Re: Mobile Development for the i

Thanks, Pete, for the insights!

I did a little research and I don't think my phone is alone in faring so poorly in HTML5. I mean, it does some things, but many of them not very well. And the Samsung Fascinate isn't an old phone by any means. It's less than a year old, certainly, and closer to six months (I believe it's eight months old).

And I think you may be being a bit optimistic when you talk about people being on a phone released within the last six months. Remember, we're talking about people who in many cases haven't move to 6.1 yet.

But no matter what, you're right that mobile apps are fun!

Joe

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