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DISTRO
03.08.13
FORUM
EDITORIAL
The web-as-app approach doesn’t
work particularly well when you’re
trying to deliver a rich and smooth
experience, especially on mobile.
in the Western world. This poses significant
problems for the fledgling OS since
it relies on constant connectivity to
deliver information. Sure, some services
can cache data locally for offline use,
but that’s a feature of HTML5 that has
yet to be widely embraced by devs.
Mozilla thankfully has Nokia offering
some support for the disconnected with
its maps, but most “apps” (and Mozilla’s
insistence on calling them that is
frustrating) will require an internet
connection to function.
As we mentioned, it is possible for
HTML5 apps to be downloaded and
installed locally. Nokia’s mapping solution
is one of the confirmed examples.
However, many of the apps offered are
not “packaged” (Mozilla’s terminology)
and installable. The vast majority
of the tens of thousands referenced by
Mozilla’s CEO Gary Kovacs during their
big event at Mobile World Congress are
“hosted.” In other words, they’re web
apps — which Mozilla is using to pad
its marketplace. (This is almost exactly
what you’re treated to when exploring
the Chrome Web Store.)
The “packaged” versions of the apps
are, essentially, just websites zipped up
in an archive. This carries its own set of
issues. As previously noted, HTML5 is
widely perceived as suffering from performance
issues when compared to native
apps. While some have claimed this
is because of poorly constructed code,
and should not be laid at the feet of the
standard, it appears that many devs
struggle to produce efficient products
using it. And if said developers continue
to struggle with HTML5, it may be tough
to convince them to embrace it the way
they have native code. The evolutionary
take on HTML may make it simple to
create cross-platform programs, but the
differences in rendering engines and the
layer of abstraction itself make it difficult
to optimize performance for all of them.
And while Mozilla has created hooks for
apps to get deeper access to the hardware,
it remains difficult to implement
many of the more robust features users
have come to expect from applications
using HTML5.
Sparse coverage and slow speeds
will pose significant usability issues for
consumers in developing countries, but
perhaps an even bigger stumbling block