Tuesday, March 13, 2012 at the South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin, Texas #sxsw #righttool
Panel discussion by Buzz Andersen (Dir of Mobile – Tumblr), Jacob Bijani (Prod Engineer – Tumblr), Majd Taby (Software Engineer – Facebook), Matthew Delaney (WebKit Engineer), and Tom Dale (Sr Software Engineer – Ember.js)
Apps are much easier to monetize than websites, because you can charge up front.
The browser rendering engine does a lot of the heavy work that native developers have to contend with. The web browser is a highly evolved medium for content delivery and rich layout.
There was a lot of information presented really fast about both native and web application stuff. Don’t you love listening to a bunch of really smart guys talking about highly technical things in front of a lot of people trying to figure out what the heck is going on.
The responsiveness of W3C and ECMA to web practitioners has greatly increased. They are asking people to contribute. As web developers, if we’re just complaining and not participating in the standards process then we’re missing out.
The Future – ringmark (rng.io – tests what features are available in your mobile browser)
The next big thing for the mobile web is getting web access to native functionality.
There’s not one solution to native vs mobile. There is a spectrum of possibilities for your mobile strategy.
Good examples of mobile web apps: Tumblr, Twitter
Great HTML5 Web App that feels native: Financial Times
What will probably become the most popular option for mobile is native/web hybrids.
The Apple appstore app is a hybrid app!
Flipboard uses locally rendered HTML. (NY Times)
What can you do right now? There is no real convergence, so it’s too early to tell where this is going to end up.
Facebook guy says hybrid approach is a really bad way to go. “It’s a road frocked with danger!” There are so many ways that the native and web clients can get out of sync.
Tumblr engineer guy says hybrid approach let’s you move “a helluva lot more quickly”.
During the Q&A, the Tumblr engineer said that the app store experience was so bad that “The app store is like the Yellow Pages of mobile.”
Related articles
- Demystifying the Future of the Web and Apps at #SXSW2012 (jonathanjeter.com)
What do YOU think? Let me know...