
Financial Times Hits 1M Users On HTML5 Site That Dodges Apple’s Tax - llambda
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/18/financial-times-mobile/
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WestCoastJustin
I'm not sure if this story is even news worthy but here is my take.
Personally, I never really understood why most people flocked to the app store
rather than using the already existing www mobile sites? Gmail is a good
example -- why would I download the app when I can just go to the mobile site?
This is especially true if you're running a pay wall and have to fork over 30%
;) The app needs to be updated constantly but the mobile site doesn't. Am I
missing something? I guess you miss out on people searching for your app on
the app store.

~~~
shinratdr
Native Apps are faster. Frankly, there isn't even a debate to be had. Native
low level code will execute faster and be more efficient than web apps
rendered in the browser using high level languages like JS. This is of course
assuming the app is more than just a UIWebView, though.

Obviously it depends on the site and the quality of each app, but as a rule of
thumb a half decent native app will beat out even the best web apps or mobile
sites, which I might add are far and few between. Most web apps and mobile
sites offer an awful experience.

A great example is Google Music. Why do I prefer the native 3rd party gMusic
for iOS over Google's web app? Where do I even begin. How about, every single
thing about the native app is better, faster, more responsive and less buggy
without one exception, period. That covers it pretty well.

Even if we are talking about something simple like news, there are still huge
advantages to native apps. For example, lets say I'm on the subway. I have two
iOS devices. I launch the NYT app on one and go to newyorktimes.com in
MobileSafari on the other. Which will actually have news on it?

Likewise, the subway goes above ground temporarily and I get a quick 3G spot.
I do the same thing. Which will end up with more content, the mobile-fied
homepage of NYT, or the much more efficient data pulled down by the app?
Native apps still offer advantages that the web can't begin to duplicate. If
they didn't, we would all be using Chrome OS right now.

~~~
saurik
Yes: something like Google Music is currently much better implemented as a
native application; the browser support for audio interfaces, particularly in
mobile browsers, is very poor. Meanwhile, the UI you want is often very custom
for a music player: small, dense, and omnipresent.

However, the NYT example is really poor: the quality difference between an
HTML5 offline application and a native application, for that specific use
case, is going to be very small, if not downright negligible. The specific
issues you brought up involving network connectivity aren't even true.

With the HTML5 offline application cache, all of the HTML, CSS, and
JavaScript, will be cached locally, atomically stored and updated in
MobileSafari's WebApp cache; you can therefore go to the website, even without
any Internet access, and still get the site. If it is implemented well, you
will also be able to browse previously downloaded news, which could be stored
in HTML5 localStorage or Web SQL.

Finally, due to proxy server limitations, it isn't like the native alternative
will be doing anything different than the web application with respect to
"pull[ing] down" "more efficient data": both are going to be using HTTP
requests, which will have identical overhead, and both could download the same
data format.

So, no: I think you are drastically over-generalizing, and should spend some
time looking into the more advanced mechanisms that are now available for
developing HTML5-based applications on these devices. You may think you have
had bad experiences with web applications, but frankly you probably have only
ever used one or two (maybe even zero) HTML5 offline applications (they are
fairly rare).

~~~
shinratdr
> With the HTML5 offline application cache, all of the HTML, CSS, and
> JavaScript, will be cached locally, atomically stored and updated in
> MobileSafari's WebApp cache; you can therefore go to the website, even
> without any Internet access, and still get the site. If it is implemented
> well, you will also be able to browse previously downloaded news, which
> could be stored in HTML5 localStorage or Web SQL.

Something nobody has yet to actually do. Sure, it CAN be done. But it's
significantly easier to deliver those features with a native app over a web
app. Web app developers refuse to ever admit or acknowledge this, but it's
100% true. Web apps just aren't there yet, and won't be any time soon.

> So, no: I think you are drastically over-generalizing

I don't think I am at all. I'm certainly generalizing, but not over or
drastically so. You couldn't even provide a single example of a quality web
app that fits your previous description. That pretty much says it all.

> You may think you have had bad experiences with web applications, but
> frankly you probably have only ever used one or two (maybe even zero) HTML5
> offline applications (they are fairly rare.

Of course. I don't know what I'm talking about, I'm wrong, and my experiences
are invalid for x reason. Responses like this drive me crazy. It's borderline
"no true scotsman" IMO. Oh sure, those high profile web apps suck, but those
aren't REAL web apps.

The bottom line is even the best web apps still have to utilize the newest
technology and options to deliver basic, basic stuff that even crappy native
apps have had forever, and they still can't reach the quality of a native app.
I'm also completely unconvinced that your browser's rendering engine speed
will be able to provide as good an experience as a native app.

The ONLY real advantages to web apps frankly are for the developer. It makes
cross platform development & deployment much easier, and they don't have to
pay Apple the 30%. It's worse for the user/consumer in almost every way.

