Comment by joshwa | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joshwa | Hacker News Reader

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If they're going to pitch HTML5 as an alternative to Flash (and, implicitly, the iPhoneOS API), then why not let them compete directly with Cocoa Touch apps? Why not offer HTML5 developers a way to take advantage of the App Store's monetization and discoverability?

Apple already provides some amazing documentation and tutorials for making offline-capable mobile web apps, but they're still treated by Apple as the bastard cousins of "real" iPhone apps. They should buy or provide an officially-supported analogue to a tool like PhoneGap[1] or Titanium[2], allowing HTML5 apps to appear in the App Store, and perhaps provide an Apple-supported framework such as their mysterious PastryKit[3] or contribute to SproutCore[4], giving HTML5 developers better tools to conform to Apple's HIG.

HTML5 apps built on open standards should be on an equal footing with apps built in Cocoa Touch. That would be walking the walk.

[1] http://phonegap.com/

[2] http://www.appcelerator.com/

[3] http://daringfireball.net/2009/12/pastrykit

[4] http://blog.sproutcore.com/post/531215199/introducing-sprout...

EDIT: "officially-supported analogue"

EDIT: footnotes

I get this argument, but couldn't you say Apple gives the customer the best of both worlds?

Web & HTML 5 support: developers can make or do anything they want to on the platform.

App Store: Cultivated catalog of high quality apps for customers.

At the end of the day, we don't need PhoneGaps or Titaniums-- we need MobileSafari to have the same hooks into the hardware (gps, compass, accelerometer, camera, etc) as Cocoa Touch. Then it's a level playing field.

If you're saying that that, too, ought to be in the App Store, well-- then what you're really arguing for isn't technology but that the App Store is a better distribution channel to mobile devices than the Web. It certainly is-- I have millions of competitors for the word "Congress" on Google, and about 12 in the App Store.

To solve the distribution channel problem, I don't understand why some enterprising YC person doesn't simply start making a web App Store app for the iPhone that allows people to sell web applications to iPhone users, handle fulfillment just like the App Store does, and handle curation, just like the App Store does.

There's money to be made here.

What I'm arguing for is not technology (which already exists), but technology support in the form of official frameworks, which subverts the "3rd party middleware" argument, and for equal access to distribution and payment channels. I have no motivation to create iPhone web apps if I can't easily get them in front of iPhone users monetize them.

A few other points:

- MobileSafari already has access to many hardware functions: gps, accelerometer, maybe compass? There are some great iTunes U videos on this if you're a member of the iPhone dev program. Obviously it would be good to have access to all the hardware features.

- Every time I hear about the App Store being "curated" for "high quality" I choke a little (iFart?). There's no reason why html5 apps in the app store wouldn't go through the same review process.

- The Google results for "congress" have no relationship whatsoever to "congress" in the App Store. Web pages != web applications.

"I don't understand why some enterprising YC person doesn't simply start making a web App Store app for the iPhone that allows people to sell web applications to iPhone users, handle fulfillment just like the App Store does, and handle curation, just like the App Store does."

Not a bad idea, in fact. A few big hurdles, though: 1) you can't install apps on the iPhone except via the App Store (or asking a mobilesafari user to create a home screen icon themselves) 2) payment system inertia-- who's going to sign up for another micropayment account when they're already set up with Apple?

EDIT: while I was writing this, nailer said it better and more succinctly.

So I think we're in (nailer) agreement, though I don't see why anybody has to wait on Apple to make a web app store. I think there's money to be made even with all the marketing hurdles.

I want to explain myself in regards to your response here:

"- The Google results for "congress" have no relationship whatsoever to "congress" in the App Store. Web pages != web applications."

In a lot of cases this is true. But I, for instance, make web apps about members of congress. My mission is to get people information about members of congress wherever they're at. In order for those web apps to get discovered, I have to rely on Google for people to discover them (as well as good marketing and PR and all sorts of other things). I'm simply point out that the App Store is, in fact, a less competitive environment than the web for the dissemination of information, which a lot of web applications, and iphone applications do.

