Will Apple Embrace the Web? No. | Hacker News Reader

Will Apple Embrace the Web? No.

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33 pointszmmz12 comments

"claim chowder" is right... If Apple's plan is to sell more hardware through Safari lock-in, it's time to short their stock because they're doing it allll wrong. Safari can't be "the next IE6" because it lacks proprietary features, and the bulk of its difficult to reproduce technology is open source and in fact, already in competitive use. Even if Safari were the best HTML5 platform, Chrome/Epiphany/(new WebKit browser) would provide an escape from lock-in.

And, they're going to do this by not supporting NaCl? Really? Let's call NaCl x86-Flash and be done with it. Running NaCl on an ARM processor is going to be way too slow. I get that people want to see performant web applications, but the way to do that is via a cleaner, more portable VM, like the LLVM project that Apple is funding.

So, shame on me for taking a bite of spam thinking it would be meaty.

If Apple's plan is to sell more hardware through Safari lock-in, it's time to short their stock because they're doing it allll wrong. Safari can't be "the next IE6" because it lacks proprietary features

Uhh, isn't the entire iTunes App Store/ecosystem one very large 800lb gorilla of a proprietary feature? I think that's what they're betting the farm on. Devs will keep writing apps because of the gold rush mentality, and users will stay with the iTunes App Store ecosystem.

However, I agree with you that they're wrong. Unless iTunes App Store apps can stay compellingly better than Web apps, then Apple's strategy is flawed. Through HTML5 and NaCl, Google hopes to enable a compellingly good (natively supported) UX on any browser on any tablet, smartphone, or other mobile device. This will act to commoditize all mobile devices.

Google vs. Apple was inevitable. Google is motivated to commoditize its complements and one of the complements is mobile device hardware. Hardware is a core of the Apple business.

EDIT: The question you need to ask, "Is there any fundamental reason why a 'Web app' can't do everything a native app can?" The answer is no. Integration with the native OS won't be so much of an issue on an iPad-like tablet -- the whole point of it is that the OS gets out of the way! There are security issues with accessing local resources like the baseband, GPS, and filesystem, but these are solve-able. in fact, they're already been solved in non-mainstream systems.

EDIT: Will Apple go the way of Sun? Not necessarily. There will always be pain points in everyone's personal digital infrastructure. Apple will always be able to carve out a niche at the high-end of UX. The danger is that Apple will get stuck in a rut and get left behind at the high-end of irrelevance.

'The question you need to ask, "Is there any fundamental reason why a 'Web app' can't do everything a native app can?" The answer is no.'

I'm not sure that "no" is as clear as it seems. There are lots of things that are technically possible, but don't gain any traction in the market because of their inherent shortcomings. It depends upon which "fundamentals" you're looking at. Are we talking technology fundamentals or experience fundamentals. From the experience perspective, I feel inclined to side with Steve Jobs on the notion that cross-platform software represents a lowest common denominator approach to UX.

For all the flack that SJ is taking over his stance on Flash, his open letter on the topic re-solidified his software philosophy. SJ -- and by proxy, Apple -- believe that in order to deliver the best software experience possible, one must control the software ecosystem from end-to-end. However, there is a dichotomy within Apple that few people have come to terms with. When it comes to the web, Apple is "open". It's about the only place that they could truly be called such, but they are, none the less. Jobs' comments in his open letter spell it out in words, and their continued commitment to WebKit shows it in action.

The problem with discussing experience fundamentals is that objectivity remains out of reach. Some people prefer a tiled, line-mode display to a bitmap GUI. I'm fine with that. Why wouldn't I be? What's aggravating is when any one individual foists their preferences upon the masses. I prefer the experience that Apple has managed to deliver, and that means giving up some ground on things like software freedom. That's my choice to make, and the author here is bending over backwards to paint a false picture of Apple, Safari, and the web in general, just so we can all bite our nails over some Apple-controlled future. It's just ridiculous.

I agree with your criticism of the article. I thought you might find PNaCl interesting, though: replace x86 with llvmbc: http://www.google.com/m/url?cd=3&client=safari&ct=re...

edit: sorry I couldn't canonicalize that URL from my phone

How often do you get to suggest how something should be done only to find out it's already in progress? :-)

I think that LLVM might become the universal web bytecode that Java was supposed to be. There is still the issue of a standard library and browser interop that could allow something else to win in the long term, but this is a huge step in the right direction.

[the canonical url for your link: http://nativeclient.googlecode.com/svn/data/site/pnacl.pdf]

He shows that apple is in a position to make safari the next ie. I'm not really seeing any evidence here that apple is, in fact, making safari the next ie. In fact, the first several paragraphs of are all full of evidence that apple is embracing the web, but those are all dismissed without a solid reason I could detect.

Dude lost me with "Essentially, as long as the iPhone and iPad are able to retain mind-share, developer support and an unignorable market-share then Apple can shape the lowest common denominator for the web (even if that low is very high, like the best HTML5 / CSS3 support)"

He is talking about the smart phone market. You may add the iPad (tablets) to that.

Yeah, I was refering specifically to the "lowest common denominator ... like the best HTML5 / CSS3 support" non sequitur...

Progressive enhancement.

When web applications are available on all devices, but work better on some devices than others, people have an incentive to switch -- and that puts pressure on Apple to keep their browser competitive.

Note the large number of people that make video game console purchasing choices based on how well their favorite cross-platform games perform on each of the respective consoles.

The author is right. Apple is trying to lock everyone into native apps and by doing so, selling more iPhones, iMacs, iPads, etc. But the web, and Google, is going to pass them by because Apple is not going to be able to change its business model fast enough to meet these demands, a lesson that many companies have failed to heed when planting their stakes in the ground.

In round one, Apple lost to Microsoft because they took the position that the hardware, not software, made the market.

In round two, Apple is again playing the same cards; the hardware sets the rules and the software feeds the hardware.

They'll lose out again ... to Google.

When you embrace the web you get all sticky

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