~~~
saurik
I took each of your points, and either ceded them (audio applications) or
provided a specific technology that could cover them nicely (HTML5 offline
storage, Web SQL, and cache manifests), all of which are easily found in the
specifications using Google, if you don't believe they exist.

Your response, which actively ignores all of that (and in fact snips it out of
the reply text), is pretty much "I haven't seen it used, so it isn't true";
the only (unrelated) argument you added was "rendering speed" (as if a news
reader was limited by that? citation?).

In juxtaposition, I must say you have a convincing argument: it had not even
occurred to me that these technologies I and my coworkers use everyday might
not actually do these things that they seem to do; certainly not the things
the code for them (which is open source) seems to look like it does.

So yeah: I'm sorry. In the future, I will avoid making arguments that respond
to points, and instead I'll just say "worked for me: you're not a true
scotsman", as apparently that's all that you are capable of seeing in my text
anyway.

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corin_
Anyone who subscribes to the FT can attest to just how great their ipad site
is. I honestly can't think of a native app that does what they do better, the
entire interface is lovely.

~~~
justincormack
Has anyone used it on any other tablets? Curious to know how well it works.

~~~
corin_
They've only been marketing it "for iPad and iPhone", and they use strict
user-agent checking against PCs and my blackberry. I could of course be wrong,
maybe their marketing doesn't line up with the devices they actually support.

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MrEnigma
And if they were in newsstand, maybe they'd have 40% more people, and making
even more money.

That said, I'm glad to see people can go at it without Apple as well.

~~~
spamizbad
Eh, I doubt it. 1M is pretty impressive for FT's "niche." Unlike the WSJ, it's
not dumbed-down for the general public, so it's audience is going to be
significantly smaller than a mainstream newspaper.

~~~
billpatrianakos
Shit, now that you've made that good point about their niche I'm starting to
rink my first reaction to this. Maybe a million is pretty impressive after
all.

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waterside81
News sites are really starting to get their act together and present content
in mobile-friendly manners. The Toronto Star just launched an iPad optimized
site at read.thestar.com - and it's awesome. They're using Pressly (no
affiliation). Highly recommend taking a peek if you're into mobile news
design.

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billpatrianakos
A whole million huh? Sorry, I'm really not impressed. Why is this becoming
about native versus html5. The article has kind of an anti-Apple subtext to it
too. I don't know. There was just something off about the whole post.

Native and web both have pros and cons. Some site used html5 despite the app
store trend. Big whoop. I hope people use both in the future and I hope web
apps get faster and the app store reduces fees. It's kind of a non story like
filler to keep a page on TC filled for a bit.

~~~
tomkr
I thought the whole "Web-apps makers are outsmarting Apple" angle was done by
now. One of the reasons these kinds of sites work well is because Apple does a
pretty nice job of allowing you to "appify" them. That kind of support makes
it really nice, and shows that Apple is not trying to force people into the
App Store. You might argue they overcharge you for using the App Store, but
mobile web apps, when done well, are serious contenders for certain use cases.
So there's really no reason to focus on this kind of drama.

