
Rethinking What We Mean by ‘Mobile Web’ - abdophoto
http://daringfireball.net/2014/04/rethinking_what_we_mean_by_mobile_web
======
dewitt
The crux of John's argument is this:

    
    
      "We should think of the web as anything transmitted using HTTP and HTTPS."
    

Which unfortunately, because there's hardly a single modern internet
application or service that doesn't or can't run over HTTP(S), it inflates the
definition of "web" to be so broadly inclusive that it becomes an altogether
meaningless term.

It may be his intention to position native "apps" as something not in
opposition to, but rather a part of, the web. But that does a disservice to
the original meaning of the web, which thrived in large part because it _wasn
't_ just another native app connected to the net.

Instead, I'd recommend pushing back a bit, and trying to retain the other
critical elements of what made the web the web, such as transparently
introspectable formats, RESTful documentment-oriented architectures,
hyperlinkable URLs, crawlability, freely-licensed and open protocols, etc.

~~~
watershawl
I agree. What John's describing as the web is more like the Internet. The
"web" is Tim Berners-Lee's "World Wide Web" (ie. hyperlinked documents
rendered in a web browser).

~~~
benaiah
From the article:

> It’s possible that the word “web” is too tightly associated with
> HTML/CSS/JavaScript content rendered in web browsers — that if I want to
> make a semantic argument, I should be saying it’s the internet that matters,
> not the web. But I like calling it the web, even as it expands outside the
> confines of HTML/CSS/JavaScript. The web has always been a nebulous concept,
> but at its center is the idea that everything can be linked. So when I open
> Tweetbot on my iPhone and tap a link that opens within the app as a web
> page, and from that web page tap a link that opens a video in the YouTube
> app — that to me feels very webby.

It's almost like he addressed the exact arguments you guys are bringing up in
the article linked above...

He makes his definition of what the web is very clear, and cites his reasons
behind them. You might disagree with them, but he does actually address them,
to his credit. Perhaps you might make an argument why your definition of the
web is superior to his.

~~~
dewitt
Fair question. I just posted a similar response in the comment below.
Specially to your point here, it's because Tweetbot is actually the exception,
not the rule, in that it arguably _is_ part of the web.

The vast majority of native mobile apps are not. See
[http://www.apple.com/itunes/charts/paid-
apps](http://www.apple.com/itunes/charts/paid-apps) for a good list of
counter-examples.

~~~
benaiah
I agree wholeheartedly. I do personally prefer the web for application
delivery from a developer's standpoint, and I find it quite simple to create
sites that function well on a mobile form factor. It's curious, then, that
more don't exist. I'm no hyper-talented guru, and my apps are reasonably
representative of most light-workload thin-client apps, so I'm unsure of the
problem.

The biggest problem I've found with mobile apps built with browser technology,
personally, is that they often give none of the affordances of a native app
_and_ none of the affordances of the web. They become so obsessed with poorly
aping native technologies* that they often fail to play to their strengths -
things like deep-linking, tabbed browsing, lightweight usage, hypermedia, and
so on. I don't really get it.

I suspect that the reason is due to the fact that people who are good enough
to write a mobile web app that works well are simply not doing so, either
because that's not what they do or because they prefer working in native
technologies. Meteor+Bootstrap+Hammer+basic googling gets you head and
shoulders above most people in the mobile webapp world, but that's not the
status quo, despite those being some of the easiest-to-use frameworks I've
ever worked with in the web space.

I suspect, but I really just don't know. _shrugs_

* Yes, some are as good as mobile apps, and it's not very difficult to be vastly better than the vast majority of mobile web apps, but good web app UXs remain rare birds for whatever reason

------
PeterisP
It's not the web (and not like the web) if I can't have deep links from one
app to a specific page of content _inside_ another one.

It's not the web (and not like the web) if I can't share or include in my own
site/app a link to a piece of content from your app in a way that the creator
didn't explicitly design in; a link that someone else on an entirely different
platform will be able to reach without hurdles.

It's not the web (and not like the web) if I need any kind of permission from
others to have my content reachable, searchable and available to everyone in
the world.

The web is not a set of applications or sites. The web is in the
_interconnection_ of those applications or sites.

~~~
pygy_
You nailed it. It was initially a worldwide web of interconnected hypertext
documents.

The advent of single page apps muddied the waters, but they still allow to
share select resources easily.

Native apps are silos, full stop.

