Mobile trends, web and native | Hacker News Reader

Mobile trends, web and native

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58 pointsrnyman25 comments

This doesn't really say much about sectors, though. Sure, lots of people are creating apps that are HTML5 wrappers, but what do these apps actually do? Are they just wrappers around websites? Do they preform any serious functions?

Obviously, 95% of graphics- or CPU-intensive apps (eg. games, graphics utilities) are going to be native, but this isn't implied in the slide deck -- indeed it almost suggests (somewhat disingenuously) that the "trend" toward non-native includes games, which is silly.

The slide deck touches on sectors, in the sense of Consumer, Professionals and Enterprise (but no what's games etc). It would be interesting to have numbers for, say, number of how many apps are made through PhoneGap and what they do. With games, though, there's is a strong evolution in the direction of other alternatives than native: through asm.js, Unity engine and more: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/03/18/gdc-2014-mozilla-an...

This depends on how you define "native" -- asm.js code is run-time compiled to assembler (I'm assuming that's where the name comes from) so is running "natively", as if you shipped your C++ application with the source code and a compiler, and compiled and ran it when the user opened the app.

The Unity engine has 98% of its hardware-intensive functionality compiled natively on the device, with only a small percentage of the remainder being interpreted code. Once again, it's hard not to call such an app "native" since there's no interpreter layer between the instructions and the bare metal of the device.

I worry that by suggesting these examples are "non-native" you're placing them on the same bar as HTML5 / JavaScript which is largely interpreted. I think a distinction needs to be made between languages/engines whose code is largely native and / or compiled at runtime, and languages / engines whose code is largely interpreted while running. There's huge performance implications between these two categories.

In general, for what asm,js covers, and what it doesn't, it's probably best to look at http://asmjs.org/faq.html

With Unity and the Epic Unreal Engine, the goal is to be able to build games that will be able to run anywhere in a web/WebGL context: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/03/27/mozilla-is-unlockin...

I believe it's also about finding ways to make interpreted code much more optimized as well. We also fairly recently had a blog post about asm.js and where it's going: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/asm-js-performance-improve...

The more tools a developer uses, the more money they make

What? This must be the most obscure factor of a success I've ever heard...

Ha! I agree. :-) It was explained in the presentation and in the report from Vision Mobile: http://www.developereconomics.com/reports/developer-economic...

Basically, the definition of tools is third party tools such as: ad networks, cloud computing, cross-platform (e.g. PhoneGap), games (Unity etc) and more.

So, someone who chooses to build independent native apps instead of Xamarin/PhoneGap earns the most?

It would be vice versa: developers who use third party tools (outlined in detail in the linked report) would make more money (according to the survey).

From the original report:

"Only the largest software houses, who can justify the investment required to build their own toolset, can afford to ignore all third party tools. Smaller developers choosing to create their own tools are likely to be left behind with uncompetitive apps or too much time wasted."

I agree as well. This is one of those correlation != causation cases.

The slides don't imply causation though.

The way I understood it, it's an interesting observation that might lead you to wonder what then is the cause: something that causes both profit and tool use.

Wow, is Pandora popular: 69 million unique US users in June 2014.[1] I thought they would be getting hammered by Spotify, Beats and other newcomers.

[1] http://qz.com/253527/these-are-the-25-most-popular-mobile-ap...

Too bad streaming music has such razor thin margins. "The Music industry" basically allows Pandora to live, but just barely. Looks like that industry will be a loss leader for other more profitable businesses.

Yep, I was surprised by that too

I know nothing about mobile development, but I am surprised that 26% of app are considered C/C++ (and it does not include Objective-C). Is it only referring to game engine like Unity ?

We have a (Java) pixel-camera app on Android that does its transform calculations using C++ due to an obvious speed advantage over doing them in Java. These figures could be taking such hybrid apps into account (or not).

[creator of the slide deck] As empressplay mentioned, there could be specific needs that warrants that. Those numbers are from a Vision Mobile survey and its replies: http://www.developereconomics.com/reports/developer-economic...

Do you have a video/talk with the slides? because it feels a bit like a movie without the sound when one only sees the slides.

Unfortunately not, it wasn't filmed. And I agree, slide decks need the presentation to go with them. With numbers, there's a lot up to you to draw conclusions.

It's quite misleading to have a slide showing Worldwide market share by platform with iOS at 12% and then have the following slides show US statistics (where iOS is at 42% (http://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/05/apple-comscore-july-numb... )). IMHO the presenter should've stuck to worldwide stats or US stats throughout.

[Presenter here] Not sure how it would be misleading when the region is clearly stated in respective slides and in the linked resources. Naturally it's interesting to talk both about global trends and more local ones (like in the US).

That said, for obvious reasons, most research is being done in the US. I'd love to see more surveys and studies target more markets and globally.

Well it's presented as a trends piece, and unless I read the fine print, it's not clear if I'm being presented with US trends or worldwide trends and that changes from slide to slide... Perhaps you made it abundantly clear in the video/in-person, but I think it's a valid point not to have to read the asterisk, and instead just expect things to be consistent.

With that said, I enjoyed the slides.

I hope it was clear in person/context, and I also tried to keep it clear in every slide (agree that reading the fine print shouldn't be necessary).

And thanks, glad you liked the slides!

What are you holding on the first slide?what model(I get it's a "portable phone").

Can't remember the specific model, but it was a Motorola NMT red something - probably from late 80s/early 90s.

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