Applications vs Web Pages
 

The FIFA World Cup App thread sparked a thought in my head, and I'd like to know what others think.

I was a bit taken aback by the enthusiasm for the proposed app. My feeling was that it would be just as easy to have a web page or RSS feed that provided the same information, and that this was preferable because of the much larger user base.

When I look at the iPhone, people are paying good money for apps that provide nothing better than could be got for free on the web.

I am not trying to say that apps are a bad thing.

But aren't we* making worse for ourselves* by focussing on single-purpose apps that run on one OS.

* Not sure who "we" are. The world, I guess.

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

Brands and idealism aside, there has got to be 'something' behind the success of portable apps on networked handheld devices...

- Better UI for the form factor (bigger presentation, finger friendly control, etc)
- Offline support
- Lower network usage
- Etc

Whether 'we go there' or not, I think in the end the web itself will 'go there'. The browsers will be able to provide all those advantages of these mini-apps (with html5 and whatnot) and they'll go back to parking in our browser cache with the links collected in our bookmarks list.

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

Not sure I would pay to have an app which simply functions as a replacement for a webpage. But if it is free it is a totally different ball game. Take Facebook for example. When someone started a thread asking for a Facebook app I remember some snotty remarks saying why have an app when you have a full web browser. Ridiculous!!! If you know anyone that has a blackberry try using the Facebook app and then realistically tell me it is not a million times better than going to the facebook page on N900.

Apps like facebook or the FIFA app make life so much easier. No need to open web browser, enter link, sign in, etc. Instead just quickly have a look at what's going on. I have not used Facebook on my N900 for over 2 months because it is just so far from ideal. But if there was a proper app I would probably be using it almost everyday.

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

I have to say when I first got the N900 I missed my individual apps from android. Then as I used the browser more and more, I found I didnt miss the at all. I wrote the craigslist app most people use for android and I can honestly say if I had the N900 browser on the G1 it would never have been written. just to easy to go to the page and get the full experience IMHO.

The only time I can see an individual app being useful is for something like facebook/twitter where its a stream of data rather than a somewhat static web page.

Personally for the World Cup I will be using either Queen Bee or Desktop Command Widget to pull the scores and put them on my desktop.

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

Webpages are generally designed to quite different platform. Basically screen size, full size keyboard and mouse are probably the "one size fits all" average. So it´s not surprise that using that way designed webpage on small screen is quite hellish. After all it's webdesigners job to do webpage so that it scales on different platforms.

So then we have apps. I asked somewhere has anyone gave tought to fact that some webpages eventhought they have started as webpage could be much easier to use as application? Even on normal computer. Just repeating to yourself "web is web and it should be used as Tim Berners-Lee designed it to be used" could be just someones prelude to growing away from current development of internet.

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

So that's why I comes up with idea called Flaemo :). Flash allowed me to design mobile friendly environment. Most of apps are feeds from web services. Why not collect them on the Web OS and have access from your mobile or even any other machine? And even give you some server space! That's real mobility :)

Edit:

Also I remember big debate about "Web goes desktop" hmm 3 years ago?
The whole developers world has been divided by half. And That days it looked for me like companies trying to push this idea to people minds.
Now I see the point (IShit) make the app/widget propaganda and push this idea forward. But as we know history can back around to us. And personally I think device like N900 has more potential because is full web enabled, good power and still can have apps and widgets.

We have choice, App Boys not really, and they have to pay for no choice which is kind a paradox :)

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

Wrong example. The facebook app for blackberry is the worst EVAR. I'd rather load up the full facebook page on my n900 and log in repeatedly than use that piece of crap.

Facebook for the iphone on the other hand...

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

I just use the normal facebook & twitter website in the browser, seems to work fine. I don't know what all the fuss is about with people who are dying to get an "app" for that. Same with sports scores or whatever, there are many websites for this purpose, SMS alerts, RSS feeds and so on.

Not all websites work well in the N900's screen size but it seems like most of them are okay. I wish you could increase the canvas size, though... so wide sites like talk.maemo.org would work properly :)

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

Because you can do it the hard way doesn't mean you have to do it the hard way. Apps bring functionality. I want to update my twitter status, why do i have to load the website every single time. Go through the whole page rendering process just to update a status.

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

The biggest point here, as brought up earlier, is that web developers still don't do a good job targeting mobile devices. Lack of information, lack of UI experience, whatever the cause is it's a simple fact. Quite frankly I think a lot of the apps out there don't do as good a job targeting the UIs of mobile devices as well as they could do... but that's another story.

The point is as web developers spend more time building "proper smartphone" targets instead of WAP or desktop only deployments things will change. Things like JQuery and HTML5 are already starting to make the transition easier. The other key thing to remember is that until very recently device performance just hasn't made "the mobile web" anywhere near as responsive and quick as native applications; this of course is changing too... try just loading your facebook homepage in MicroB on an N800, and compare to the N900 browser; the performance difference is huge.

There's also the revenue stream point that others have made.. if you can sell an app (even for $1), that's money that you didnt make by publishing your website.

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

i think the best way if you want to use app which need data from web is to make web application for maemo with touch options.
when we talking about soccer and stuff around soccer i think its better to make web application than maemo application. because its too much data to transfer it every time when you need something.

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

I am the developer of the QSportsEvent app also know as the 'FIFA app' (btw., that's unfortunate as it is not limited to the FIFA World Cup or football either). Could I have made it a web app? Sure! But for me the dedicated app works better than navigating between bookmarks. In future versions of the app I hope to have even more features where I think a dedicated app will do a better job.

