war" on native, especially in the mobile space. I actually think its the complete opposite. eg, Facebook, Linkedin https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/under-the-hood-rebuilding-facebook-for-ios/10151036091753920 https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/under-th... http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/17/linkedin-mobile-web-breakup/ http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/17/linkedin-mobile-web-breaku... They tried web-based apps. They said the experience isn't what people expect as with native.
  - Touche 13y ago
    Why do people stop with this assertion? Why not ask why the experience isn't as good? Who controls the web experience on mobile? (Overwhelmingly) the same companies that control the OS. The web experience simply isn't as important to those companies. There isn't much competition driving the experience to get dramatically better. This is exactly why Firefox OS exists. Because the web had become stagnant on mobile due to a lack of competition.
    - Tloewald 13y ago
      Really? I think it's because mozilla foundation is awash in money and egos and answerable only to itself.
      - rhelmer 13y ago
        Your first assertion is highly subjective, but compared to all the other mobile phone players I'd say it's laughable. Your second is demonstrably false - both the Mozilla Foundation and its wholly-owned Corporation have awesome boards of directors, and from my experience (having worked and volunteered for Mozilla for many years) the leadership is extraordinarily sensitive to outside advice and criticism from people outside the organization as well as inside. Mobile has incredibly high barriers to entry, and breaking into it is not easy nor simple, and is not going to happen overnight. However, moving mobile away from locked-in native platforms and onto open standards is a laudable goal in my opinion, as is making inexpensive, capable devices for the next billion people who are coming online.
freehunter 13y ago
The iPhone was built on this concept in 2007, that applications on a phone should be accessible through a web browser alone. Apple re-thought that idea, but I wonder if mobile HTML5 would in a better place if they had not.
- Tloewald 13y ago
  I suspect mobile HTML5 would suck if Apple hadn't started out expecting web apps to be the only option for third party developers. Where has all the alleged competition from android, palm, rim, and microsoft generated advances beyond the huge slew of stuff apple has done?
caprad 13y ago
> Yes, using the same code everywhere is cool, but if it takes longer to load, is less responsive, and has a worse experience, you have saved yourself time, but made something worse. You see, this isn't an issue with the latest, incredibly fast phones. And all phones are getting faster, so this becomes less and less important.

Touche 13y ago

> I haven't used Firefox OS, but I've wrote PhoneGap apps for iOS and Android, and the biggest problem is just that it puts the developer experience before the end user experience and that seems backwards to what makes a great product. I strongly disagree with your definition of "user experience". I believe that changing phones and having to install different apps, with different UIs, or possibly doing without one because the new phone doesn't have an equivalent, is a bad user experience. This is my opinion as a user, not as a developer.

Tloewald 13y ago
So, as a user, you don't change phones to one that forces you to do without your favorite apps, learn a new UI, and so on.
- Touche 13y ago
  The fact that I need to worry about this at all is a bad user experience.
  - Tloewald 13y ago
    Because you expect to buy any product at any price and for everything to Just Work — fantasy.
  - benburton 13y ago
    You must have a really tough time renting cars.
    - erichocean 13y ago
      Or using remote controls.
poolpool 13y ago
So you prefer an objectively worse experience across all two serious platforms in case you switch? How often are you jumping between iOS and android that this is an actual, real concern?
- Touche 13y ago
  I disagree that all web apps are "objectively worse". I use HackerWeb[1] because I believe it to be better than any of the Android apps I've tried.. [1]http://hackerwebapp.com/ http://hackerwebapp.com/
  - girvo 13y ago
    To be perfectly fair, HackerWeb is the best web application I'm terms of cross platform performance I have ever ever seen. Edit, wait oops I thought you meant http://hn.premii.com http://hn.premii.com but HackerWeb is well done too!
    - Touche 13y ago
      "To be perfectly fair" implies that it shouldn't count. Does the Premii app demonstrate what can be done given the effort?
      - girvo 13y ago
        To achieve those results requires a lot of effort, and hardcore optimisation. Native coding gets you the same results, minus all that effort (as long as you're okay with targeting one platform), so yeah I was sort of saying it doesn't count IMO :) That said, I'm building all my applications using web tools, Facebooks React allows for some amazing native performance, cross platform! If the views are decoupled enough, you can get two UIs with the exact same logic client and server side, with near native performance to boot. Now it's not there yet, but it's super close, and once tooling is built up to tackle this use case with the new tech and architecture (client side), then I think it'll be a very big deal!
gobengo 13y ago
It seems to me that switching phones is .0001% of the user experience. Loading the app, tapping things to switch views quickly, etc is the vast majority.
- Touche 13y ago
  Of course, many users don't think about lock-in until they buy a Roku and discover all those movies they bought on iTunes won't play on it, but I think about it every single time I install an app. That's why I prefer apps that don't burden me with the worry.
air 13y ago
User using multiple applications on a single phone is quite a lot more common use case than user using single application on several phones. I'd opt for making the common use case consistent.

Iftheshoefits 13y ago

I think you're looking at it backwards: App consumers aren't interested in well-crafted apps. Consumers treat mobile apps like "gladware": they want cheap and disposable/replaceable. This plays very well with companies' desire for cheap production. Hence the steady march toward the commoditization of web app development and the "war" on native, especially in the mobile space.

froo 13y ago
> the "war" on native, especially in the mobile space. I actually think its the complete opposite. eg, Facebook, Linkedin https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/under-the-hood-rebuilding-facebook-for-ios/10151036091753920 https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/under-th... http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/17/linkedin-mobile-web-breakup/ http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/17/linkedin-mobile-web-breaku... They tried web-based apps. They said the experience isn't what people expect as with native.
- Touche 13y ago
  Why do people stop with this assertion? Why not ask why the experience isn't as good? Who controls the web experience on mobile? (Overwhelmingly) the same companies that control the OS. The web experience simply isn't as important to those companies. There isn't much competition driving the experience to get dramatically better. This is exactly why Firefox OS exists. Because the web had become stagnant on mobile due to a lack of competition.
  - Tloewald 13y ago
    Really? I think it's because mozilla foundation is awash in money and egos and answerable only to itself.
    - rhelmer 13y ago
      Your first assertion is highly subjective, but compared to all the other mobile phone players I'd say it's laughable. Your second is demonstrably false - both the Mozilla Foundation and its wholly-owned Corporation have awesome boards of directors, and from my experience (having worked and volunteered for Mozilla for many years) the leadership is extraordinarily sensitive to outside advice and criticism from people outside the organization as well as inside. Mobile has incredibly high barriers to entry, and breaking into it is not easy nor simple, and is not going to happen overnight. However, moving mobile away from locked-in native platforms and onto open standards is a laudable goal in my opinion, as is making inexpensive, capable devices for the next billion people who are coming online.

freehunter 13y ago

The iPhone was built on this concept in 2007, that applications on a phone should be accessible through a web browser alone. Apple re-thought that idea, but I wonder if mobile HTML5 would in a better place if they had not.

Tloewald 13y ago
I suspect mobile HTML5 would suck if Apple hadn't started out expecting web apps to be the only option for third party developers. Where has all the alleged competition from android, palm, rim, and microsoft generated advances beyond the huge slew of stuff apple has done?

caprad 13y ago

> Yes, using the same code everywhere is cool, but if it takes longer to load, is less responsive, and has a worse experience, you have saved yourself time, but made something worse. You see, this isn't an issue with the latest, incredibly fast phones. And all phones are getting faster, so this becomes less and less important.