Why LinkedIn dumped HTML5 & went native for its mobile apps

venturebeat.com

11 points·vshlos··3 comments

Was anyone else heavily on the HTML5 crew only to be rudely awakened to all these inconveniences? It seems like there's a constant, persistent migration away from HTML5 for mobile style devices...and while every dev group says something like "performance, debug tools, etc." However, I'd say that the ultimate reason to do so is because of user behavior - opening up safari mobile or chrome is not a "pleasant" experience when compared with a native app.

Is anyone else moving away from html5 to native? What I find odd about this is Paul Graham's whole "web software" is the future - and yet if "Mobile" future and mobile users favor "native software" ............. then it seems that native would be the future.

Of course, one can just say "yes, but native is becoming hybrid with web." And that's definitely true, but it still makes things very dependent upon the client and not as "platform agnostic" as a full web movement would be.

It's not about opening up safari or chrome. HTML5 "apps" are simply a browser window and the guts are implemented in HTML/Javascript/CSS. This is how LinkedIn's app used to work and it is the basis for Phonegap (which powers most HTML5 based apps).

The memory management bit Prasad references is a big deal too. Can you imagine not being able to release a feature that you've invested a lot of money into because you've got a performance problem or crashing issue that the tooling is not good enough to let you solve?

What kind of memory problems is html5 prone to that native apps aren't? Prasad didn't give any hints. It seems like a face-saving back-peddle. Native apps are just butterier, and he wasted a lot of money finding that out.

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