Native vs

Webvs

Hybrid Mobile Development Choices

Jason Grigsby • Where 2.0 2010@grigs on Twitter • jason@cloudfour.comcloudfour.com/blog • mobileportand.com

Surprise Story of 2008

Flickr photo by Drift Words: http://www.flickr.com/photos/44124413076@N01/11846265/

Web 2.0Web-based Apps

Services & MashupsSoftware as ServiceCloud Computing

iPhone App StoreNative Apps

Few APIs between appsNo Recurring Revenue

Local Storage

Flickr photo by Civisi: http://www.flickr.com/photos/civisi/2611679744/

Carriers App Store

Openness

Entry Cost

Revenue Split

Restrictions

Releases

Micropayments

Closed, Seek permissionOpen to anyone

who signs agreement

Thousands of dollars $99

60/40 to 50/50 70/30

Many Few

Difficult, Timely 1 to 2 weeks

Inconsistent iTunes for every phone

What makes the App Store successful?

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/02/shoot-is-iphone.html#c148364123

http://www.newsweek.com/id/174266

http://businessweek.com/@@0M43kIYQYKPISw0A/technology/content/sep2008/tc20080930_257832.htm

76 million devices

175,000 apps

3 billiondownloads

Gold Rush was On

Ringtone Apps

FYI: It shipped at $2.99. Then Justin sold his iPhone business.

http://twitter.com/justin/status/1210786170http://furbo.org/2008/12/09/ring-tone-apps/http://furbo.org/2009/02/16/raising-prices/

Throwaway Apps

http://www.pinchmedia.com/appstore-secrets/

More Open ≠ No Gatekeeper

96%Approved

(what about that 4%?)

4.6BillionMobile phone for >1/2 the planet.

Flickr photo by Pingnews: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pingnews/370061022/

4.6 Billion in Perspective

Source: http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2007/01/putting_27_bill.htmlhttp://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2008/01/when-there-is-a.html

iPhone Only Part of World Wide Market

0

22500

45000

67500

90000

80878

34346

24889

15027

81266798

1112

Symbian RIM iPhone Windows Mobile LinuxAndroid WebOS

2009 Smartphone Sales — Thousands of Unitshttp://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1306513

iPhone Only Part of US Market — Jan 2010

http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/3/comScore_Reports_January_2010_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share

Platform Market Share Point Change(compared to Oct 09)

RIM 43.0% 1.7

Apple 25.1% 0.3

Microsoft 15.7% -4.0

Google 7.1% 4.3

Palm 5.7% -2.1

Flickr photo by André-Batista: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=408700622&size=o

Objective C

Java ME

WebOS

C++

.NET Compact

BREW

Dalvik

Visual Basic

C

Symbian Windows Mobile

Palm

Google Mobile — App Challenges

•Pressure from CEO for rapid releases

•10+ platforms to support

•Over 100 different builds

http://www.flickr.com/photos/83731031@N00/445924458/ • http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcdave/142758127/http://www.flickr.com/photos/nataliejohnson/290541732/

Flickr photo by .Hessam: http://www.flickr.com/photos/essamo/1070527547/

Fragmentation:This is what the

web is supposed to solve.

Carriers App Store Mobile Web

Openness

Entry Cost

Revenue Split

Restrictions

Releases

Micropayments

Closed, Seek permission

Open to anyone who signs agreement

Completely Open

Thousands of dollars $99 None

60/40 to 50/50 70/30 100%

Many Few None

Difficult, Timely 1 to 2 weeks Instantaneous

Inconsistent iTunes for every phone Not yet

Mobile Web Distribution

Ok Hot Shot, How are You Going to Create Super Monkey Ball with HTML?

<div id=”bridge” class=”rope”>

<div id=”bubble”><span id=”monkey sprite-replace”>Monkey</span>

jquery-banana.js

Some Applications Have to Be Native

Five Common Reasons for Native Apps

Performance

Offline Mode

Findability

Monetization

Device Attributes

Flickr photo byboklm: http://www.flickr.com/photos/boklm/486646486/

Flickr: Uploaded February 11, 2007 by hawridger

1. Performance

Not for all applications

Good enough for many applications

Javascript Performance improving

Hardware Accelerated CSS

Web developers must improve

We’ve Become Bandwidth Gluttons | Use YSlow

Since 2003:

• Web Page Size Tripled• # of Objects Doubled

Since 1995:

• Web Page Size: 22x• # of Objects: 21x

Source: http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/average-web-page/

2. Offline Support

• HTML 5

• Client-side Database Storage API

• Application Cache

• Essentially SQLite in browser

• Available on iPhone since 2.0

• Google Gears, Android, Nokia soon?

Gmail Using HTML5

< 10 seconds on EDGE, 3 seconds on 3G

http://148apps.biz

3. Findability

175,000 appsYour app will be

easy to find.

Flickr photo by Lyza Gardner: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lyza/49545547/

4. Monetization

5. Device Attributes

Location

Camera

Address Book

Accelerometer

Compass

http://code.google.com/p/geo-location-javascript/

Flickr photo by Thomas Purves: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomaspurves/744225198/

http://wiki.phonegap.com/Roadmap

http://phonegap.com

http://www.keypointapp.com/

What can you do with Phone Gap?

http://harmoniousapp.com/

Other Hybrid Approaches

• Appcelerator Titaniumhttp://www.appcelerator.com/

• QuickConnecthttp://quickconnect.pbworks.com

• Rhomobile http://rhomobile.com

• Big 5 http://big5apps.com/

Hybrid Apps?

Yes we can

There is no right answer.

Understand your options.

Pick the best technology (or tech combo) for your needs.

Flickr photo by Pingnews: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pingnews/370061022/

Thank You for Your Time!

@grigs on Twitter • jason@cloudfour.comcloudfour.com/blog • mobileportand.com