Robin Jewsbury's Blog

I wrote an  post in March saying native were on the downturn and webapps were the answer to everything.  Since then several things have happened:

• Apple released their AppStore in June and have had sales of $500m since then.  Their apps are native apps, the ones I had said were on the decline.
• This week the BBC have the released their iplayer download for S60 phones using the WRT functionality.  The WRT technology is a downoadable app but its not native - so somewhere in between a webapp and a native app.
• Microsoft have been spreading rumours a major change to Windows.  Two weeks ago Microsoft Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie, announced something call Client-Cloud.  last week Steve Ballmer changed the name to Windows-Cloud, but said the name would be different when it was really announced at the end of Oct.
• Google have announced that Gears should not be considered just as enabling offline working - they have made it clear that they can enhance the connections with the underlying OS (eg multi file uploading) whilst maintaining security.

The reality is now that we can no longer simply argue about webapps vs native apps.  Now there is a sea-change going on where I believe the industry is positioning itself to make the Internet truely work well with the Mobile computing platforms.  As always different people are solving the issues in different ways.  Google believe in thin client/cloud computing but have realised that this does not work when it comes to mobile computing.  So Gears now enables the browser to become fatter and more connected to it's host platform.  The great thing is they're enabling easy access to upload mutliple files (eg pictures from a phone to a server) and local phone functionality such a location.  Because they need ubiquity for this technology they also realised the only easy approach was to launch their own Chrome browser - and furthermore they have made it clear this will eventually run on the Android mobile platform.

Meanwhile Nokia have been working on the WRT technology for some time.  WRT allows a webapps to be installed locally on the phone, but for me its just another approach to fattening the browser on the phone.  For me the release of the BBC iplayer app is a definitive moment for this technology.  Local installation is ideal where user want to repeatedly come back to the same thing. The important point is that this is pure web technology enabled as an installed application and found from a phone menu.  Also there have been reports of enabling Javascript access to core phone functionality (eg GPS location) just like Gears is doing.

What Apple is doing is interesting.   I think they are playing with us poor developers.  They've made us learn their ObjectiveC platform for Native apps which was released in June 2008.  Meanwhile they always had their DashCode functionality for the Mac which is almost identical to Nokia's WRT apart from the fact Dashcode can contain native code.  Will we have to wait until June 2009 for DashCode for iPhone?  My cynical brain is telling me they did not want too many apps this year so they made the programming hard - by making the programming hard it also increases the quality of the apps produced (only dedicated developers can produced them).  Dashcode for iPhone will appear when Steve Jobs thinks it will help him most.

Its unclear what Microsoft are considering under the name Windows-Cloud but my guess is that they will present something similar to Google Gears and/or WRT/DashCode.  I suspect there will be a native element to Windows-Cloud, just like Apple, Microsoft need to exert some control and make their developer's more exclusive.

Microsoft are about to create a new technology and with it we will get all the hype surrounding it.  The reality is they will make it exclusive to Microsoft with connections to surface computing, Silverlight and Popfly, but it will essentially (I think), amount to the same features of parts Google, Nokia and Apple are already developing.  Its just a shame that we may end up with 4 different approaches to solving the same problem.  I can, of course, see possibility for interworking and convergence.  In particular Dashcode without native code and WRT should interwork and Google Gears could interwork using a Javascript abstraction layer.  The Microsoft version may not interwork but may be they would be happy with that.

Meanwhile I still believe in webapps but I may slightly change my definition of a webapp and include DashCode(non native)/WRT apps.... they are almost the same thing.  I see the undoubted success of the Apples native iPhone apps an aberration.  Apple will cleverly introduce Dashcode apps at some stage - the consumer will not spot it, and most developers will just think Apple made their life easier - not realising they could have done that this June.

Perhaps we're all in Cloud Cuckoo Land until its clear what Microsoft, Apple, Google and Nokia are really doing with all these technologies.