Desktop apps got their lunch eaten by the web based purely on the deployment and portability benefits, the UX still lags behind to this day. Granted the app store model mitigates the installation pain, but portability is non-existent, so my hunch is that HTML5 will pick up steam over the long-term as mobile browser support and developer knowledge coalesces.
Interestingly I think a lot of apps could go HTML5 today, were it not for subtle issue of web pages being awkward on mobile. Bookmarks and google searches just don't have the immediacy they do on a computer, so the very fact that native apps are easier to get to is a significant hurdle in terms of user behavior, even if it is possible to develop a excellent mobile-browser-based UI.
It's possible Apple, Google, et al could parlay this into a longer dominance of native apps, but that raises two questions: do they really care enough to attempt to sabotage HTML5? and will developers put up with the hassle of the fragmented mobile landscape? It's unlikely any of them would cripple their mobile browser ala IE6 because web is important one way or another, but if everything shakes out to an iOS/Android duopoly then developers may decide the pain is worth it. So no bold predictions from me, but it's definitely an interesting question.
I'd argue that portability is a non-issue. iPhone developers know that to make sales to iPhone owners, their applications have to visually and functionally integrate seamlessly into that environment. The same is true for Android owners. Anyone writing a portable HTML5 application is at an extreme disadvantage. And the fact is, the effort necessary to make an excellent mobile browser based UI that integrates seamlessly with multiple platforms is more work than simply rewriting the app for multiple native platforms.
That depends on how many platforms there are. If it's just Android and iPhone then the native apps just need a few perks to make it more attractive. On the other hand, if there are 5 reasonably balanced platforms that all support HTML5 well, then you are automatically cutting your market size by 80% which is a tougher call.
> And the fact is, the effort necessary to make an excellent mobile browser based UI that integrates seamlessly with multiple platforms is more work than simply rewriting the app for multiple native platforms.
Today. But HTML5 will steadily improve, standardize, and develop a rich open source tool ecosystem. This will never happen with proprietary native platforms. Sure Apple can go the Microsoft route, and sink an incredible amount of money into it's dev tools in order to create a superficially better experience, but if web development is anything to go by, developer tools are something that thrive on open collaboration; very few people would say that .NET is generally superior to open source web development frameworks for example.
It's not as straight forward as you describe. The "instantly and globally released" nature of web apps is both an advantage and a disadvantage. What if I have a client that needs to keep the only interface for some reason? It's easy to just not upgrade, provided you have that option...
Most commericial web sites already deal with this issue - they have new/beta features that are initially only visible or available to a subset of users. Google Apps lets you choose if you want the new or old version... it's not impossible to let users stay with a static implementation, but it's just generally not worth the trouble.
Conversely, native apps suffer from the problem that once you deploy a package out the store, you have to support it (unupgraded) for the foreseeable future. That creates its own bucket of issues.
Oh absolutely; but when did I describe it as straightforward? If it was such an obvious slam dunk win it would have happened faster and Microsoft would not have been caught with their pants down. The gist of my point is that over time, you have a cross-platform, no-install environment that clearly has a ton of disadvantages, but it cleans the clock of superior established platforms simply due to a little less user friction.
This argument is often advanced by people against automatic updates, but I would suggest that its such a small minority of situations and people that its not worth considering unless you operate in a very specific niche.
Desktop apps got their lunch eaten by the web based purely on the deployment and portability benefits, the UX still lags behind to this day. Granted the app store model mitigates the installation pain, but portability is non-existent, so my hunch is that HTML5 will pick up steam over the long-term as mobile browser support and developer knowledge coalesces.
Interestingly I think a lot of apps could go HTML5 today, were it not for subtle issue of web pages being awkward on mobile. Bookmarks and google searches just don't have the immediacy they do on a computer, so the very fact that native apps are easier to get to is a significant hurdle in terms of user behavior, even if it is possible to develop a excellent mobile-browser-based UI.
It's possible Apple, Google, et al could parlay this into a longer dominance of native apps, but that raises two questions: do they really care enough to attempt to sabotage HTML5? and will developers put up with the hassle of the fragmented mobile landscape? It's unlikely any of them would cripple their mobile browser ala IE6 because web is important one way or another, but if everything shakes out to an iOS/Android duopoly then developers may decide the pain is worth it. So no bold predictions from me, but it's definitely an interesting question.