
 Introducing Ubuntu Web Apps: setting the web free of the browser - sciurus
http://blog.canonical.com/2012/07/19/introducing-ubuntu-web-apps-setting-the-web-free-of-the-browser/
======
mindstab
Android was leading the way in this (best sharing between online services
etc). This looks like the first other OS to "get it" and push hard to
integrate with the cloud. I think in some ways this surpasses Android.

Mean while we have iOS that's just congratulating itself for allowing photo
uploads to twitter, meanwhile my Android phone has integration with services
I've never even heard of.

And MacOS and Windows... nothing. Stupid silent sitting on the internet.

It's nice to see some real innovation in the Linux camp on the user end front.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
I think you're a bit confused, Android doesn't do a very good job of making
web apps 1st class citizens at all. Even though I don't use it, iOS does the
best job there. When you create a desktop shortcut for an app, it will get an
icon that looks just like all other apps' icons, it will launch into a full-
screen chromeless browser that you wouldn't know was a browser at all (with a
loading image, even). You can also control web apps that play HTML5 audio with
the built in music controls from the multitasking pane.

Android has none of those things. I've had hit or miss experience of it even
picking a decent resolution icon, and Chrome uses the favicon with an envelope
behind it, so it sticks out as a second class citizen (chrome also doesn't go
chromeless).

~~~
stinkytaco
I don't just want to be able to open webapps on my phone with a shortcut, I
want real integration. I'm sometimes not connected to the Internet so I like
to have my data offline, but I like to be able to get it online quickly.
Android does this very well. Share intents, music player integration, it's
just a very slick offline to online seamless system.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Rewatch the video, it's more than just a shortcut.

~~~
stinkytaco
Yeah, I'm referring more iOS. I think the idea of "webapps as a first class
citizen" is a bit of a red herring. Web apps will never be first class
citizens (especially not on a phone) because they fail simple performance
tests. I think what OSs ought to aim for is what Android does, a smooth
integration of offline and online modes.

Ubuntu does this _somewhat_ , iOS not really at all (though it is successful
in the way you speak of), but I feel there's a combination of the way Adnroid,
iOS and Ubuntu are doing this that could hit a sweet spot.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
I think you're being short-sighted. There's nothing inheritantly different
about mobile that prevents web apps running as well as they do on the desktop.
You are aware that on the desktop JavaScript engines like V8 can keep up with
any garbage-collected language, right? There are a few reasons why things are
progressing slower on mobile, among them:

1) There is very little browser competition on mobile. Users are either
unaware of or don't see the benefit to downloading an alternate browser, and
as a result the OS vendors have less of an incentive to improve their browser
rapidly. On the desktop browsers like Firefox and Chrome release a new version
every few weeks, whereas on mobile the OS vendors release once or a twice a
year.

2) The JS engines haven't been optimized for ARM as heavily as x86. We'll get
there though.

These are very much short-term problems. And despite that, you can write
performant mobile web-apps today. If you have an iOS device you should try out
the game X-Type: <http://www.phoboslab.org/log/2012/06/x-type-making-of> which
is written by a fellow HNer. It is extremely snappy, even when played without
the assistance of Nitro.

~~~
stinkytaco
I have a couple of responses:

1\. Who wants to write complex programs in JS? I mean, it's OK and all, but
it's messy when you can be writing native apps. I remember the iPhone being
all about the webapps when it came out, but native apps ultimatly won.

2\. Internet access is still not widely available. On Sprint, where I am, it
sucks. If I'm out in more remote regions (which is part of mine and many
others jobs), it's gone. Or if I'm in a tunnel on the train, or an elevator,
or in my bathroom at work, etc. Or you're on AT&T, have capped bandwidth, etc.

No, we need apps that have a smooth offline to online transition. Maybe web
apps will make it there, but I feel we're far enough away that I still like
Android's approach.

~~~
icebraining
Re: 1, see [https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-
lang...](https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-languages-
that-compile-to-JS) and <http://altjs.org/>

------
jiggy2011
What web apps need desperately in order to become true first class citizens is
support for keyboard shortcuts across the board.

Doing Alt + <Key> should bring up the appropriate menu in the web app _not_
the web browser.

Doing Ctrl + S should ask the web app to do a save , not ask the browser to
save the .html page.

Of course this is all stuff that could be abused by aggressive websites so
there needs to be a distinction between apps and pages.

~~~
SeppoErviala
Accessing web application features with Alt + <key> is one of the things this
Ubuntu feature is about.

------
scribu
I know this is a prototype, but if each app is going to load in a new Firefox
window, with the full chrome, no thanks.

If it opens a new window without the chrome (or at least without the tabs), it
might be ok.

~~~
ralfn
Well, most of those webapps will likely navigate/open external websites.

