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Yahoo's Project To Disrupt Mobile Publishing

Posted by timothy on from the giving-you-the-once-over dept.

waderoush writes "Right now, content publishers who want to reach readers through dedicated mobile apps have to hire a separate engineering team to build each app — one for iOS (based on Objective-C), another for Android (Java), a third for Windows Phone (C#), etc. Yahoo's Platform Technology Group is working on an alternative: a set of JavaScript and HTML-based tools that would handle core UI and data-management tasks inside mobile apps for any operating system, moving developers closer to the nirvana of 'write once, run everywhere.' The tools are gradually being open-sourced — starting with Mojito, a framework for running hybrid server/browser module-widgets ('mojits') — and Yahoo is showing off what they can do in the form of Livestand, the news reader app it released for the iPad in November. In his first extensive public interview about Mojito and the larger 'Cocktails' project, Bruno Fernandez-Ruiz, chief architect at Yahoo's Platform Technology Group, explains how the tools work and why the company is sharing them."

16 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. ALREADY DONE by Roachgod · · Score: 5, Informative

    Take a look at Appcelerator Titanium, or Corona. Or even PhoneGap. Kinda late to the party Yahoo... again.

    1. Re:ALREADY DONE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Add MoSync to that list: http://www.mosync.com/

    2. Re:ALREADY DONE by Tronster · · Score: 5, Informative

      Also add "HaXe / NME":
      http://www.haxenme.org/

  2. I don't get it. by mcgrew · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Right now, content publishers who want to reach readers through dedicated mobile apps have to hire a separate engineering team to build each app

    Why a dedicated mobile app? What's wrong with HTML? We are talking about books, right? Not Quake or Angry Birds or even a radio station; plain old text. WTF?

    --
    Free Martian Whores!
    1. Re:I don't get it. by Anrego · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hard to sell a subscription to a site.

      Easy to sell an app.

      This is one of my big gripes with the whole "app" thing. A lot of stuff could just as easily be a website, but is being done as an app for the purpose of generating revenue.

      (That's not to say that a lot of apps out there make sense and use features which would be impractical or clumsy as a web page)

  3. Again? by GreyLurk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If only there weren't a half dozen other companies like Xamarin, Appcelerator and PhoneGap already doing the same thing, this might be impressive.

    1. Re:Again? by Roceh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem with all of these cross platform frameworks, they work great if your writing a game or a very simple app that consists of a single screen. However as soon as you go multiple screen you find that the UI metaphors each OS has fight each other, namely Android use of a hardware back button and it use of a hidden menu, these just don't gel with iOS way of doing things. You end up having to write two apps within one app anyway, and in javascript...

    2. Re:Again? by PCM2 · · Score: 2

      It's all irrelevant anyways. In 2 or 3 years, most "apps" will be written in HTML5. There are very few apps that actually need to run on client hardware, especially considering that most client hardware is low capability.

      Depends what you mean. If you're talking about content publishing, then voila -- TFA is describing some new HTML5-based tools for content publishing. I agree that we'll see a lot more HTML-based apps in future (even if we don't realize that's what we're looking at), but the idea here is that Yahoo wants to be one of the companies that makes that happen.

      Content publishing doesn't represent the full breadth of mobile apps, however. How do you use HTML5 to access the phone's camera, webcam, GPS, accelerometer, or other sensors? How do you write an HTML game that takes advantage of a variety of different input mechanisms, depending on hardware? Can HTML5 gauge your battery level, or choose which content to download based on whether you're connected via WiFi or a mobile data network? There are lots of things that are easier to code using a native API.

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
    3. Re:Again? by PCM2 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You end up having to write two apps within one app anyway, and in javascript...

      Then again, isn't this kind of like the browser compatibility problems that jQuery aims to solve? Sure, the user has to download some code that won't be used, but the upshot is that the same code will display and function in a useful way on browsers all the way back to IE6.

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
  4. Isn't that Java? by sys_mast · · Score: 2

    How many of these 'apps' really need dedicated apps when some good old fashond HTML 5 would work. Wasn't google voice originaly HTML 5 before Apple approved a native app? Didn't it work fairly well?

    I guess I'm sick of all these websites that want an app installed, to use the website. Just write the HTML so it detects the device and adjusts the page as needed.

    That said. I admit a write once run anywhere, for apps that really do need and app, would be cool. Wait, isn't that Java????

    --
    Those who can, do.
  5. Those poor, poor software companies. by scottbomb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Having to write for multiple platforms... the humanity!

    Back in the 80s, they wrote for Commodore, Atari, Apple, Tandy, IBM, CP/M, a handful of others.

    Maybe they got spoiled by the 90s, where MS Windows pretty much ruled all computing platforms.

    1. Re:Those poor, poor software companies. by CanHasDIY · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yea... for a billion-dollar software conglomerate, writing different code for different platforms is no big deal, since they have the resources to do so.

      For the indie guys like me, who write apps now and again to supplement the pittance we receive from our corporate day jobs (and are lucky to know even one programming language, let alone three), it's a real pain in the ass.

      But then, I guess that's the definition of YMMV.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
  6. Re:"Ahem" by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 2

    It might have something to do with their lackluster efforts to keep pace as Apple and Google speed off into the future. Microsoft's effort to catch up makes BlackBerry look old-and-busted.

    --
    "Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
  7. Why exactly? by Hentes · · Score: 2

    "Right now, content publishers who want to reach readers through dedicated mobile apps have to hire a separate engineering team to build each app — one for iOS (based on Objective-C), another for Android (Java), a third for Windows Phone (C#), etc. Yahoo's Platform Technology Group is working on an alternative: a set of JavaScript and HTML-based tools that would handle core UI and data-management tasks inside mobile apps for any operating system, moving developers closer to the nirvana of 'write once, run everywhere.'

    Like, you know, the webpage they already have?

  8. Re:"Ahem" by Pieroxy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If the thing is based on JS, CSS and HTML, I think the answer is pretty obvious: BB browser sucks ass so terribly they'd have to write one from scratch (or to port Webkit)

    --
    Write boring code, not shiny code!
  9. not cross platform (yet) by Mike_K · · Score: 3

    Yahoo's Platform Technology Group is working on an alternative: a set of JavaScript and HTML-based tools that would handle core UI and data-management tasks inside mobile apps for any operating system (...) Yahoo is showing off what they can do in the form of Livestand, the news reader app it released for the iPad in November.

    Seriously? This is about a cross platform framework that so far has produced a single application that runs on only one platform?

    A little premature, don't you think?

    Michal