The debate
It’s 2010 and debate rages in the mobile industry over the future of applications.
On one hand, people seem to love native client apps. A quick download process from an app store, and the shiny icon is sitting on the mobile device’s desktop, ready to go.
What’s more, as a developer, I might even get paid for it. But wait! Damn. If I want to reach lots of users, I have to write different code for every single device platform. iPhone, Android, Symbian. That’s a lot of code to keep in sync. And I need users to keep updating the applications every time I make a small change.
On the other hand, the mobile web. Build a site which looks and feels like a self-contained application but which can render nicely on a variety of platforms. (It helps that a lot of modern mobile operating systems have broadly similar browsers). I might not be able to make money by selling access to it, but I can update the site whenever I want, and users will see the latest and greatest version.
In reality, there’s an essential role to be played by both types of application – as there is for computing in general. But the debate still continues and it’s fun to be involved.
Enter WhitherApps
So what’s the point of this site, then?
WhitherApps is a bandwagon-busting experiment. I believe there are far too many native client apps which could have been far better written as mobile web apps. What we’re going to try and do is take a few examples, apply a little reverse-engineering, and rewrite them, warts and all, with web technologies.
We’ll focus on native client apps that are free to download. These wouldn’t have suffered commercially had they been written this way in the first place.
Obviously, we’ll also focus on feasible genres of apps. No 3D games or background apps, for example. To start with, informational media apps (such as newspapers and broadcasters) will be in the spotlight.
But otherwise, we may not need to pull too many punches. Offline access? Through the wonders of HTML5, that should be OK. Native device API access? Well, BONDI and proprietary libraries permitting, we’ll have a go – and there’s always PhoneGap too.
Each post on the site will be a walkthrough (or part of a walkhrough) of the process. As we get our hands dirty, from the protocol-sniffing to the pixel-jiggling, you can follow the steps we took.
Stay tuned and wish us luck!
Awesome experiment! Looking forward to how you progress. I agree entirely with your premise, mobile apps CAN be the equivalent of mobile apps. We are at point much like the year before Google Maps was released. People don’t really ‘get’ that the mobile web can do much more.
I also feel the web has a LONG way to go, so you are a bit of a canary in a coal mine. I have no illusions that this is tricky work, but we HAVE to have people pushing/experimenting like this to move the status quo forward.
Good luck!
Hey thanks Scott! Great you came and checked it out.
Now… how is it going to look on Android?
I love this!
Excuse the mixed metaphors but I’ve been saying for ages that apps are a bandwagon-jumping flash-in-the-pan – at least, the ones that do nothing a web browser can’t do (ie retrieve some dynamic multi-media content).
And here you are proving the point by making it happen. Brilliant.
I will be following closely and looking forward to your version of the “iPad app” that I can also view in Firefox, or on my (non-apple) mobile.
Then perhaps we can ask why the BBC (and everybody else) is spending so much development time and money on a platform dependent version for the Apple faithful when they could have made a web page everyone could use. Browsers will never learn to play nicely – and in a standard way – with small touch screens, GPS, compasses, etc if we give up on them and start downloading and installing a separate piece of software for every web content provider. Long live the World Wide Web!
Brilliant James.
I like it, not just because dave likes it;) Maybe I can contribute. You got my email;)
Oh. This gets better and better. Thanks for the post.
I’m blind with curiosity over app vs. web. why, why not, when to use, benefits, cons. So yes. I’m standing by. oh! and wishing you luck. HAH!
S.
[...] Introducing WhitherApps « WhitherApps (tags: mobile_web) [...]
Finally! I just wrote about this yesterday. I’m so tired of seeing websites turned into apps because it doesn’t have a touch version.
http://buckrobinson.com/software/quit-making-apps-for-every-damn-website/
[...] trying to rewrite the BBC iPhone application and other native mobile apps using HTML5. From the kickoff blog post: WhitherApps is a bandwagon-busting experiment. I believe there are far too many native client apps [...]
[...] via Introducing WhitherApps « WhitherApps. [...]
[...] love, love, love the idea of WhitherApps.com! They plan to take client-side mobile apps and rebuild them as pure web-apps! Be sure to follow [...]
[...] trying to rewrite the BBC iPhone application and other native mobile apps using HTML5. From the kickoff blog post: WhitherApps is a bandwagon-busting experiment. I believe there are far too many native client apps [...]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Caplin Technology, Martin Tyler. Martin Tyler said: WhitherApps – a project to rewrite some free native mobile apps as web apps – http://bit.ly/bMoTMC – might be interesting #yam [...]
[...] trying to rewrite the BBC iPhone application and other native mobile apps using HTML5. From the kickoff blog post: WhitherApps is a bandwagon-busting experiment. I believe there are far too many native client apps [...]
James I just learned about this today via one of your Twits. Great experiment. Will follow. Count me in.
Excellent, this is another voice banging the drum on the HTML5 for mobile drum.
As part of this, I’ve created a few iPhone apps (I know – after what I just said). These apps are native wrappers only and are driven primarily by HTML. The simple wrap is:
http://github.com/robb1e/iWeb
A more complete wrap, with an idea around wrapping a cache manifest file for synchronization and offline use is here: http://github.com/robb1e/Tengo-and-Cache
You’ve probably by now also seen jQuery Mobile: http://jquerymobile.com/
Good luck, and carry on the good work
Robbie
Genius – I don’t claim to understand the techie stuff, but the theory and the concept… Genius.
So encouraged to see developers learning from the years-long mistakes that were made on the web at the outset – before standards really were universally adopted. And trying to ensure access via mobile is properly standardised early on in the evolution…
Keep it going and persuade all developers to do the same!
Cool..It is very good for you to share with us. Keep it coming.
I thought you would want to know that this site does not display right on my mobile (iphone).
Thanks as much alee balanced the inspiration!
Many thanks, We have been recently searching for information about this matter for ages as well as your own is the best I have discovered so far.
If you’re serious about making money with your website, watch this free video about getting free instant targeted traffic to your site http://redhotinfo.org/recommends/TrafficRobot
Great idea! Petering out?
Great idea! Petering out?
I’ll gear this review to 2 types of people: current Zune owners who are considering an upgrade, and people trying to decide between a Zune and an iPod. (There are other players worth considering out there, like the Sony Walkman X, but I hope this gives you enough info to make an informed decision of the Zune vs players other than the iPod line as well.)
Appreciation for this ifnoarmtion is over 9000-thank you!
LqZzme rmnvzfvyjbkt
Nl3EBm eaiywrdxmqmy