We can make most web apps work on the iPad. Even Google Docs. | Hacker News Reader

We can make most web apps work on the iPad. Even Google Docs.

gkosev.blogspot.com

65 pointsspion34 comments

I like the premise and your remarks with regards to interaction with the screen, but it is a little strange that zoom is not present (why not include it in your toolbar) especially since the initial screen doesn't even fit... the login box is cropped on the right, and there's no way to scroll horizontally (double fingered or not).

Moreover, you have a privacy policy where you explain you'll use my email address. How will you get this address? Do you intercept the email text field on the screen? That worries me. Do you intercept data entry into all text fields?!?

Not logging on, despite desiring exactly what you describe... a better way to interact with web apps on an iPad.

PS - your username (spion == spy) doesn't make it any more comfortable.

We actually ask you for your email address with a dialog box, we don't intercept it. You can give us a fake one if you want.

What you enter in the google docs login screen is sacred and will not be touched. The same for anything happening in the browser (documents list, documents you edit) - we are not reading any of it.

edit: as for the login box - very strange. Which iPad are you using?

Thanks. I did not see a box requesting my email address, only the privacy notification, which is why I started wondering.

I use an iPad 3, iOS 6, issue repeatable, open app in portrait mode, then rotate to landscape. Width does not adjust. When I open it in landscape more, issue does not present itself.

Edit: ah, found the box, it shows up shortly after launching the app, as a pop-up. The message in this pop-up (Please register and support us, it's free) is somewhat unclear. How does it support you? Also, I would suggest that you show that pop-up immediately after the privacy notification. OK, gonna to log in now!

Ah, right, we can reproduce that. Good catch, we will look into it.

Edit: We're showing the box 20 minutes into the app because we figure that if you don't want to use it for more than 20 minutes, you didn't really like it. But in combination with the privacy policy I can see how it seems disturbing - we might need to change that.

You're supporting us because investors keep asking us "how many people have registered with you". By registering you increase the number we can tell them.

We can also keep you informed about other potential future Appser releases which you might like. Like say Appser for Cloud9 IDE or something similar.

Supporting (to me) implies adding some kind of value. If things are free, I'm the product. I'd clarify this, that's all (or simply remove the 'supporting' phrasing)

Other issues:

Perhaps unavoidable, but I opened a google document, typed "hello mister how is this working for you" tried to position the cursor before the first 'i' in that line, and the blinking cursor appears over the s. Expanding selection by dragging also isn't clear.

Tried copying the selection using the right-click menu (long-press) but this resets the selection.

Repeated selection.

Tried copying selection via edit menu (not really convenient) and then I get a notification I need to install the web drive app to support cutting and pasting.

Perhaps this can be solved by adding cut/paste to the menu bar. I would not mind having left/right cursor control in that bar too (but I can see how that would interfere with the history function).

The somewhat-off positioning of the cursor is a known issue and we're still attempting to fix it.

We're also looking into implementing the API part of Google Drive required for clipboard access to enable copy and paste.

Without copy/paste it's gonna be a hard 'sell' (to me). Is there any way to copy/paste at the moment that I might have missed?

Not yet, sorry. But it looks very doable so far and its definitely our first priority.

Turns out there is a workaround. In the Edit menu there is "Web Clipboard", you can use it for now.

This solution could speed up ipad adoption in the Enterprise market - part of the problem is getting the legacy intranet apps to work on new devices without rewriting the software. Keep up the good work!

That is definitely a use case we're considering - we just wanted to start with a popular web app which is perceived as hard to do (Google Docs) and see how far we can go.

But we'd like to think that we can take the concept to other popular web apps. Imagine coding away in Cloud9 IDE https://c9.io/ on your iPad with a bluetooth keyboard, or creating tiny websites in Weebly http://www.weebly.com/

There are many mature full-featured web applications with non-existent or comparatively-toy versions on iPad. We might be able to make them usable.

Not to knock against an undeniable excellent effort, I am sure this will delight some people, I wish them luck.