In the end it's just a matter of taste. You prefer the browser? I'm happy with that! I just provide one more option. :)

Btw... I plan to have v. 0.0.5 of the app to hit Extras-Devel later today. Don't install any previous versions from Extras-Devel (I wish I knew how to pull them out of there...).

EDIT: 0.0.5 is in Extras-Devel, but still has dependency issues. If you want the app, either wait for PR1.2 :), or download it manually from the thread that deals with QSportsEvent.

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

If all you wanted is to post your status you can just use SMS for that. It is even easier than writing an app or widget :)

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

then what happens to the people without unlimited text messaging?

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

Along with what Bratag said... the future of coding is largely Software as a Service (SaaS), which means lots of use and reuse combined with app wrappers where it makes sense but defaulting to a browser experience for the most part. Browsers may work differently too, configuring the UI/UX on the fly based on content and context.

Developers really need to rethink their normally-siloed approach to coding. In 10 years what we do now will be seen as quaint... and that includes a lof of the utility apps on mobile devices.

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

Another good example of the usefulness of apps just occurred to me. I need to check my account but i didn't want to open the full website. I whipped out my iTouch and checked it with the Bank of America app. Sure, the BOA app is not as extensive as the website. But it is a lot faster to use for the simple things.

Kinda ironic since that is the Apple approach to things. Make the simple things fast and forget about the rest until we can make it simple. The n900 should be able to give users that choice.

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

I was just offering a real solution. If you have a status update that is so urgent you can't wait for the web page to load, you can weigh the benefit against the cost and do whatever you want.

Seriously, on my N900 these sites load in 2 seconds or less:

http://m.twitter.com
http://m.facebook.com

And the full versions only load in 1 or 2 seconds longer than that. I don't think that's "the hard way". If you don't have N900 then maybe it's harder. I haven't used previous internet tablets so I don't know how fast or slow their browser is.

I'm not saying all applications are useless, and I'm sure if you have a widget or app that does integrates with the phone and does exactly what you want it'll improve your user experience. I'm simply saying you have options and the lack of a facebook or twitter program on N900 doesn't mean you can't use facebook or twitter on N900. You can use web, mobile web, SMS or e-mail, right now, without waiting for anybody to create anything.

Google apps are the one that sticks out to me. Most of their websites do not interact well with the N900 web browser at all (screen area is too small. we need a larger virtual screen size in the web browser!). From my N95 I miss the google voice search with gps-assisted local results, google maps. And the Android versions look delicious... Now that Google is in the phone business I don't expect them to give other platforms any attention, though. I'll be shocked if we ever see those apps for N900.

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

Maemo always has given us a choice because of the ease with which you can locally store and browse HTML.

>> http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=28221

The Doppler app found in that^ thread is all presented with locally stored HTML that grabs common images and data found on the net.

Just last night I put together something useful for me on the N900 in about an hour and a half.

For the last couple of weeks I have been using Sygic Maps on my N900 in the car. I prefer portrait mode because it adds another mile or so to my "look ahead". The trouble was, any bookmark that I have for travel info is formatted for landscape. I also wanted an easy way to access all the information with as little effort as possible from Sygic so I put together this by changing one of the templates also posted in the above thread:


(More images and what it does can be found >> HERE <<)

The whole process from dreaming it up on they way home from work yesterday afternoon to actually using it on my N900 on my way in to work this morning was less than 24 hours. I'm not a programmer, I just used common HTML mark up language to construct the pages that I (and anyone can) learn by using the "View page source" feature found on just about every desktop browser when we see a page layout we like.

As a bonus, we also have this outstanding community. As I was finishing it up I thought it sure would be sweet if I could access it from the new Quick Launch app found in testing so I cruised on over to the thread on talk.maemo.org to ask the actual dang developer. >> http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=46321 (something I doubt is as easy with any other phone OS)
It was a no go but I did learn how to move the status menu items so Quick Launch would appear sooner. :)

And then Bingo! I remember a post from qwerty12 from back in the N800 days where he helped me do something similar. It took another half hour of searching and some trial and error but I did get something functional. (Again, the forums are a valuable, historic resource that few others offer.)



So, let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up:

The Internet is like a huge feast with every kind of food imaginable. Right now you can choose to partake in one of three ways:

Table d'hôte:
A complete meal of several courses, with limited choices,charged at a fixed price.

À la carte:
Items are priced and ordered separately.

Or the all-you-can-eat buffet:
Where you can make your own choice of what an how much of any or all of the food that is offered. Sometimes you can even talk to the Chef or Saucier as your food is being prepared and can make special requests. However, it does require a little extra effort.

I'm a buffet kind of guy and the N900 serves my needs well. YMMV

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

@stlpaul

I'm not sayng apps>Web
I'm saying apps are needed as much as the web. Witter is a lot better than mobile Twitter.

Re: Applications vs Web Pages
 

Or.. you would just something like Pixelpipe, I can update my status in Facebook and Twitter just by sending an IM (not an SMS) to Pixelpipe. Even faster than opening an app =P.

The N900 does give you the choice. Whether an application exists on the other hand depends on the company to provide the application or if it's possible to do from an independent developer POV then interest from the developer in doing it. For example, something like the Bank of America app probably requires BOA to create an app. But it's not like your forbidden from using an app if one exists.