As you probably already heard, Steve Jobs announced today that Apple will be allowing developers to create web applications with AJAX that can run on the iPhone. Come again?!?!?
WTF is that? This is such a lame announcement that I am having a hard time organizing all of my objections to it. I don’t think I can create a nice flowing objection to I am going to resort to a list.
Top Problems With the Developing Apps for the iPhone
- Web-based is not good enough. I know there are lots of people who think damn near every application should be web-based. 37signals thinks this is announcement is “a bold idea. Very forward thinking“. It is neither bold nor forward thinking. This is a lazy decision. This is a decision based in fear. This is a decision based on last-year’s development
ideasbuzzwords.Maybe Apple has heard of hybrid applications? You know, the wildly popular OSX applications like NetNewsWire, Ecto, DemocracyTV, and uh, iTunes? They are desktop applications that are heavily web-enabled. Yet, they still allow offline use.
- Mobile web-based applications are slow. Trust me. I use lots of mobile applications. I am accustomed to use mobile applications over EV-DO which is faster than
CingularAT&T’s Edge network. Still, web-based applications tend to be slow. Native mobile applications on the other hand are able to do the slow part when the user is not waiting on them. - Web Applications Lack Desktop Synchronization. Unless of course Apple is going to release web-service conduits for iSync, which of course would kick ass.
- Apple thinks users are stupid. My favorite part is that Jobs emphasized that these AJAX applications will have the same look and feel as native iPhone applications. It is like he stood up on that stage and told a room full of developers “don’t worry, your customers won’t know the difference”. You know, it is not like users will start expecting these applications to maintain state or anything. Turn the phone off, pick back up where you left off later. Whoops! Your session is gone.
