

Demo of building for iPhone and Mobile Web from same HTML5 codebase - amirnathoo
http://trigger.io/cross-platform-application-development-blog/2012/04/23/screencast-showing-trigger-io-forge-in-action/

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cemregr
I have an awful time using webapps that pretend to be real apps. I think it's
mostly a performance issue. Choppy scrolling, sometimes layout gets stuck in
odd ways, slow repaint when screen is flipped, text entry is awkward (keyboard
unintentionally gets hidden).

Take Facebook's iPhone app, majority of its slowness and bugginess is caused
by it being actually a web page.

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megakwood
Great demo, the only thing I take issue with is calling this "fully native".
If you start defining "fully native" to mean "mostly JS but with some native
components", what are we supposed to call _actual_ fully native apps, then?

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evanlong
WebViews are great for content presentation. Especially true when what you are
presenting is static content. But beyond that you are just going to struggle a
lot to make it interactive.

And were we complaining a few years ago about how the web was a bad
application platform? Just seems silly to try and port broken shit... what do
I know...

But seriously write-once-run-everywhere is bullshit guys. Just like it was for
Java. There is a reason write-once-debug-everywhere was the silly comeback. I
just don't trust a technology (trigger.io) that claims "dead simple" when they
haven't told me how this is better than the "dead simple" easy cross platform
stuff Sun spit out in the 90s. (great for servers terrible for clients)

Also this is a native app in the demo? The navigation bar scrolls off the
screen. Are you fucking kidding me. This is one of the most basic stock
components in an iOS app. IT DOESN'T SCROLL OFF THE SCREEN.

[http://dl.dropbox.com/u/126589/sharepicts/Screen%20Shot%2020...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/126589/sharepicts/Screen%20Shot%202012-04-24%20at%208.20.47%20AM.png)

Now I know that "fixed" in a UIWebView is kind of a pain in the ass. Because
it doesn't work as you'd expect. But, you kind of have to solve that problem
to make the UX native.

By using these tools for multiplatform development you give up the opportunity
to get featured. Apple and Google like to show off glitzy apps that look good
and show off the power of the platform. Not something that has been reduced to
the lowest common denominator: Android 2.2 running on some POS LG Optimus V
from Virgin Mobile.

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edbloom
As someone who has only dabbled with Obj. C but has 10+ years of traditional
web dev experience this looks v. attractive. What am I losing by not learning
Obj.C/xcode to build native iOS apps?

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pirateking
When the iPhone SDK was released, I got serious about learning Objective-C and
Xcode. It was a slow painful process, but now I strongly prefer writing native
apps to doing front end web development. The Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks
are really great, and Objective-C has really been improving as a language.
Xcode... yea it still sucks but things like provisioning profiles have gotten
far more manageable since the early days.

What you are missing out by not building native apps is an environment that is
designed to really help you create great apps for users. Even with the crazy
rate web technologies have been developing, a lot of it still feels like a
bunch of hacks compared to native app development, which feels much more
natural to me.

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pedalpete
The other side to that argument is what can't be done in native. From what I
understand, you can't do a/b testing, you aren't going to be able to iterate
as quickly, push bug fixes out instantly, etc. etc .

Andrew Cross did a write-up about it
([http://www.andrewcross.ca/2012/03/16/quick-tips-from-sxsw-
fo...](http://www.andrewcross.ca/2012/03/16/quick-tips-from-sxsw-for-applying-
the-lean-startup-to-mobile/)) the gist being that many companies started out
using something like trigger.io/phonegap/others so that they could benefit
from the quick iteration cycles and other benefits of web. Once the things
settle down a bit, they built native apps.

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joemcm
Can someone break it down for me?

Should I use Trigger.io, PhoneGap, Appcelerator, or Sencha for my next app?
Also, how much gaming performance might I lose with Trigger.io?

Thanks

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taitems
The thing that ruins the user experience for me? Non-sticky toolbars that
scroll with the page. Fix that and people may actually believe it's a native
app.

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Killswitch
You didn't watch the video did you? They have the API that allows you to
easily create REAL NATIVE TOOLBARS...

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evanlong
It should be on by default.

