Matrinox: Tech

Google voiced in their concerns today regarding the limitations placed on browsers for Windows RT, which is the ARM version of Windows 8.  They said

We share the concerns Mozilla has raised regarding the Windows 8 environment restricting user choice and innovation. We’ve always welcomed innovation in the browser space across all platforms and strongly believe that having great competitors makes us all work harder. In the end, consumers and developers benefit the most from robust competition.

Which is hilarious because, as John Gruber jokingly puts it,

Microsoft is free to ship a fully-functional version of IE for Chrome OS, right?

I think the only wrongdoing of Microsoft is that they had the whole antirust case brought against them with IE and Windows.  Apple can do it because they never were a threat and weren’t anticompetitive.  Now it’s really biting Microsoft in the ass.

HTML5 Apps have been seen by many developers as the next generation platform to native app development.  And it all comes down to two things: open and everywhere.

Native app development has always been seen as closed.  If you write for iOS, for example, there’s a whole bunch of NDA you need to sign for pre-release builds and your app could get rejected for whatever reason they come up with.  Some of it is true and some of it are special situations.  However, many developers like to develop for a platform that is completely open.  No restrictions, no bullshit policies.

The second feature that the HTML5 platform is trying to implement is write-once-run-everywhere.  I say trying to, because ever since the first Internet browser wars, there was always pages that were displayed differently on each browser.  There was never consistency in browsers - except that one time when IE was the only browser out there.

But what are the benefits of native app development?  The apps are faster, more powerful, and take advantage of more hardware (and software) features.  The only way for web apps to be on the same level as native apps is for the chips to be so fast that the reduction in speed for web apps is negligible.  However, by then, the native apps would be of a much higher quality, leaving the web apps to play catch up forever.

Forever?  Yes.  Look at current photo editing apps for example.  On iPhoto, you can quickly scan your whole library and find (and thumbnail) all face shots of a particular person.  On web apps, you get nothing more than basic color & brightness adjustment and cropping.  Native photo apps were doing that 10 years ago.  By the time the web photo app can scan faces and such, native photo apps will be able to tag photos based on who is smiling or not.

The reason why web apps will never be as fast as native apps is that the web app is not specifically designed for one platform.  Web apps are processes and executed on the fly.  Native apps are already pre-processed and thus saves the time needed to process it.

The benefits of web app development are nice, but, with two dominating platforms in the smartphone arena, why does there need to be a third, all-encompassing platform?  Android and iOS represent 90+% of the market.  Spending a considerable amount of effort to develop an “other” platform just for the single-digit percentage of users seems to me a waste of time and money.

Ok, but you might say that the “write-once-run-everywhere” idea is nice, which may ultimately save you 2/3 of your cost if you want to develop for all platforms, Android and iOS included.  However, you still must test each browser and the reduction in speed means that most mobile users will use a similar, native app instead of your web app.  The costs you saved from development will be pointless in the face of your unearned revenue potential.

Some people say one platform (or two) is bad and prevents competition.  Well, I didn’t hear much of that from the same people when Windows was the only platform.  Sure, as much as I didn’t like Windows, it did provide consistency.  Everyone knew how to use one. App developers had only one platform to worry about.  Now, there are 2. Why do we need a third?

I’ll end with this sentence from the authour, Josh Constine:

Maybe one day an Instagram or even an Infinity Blade could run straight from your mobile browser.

There’s a problem for both.  Like I said before, native app development will always be faster and more powerful.  Instagram as a web app would lack the fast reacting filter selections you get with the current app.  And Infinity Blade would be sluggish and/or lack the great graphics engine it runs on (imagine them porting the Unreal Engine 3 to HTML).

All in all, I say, let’s just focus on making the best apps for each platform and not fret over how we can do the least amount of work.

Which, I know, is hypocritical of me because I have definitely been one myself.  But I can hate stealing and tell others not to steal and when I do, I have to correct myself and stop.  There lies the real difference: whether or not you correct yourself from it.

Google spends no effort correcting their recent hypocrisy.  They defend it with more lies (like that 4 page article on why Search Plus Your World is good, not evil) and fully secure their place as a hypocritical company that is no longer who they were before they went public.  Google doesn’t like evil, but they’ve lived long enough to see themselves become one.

Really?  When has Apple and Facebook ever been terrified of Google?  And glasses are supposed to change that?

Haha.  We’ll see.

I don’t think people will stop buying phones because they have augmented glasses.  It just won’t happen.  The phone can do so much more.  The the augmented reality is in one eye, which means that it will never be a great device to watch videos or look at photos or browse the web.  Now, I think this idea is great. But it’ll always be a complementary device to the phone.  Want to see the photo your friend sent you?  Pull out your phone.  Your glasses are by your side to provide you constant updates.  When you need more details or more enjoyment, you’ll use your phone.

Facebook isn’t too worried either.  Google Plus is the biggest flop since Google released their last product. Google TV was supposed to change everything for TV but it was destined to fail since the start.  Google Plus hasn’t made a dent in the social network world and jamming it down Google Search users probably hasn’t done much either.  So who’s to say baking Google+ into really awesome glasses will make Google Plus a serious alternative to Facebook?  I think the very fact that it doesn’t have Facebook will make its social services seem weak and frail.

So if Apple and Facebook aren’t worried, who is?

I hope Google does make this work.  I know they have one of the worst track record in making user-friendly products that just work, but if they are so loud about it, they should attempt to make it a reality.  But in some ways, I hope they save themselves the embarrassment by not releasing the product in Beta or releasing it when it’s crap.  They’ve been doing that a lot.  Please, Google, put some love in your products.  This isn’t just some nerd fantasy.  You’re selling this device to normal people, too, ya know?  You know, people who don’t want to use a keyboard while couch surfing.  Normal folks.

My reactions exactly.  I wouldn’t be able to use one of those demos if it existed.  It’s awkward.