I would love to have a hacker news window by default, so that external links i
open there are nicely managed within the hackers news app.

So, the tab bar is a plus, if you ask me. The address bar and the new tab
icon, should be removed though. Better yet, the new tab icon, should open he
base url, or some other logical url: for gmail it could be a compose windows,
for example.

And "mozilla firefox" should not be part of the window title. Other than that,
actually hiding the fact its a browser is not really usefull. The tab bar, the
menu .. No reason to remove those by default.

But i suspect, these apps are running in their own profile, and it is firefox,
so we could always tweak the chrome ourselves.

~~~
repsilat
To be honest if I clicked on a link in a "GMail app" I'd expect it to open a
new "full" browser window (or a new tab in an existing browser window). You'd
have to be able to distinguish between internal and external links, of course,
but the domain name is a workable heuristic.

The ability to open new tabs should probably be configured on an app-by-app
basis. Opening tabs of mail is a pretty sensible idea, but a game developer
using HTML5 would likely want to prevent that. Ditto the location bar. (I
agree that the user should be able to override these settings.)

~~~
ralfn
I would want a external link in the gmail app, to open in a tab in the gmail
app.

The internet is everywhere.. I dont want those 50 tabs in one big browser
window, nor do i want them in separate windows.

I want them organised based on context. Most of those tabs belong to the
initiating application. From a hackers news app, with the chosen articles, to
a google docs app, with open documents.

As long as i can pick up a tab, and add it to some other window, that would
make the most sense to me.

------
rbanffy
My biggest worry is tying the HTML and JS engines too deeply into the desktop
and end up with drive-by exploits that can do more than a browser would
ordinarily be able to do.

~~~
trentonstrong
I think this is a valid concern, but as JS engines start implementing more and
more of the rich web client working drafts like FileAPI
(<http://www.w3.org/TR/FileAPI/>), those same concerns will be valid for your
browser too. I can only imagine that developers of desktop platforms like this
are aware of these drafts too and are planning to utilize as much as they can
of the functionality provided.

As with most security, our best hope lies in open implementations which can be
audited for such problems, with consideration being drawn in during design and
implementation stages from security experts. Hopefully some lessons were
learned from the ActiveX desktop days!

~~~
rbanffy
I like the idea of assigning permissions to applications. Then if browser B
runs under user U, its effective permissions would be the intersection of what
both B and U are allowed to do. I don't see why Firefox should be able to
write anything outside ~/.mozilla/firefox and ~/Downloads

~~~
mcpherrinm
These type of restrictions are exactly what Linux's AppArmor (as well as
SELinux, etc) do.

I'm not sure what profile Firefox runs under, but what you suggested would be
quite reasonable, though maybe not as default -- You probably want to be able
to "save as" to an arbitrary directory, and open files for upload from
anywhere too. Though since both of those involve a user dialog, that could
easily be a secondary application with its own profile that uses IPC/shared
memory/something to pass data to the browser. Smaller target attack area.

------
daleharvey
This is awesome by ubuntu.

But its incredibly frustrating that it has taken this long for browser vendors
and/or operating systems to push the possibility for webapps as first class
desktop apps. (not really counting air)

Firefox is starting to introduce this functionality at last, I imagine chrome
have similiar functionality coming (this used to work on linux!)

Prism was nice when it existed, and fluid I used to use from time to time but
there was just too many hassles with it not being mainstream

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skimmas
Currently I can only see these as yet another way to lose a little bit of your
privacy. But I'm also a debian kind of guy so... :P

~~~
mindstab
Only if you use these services. They are offering integration with them, far
from forcing you to use them. And if you were already using them these
features are an amazing boon and don't affect your privacy at all.

Using cloud based apps may affect your privacy but that is independent of
this.

~~~
skimmas
"Using cloud based apps may affect your privacy but that is independent of
this." Yes, you're probably right. But will ubuntu be developing code for
specific apps like gmail and twitter or will that be codded by the web app
developers? If it's the former than you'll probably not have many choices.

~~~
notatoad
Regardless of who writes the code, as you can clearly see the browser prompts
you to allow integration for each service that has it. If you don't want
desktop integration, don't click yes.

------
ekianjo
You can install a preview version of this Web Apps already the current Ubuntu
12.04 :

[http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/07/how-to-install-ubuntus-
ne...](http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/07/how-to-install-ubuntus-new-web-apps-
feature)

------
diminish
A smooth user experience on Unity is needed in order to ensure the well
functioning of the web apps and browsers together.

Encapsulating the browser process, is what usually kills web widget
performance, and I end up going back to the browser..

------
mwill
Sort of unrelated, but it was my first thought: I sort of wish there was a
cross platform store for wrapped web apps that could make them look sort of
native-ish, that was widely adopted.

