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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

>I would be surprised to see any web standard that makes iOS Safari better for "appy web apps" (web apps that are more like native apps rather than documents and forms) implemented, as that eventually just makes Safari an alternative AppStore without reviews.

This conspiracy thinking has been played again and again.

Few users cares for logging into some website from mobile Safari just to get a subpar experience over a native app (or a hybrid app), and that's not because Safari presents any kind of worse web experience than the desktop.

In fact Safari has often been the best mobile browser, but it still doesn't compete with the AppStore that much, as the most important things -- more than half a billion of credit cards on store, easy monetization, in-app purchases and full access to native APIs are missing from the web-app story.

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> In fact Safari has often been the best mobile browser

There are no other browsers on iOS. When you are using Chrome it is using UIWebView (in other words, it is forced to be a crippled Safari due to anti-competitive policy). Although recent Chrome will be using WKWebView which means at least it's same as Safari. The UI around the browser is not the browser.

> Few users cares for logging into some website from mobile Safari just to get a subpar experience over a native app (or a hybrid app),

Few users could tell any difference between native app and web app running in a browser that has modern appy capabilities, provided there is same quality of implementation. The only thing that can make the experience subpar is precisely the lack of capabilities.

>In fact Safari has often been the best mobile browser

I know. I meant across platforms. It's obviously the best on in iOS.

>Few users could tell any difference between native app and web app running in a browser that has modern appy capabilities, provided there is same quality of implementation. The only thing that can make the experience subpar is precisely the lack of capabilities.

For one, a web app adds the extra burden of a JS VM and DOM over native code. This rules out all kinds of graphic and CPU intensive apps. Actually, for any app that's not just a glorified content screen / database view, there's not even a comparison between a web and a native implementation.

Even for basically text-based content consumptions apps, like Flipboard, they had to jump through all kinds of hoops to get smooth 60 fps scrolling within a web view.

And of course there's the battery life, that's a real killer with web apps.

A future based on web apps for mobile is a regression over even 2005's state of the art in the desktop. And it's an experience similar to cross-platform apps -- that is, a "lowest common denominator" across mobile platforms.

Since when has asking "cui bono?" been considered conspiracy thinking?

Sounds like somebody might be a product manager at Apple.

>Since when has asking "cui bono?" been considered conspiracy thinking?

"Cui bono" is a necessary (but not sufficient) ingredient of any conspiracy thinking.

>Sounds like somebody might be a product manager at Apple

I rest my case.

That's actually a good argument, I'll give you that.

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