

Why The Killer Tablet App Is The Browser  - jasonlbaptiste
http://bostinnovation.com/2011/03/22/9-reasons-why-the-killer-tablet-app-is-the-browser/?isalt=0

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johnrob
The web beat native on PCs - it would be bizarre if the same thing didn't
happen on tablets.

My opinion is that apps dominate right now because user input is clumsy. For
the web to work, it needs to be easy to type urls. But tablets (so far) are
pretty uncomfortable to type on.

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nigelsampson
I think part of the reason the web beat native desktop apps was the notion of
the app being "available everywhere". This certainly made web based mail
clients the initial killer web apps.

Native mobile apps don't suffer from this as much given people carry the app
with them wherever they go. As well as the prevalence of cloud based apps
we're seeing native apps for each platform interconnecting.

Certainly the ROI for building a single web app rather than two or three
mobiles apps is better, but I believe at the moment the UX is better for
multiple native apps.

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jasonlbaptiste
the flip side is, we live in a multi device world. so even though the devices
do get carried everywhere, we switch devices now. mo devices, mo problems.

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Flemlord
Part of what makes an app an app is the encapsulated experience with a
"desktop" icon to launch it, and the appstore focal point for finding new
apps. Before HTML 5 can be a true replacement, somebody needs to create an
appstore-like experience for HTML 5 apps.

With Android and WP7 this could be as simple as a HTML5 shell project that
wraps a particular HTML5 site so that it looks like an app on the device. Then
HTML5 apps can be fed into the frameworks of the existing app stores,
including the approval process and "desktop" icon.

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grahamburger
I'm not sure I agree - I put a lot of effort keeping as few desktop icons
visible as possible, I like the cleaner interface. On my work desktop, I have
one icon - my browser. There are a few other pieces of software I use, but I
navigate the menu or hit alt-F2 to find them. When HTML5 becomes ubiquitous, I
will probably very rarely use the app store. Perhaps I'm in the minority, but
I doubt I'm completely alone.

For me, a browser with my most often visited sites (whether they be html5
'apps' or otherwise) and bookmarks on the launch page would be a more natural
extension of how I use the device.

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Flemlord
I was speaking from the perspective of devices, namely phones. The way to
launch apps is by clicking a "desktop" icon.

More broadly stated, you need a way to hook into the local environment so that
HTML5 sites aren't distinguishable from locally-run/stored apps.

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grahamburger
That does make sense. What I'm saying is that the way I currently use my
desktop is mostly for web based apps which don't have any local hook (other
than the browser itself) and that when I can do the same thing on my phone, I
will.

For me, the lack of a local hook outside of the browser doesn't detract from
the experience or my productivity, and in fact makes it easier to find the
local apps that I do have, because I don't have to scroll through all of the
hooks to the web apps.

