[programminggeek]

No, it won't.

As a iOS developer, I write native because I want to deliver the best possible user experience. I've done HTML5 with PhoneGap and it does not deliver the same experience. WebGL on iOS will not change that at all.

[shocks]

You may be surprised to know that most in game interfaces are powered by Flash/ActionScript.

Would you build a website in Flash? I doubt it - you'd probably tell me it was slow and didn't deliver the same experience.

[georgemcbay]

Many in-game interfaces are powered by Flash/ActionScript, running in things like Scaleform or various open source offshoots of gameswf but they aren't running in Adobe's actual Flash virtual machine, so any performance comparisons are pretty moot.

In any case, anyone who didn't build websites in Flash because it was "slow" was misinformed. Flash/AS, especially with AS3/AVM2 was significantly faster than JavaScript (at the time Flash was relevant) if doing anything that required "Web App" style functionality, at least if the ActionScript code was written by an actual programmer and not a designer copy-pasta-ing scripts to make something work. There are/were very valid arguments against Flash (security, un-indexability, etc), but performance compared to JS wasn't really one of them.

Source: used to write ActionScript apps that ran on the 350 mhz i.MX21 ARM chumby device with 64 megabytes of memory that had better performance than a lot of "native" mobile apps have today, let alone web-based mobile apps.

[plorkyeran]

Games frequently have terrible UIs that have clearly had far more effort put into making them look good than being usable, especially for things not part of the actual game play.

[badman_ting]

Games typically have a very different set of expectations in terms of their UI than "regular" apps. So, that works for games but not in general.

[jjtheblunt]

Agreed, not to mention if you want to do _anything_ truly concurrent , as in running non bullshit threads that actually run on available cores, you need native.

[teraflop]

Web Workers can use multiple cores, can't they?

[shocks]

See ScaleForm. In game interfaces… Powered by… Flash! ActionScript!

WebGL is a natural progression on this.

[Touche]

nit: you want to deliver the best possible ui experience. UX encompasses more than just the ui.

[programminggeek]

Agreed. One of the primary annoyances of HTML5/PhoneGap (as of a year ago or so), was that load times were slow and the UI wasn't as responsive as it should be. It never felt awesome to me.

For me, and maybe it's just me, I can build a much better experience using native code. I also can tweak some very small, but important details that HTML5 doesn't let me tweak.

If someone can create the same experience better, cheaper, and faster using HTML5, more power to them, but I can't, so I go native.

I haven't seen anything in the last year to say that a whole lot has changed. If anything, a lot of major projects have tried HTML5 and have "gone native". I realize there are plenty of projects that might prove the opposite, but when you are just one or two guys cranking out an app on iOS or Android, well you make the best decisions you can and move on.

[_random_]

Exactly, and you don't want to use a document mark-up language patched up with scripts for your UX.

[overcyn]

If UX encompasses UI, how is saying that he wants 'the best possible user experience' incorrect? UI performance and bugginess has an effect on user experience.

[Touche]

UX is a superset of UI. That native delivers a superior UI doesn't mean it delivers a superior UX.

[overcyn]

I'm just counter nitpicking at this point which isn't much better.

> That native delivers a superior UI doesn't mean it delivers a superior UX.

Sure, it doesn't necessitate a superior UX, but it certainly has an effect on UX. Here 'programminggeek' has tried building apps using native and using web technologies and has found that, for him at least, native provides a better UX. Are you saying thats not possible? That the choice between native and web is absolutely not a UX one but a UI one?

[Touche]

I'm saying that the web has UX benefits as well. The implication of the parent's post was that if you value UX native is the only choice.

[macspoofing]

As a sane developer, I'd like something that can compile to multiple platforms from a single code-base. I can't imagine targeting only iOS.

[weixiyen]

I understand the sentiment, but as a sane product maker, I can't imagine providing a customer with a subpar user experience.