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Comment by duaneb | Hacker News Reader

I've gotta wonder, why are all these OS manufacturers going with HTML5? Wasn't that already tried with WebOS? And FirefoxOS? Where do they imagine to fit in the market?

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I think FirefoxOS is doing quite well. And as one of showcases of "HTML5 power" for me was this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1Bxg1UJVf0

The problem isn't with HTML5—as a consumer, I love it—it's that it's the ONLY way to interact with the system. HTML may be powerful these days but using javascript is still like eating nails, and compiling to javascript has many years to go before it's competitive with native in terms of resources. I.e. even though it's very attractive as the software company who has to maintain these platforms, HTML5 holds nothing for me: it's a wholly unpleasant development platform that has an absolutely absurd amount of money and man years behind it.

Also, as a note, I think it's unhealthy to design phones to be closed off from the beginning. Apps are only a small subset of potential things to do with a computer.

Webos platforms went down for reasons unrelated the software platform itself. I don't think I ever heard any serious critique of it to be honest. Even Enyo has been separated into its own project and doing ok. I quite like developing with it and would like to use something similar in the future.

Amazon ported chromium browser to kindle fire and allowing developers to submit webapps. It will act like native app. User can download webapps from app store just like native apps. Webapps will use chromium instead of android browser. http://developer.amazon.com/webapps

New chrome beta on Android allows webapps to be added to your home screen like iOS, but on android it is more usable and functional than iOS.

Try my app on chrome beta on Android: http://hn.premii.com/

I don't think HTML5 and webapps are going away.

Read my above posts--html5 is fine, it's stopping there that's the problem.

Then they can all use each other's apps. No lock in is nice.

Yes, for instance Appcelerator's Titanium compiles to Tizen. HTML can be awkward but the web stack can be compiled to from a number of established frameworks.

HTML5 already has too many frameworks, it's not like that's the solution unless those frameworks expose new APIs that ameliorate the use of javascript, e.g. access to SIMD, to JITing code, to a full network stack instead of (at best) restricted HTTP, SPDY, and WebSockets.

I think you're missing my point. By adopting the open and existing HTML5 for apps, Tizen does not have to create an entirely new app ecosystem. Existing apps on other platforms can be easily ported, easing adoption by both developers and users. (Titanium apps do have access to a more complete network stack and native code.)

That being said, Blackberry tried to do the same thing (Titanium compile target, compatibility with Dalvik) and botched the launch with delays and marketing issues. So Tizen success will need far more than just HTML5/compatibility to buoy it.

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