

Ask HN: Where's the outrage? - fjabre

Anyone else making web apps concerned that they'll now have the iPad to contend with in just a month or two?<p>A lot of your web app's UIs/UX will have to be overhauled for finger touch instead of point &#38; click. Many web apps will still work of course but they certainly won't be optimized for the iPad - its display or its method of input.<p>Sure, Jobs showed off the New York Times iPad optimized <i>website</i> during the presentation but where were the web apps at? I wonder if web apps will be a side note in the coming iPad revolution..<p>It seems we may all be forced to write native iPad apps to stay competitive.
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DougBTX
A standards compliant mostly-open-source web browser? No outrage at all.

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mechanical_fish
Just think: Everyone who brings an iPad to work is that much less likely to
use Internet Explorer.

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christefano
Outraged? Not really. As a webdev I'm glad the display has a standard 1024x768
resolution and not something weird. (As a consumer, I'm disappointed that it's
4:3 and not widescreen.)

The iPad display's 132dpi is what I'm more worried about. Most images on the
web are 72dpi.

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fjabre
My larger point was that web apps will take a back seat on the iPad as they
have on the iPhone. If you want something that looks great and performs - you
have to go through the Apple ecosystem. I think that's pretty clear.

This is in direct opposition to the upcoming Chrome OS netbooks where web apps
will be at the forefront and central to the device's operation, being given
better access to the GPU and so forth...

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hellotoby
I actually think that web apps are almost perfectly suited to the iPad. With
HTML5's local storage engine and users locked in to Safari* there should be
some great innovation in this space. The line between native app and web app
may even start to blur with this technology.

* I agree that user lockin is usually a bad thing, but knowing the full and unchanging specs of the machine should allow developers to do some really interesting things.

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SamAtt
Just wanted to add that you can create an icon for a web app that on the home
screen and it will look and act like a native application (e.g. the mobile
safari tool bar and address bar won't appear).

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GeneralMaximus
Here's a little list, not from a web developer's perspective, but from the
perspective of someone who _really_ wanted to write apps for the iPhone OS but
is turned-off by the AppStore. Did I say turned-off? I meant outraged.
Offended. Disgusted.

1\. Neither the iPhone nor the iPad are going to replace full-blown computers.
They're neither powerful enough nor comfortable enough for serious work. Of
course, the situation could change dramatically a few years from now, but I'm
sure we'll figure something out when the time comes. For now, get a Mac and
have a blast hacking it :)

2\. If you think Apple's touch devices have taken the world by storm and
everything else pales in comparison, I humbly suggest you come to New Delhi
and count the number of iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad owners. Most of the world just
can't afford to spend cash on shiny entertainment devices. People are still
going to buy and use computers. You can still write apps for Mac OS
X/Linux/Windows. The world has not yet ended.

3\. Most of the apps you find on the AppStore could conceivably be written as
webapps. Why bother with ObjC and Cocoa when you can just use
JavaScript+HTML5? A large percentage of apps just pull data from a server and
display it in pretty boxes. On the other hand, if you're writing a game,
you're already a "special case" and have to play by Apple's rules -- which are
not different from what Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony impose on their developers.
So, for most of your programming needs, JavaScript+HTML5 should be enough.

4\. Have we forgotten that these days, Apple are an entertainment and content
distribution company who just _happen_ to make computers? Apple are not
marketing the iPad as a general-purpose computer; they want to sell it as an
entertainment device. Since it's a niche device, in the grand scheme of
things, the closed nature of the iPhone OS doesn't really matter.

This list doesn't do much to allay the major concerns of the tech community:
the iPad _is_ , in fact, a full-blown computer that is hopelessly locked-in by
Apple and their delusional policies, that it could be much more than just an
entertainment device, that we have something radically different from the
traditional model of computing but cannot exploit the thousands of
possibilities this gives us. This list is just an indication that we mustn't
lose hope yet. Let the guys in Cupertino figure out when - if ever - they want
to loosen their grip on the iPhone OS ecosystem. In the meantime, we'll just
write web apps :)

EDIT: In a previous comment, I mentioned I don't want to write JavaScript.
It's true. But I can put up with JS if it means I don't have to sell out to
Apple.

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cscotta
No outrage here - and honestly, no overhauling necessary for most of my work.
Touch-enabled devices have been with us for years, so most companies writing
software, sites, and web apps to be used with them have long since adapted.
Over-reliance on hover states is annoying, anyway.

I develop on a Mac and use an iPhone, but I have no strong feelings toward
Apple's new product and don't fully understand those who do. Perhaps you'd be
happier if you took the announcement less seriously?

But yeah, no outrage here.

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BigZaphod
Outrage.... why, exactly? Technology is always changing things. This is just
one more example. Adapt or die.

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jexe
I am way too excited about the possibilities to be outraged that I'll have
some interesting work to do.

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jsz0
Offering iPhone optimized sites is important because there are 75 million
iPhone/Touches out there give or take. I'd be surprised if there are more than
3-5 million iPads out there by the end of 2010 so it's probably nothing to get
too bent out of shape about.

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gaius
Making an iPhone or BlackBerry app or version of a site is usually a no-
brainer, as you can assume that anyone who owns such a device is a pre-
qualified customer. It'll be the same with the iPad - anyone who owns one can
be assumed to be a high-spending consumer, therefore desirable as a customer,
therefore worth producing original content for.

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chrischen
Likely Apple designed the iPad to work with most of the existing web, and
wasn't naive enough to believe that the web will design itself around Apple's
iPad.

EDIT: The iPhone was one of many mobile devices, so it warrants sites having
mobile versions.

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TiredBear
Yeah I agree, excellent point!

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nkohari
I write a general-purpose web app, so I don't need to worry about what new
devices are on the market in order to "stay competitive". If you tie yourself
to a single device, you have to accept the consequences.

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s3graham
Doesn't seem like a big deal to me. If there's a multitouch api available from
JS (is there?), you could do pretty much everything demoed in those apps.

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brandon272
I think the outrage hinges on how popular you think the iPad will be. Hence,
my lack of outrage. :)

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araneae
It's always possible it will be irrelevant.

