HTML5 Poses Threat to Flash and the App Store | Hacker News Reader

HTML5 Poses Threat to Flash and the App Store

blogs.wsj.com

20 pointsmwbiz11 comments

Flash? Sure, HTML5 can replace many uses of Flash. But HTML5 is no competition for an app store. Apple's App Store has value in two ways: (1) for developers it's an easy way to pull money from consumers with a mere password entry (i.e. no email, address, CC number, etc. entry). (2) For consumers, it allows easy discoverability of nominally safe applications.

The technical side of having APIs to draw things on the screen are very minor hurdles compared to the social hurdles that the App store has overcome.

The translation for App Store appears to be 'native apps'.

Typical tech "journalism":

> The problem is HTML5 is not scheduled for official approval by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) until 2014.

Does anybody care about this, anywhere? It's relevant inasmuch as not all features of the spec(s) have been implemented, but it's been well established that XHTML2 killed the waterfall model for web-dev. The whole reason HTML5 is thriving is due to ongoing incremental improvements, not a hardcoded release date.

> If you’re not looking to monetize your app then, absolutely, you should go for HTML5. If you’re looking to monetize it. then native coding for the App Store is still the way to go.

This completely ignores the fact that you can build native apps using HTML5, not to mention all the successful freemium/subscription based web apps (the model works far better for Basecamp than Angry Birds, but it's still working well for many).

> This completely ignores the fact that you can build native apps using HTML5

You can and you can't. You can wrap a web view inside an app, sure, but HTML5 apps never look as good or work as well as native solutions- the UI doesn't match, any attempt at using a map view is a mess... the web browsers haven't received enough attention to make them look as good.

About the only OS in which this works well is WebOS, where, IIRC, you can write a native app using JS and HTML.

I think it depends heavily on the app type and the feature-set required. Certain apps can never be duplicated well or even at all; others (such as apps that wrap web content already, or form-centric business tools) would be near-indistinguishable to the casual users who are the target market for most apps. (Also keep in mind, the article was referring not to the quality of products, but of potential business models).

Moreover, cross-platform distribution is nothing to sneeze at. I'm reminded a little of Java programs back when Macs had under 5% market share, and far less native software. I might have been annoyed that these programs were slow and didn't honor Mac conventions, but when there weren't good alternatives, it still beat having nothing at all.

I made the first real-time, online, turn-based games for the iPhone/iPod Touch before the App Store existed. They used Javascript and AJAX and worked well, but couldn't compete with Apps in the App Store when it was later released. HTML5 does not change that.

The App Store killed the Web App by offering native device functions to developers. These functions could theoretically be built-in to Safari with some custom Javascript hooks, but I don't see much motivation for Apple to do that. I imagine it's more likely for Android to do.

While were on the subject, native hooks through Javascript would be freaking awesome, and make mobile apps much easier for existing websites to create.

May not be exactly what you say you want, but it's gotta be pretty close:

http://www.phonegap.com/

Wasn't Angry Birds done in WebGL? That's not HTML5. Microsoft won't implement it in IE. And a desktop computer has quite a bit more power than an iPad.

Please don't link to Murdoch's stuff. Thanks.

I don't think that the article really portrays an accurate view of the HTML5 vs. Flash vs. native apps clearly, but saying that a site's article should not be posted because a company owned by the same conglomerate as the site performed phone hacking is ridiculous.

Have you ever watched Faux Noos?

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