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Comment by lovasoa | Hacker News Reader

Do you remember FirefoxOS, the smartphone OS that was developed by Mozilla ? It was abandoned in 2016, but KaiOS, the operating system powering these feature phones, is its descendant. Firefox's rendering engine, Gecko, is at the core of the OS, and all apps are written in HTML5/JS/CSS.

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I can still not see the sense in programming cheap underpowered phones with HTML5/JS/CSS instead of writing native software for them.

Cheaper because the skills are ubiquitous. I'm also assuming the apps are simple so the web triad can cover most use cases.

It's irrelevant because still no one will build for the platform. MS, Blackberry, Nokia have all demonstrated there's just no market for a third "app platform".

These phones will have the apps from the factory, and nothing more.

The point was to convince developers to write their apps for the open web as well. Something that definitely was justifiable.

Maybe you can not earn tons of money by writing a "drink beer" or "I am rich" app, but people are writing simple games and utilities with millions of installs.

The platforms I mentioned simply don't exist any more because all people made for them were "drink beer" apps.

They have what Microsoft didn't: an exploding user base.

Development time. Time to market is more important than performance even on slow phones.

Time to market for what? Do you think those users won't use apps that are built for hundreds of millions of users (i.e. same/similar chat, payments etc apps as everyone else uses)

I wonder if there is a compromise that would look something like Gopher - very lightweight, limited UI etc.

NB I'm not literally recommending Gopher but a modern day equivalent.

i made a similar comment below. you expect us developers to cater to every different device out there? i am sorry, but the whole promise of the web is that i don't have to write native code any more.

in fact this promise was once made by steven jobs, except that the phones at the time were not capable enough.

the question is not, what's the point of using web tech for underpowered phones, but the question is why do you expect me to cater to a minority market, and when do we reach the point that any device is powerful enough to handle web tech?

because that is where the future is going. native development is a stop gap to handle high performance requirements, but make no mistake, its days are counted. web development is the future that will replace all app development, whether we like it or not. even on the desktop, thanks to webassembly the browser is the future development target on any device out there. native apps will become a niche for only very specialized applications, and servers.

I don't expect you to cater to a minority market, but whoever writes apps that run significantly better than "generic" ones using html or other frameworks (dear electron-based developers: your apps are garbage) will get my money.

Niches have a lot of money in them, to the point that entire industries blossom just to cater to them. Things like high-end personal audio and performance automobiles are both multi-billion industries.

i doubt it, because you are not going to find my app. you are going to want the same apps that everyone else uses, and the fact that there are a few apps out there that actually run well on your phone is not going to make a serious dent in my profits.

i have yet to hear about any apps that became popular because they performed better than others. in the whole market, that's just a blip.

things like high-end personal audio and performance automobiles are a high-end market market. you are asking me to create a high-performance app for a low-end market. the dynamics here are entirely different. and the profit margin is too.

well preforming apps for underpowered phones is a minority market.

i wouldn't even know how to promote my app to you.

my app is significantly faster than the competitors, and it even runs well on your cheap semi-smart phone

but does it have feature X?

sorry no, because that would make it slow

how much does it cost?

$20

uh, why did you think i bought a cheap phone?

apps for this market will not be sold on performance, but on solving problems that are specific to this particular group of people.

Your argument was that you'd always want to develop universal apps in order to cater to everyone, not niches. Now you're talking about catering to low end garbage phones specifically. I don't doubt that catering to as large as possible an audience works for the low end of the market spectrum but I was arguing against the concept of ignoring niches, particularly high-end ones.

I want fast and feature X and I've no problem with $20 if it's better than the free one.

We were talking about different markets :)

huh, i think we are missing each other somewhere. i am talking about not catering to low end phones. i thought you were talking about better performing apps for low end phones. this whole article is about low end phones. why else would you need high performing apps? (i mean i can imagine why you would, but that is an entirely different topics, so please forgive me that i would miss that.)

in summary my argument is that:

- writing native apps to gain a bit of performance for a minority of users is not worth the added cost of development

- performance is not a selection criteria for most users

- low end phone users are unlikely to spend money on expensive apps

- catering to low end phones only makes sense for apps that are useful to that market. those apps have to be cheap, and that's yet another reason not to make them native.

and i was responding to a comment how it doesn't make sense to use web technology on low end phones.

my counter argument: it does not (no longer) make sense to write native apps. period.

you then responded that you would pay for better performing apps, but that puts you into a different niche demographic than the entire topic of the article.

now one point of the article is that the demographics will change and that there is going to be a huge market of users with low-end phones.

however that still doesn't make performance a selection criteria for people buying apps unless the phones are not able to run any of the popular apps which appears to be the case because kaiOS didn't even support native apps last i checked. in other words, apps on those phones are competing in an entirely different league, and the existing android market does not apply.

then again we have an entirely different dynamic of competing in a new market where there are no existing contenders, and the main question is, is the market big enough yet to make it worth it.

and since those phones run kaiOS native apps are off the table anyways

>but the question is why do you expect me to cater to a minority market

Where do you get the idea that anyone expects you to do anything? Since when are hackers opposed to more options, especially those outside the walled gardens of modern smartphones? If it's worth it, do it. If it isn't, don't. If the system sucks, it'll fail. But why rail against the idea?

