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Comment by apathy | Hacker News Reader

The iPhone is driving the change he writes about -- the mobile Web, instead of mobile-specific Java apps (for example).

It strikes me as a colossal ''duh''. Would any of us be here reading this site if Paul Graham hadn't had a similar insight with regards to selling shit (via the Web) in 1995-96?

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I meant native apps on the iphone. A lot of people are looking forward to the SDK.

I'm not so sure it matters TBH.

What can you do in a native app that you can't do with some javascript and a pretty webapp these days :/

The days of native apps is ending. On the desktop, on mobile phones, everywhere.

Save energy? IMHO it matters a lot!

Javascript-based apps are bad enough on desktop, I don't want to have them in my mobile device.

I'd rather be able to use the same app on my phone as I do on my desktop, as I do in an internet cafe, as I do on my wii, etc etc.

Webapps are the true "Write once run anywhere".

Gather GPS information and mash it up with google maps? I hope there will be browser APIs for that kind of thing.

True, although hopefuly that'll just get exposed to javascript. In the same way that the orientation of the iPhone (portrait/landscape) is exposed to javascript.

Yeah, that is what I meant by browser API. I have no experience with mobile browsers yet - I guess you can't install plugins for them, as with the desktop ones?

reality is that iphone is a tiny tiny proportion of all mobile handsets - there's a much bigger market out there called the mobile internet

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