dormant | # 1 | 2010-04-19, 17:23 | Report

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.

ysss | # 2 | 2010-04-19, 17:30 | Report

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.

etuoyo | # 3 | 2010-04-19, 17:36 | Report

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.

Bratag | # 4 | 2010-04-19, 17:42 | Report

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.

slender | # 5 | 2010-04-19, 17:47 | Report

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.

devu | # 6 | 2010-04-19, 18:00 | Report

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

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Last edited by devu; 2010-04-19 at 18:07.

nosa101 | # 7 | 2010-04-19, 19:04 | Report

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...

stlpaul | # 8 | 2010-04-19, 19:36 | Report

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

nosa101 | # 9 | 2010-04-19, 20:32 | Report

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.

jolouis | # 10 | 2010-04-19, 21:01 | Report

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.