The Future of Mobile (Live from the Web 2.0 Expo)
This morning at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, Jason Grigsby of Cloud Four, a mobile and web development firm, presented at a session about the mobile web's future. Specifically, he focused on the different types of mobile applications we have today - native apps, mobile web apps, and hybrid apps - and the challenges of developing across multiple platforms.
The question that Grisby raised during his presentation is an important one: are native applications really the future of the mobile web? Applications built specifically for one device, such as the iPhone, aren't necessarily any more capable than those built using web technology. In fact, they can even tap into the functionality of the phone's hardware itself like the accelerometer and geolocation features. (Really!)
In fact, the ability for mobile web developers to get their apps on a number of platforms without having to start from scratch each time has been made even easier as of late thanks to a new project called Phonegap. This open source development tool is actually a web-based platform that lets developers build apps in HTML and JavaScript while also allowing those apps to take advantage of the core features in the iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.
When you look at the type of applications built using this technology, you may be surprised. If you didn't already know they were made using PhoneGap, you may have thought that they were native applications. Take the Blok-Buster game (iTunes URL) for example, a Tetris-inspired game that involves clearing similarly-colored blocks from the screen. You can tilt the phone horizontally, vertically, or even flip it upside down and it behaves just as a native application would. Yet it is just a web app using the PhoneGap's functionality.
Technology like this can speed up the process of getting applications deployed across a number of platforms. That's something that is more critical than ever as we move forward with mobile web development. Today, there are just too many languages and platforms to code for and in the future there could be even more. So, perhaps we shouldn't be focused solely on native applications as the future of the mobile web after all. Maybe the future of the mobile web will just be the future of the web.
There are a number of fascinating figures and observations from Grigsby's presentation (embedded below) about the state of the mobile web and the challenges ahead. It's definitely worth a look.
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This is brilliant,
seems to me Phonegap is the way to go,
There are just too many standards/factions across Web/mobile/telecoms sector.
Not since GSM/ETSI success of the 90s (some might argue it was too successful), and the fragmentations of standards that led to now the failures of likes of Nortel.
Java/open source are way to go..
Lets focus on what really matters, namely: what consumers/users need and their perceive (real) benefits and what they are happy to pay for that service..
Future is bright for the right people with the right tool & services.
@GarethWong
Cannot mention PhoneGap without mentioning the far more powerful Oil Can:
http://oilcan.jsharkey.org
Special note: It is fairly trivial to convert the millions of existing GreaseMonkey scripts to Oil Can scripts!
I agree that PhoneGap's vision is the way to go - but they are lightyears behind the QuickConnect framework. I've been working with these frameworks for the past 4 months and there is simply no comparison. QuickConnect is everything PhoneGap should be and more.
Develop apps in QuickConnect and they will port into iPhone, Android, Nokia, Mac, Linux, & Mac Dashboard widget with very little (if any) extra work. You develop in HTML, Javascript, and CSS.
The author also responds to questions pretty quickly. I've seen him add new features for people requesting.
@ReadWriteWeb: if you believe that web/hybrid applications are the future - QuickConnect is worth a good hard look. Thanks for this article. I'm glad to see someone else (especially here) say what I've been trying to say for months.
Download: http://sourceforge.net/projects/quickconnect/
Blog: http://tetontech.wordpress.com/
Wiki: http://quickconnect.pbwiki.com/
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/quickconnectiPhone?pli=1
@josiah thanks for the link. I'm definitely going to look at QuickConnect.
What about dotMobi?
Great to hear about PhoneGap, the need for this is only going to grow. Strategically this will be around for a while, just need to get the community support up front.
Cheers, Peter.
The been working with these frameworks for the past 4 months and there is simply no comparison. QuickConnect is everything PhoneGap should be and more.
Thanks to mobilereflex we are now able to build native applications across multiple devices.native must be the standard for enterprise apps where security, control and max usage of real estate of the pda is key
seslieviniz.com
I agree that PhoneGap's vision is the way to go - but they are lightyears behind the QuickConnect framework. I've been working with these frameworks for the past 4 months and there is simply no comparison. QuickConnect is everything PhoneGap should be and more.
I like it. Very much. And I can see how it has grown organically from where you where yesterday (and from before that too) which is cool.
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