~~~
benaiah
> Native apps are silos, full stop.

Except that they're sometimes not, and certainly don't have to be. There's no
reason why HTML has to be the One True Form of hypertext - inter-app deep
linking and app-to-HTML linking do exist, even if they aren't quite as
widespread and cross-platform as HTML-to-HTML linking. There's nothing
fundamentally different about the way HTML links than the way iOS or Android
apps link to each other: it's just that one is more common and works on more
things.

I still _prefer_ HTML's linking, but I also prefer the experience of a native
app (for now). There's no fundamental difference between them, beyond the
issue of distribution (which is an important one, but not one you mentioned).

~~~
PeterisP
The advantages mostly lie within the URI principle, and that is not limited to
HTML.

App-to-html linking is obvious - I'm much more interested about how html-to-
app linking would (or could be made to) work.

------
buro9
What we're losing is the browser as the client for applications.

And in doing so we're losing the extremely low barrier to entry for new apps,
and we're introducing centralised controllers of what we may access.

It discourages the tinkerers and self-publishers, turns users into plain
consumers, it creates gate-keepers to the new lands and reduces privacy.

I like apps, but I like openness more.

~~~
danielrakh
On the contrary, Apple's and Google's app stores have ENCOURAGED tinkerers and
self-publishers. There are so many more people who were inspired to become
developers as soon as these devices hit mainstream. I was one of them. I would
have never got into programming if I didn't know that I had the chance to
develop an experience that millions of people can actually FIND and use in
novel ways.

~~~
jaegerpicker
Huh? The web is exactly what you are talking about. Google and Bing are
things. Search on the web works and it's not very hard to get a decently
ranking page on them.

~~~
danielrakh
There's two points to this:

The first technical: When you search for something in Google or Bing you are
being surfaced information related to your keywords. Whether that would be an
article, a web app, a blog...etc When you search for an App, you are being
surfaced an application to solve a certain task.

The second is behavioral: We have conditioned ourselves to use Google to find
an answer to our question. In that case, Google is an app we use to find
answers to our questions. We have also conditioned ourselves to use the App
Store as the gateway to find a certain experience for our smartphone. The
average consumer can't differentiate between a web app or a native app, they
just know that in order to get an experience on their smartphones the app
store is the place to do it.

------
talkingstove
Original version of this story had the end line cut off
([https://twitter.com/gruber/status/453598509191929856](https://twitter.com/gruber/status/453598509191929856)).
If this was an app, it would either have been rejected (for iOS) or need an
update. Gruber didn't need to ask anyone for permission to fix it or having
everyone download an update. He just fixed it, the one canonical version that
everyone will see going forward. That is why I don't want to rethink what we
mean by mobile web.

------
nir
1\. I'm not sure there's any evidence of Apple loosening its grip the app
store because a certain genre is popular on Android (eg Swype)

2\. Apps take longer to develop, require more skill & time investment, and (if
iOS) have to go through byzantine approval process. This mean longer
iterations, less risk taking => slower innovation

3\. The higher barrier of entry keeps a lot of people of the type that made
the Web interesting from creating apps. Web dev was simple enough to allow
non-techies to create some pretty interesting stuff. Most apps feel like
they've been created by corporate dev teams or geeky college kids.

4\. There's definitely a class of apps which couldn't be implemented as web
apps - but that's mostly because the OS provides a limited API to the phone's
features, not some inherent weakness of the Web model.

~~~
MrScruff
_Apps take longer to develop, require more skill & time investment_

For equivalent functionality/experience levels? That doesn't seem obvious to
me.

~~~
nir
Seems to me JavaScript is easier to develop with than Obj-C/Java - one
evidence is that they pretty much require a heavy IDE while JS is often
developed on glorified text editors.

But even if that's not the case, new devs can get started by using open source
software like Wordpress etc and learn to modify it as they go. I don't know of
any equivalent in the app space.

------
JoelSutherland
CDixon: It's bad that the mobile web is losing to mobile apps because apps are
heavily controlled by the dominant app stores owners that censor things and
take a 30% cut.

Gruber: Mobile apps and the Mobile web are the same thing because both use
HTTP. And the walled garden thing isn't bad because Google and Apple compete
and Bitcoin seems to be succeeding anyway.

------
briantakita
> Like water flowing downhill, users gravitate to the best experiences

This is quite the loaded statement & a self-fulfilling prophecy in practice.
It's quite common to see a full page prompt to download the App in big
letters, and tiny text to continue onto the mobile site.

