
Native Android vs Html5 - cygwin98
http://www.dev-articles.com/article/Native-Android-versus-Html5-428001
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Osiris
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.

~~~
nimrody
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.

~~~
ryanhuff
While I would agree that Chrome, in some flavor, should be a part of Android,
I wouldn't assume that Chrome is destine to be a part of Android. The Chrome
and Android projects seem to be dueling strategies at Google.

<http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/17/google-chrome-android/>

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cleverjake
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
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
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.

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mikeryan
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
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.

~~~
Androsynth
Those are not issues that will stop the spread of webapps though. One major
impediment into the mobile market is the fragmented environments. Using a
common environment (ie open web) would allow much more flexibility to develop
multiplatform apps. At that point, most people would be willing to give up
some of the platform specific features (inertia, etc) to run across platforms.

edit: this is my opinion as a web developer who is thinking of getting into
the mobile market, not as a mobile developer.

~~~
bad_user
Unfortunately phones have lots of useful features that aren't exposed in the
browser.

For instance, I just installed an app on my Android that creates a blacklist
of phone numbers to reject, both calls and SMS and also cleans up the phone's
logs. Basically once you add a phone number to that app, it may as well not
exist anymore. I love this little app so much that I would rather do without
all available web apps out there on my phone ... because the main purpose of
my phone is to connect with people and not having API integration with its
core functionalities, like voice calls and SMS would make whatever "smartness"
it has basically useless.

I'm still baffled as to why this isn't a standard feature in phones, but
whatever, at least on Android you can add it (versus the iPhone, which
requires rooting).

And exposing these low-level features in the browser through proprietary
extensions wouldn't help the fragmented market. It also doesn't help that each
environment has its own look&feel, so you'll have to add lots of platform
specific stylesheets and Javascript for emulating standard behavior.

The best combination for me (as in fast development, not the best user
experience) is building native apps with a web interface exposed through an
embedded web view.