Personally, I just sold my iPad and got an 11" MacBook Air. I know some people are tired of hearing this (Gruber for one) but from direct personal experience over 6 months use my conclusion about the iPad is it is great as a media consumption device, and it does have some extremely lightweight abilities for content creation, but that is about it. I tried using the iPad as a code editor with Diet Coda, Textastic, iSSH etc, using a remote server for remote VIM etc, but with the onscreen keyboard leaving only a tiny viewing port and the obvious lag and internet connection requirements it was just a novelty I couldn't seriously consider. For some people the iPad is a wonderful, perfect desktop computer replacement, but I found it extremely hard to justify the high cost for what I was getting in return. I guess my hopes were too high from the off, I had read many stories about people giving up laptops and just using the iPad for everything, I found that to be laughably unrealistic. Next time I get a tablet it will be a cheaper one with no expectations of using it as a sort of laptop replacement.

Good luck to them anyway, I am probably in the vast minority.

A tv is also for consumption only, and costs about the same. I prefer the content available for consumption on the Internet to the content available on tv, so this makes it easier to justify the purchase of a tablet than a tv...

The onscreen keyboard? Yes, if you want to create textual content on the iPad you really do need to use a bluetooth keyboard.

Whether you prefer an iPad + keyboard to an all-in-one MacBook Air is a different matter, of course!

This is exactly why we're doing this. Companies are still treating the iPad as a toy and its productivity features are lacking.

We started with a docking solution kickstarter - http://www.completedock.com/ which we planned to extend with a Surface-like keyboard solution. Then we realized productivity apps aren't up to snuff and that solutions using Apple TV and external keyboards might be the answer to some input and output issues.

We're actively brainstorming and trying to attack the problem on both the hardware and software fronts. This is our second attempt.

As for open platforms, they're a whole different story. Unfortunately most users don't seem to care enough.

The web however is quite open. You can access any website without an app store. Also, if we can get a web-based IDEs for web apps to work decently, that would be a step towards a more open iPad. Apple doesn't seem to mind web apps so this might actually work.

Introducing the "other half" of your iPad:

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/ultrathin-keyboard-cov...

Leave it off when at home or in the hotel bed "consuming", leave it on when heading out to the coffee shop. (It bonds using the smartcover magnets.)

Love this. A totally unique approach to what the iPad can be good at. I hope people at Apple take notice. It'd be great if webapps could opt-in to this behavior.

I was trying to log in to my Google Docs. I have 2 factor enabled so I get a prompt from google to ente my 6 digit code. I tried double tapping on this text field to give it focus but I am not able to. Here is a screenshot. https://www.dropbox.com/s/vt4091si0y7us25/Photo%20Dec%2013%2...

That's definitely a bug - we didn't test a two-factor authentication login scenario. We'll look into it. Thanks for the report.

I can confirm it doesn't work. The login page is also broken (in that it extends past the edge)

Ugh. I don't see prolonged use on the iPad happening anytime soon. Trying to build a presentation on an iPad in google docs looks like an absolute pain and a strain on my hands.

Go buy a MB Air or something similar. I don't see this as being a viable long term solution.

Free and no ads. What's your business model?

Or: Do you play with user data?

We track anonymous usage time and ask for your email address. That is all.

One of our potential business models is to work with other companies to make their web apps work on the iPad.

Thanks, sounds like a good demonstration for this business model.

Is it yet possible to disable the pinch / zoom for the web on the ipad? Can you force users to scroll the page with 2 fingers instead of 1?

Yes and no. There is some not-so-pretty trickery involved on both the native side and the JS side. We have an invisible layer on top of the browser on the native side, and call the JS code which generates the appropriate events and scrolls the appropriate elements.

So, a new layer above javascript and below the browser?

Yup, events never actually reach the browser. They are received by the invisible layer and then sent to some JS code (which is injected into the page).

Thats why you need to double-tap to edit text fields or upload a photo - we can't make text boxes enter editing mode or initiate image upload via JS (the second is disabled because of security issues) so we need to temporarily disable the layer when you attempt that.

Would be even more ideal to cut the cord go AirPlay. It defeats the purpose to bring iPad around with VGA adapter dongle.

This should work right now - did you try it?

I did. I can't find anywhere to toggle into AirPlay mode.

Okay, we're going to test this tomorrow

chiming in late...

The app store says it requires iOS 6. Do you have any plans to make it available for iOS5 users or are you using iOS6-specific features?

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