Type "Weather" into the App Store, and there's a few hundred applications. Type it into google? 319,000,000. I'd wager to say that 99% of "Weather" applications on the iphone are about the dissemination of weather information.

So while, yes, web pages != web applications, many web applications are about the aggregation and dissemination of information. And search-- whether it be through Google or through the App Store-- is an important factor to their discovery and use. Being in the "top 25" apps for a search result in the App store is valuable, just like being in the top of Google search results. And right now, the App Store is far less competitive than Google search results.

I don't see any reason why HTML5/Javascript apps couldn't be in the App Store as some sort of "featured" section, with a means to install them as icons on the home screen, except that Apple would be diluting the market for the native apps. That's not in the developer's interest, but it might well be in Apple's interest to have more decent free stuff on the iPhone.

who said anything about free? my point is that mobile web apps have no way to monetize, and that could be fixed by letting web apps in the app store, via a native bridge.

We're arguing for Apple to make the web app store.

Clearly the current situation of open standards apps not being monetizable is not the best of both worlds.

But how is this different from the monetizibility of web-apps on the existing web?

And don't forget - even if Apple were to acquiesce and make an app store for web apps, there would still be much wailing and gnashing of teeth. The claim would be that Apple is trying to take away URL-addressibility from the web. Heck, people already complain about this just for Objective-C Apps!

Exhibit A: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=945443

Don't you remember that Apple was first trying to force everything on the iPhone to be done on the web?

We all remember, but they changed their minds and now fully embrace the app store, and even use it as a major marketing point. Suggesting we go back to it now is a bit pre-mature, I think. JS simply doesn't run comparably to native apps, so if they want to talk battery life, they should discuss it there as well.

He did. In the very next sentence:

> Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards.

Not too many words there between 'JavaScript' and 'low power'.

They may be low power compared to other implementations of the same, but I'd be very surprised to hear that the same program written in html5 and JS didn't consume more power than an app equivalent. Ever use Meebo? Ever look at how resource intensive it is, vs Adium or a similar program?

Hmm, oddly I don't recall the 1st party apps being HTML apps, with access to the camera.

http://www.phonegap.com/

Awesome. Thanks for the link.

Can't you create a barebones cocoa touch app that basically just shows safari, and your app runs inside that as ja and HTML?

That's what PhoneGap is. It also provides the webkit js engine with access to the camera, accelerometer etc.

You could, but Apple are rejecting apps that are just web views or RSS readers so I wouldn't recommend it.

There are plenty of apps that utilize web views inside of native iPhone UIs, like tab bar controllers and other widgets. They are "hybrid" apps and make the best of both and they get by the review process just fine. A lot of them are fairly big names, like Reddit.

The point is that if you build your application correctly no one will even notice it's not a Cocoa app.

Take the iTunes App Store for instance. Nearly the entire application is a Webview, the AppKit equivalent of stuffing a Safari window into your application. It's all HTML (or an HTML-like markup language) and CSS. It's a little clunky sometimes but you can't say it doesn't "feel" like a real application just because it uses web technologies.

A full app that runs inside a WebView is very different from an app that is just a WebView.

What's the point? Just point users to your URL instead.

You can also serve the content locally so you don't need to have a network connection.

Income.

I built a demo using PastryKit. See it here: http://michaelgrinich.com/pastrytweets/

Code is here: http://github.com/grinich/pastrytweets

>or contribute to SproutCore[4]

The President and CEO of Sproutit, Charles Jolley, has been employed by Apple since 2006. I guess that would count as contributing to SproutCore.

They aren't pitching them as equal. Apple wants them to be unequal.

Which is why their argument here is bullshit.

They aren't comparing HTML5 to Native Apps, they're comparing HTML5 to Flash.

That's the spin talking. The issue here is market control and always has been.

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