Thoughts on the Mobile Web
Businesses want apps on every platform, iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile 7.
This means they need to 3 types of developers:
- An Objective-C developer for iPhone
- A Java developer for Android
- A .NET developer for Windows
or a rockstar ninja who can do all three.
Facebook recently announced the rollout of http://m.facebook.com to run on any device. This is amazing and gets the Facebook product into the hands of many with only 1 “web app”.
What’s the problem? The ever so hyped user experience.
The mobile web is still in its early days and very pre-mature. Sure we have javascript frameworks like jQuery Mobile and Sencha to make webpages “touch screen friendly” but lets face the facts, the experience sucks. It doesn’t compare to the quality of a home grown native app. Take for example drag & drop, or scrolling. If there is even a hint of flicker, or choppiness, its game over. The browser hasn’t advanced enough to deliver a rich user experience. Operating systems on the other hand, have.
As the browser evolves, we’ll see what it can bring to the table, but this isn’t a new debate. Client side Java, Adobe Flash/AIR and Microsoft Silverlight have been developed well before the advent of mobile computing to make the browser experience better. They might not be great, but they were created to solve a problem.
Two words. User experience.
