Re: Mobile Development for the i

I could have used this as a reference two weeks ago in my presentation at Common but I will include it in my references when I present the same topic again in Milan in a couple of weeks! Thanks for posting. This is a fast moving space at the moment.

A couple of thoughts:
I'd say anyone who is *serious* about using a smartphone on a regular basis will either own one that has been released in the past 6 months or will soon upgrade. The webkit based browsers on current smartphones handle HTML5 nicely and things you can do with pure HTML5 are pretty cool. Add something like jQuery mobile and a toolkit like PhoneGap and you are writing cross platform "native" applications in a heartbeat. I'd say HTML5 mobile web apps are a very viable way to go.

The difficulty with a native mobile app is maintenance, with the need to go through the approval process every time an update is needed, depending upon how you have been distributing the app. That could take time and a serious bug could take days to find its way into an app store. The mobile web app using HTML5 can be quickly patched at the server and that fix immediately reflected in the next access of the server. I see that as an advantage (although being minimized a bit by alternative deployment options you mention in your article). Mobile web apps are a little easier to debug because they can run in a standard HTML5 browser. The biggest issue with mobile web apps is if you are accessing phone specific functions that may not be exposed in HTML5 you'll need some way to access the hardware.

All good stuff in your article, most of which I covered in my Common presentation. But you didn't mention how much fun mobile app development is! That is reason enough to get started!

Pete Helgren
Value Added Software, Inc
www.asaap.com
www.opensource4i.com


On 5/10/2011 6:52 AM, Joe Pluta wrote:

MC Press just published my latest article on mobile app development. It
touches on the pros and cons of Rich UI development, and then goes on to
native development comparing Apple vs. Android. Nothing extensive, but
it's a good introduction to the various strategies.

http://www.mcpressonline.com/networking/wireless-mobile/go-wireless-take-control-from-anywhere-at-any-time.html

Joe