Articles tagged 'mobile'

Running Free Aug 14 2010

This was an article I wrote a few months ago, but for some reason forgot to tidy up and actually publish. I’m doing so now as after re-reading it, I still think it’s right, and if anything it’s even more pertinent now given Apple’s “antennagate” issues with the iPhone 4, and the news that Android phones are now outselling the iPhone.

I already dropped a link to this article (ironically penned by Daniel Lyons, of Fake Steve Jobs fame) in my recent link post, however there was a really interesting point in that article that I wanted to follow up on. Daniel says:

I was a little shocked recently when an Apple spokesbot responded to the news of Android’s outselling iPhone OS by reciting the old chestnut about Apple’s having more phones out there.

I was shocked because it’s a familiar line, one that I’ve heard countless times in my 20-plus years covering technology. But I’ve only ever heard it from companies that are doomed and in total denial about it.

We’ve seen this movie before. In the 1980s, Apple jumped out to an early lead in personal computers, but then got selfish. Steve Jobs, a notorious control freak, just could not play well with others.

Along came Microsoft, with Windows, which was a knockoff of Apple’s operating system. Microsoft partnered with everyone and today has 90 percent market share, while Apple’s share lingers in the single digits.

Today the battlefield is mobile devices, and just as before, Apple jumped out to an early lead. And just as before, Jobs got selfish. He won’t support Flash, or any cross-platform tools—because he wants developers locked into his platform, and his App Store, where he collects a 30 percent commission.

I find this fascinating, not only because it rings very true to what’s actually happening, but also because there aren’t a huge amount of people picking up on it. Sure, there are lots of people switching to Android. Sure, there are lots of people questioning what Apple are doing. But specifically comparing this to the last time Apple became irrelevant? Wow, who knew there were so many similarities?

Right now the path that Apple are going down is very odd, and one that I’m surprised no one within the organisation is questioning or doubting (or perhaps they are, albeit not publicly). While they are no doubt a very successful company, they are also stifling innovation, and as Daniel says, they appear to be trying to make as much money off of the ecosystem they themselves created as possible. That tends to only end up with one result - people will want to look for platforms that encourage innovation and competition, and that share the wealth and respect a little better. Apple’s strategy might be working in the short term, but is ridiculous over the longer term, and I think they will need to address these concerns with their next generation of mobile device and platform, or else perhaps they’ll simply be doomed to repeat history, and consign themselves to always being the company that could start a trend, but sure couldn’t bask in it.

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The paradoxical web application hypothesis Dec 16 2009

It suddenly dawned on me that something interesting, and in some ways very paradoxical, is occurring with current application trends. Over the last few years, there has been a marked movement towards rich user experiences in web applications - more and more web apps are using Flash and/or AJAX as well as other modern concepts to really make web sites behave and feel truly like first class applications on your computer, with advanced and intricate user experiences. In many cases now web apps have been able to replace their desktop counterparts for a number of users.

Contrast and compare this with the state of mobile development. For years now, wide ranging and patchy HTML support has hampered mobile website development, but the iPhone brings a much more advanced and impressive web browser to the table, and other smartphones such as those running the Android OS now have very full featured browsers too. And yet there doesn’t seem to be much of a focus on advanced mobile web apps. Sure there are some good offerings on the web, and a fair few iPhone optimized sites - but none that as a user you’d lean on in the same way as you might on your computer. Instead, the focus is on native applications, built to service the platform directly - such as the iPhone, or devices running the Android OS, for example. Most platforms are now running app stores that let users search, browse and download apps too, increasing convenience for obtaining native applications.

So why the difference in approach between apps on your computer, and mobile apps? Why do many users now look to advanced web applications instead of native apps where possible on a computer, but when using their mobile, the focus is on native applications?

One of the biggest reasons is probably connectivity. On a desktop computer, many of us now have always-on connections, so we take for granted our web apps always being there. I myself run a fair few different web apps using Fluid, as their own “separate” applications (this includes Google Mail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, Pivotal Tracker and TVCatchup). I always expect them to work, and so I almost treat them like native applications running on my machine, and not on the web. On a mobile of course, while you usually have a connection of some sort (3G, perhaps degrading to Edge or GPRS in certain areas), there still isn’t that complacency when dealing with content you know is being accessed over the air. And in some areas, there is no signal at all, making it almost impossible for many people to completely rely on mobile web applications. Considering the vast majority of applications run fine offline (either they don’t need an online component, or are fine with a sync later approach), it’s easy to see the appeal of offline, native applications on the mobile platform, as opposed to optimized web application offerings.

Interesting though how these two very different viewpoints seem to have come about at almost the same time, and gone in opposite directions to suit user expectations on each platform.

What do you prefer to use on your desktop computer? And how about on your mobile? And where do you see it all going?

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