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>There was no need to resurrect Objective-C and Java and write native apps. I still find it crazy that the world went from gmail/googlemaps to appstores. It's
by basch 12y ago
>There was no need to resurrect Objective-C and Java and write native apps.
I still find it crazy that the world went from gmail/googlemaps to appstores. It's beyond me why most apps arent anything more than cached javascript and uitoolkits.
I think one reason for this is because devices became personalized. You dont often go check your email on someone elses computer. People dont need the portability of being able to open something anywhere, so the cloud lost some of its appeal. Now its just being used to sync between your devices, instead of being used to turn every screen into a blank terminal.
- chipsy 12y agoI think there's an element of "pendulum swinging" to how we ended up back at native. The browser is a technology that makes things easy, more than it is one that makes things possible. And "mobile" as a marketplace has outpaced the growth of the Web. So you have a lot of people you could be selling to, and a technology that has conceptual elegance, but isn't strictly necessary. Wherever you hit the limits of a browser, you end up with one more reason to cut it off and go back to writing against lower level APIs. In due course, the pendulum will swing back again. Easy is important too, especially if you're the "little guy" trying to break in. And we're getting closer to that with the onset of more and more development environments that aim to be platform-agnostic, if not platform-independent.
- heeen2 12y ago> I still find it crazy that the world went from gmail/googlemaps to appstores. It's beyond me why most apps arent anything more than cached javascript and uitoolkits. * because javascript is still not as efficient as native code * because code efficiency translates directly into battery life * because downloading code costs bandwidth and battery life * because html rendering engines were too slow and kludgy at the time * because people and/or device vendors value a common look and feel on their system * because not everyone wants to use google services/services on US soil
- e12e 12y agoInterestingly the Japanese smartphone market had most of these fixed by 1997 or so; defining a sane http/html subset (as opposed to wap). Less ambitious than (some) current apps - but probably a much saner approach. Maybe it's not too late for Firefox OS and/or Jolla. [Edit: on a minimal micro-scale of simplification, I just came across this article (and follow up tutorial article) on how to just use npm and eschew grunt/gulp/whatnot in automating lint/test/concat/minify/process js/css/sass &c. Sort of apropos although it's definitely in the category of "improving tactics when both strategy and logistics are broken": prevous discussion on hn: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8721078 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8721078 (but read the article and follow-up -- he makes a better case than some of the comments indicate)]
- basch 12y agobut in the javascript model most of the processing is offloaded to the cloud when possible, making it MORE energy efficient. ideally you are just transmitting input and dom changes or operational transformations. timesharing. web ecosystems can still enforce common uitoolkits. gmail was just an example.