Not because this is actually something I want or think would be better than a
browser, but simply because seems to be significantly easier to get users to
pay for something that behaves like a native app, ie, turns up on their dock.
I have a theory if you wrapped a web view and put it on the mac app store, the
average user (ie one who has no idea what web view means) would pay more for
it than the same product in a browser.

------
zimbatm
It would be great to be able to easily and privately install the server part
of the webapp. My hope by seeing the title is that canonical would have come
with a system to do that.

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ww520
Isn't this a throwback to the Windows Active Desktop? Windows actually had led
the way to integrate webapp/webpage with the OS, but everyone hated it back
then.

~~~
alttab
Although they get a bad wrap, MS has likely been too early on many things.
Things they got right: Commodity hardware, office, and directx. Active desktop
put those things behind the icons of their applications making the desktop
area dual purpose and thus confusing or distracting.

Given the state of HTML, the newbies inability to write proper HTML, and early
browsing technology and you have a recipe for instability and system crashes.

They were too early technology wise, and also because they couldn't see entire
application experiences being delivered that way.

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sp332
This is something that might highlight the serious deficiencies of the current
HTTP model and drive discussion of HTTP/2.0 with real examples.

------
johnernaut
So... aside from the HUD integration, which is cool, what's the difference
between what they've made and having multiple browser windows open?

~~~
rbanffy
It seems they managed to integrate the desktop controls with the web apps -
you get unread message counts from Gmail on the messages menu and can control
Last.fm from the sound indicator (and, presumably, from its kebyboard
bindings). I imagine Google Calendar reminders are included.

------
DeepDuh
I hate to nitpick, but that choice of background music strikes me as rather..
poor.

------
hotice
This can already be installed in Ubuntu 12.04 or 12.10:
[http://www.webupd8.org/2012/07/install-new-ubuntu-webapps-
te...](http://www.webupd8.org/2012/07/install-new-ubuntu-webapps-
technology.html)

------
pjmlp
I don't care, I only use web based applications in the few cases I am forced
to do so.

For me, the control over my data, operating system integration, taking
advantage of my hardware will win every day over dumb web applications.

~~~
wavephorm
You're probably in the minority. My usage of desktop software has been
dropping dramatically over the years. I'm basically left with 5 or 6 apps,
including a browser, a file picker, a code editor, and a command prompt. The
more powerful the web/internet apps become the more the desktop gets
sidelined, and any reason to Ubuntu over any other desktop becomes a pretty
moot point.

~~~
pjmlp
I'm used to it, Linux was also a minority for many years.

------
akoumjian
It's not a new idea, but I think it is finally the idea's time. There was
Prism, and there's FluidApp for OS X. There was also MS's active desktop as
others have pointed out.

------
pluc
How is it different than Prism and the likes?

~~~
sciurus
Examples they provide are

"Launch online music site Last.FM directly from the Dash and control the music
from Ubuntu’s sound menu

Access and launch your social media accounts (Google+, Twitter, Facebook) from
the Launcher, and get native desktop notifications

Quickly and seamlessly upload photos to Facebook from Shotwell

Pause and play the video you are watching on Youtube

See how many unread messages you have in your GMail account, in Ubuntu’s
messaging indicator"

------
jorangreef
The OS needs to provide machine power to trusted installed web apps.

i.e. raw UDP, TCP, POSIX, device APIs.

------
ilaksh
This is great! Does all of this stuff work with Chrome?

~~~
rbanffy
I think the whole point of this is not to use the browser.

~~~
king_magic
But it seems to be mostly just links to web sites, that open in a browser.

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abc_lisper
If ubuntu 12.04 is any indication, I personally wouldn't go near it again
ever.

------
miratom
Uh, desktop web shortcuts? Didn't I have this in Windows 98 and IE 5?

~~~
streptomycin
Watch more than the first 15 seconds of the video.

~~~
king_magic
Honestly, I'm not really impressed. The demo of Shotwell was the only thing
that seemed to be more than a link to a web app, and even then, it just looked
like a normal app.

~~~
pserwylo
I was thinking glorified bookmarks at the beginning too, but then I saw how it
integrated the last.fm controls into the media widget in the panel. I am also
currently using the Online Accounts functionality in Gnome, and it is pretty
cool how it will automatically use the credentials from each account I specify
in applications which support it.

My main use case is my multiple Google accounts (work, uni, personal) and
their respective calendars. I just fire up evolution, it automatically
connects to Google and the calendar widget in the panel populates with my
events. Its just a shame that only evolution does this, and Thunderbird does
not seem to integrate with it.

This is pretty similar to Android, how you specify your online accounts, and
it is up to individual applications to make use of those credentials if they
please. There just seems to be much more usage of this in Android than in
Gnome.