> even on the desktop

I'd dare say it's already happened on the desktop. I do IT for an elementary school, and pretty much none of the employees use any app other than their web browser. Right now the computer I'm sitting in front of is running Outlook, our ticketing system, WhatsApp, Discord, and Spotify all within Firefox which is the only native app I have open, and likely the only app I'll open all day.

certainly some are more ahead than others, but it proves the trend. if only the webbrowser had a better way to manage the apps. a desktop of sorts.

i do realize that we are reinventing everything here. and as some said elsewhere, html is not the best of tools to create user interfaces. not by a long shot[1]. but the dream of a single unified architecture that we can all develop towards may at last become a reality.

[1] actually, thanks to things like canvas or webassembly we are not necessarily stuck with html. we'll be able to create gui toolkits in javascript (hey, js-framework developers, here is your next target: the js-gui-toolkit of the week ;-) or maybe even port existing toolkits to webassembly and then our gnome or windows apps will simply run inside the browser instead.

the day of the linux desktop (for those that are still waiting for it) will be the day of the browser desktop

I think that HTML5/JS/CSS is the recommended way to write apps for KaiOS.

Seems kind of fun in a way, the bloated JS frameworks we are used to probably won't run very well, so you would need to work at a lower level and really optimize.

Or work with a JS framework that compiles into vanilla JS, like Svelte[1].

[1] https://svelte.dev

Nice, wasn't even aware that Svelte was a thing, thanks.

Because most app writers don't know how to write native code? See all the bloated React powered apps out there

The company that I work for doesn't have a native app for our web-based product. Part of this is definitely because we have only two developers, and not enough time to invest in additional platforms.

However, when our sales guys talk to customers (SMBs), they are universally pleased that we don't have a native app for phones. None of their employees want to install an app just to use the software on their phones. The fact that our product has a responsive design and is sufficiently performant on android and iOS based phones is more than enough for them.

Gotta know your market.

A normal "excuse" is that html is "easier" (LIES!) and if you wait loooong enough the performance will catch up.

I concede css make styling far easier than any native toolkit.

And is true that most UI toolkit are so unfriendly that make html+js look soooo good in contrast.

But native development have been far simpler, productive and easier for solo developers before: Delphi, HyperCard, Smalltalk, Visual FoxPro, Visual Basic prove it.

My experience is that most developers I know (in latin america) prefer 1000% of the time (maybe not exagerating by much) to code in that tools than html.

Html/js is dreaded. Is like "damm... I MUST do html and js because... what choice I have?".

The huge indictment of our industry is that it bet in a subpar tech (html/js) and have forgotten to invest on UI toolkits.

Look how much take Apple to get swift UI. Decades!

Decades!

And it have hypercard before!!

Knowing I can't change the past and don't care much about the future beyond the near term success of my platform, I would target the languages that have an overwhelming majority of developers.

I have a sense that the web stack makes up a large majority of developers who can/do develop UI-centric user applications.

A little more info from the KaiOS website (https://developer.kaiostech.com):

> KaiOS is a web-based mobile operating system that enables a new category of smart feature phones. It is forked from B2G (Boot to Gecko), a successor of the discontinued Firefox OS. KaiOS brings support of 4G/LTE, GPS, and Wi-Fi, as well as HTML5-based apps and longer battery life, to non-touch devices. It has an optimized user interface for smart feature phones, needs little memory, and consumes less energy than other operating systems. It also comes with the KaiStore, which enables users to download applications in categories like social media, games, navigation, and streaming entertainment.

Do you remember FirefoxOS, the smartphone OS that was developed by Mozilla ? It was abandoned in 2016, but KaiOS, the operating system powering these feature phones, is its descendant

Yeah. I bought two FirefoxOS phones and was keen. Unfortunately it never got to critical mass. Actually mailed the last of them to someone from India I met on HN. Recently I saw a French guy in HK on my LinkedIn managing some new effort under KaiOS. I was all motivated to meet and share some ideas (used to work in mobile, most handset manufacturers ~2009-2010) but found out the company is owned by that evil mafiosi Ambani, the same guy who bulldozed thousands of people's homes in Mumbai to build an uninhabited luxury condo, and who is destroying Australia's Queensland/Barrier Reef region with a massive coal mine. Crook.

> who bulldozed thousands of people's homes in Mumbai to build an uninhabited luxury condo

Do you have source for this claim?

> who is destroying Australia's Queensland/Barrier Reef region

That's Adani, not Ambani.

I'm no fan of crony capitalism, but such false claims on HN aren't cool.

Oops my bad! Sorry end of a hacking session didn't fact check :) Unintentional. Thanks for setting the record straight.

I've never heard of him before, but I looked it up and it would appear the condo claim of being unoccupied for a significant period of time after construction and bulldozing peoples homes (possibly not thousands but apparently including an orphanage) is true.

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilia_(building)

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