Has the Native Vs. HTML5 Mobile Debate Changed?

itwbennett writes: The tools available to developers who need to build an application once and deploy everywhere have exploded. Frameworks like famo.us, Ionic, PhoneGap, Sencha Touch, Appcelerator, Xamarin, and others are reducing the grunt work and improving the overall quality of web based mobile applications dramatically. The benefits of a build once, deploy everywhere platform are pretty obvious, but are they enough to make up for the hits to user experience?

Comments

Least common denominator

[captaindomon]

The problem with frameworks is that they lower the end product to the common denominator. Instead of having an app for each platform that exploits the strengths of that platform, you end up with whatever you can manage to get to work on every platform. That works for simple apps like news websites maybe, but not when you want to integrate tightly with device hardware and how the established user base is used to interacting with their chosen platform.

Re:Least common denominator

[holostarr]

Except most app developers want to target as many users across as many devices as possible so it makes more sense to use tools that target the most "common denominator". It makes very little financial sense to spend months on a native app that runs on handful of devices rather than most device using a tool like PhoneGap.

Re:Least common denominator

[Dutch Gun]

That's assuming you don't care about giving your users a good UI experience, because if you don't, your competitors just might. You can always financially justify cutting corners if you're not considering longer-term ramifications.

I'm not saying building native apps is the right decision for all apps, but it certainly is the right decision for *some*.

Re:Least common denominator

[Penguinisto]

Dunno... I've seen where a well-built common UI framework (Qt specifically) can make cross-platform not only easier, but improves the UI beyond the OS it rides on, and more importantly, provides a consistent user experience for those who do switch between platforms.

A perfect example of this is in desktop CG applications (...like this one, ferinstance.) In this case, there are no real OS-specific strengths that your UI would even need to care about. In the case of cross-platform CG apps, a professional artist can use the Mac version at work, the Windows version at home, and not have to care about interrupting his workflow because of UI inconsistency.

Now on the mobile side, this becomes even more important I suspect, with a not-insignificant number of folks swapping between platforms every year or two... your app remaining consistent between them is kind of important at that stage. For anything cute/unique that you want to add or remove for a specific platform, I suspect that case statements (or equivalent) would take care of that, no? It would at least allow you to keep it all in one codebase if nothing else. You just have to know what you're doing when you build it, and be sure that the underlying language is equally cross-platform (in the above example, C++ is the weapon of choice).

Besides, the only way you really would be able to commit to tight hardware integration would be the case of iPhones - it'd be the only platform where you could expect a consistent and relatively limited variety of hardware specs and features across all users - a condition you'd never see with Android, WP, or even (heh) Blackberries.

Re:Least common denominator

[holostarr]

You can built incredible apps and UI using PhoneGap. Browse the list below and you'll be surprised how many popular apps are built using nothing more than Javascript and HTML5:

http://phonegap.com/app/

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

More specifically, HTML5/JS/CSS still give really shitty developer and user experiences compared to native apps. That has always been the case, and still remains true. That is why the debate has not changed.

why not a web page?

[gstoddart]

So if you need a framework so you can pretend to have a native version of the application ... why not just focus on having a webpage instead of a shitty application which is just a web page?

This sounds like lazy people who want to claim they have an app, when all they're doing is pointing to a web page.

I can view your damned web page on my own.

Honestly, this is why I've started getting away from apps ... because as often as not they're badly written, and contain a fraction of the information I can get from the website, but still insist on having access to my contact list and messages.

Most people writing apps care more about invading my privacy and selling ads than actually providing me anything useful.

Re:why not a web page?

[jddj]

It's important to understand that the context of use for a mobile web page is different from that of a successful mobile app.

There are a bunch of dumb apps developed for online news sites - as though I'd ever want to go to just one news site, vs. have the mobile web spread out before me.

OTOH, good mobile apps do things that the mobile web doesn't or can't. Perform read/write operations on local data. Use local processing power - as much as is available. Access local sensors not available to mobile web. Aggregate data from multiple sources - perhaps blending web and local data.

Even apps that do nothing more than provide deep search - if the vertical market for the app is well defined (Movie geeks: IMDB, small investors: finance apps...), it's possible for a mobile app to excel over a web site by providing native gadgets and a platform native UI that doesn't have to leave room for the (admittedly minimal) mobile browser UI.

Finally, mobile apps can scrape a bunch more information from the user's device than can mobile web. Definitely a help in monetizing a popular vertical, if you roll that way.

Yes, Please!!!

[rockmuelle]

For 99% of the applications out there, there's no reason not to do it in the browser if you're starting from scratch today. Most (useful) mobile apps simply display remote content in a way that's contextually relevant to the moment (Yelp, shopping (ordering and product reviews), *Maps, news sites, social media, etc). There's no reason for any of those to be app based. Most apps that aggregate content are poorly designed and not updated frequently. Couple that with the fact that most do not have useful offline modes (the only reason to have an app for content, IMHO), it just makes sense to optimize for the mobile browser rather than spend all the time and effort on an app. Hell, even most games I play casually have no reason being written as apps any more - any word game or puzzler would work fine in the browser.

Instead, put the effort into good mobile design and development practices. Hire good developers to optimize for JavaScript. Hire good developers to optimize your backend operations to reduce latency. Find what features are missing in HTML/JavaScript (e.g., a good client side persistence layer) and encourage the browser vendors to improve there so everyone can benefit.

For context, I develop complex scientific software. We use the browser (desktop) as our client and push the limits of what you can do there. Mobile is not far behind and should be the first choice for new development.

-Chris

Obligatory

[nitehawk214]

If you are Target and I just want to see what you have available in your store, then no, you don't need an app.

If you farm out to lazy app developers that simply ask for every permission on the phone, then no, you don't need an app.

And if you make a phone-specific version of your site, it will almost always end up crippled.