iPhone developers abandoning app model for HTML5?
Robert Scoble, Scobleizer, 12/16/2009
Lots of iPhone application developers are frustrated with the process to get new apps into your hands. It takes about three weeks lately for an app to get approved and into the iTunes store.
Lately I’ve noticed that some developers are avoiding building apps and, instead, are building custom web pages that are designed specifically for the iPhone. I’m not the only one, Marshall Kirkpatrick, over at ReadWriteWeb is seeing the same trend and yesterday featured several services that are building iPhone web experiences but not apps.
Examples you might be already using are Twitter’s mobile site, or Techmeme’s mobile site.
But yesterday another one came along from Nextstop, which is a cool new app for sharing cool things to do near you (great for travelers to check out) and they, too, decided on HTML5 instead of doing an iPhone app. So, I visited them in their San Francisco offices and learned why they made the choices they did, got a demo of the new mobile site they built using HTML5, and also talked about what their view of what’s happening in the larger mobile industry is.
Some reasons Nextstop likes HTML5:
1. Rapid iteration. If they code a new feature tonight, you get it tonight. No waiting three weeks for you to get their latest.
2. It prepares their systems for building a native app. Why? Because apps can include a Safari browser instance inside, so all of this work is reusable, even if they do a native app.
3. It’s easier to build and debug because you don’t need to do a lot of specialized coding to make the native app work properly.
4. It fits into the greater web easier for users. In an iPhone app it can be jarring to take users out to a web browser, but if they already are in the browser they are used to going to other pages and back again using Safari’s navigation.
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- Goodbye Flash: YouTube mobile goes HTML5 on iPhone and Android Christian Zibreg, Geek.com, 7/9/2010 Google has re-written the mobile YouTube site entirely in HTML5, allowing smartphone owners to browse and search the...
- New Google Phone would challenge US carrier model Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica, 12/14/2009 The long-rumored Google Phone appears to be coming, but with no carrier partner in the...
In: iPhone, Mobile Technology · Tagged with: HTML5