

Some iPhone apps should not be written in Cocoa - jrnkntl
http://kudtler.com/2008/12/some-iphone-apps-should-not-be-written-in-cocoa/

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byteCoder
A new religious war is breaking out before my eyes: web apps vs. native apps
on the iPhone.

The reality is that there are lots of native iPhone apps that should be web
apps. Right now, the web apps don't quite pay as well.

I believe what we're ultimately seeing is the rise of the native/web hybrid
application. These are a class of web-like applications that can run in
disconnected mode:

* views use HTML/CSS stored locally on the client

* handling of requests from the views is done within the client itself, or dispatched externally to a web API

* sophisticated data structures can be persisted on the client (in mysql, text files, etc.)

* more sophisticated processing than typically occurs in your standard web app

* better access to native hardware features

The technologies are coming together: Adobe AIR, UIWebView/iPhone SDK,
Android's WebView, etc. to support this. I'm looking forward to it.

~~~
ibsulon
That's the approach I am looking at. Consider a workout program for one reason
for this approach. Many gyms are in basements and places where reception is
crummy. The application should be able to run in these places, and offload to
the webapp when necessary.

Consider travel applications. An American going to Europe will not want to
spend the money to use your web application. (We've already heard about the
incredible bills by people who didn't realize what was happening.)

~~~
ibsulon
Forgot one thing -- don't forget about the iPod touch market. Webapps are
useless for those in many cases.

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stillmotion
I don't think this guy understands how simply amazing Cocoa is. Yes, maybe a
designer couldn't learn Objective-C, but my goodness is it a beautifully
designed framework.

Everything he lists is simple and stupid when you understand how to build
iPhone applications.

"want slightly different buttons in a snap? Just photoshop it and you’re off"

HTML and CSS? It's pretty easy to develop a beautiful UI in Photoshop and
simple slice it up for Cocoa. When going back into CSS development, I'm
frustrated because of the need to move things around by a whole bunch of divs
and styling all that type.

He then continues on about server side administration? Hell no. Personally,
I'm glad I can just make an app, deploy it, and not have to worry about the
e-commerce, server maintenance, and running costs.

If making iPhone applications were like this, I'd die.

~~~
jrnkntl
Altough I agree on one point, that the sliced up photoshop UI also can account
for Cocoa. I don't think you read the whole article. The part about server
side administration is that it's easy to edit and add functionality to your
app in a snap without all resubmitting to the app store and apple hassle. I
also point out that not all iPhone applications should be written like this,
just for some apps the advantages of this method outweighs the advantages on
using Cocoa (first-last sentence in the article).

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GHFigs
Apple's been saying that all along. <http://developer.apple.com/webapps/> The
old "web apps are the SDK" line wasn't greeted with open arms by many, but I
think Apple's done much to promote iPhone-tailored web apps as a viable
alternative to Cocoa Touch for the very simple reason that there are more web
developers than there are Cocoa developers.

They've even tried to make it reasonably transparent to the user, as web
applications can reside on the home screen, and when launched, can be set to
not display the browser toolbar, making them appear practically
indistinguishable.

If you look at the work that's gone into WebKit/Safari, like a tenfold
increase in JavaScript performance, HTML5 dbs, and a whole host of CSS work
like gradients, canvas backgrounds, masks, reflections, transitions, and
implicit animations, it's a more attractive platform than ever.

~~~
tocomment
Now if they'd just provide javascript hooks for the location, acceleratometer,
sounds, etc. (Yes, I've seen PhoneGap)

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markdionne
Take a look at <http://phonegap.com>. It will let you develop a web app and
also get access to the iPhone’s GPS, accelerometer, etc.

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tocomment
Nice ideas and all, but most developers still benefit from being able to
charge on the app store, plus the marketing Apple is doing for you (less and
less, but it's still better than a web app no one goes to, and google ignores
for 6 months.)

BTW, I'm going to be disappointed if I don't see the $5000/week people keep
mentioning once I get up to speed on iPhone programming :-~

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chaostheory
I would agree with the post if IPhone was on a better network like Verizon,
but given that AT&T's network coverage just isn't that great in the US (I'm
currently a subscriber), not to mention that we don't have great nationwide
wifi yet; I just feel that most IPhone apps still need to written in obj c.

(ironically, this is pointed out in the post)

~~~
tlrobinson
You can store the HTML/CSS/JavaScript locally within the app, as well as use
the built in SQLite database, which solves this problem. Of course, you lose
the ability to update the app whenever you wish.

