[ttt_]

I'll be saying this as a user.

I wish most developers would turn to HTML5 today, like right now, and avoid native apps at all cost unless there is really no alternative.

Why?

Because I remember the browser wars and how much it was a terrible idea and the terrible experience it made for users who simply could not experience the internet from a single starting point. This time it's not simply a matter of downloading another browser, if there's content I want to consume and there's not a native app for my phone, what do I do? I buy a different one? What about the content that I already consume and that's not over there? Should I have multiple phones?

I could not care less if it's optimize to integrated well with the native environment or some whatnot, let the browser handle that with default behavior. I want the content, the feature, and not wait for companies to port over apps from one place to the next.

This platform cult is pretty meaningless to me, in fact I don't even want to buy any device right now because I'm pretty sure I'll get burned as a user either way. The only platform I'm betting my money on as a user is the upcoming Firefox OS. Hopefuly Mozilla will be able to undo the damage done in this fragmented mess, again.

[javajosh]

I was with you until you said "This platform cult is pretty meaningless to me." Actually the platform wars are quite meaningful insofar as they represent large-scale manipulation of consumers. Both Apple and Google are playing the following game: hey consumer, here's a shiny device, it's pretty cheap and then we lock you into a 2-year contract, meanwhile you acquire apps that can only be run an iPhone, and now even if you wanted to go to Android, you are faced with the prospect of ditching your entire software library (or vice-versa). It's called lock-in and it's a long-term manipulation of a market. I'm sure that both Apple and Google rationalize that it's a way to recoup R&D costs, and that's true enough, but it's a sneaky way to do it.

There's also the not insignificant problem of app security. Not so long ago there was a news item about the FB native app accessing contacts and uploading them to FB servers. The web app cannot do that, and that's a Good Thing.

There's also another reason why HTML5 apps are better than native: they are composable. There isn't much out there other than search engines that takes advantage of this fact, but webapps can be composed, parsed, and otherwise uniformly manipulated in useful and interesting ways. Android and iOS do indeed offer some integration points for their native apps, but nowhere near at the level that the web allows today.

[blub]

The web app already has all my data on a server somewhere. And that web app is 99% of the time closed source. And the company can cut me off, change the TOS or sell my info to advertisers. Now THAT's a lockin.

While you identified the problem, the solution is a truly open mobile OS, not webapps.

[javajosh]

How does a truly open mobile OS (and applications, presumably) solve the problem of vendor-specific data lock-in? Data lock-in is a totally separate, and far more difficult, problem. Part of the reason is that our data a) probably wouldn't exist, and b) probably doesn't make sense out of the context of being mixed together with everyone else's data. There is a strong a priori centralizing force for some important kinds of data.

[millstone]

You moved effortlessly from "app" to "content I want to consume," as if apps are mere passive content delivery channels. But they're not: they're tools. A well crafted tool is a pleasure to use, while a bad tool can make any task miserable.

Tools matter even for content delivery! Hulu recently migrated their PS3 app from native to something that's apparently based on web technologies, and the experience became much worse in almost every way: slower loading, laggy scrolling, more confusing interface. Hulu ships on many devices and I think they hope to share aspects of their front-end, but with their new app, watching TV became more difficult and less pleasant.

I don't believe you when you claim to not care, that you would rather live on the lowest common denominator in perpetuity than be faced with a transient zero.

[marknutter]

Well put. The worst usability problem an app can have is simply not existing.

[millstone]

Is an app that you have to fight with really better than no app at all? If it didn't exist, at least you wouldn't have gotten in a fight!

There's many sites that I consciously avoid on my phone because they work so poorly that I don't even want to bother. These sites do mobile users no service by existing. An app or website has to at least meet the "user will tolerate it" bar.