Of course it's a better experience to use the app. The first experience of the
mobile website is an intrusive advertisement saying "use the app".

Given an apples to apples comparison, I find that mobile apps often don't have
all of the features of the website. Youtube comments is a good example. You
simply cannot edit comments on the mobile app.

Native Mobile apps also fragment development effort. This leads to a worse
overall platform experience, since the development is fragmented to n
platforms (don't forget about Windows & Firefox phones). When new features
need to be added, they need to be developed on all platforms. The more complex
the feature-set & UX, the worse this issue becomes.

This fragmentation is mitigated by using a tool like PhoneGap. However, you
still have added complexity via versioning. It's overcome-able.

My current project has a rich mobile web experience. We also use phonegap, so
all development is in sync. The featureset is complex & rapidly evolves. There
are many edge cases. It would not be a practical business with n codebases.

------
Touche
> The new mobile app-centric order hasn’t been a problem for Instagram,
> WhatsApp, Vine, Secret, or dozens of other new companies.

I don't know what Secret is, but Instagram, WhatsApp, and Vine aren't
companies. They are divisions within Facebook and Twitter.

In fact, we should question why there are no big companies that have risen
from the app-world that come close to the web's most successful companies:
Amazon, Google, Facebook, even Yahoo.

That should tell you something that all of the app companies wind up being
bought by web companies.

~~~
atonse
Huh?

Every single one of those (Instagram, WhatsApp, Vine) started as startups with
1-2 employees before they were acquired by Facebook/Twitter.

~~~
Touche
My point is that they were acquired, they didn't go on to IPO and become large
companies themselves. There are no examples, to my knowledge, of companies
based around an app that do the kind of revenue that the large web companies
do.

~~~
atonse
I see... I don't know about IPOs but companies like Rovio (Angry Birds) have
reached household name status. (Not the name "Rovio" but Angry Birds rather).

------
AshleysBrain
> "Does anyone really think that mobile games would be better off written to
> run in web browser tabs?"

I do! There is nothing to install; it will be available anywhere and work on
any device, not just in the MegaCorp App Store for certain devices; it's
probably more secure since there are no permission prompts that might sneak
certain capabilities past you; you can publish whatever content you want
without having to get prior approval; you can update whenever you like without
having to wait for acceptance. Obviously there are some practical concerns
(performance, features, monetisation etc), but things are getting better. E.g.
on the tech side, WebGL is now available on pretty much every mobile OS except
iOS (for Android, use Chrome), 'add to homescreen' gives you an app-like icon
and fullscreen experience on both iOS and Android (again with Chrome), and
fullscreen API support gives you an app-like experience even from the browser
itself. I think in the long run that the mobile web and native apps will have
approximately the same capabilities for the majority of use cases, and the key
differences will only be distribution and monetisation - both of which are
solvable (startup idea anyone?)

For me, the main point is the web has always been an open platform you can do
what you like with. The control is all with the developer. App stores take
that control away, locking your app in a vendor-specific walled garden -
assuming they let you in - which they can then evict you from at any time for
any reason. Surely that's not better than the web?

~~~
gdilla
That makes total sense when you have a nice, fat, mostly reliable internet
connection. On mobile, connections are spotty at best, and then don't exist at
all on airplanes, in tunnels, subways, etc. Many games are enjoyable to kill
time in exactly these situations. The annoyance alone of mobile network
performance is worth it to use native apps for many a task.

~~~
daleharvey
Web Apps in absolutely no way means 'requires an internet connection to
function'

~~~
gdilla
yet they often do.

------
jkw
I think there's no question that apps have brought a wide range of interaction
capabilities that couldn't have existed in a web browser-centric world.
However, I believe that Gruber is missing Dixon's point that an app-only world
bring forward many disadvantages as well.

I think both agree that without native apps, we wouldn't have many of the
functionality that we have today. But, there's still the real risk that any
app could be removed or prohibited from the App Store for unclear reasons.

------
azakai
The big and real difference between mobile apps and mobile web is that Apple
and Google control mobile apps, but no one controls the mobile web.

Yes, they all use HTTP/HTTPS, and yes, they often connect to the same
services, with desktop versions running as web pages and mobile versions as
apps. That's all true. But the IMO primary difference remains, which is that
apps are controlled by two corporations while the web is not.

------
higherpurpose
I feel like the more Apple is losing relevancy and market share, the stupider
Gruber gets, in his quest to defend anything Apple does.

Saying Apple banning Bitcoin is fine, because Bitcoin will do well in other
places anyway, is like saying banning freedom of speech in Turkey is fine,
because freedom of speech is doing well in US.

------
bluthru
I'm surprised he didn't mention iOS's "Add to home screen" functionality for
web sites. I like how a web site can be given equal standing like that, and is
easier to "install" than the app store. It seems like regular users don't
often do this, however.

------
benaiah
"How could messaging apps like WhatsApp and Line even exist in a browser-only
world?"

... what?

The same way they have for ages, I suppose. These are messaging-over-IP apps
with basic UIs and little to no difficult problems with regards to client
performance. I sort-of-maybe-agree with most of what he says here, but it's
bafflingly ridiculous statements like this mixed in with mostly accurate (if
somewhat biased, just like everyone else) that make me shake my head at Gruber
every time I read him.

------
normloman
You can't just say mobile apps are the web. The web is a platform independent
open standard, and apps are a closed eco system within app stores.

------
matznerd
I used to view hn from the web (hackerweb), but I switched to the minihack app
and haven't looked back. It saves my login info, allows me to switch from
story to comments without going back to the main page and a few other features
I much prefer. I am an advocate of free and open platforms, but the experience
in the app (paid app mind you) is just that much better. How can the web
compete?

------
danielrakh
I think the more important point to discuss is the trend of our "smart
devices", specifically wearables. The software is becoming increasingly
coupled with the hardware. Think about that for a second. Web languages have
evolved within the browser. That is their native environment. What happens
when the browser does not exist on a future device?

------
spankalee
Content doesn't form a web without links.

And the original idea of the web is that the user, or the user agent, can
traverse these links to move navigate the web. Without a standard document
format that includes hyperlinks, I don't see how it can be called the web.

------
benaiah
I think one of the large problems with the web app space is display. There is
no way for a good web app to be put front and center and displayed to users;
all the web app marketplaces (I say all, but Chrome Web Store seems to be the
only one that actually matters) are cluttered, confusing, filled with links to
websites masquerading as apps, and generally useless; and the installation
process is cumbersome, unnatural, obtuse, and requires understanding of a
device and abstraction of concepts about a device on a level most users simply
don't grok. Yes, most web apps that directly compete with native apps are
worse, but there are times when I, as a computer-literate developer, wish I
could effectively use a web app, but simply have no way to integrate it with
the way I work in a way that actually saves me time.

The web app evengelists (of which I am certainly one) often miss the
importance of the little affordances that web apps don't have. This is both on
the user and developer side, though the problem is primarily on the user's
side, as developers can work around things. It is _tremendously_ important
that I be able to get instantly into my app by typing in my normal application
launcher. I want to use the app without having to think about the technologies
undergirding it first. It is _tremendously_ important that I be able to silo a
web app to its own window and be able to alt-tab between it and my browser. It
is _tremendously_ important that my basic shortcuts work in the app without
doing strange things and occasionally killing it all together.

The problem is, this can't be achieved without large amounts of work from
either the user (standard web apps with an arcane mix of desktop shortcuts or
their equivalent and bizarre browser configuration), the developer (node-
webkit apps like Atom or Light Table), or both (Chrome packaged apps, which
manage to combine the worst of pretty much every world).

Ironically, the system on which web apps work best as part of the system, bar
none (except ChromeOS because duh), is iOS, and even it has fundamental issues
(no background persistence, easy to follow a link and be unable to go back to
where you came from, various UI standards not working by default with the web)
that make web apps, even the best of them, stand out like a sore thumb.

There's been a lot of work recently to fix this, but we're simply not to the
point that web apps are anywhere in the same universe as indistinguishable
from native apps. Personally, I have an optimistic view of the future in
regards to the issue, but I also see Gruber's point: we web evengelists are
being unrealistic when we blame the current failure of the web as an
application delivery system for general-purpose applications for both desktop
and mobile on some Apple's nefarious "closed garden" or other such complaints.
Reality is, the web isn't there yet, and until it is, the web we have is the
one we have, and we shouldn't be bemoaning the death of open standards while
the whole world is speaking HTTP, just because our specific darlings aren't up
to par yet.

This was slightly longer than intended. My apologies.

