Apple's garden wall is cracking
zdnet.com
zdnet.com
HTML5 is definitely becoming more capable, enough to rival some of the larger players. Still, a cross-platform toolkit doesn't deprecate dedicated frameworks. There's a reason why applications on my Macintosh are different than Windows, have the same overall theme, and are better integrated with the OS. It's the platform experience that makes a good user experience.
Since cross-platform toolkits haven't had much luck historically, the only other benefit HTML5 has is its existence outside of App Stores-- which if you're in the minority of apps to be rejected is a boon, but does not do many favors to the thousands of developers making good money from their apps.
HTML5 is not a platform. Facebook's project Spartan, for example, is a platform, and that might have some success rivaling iOS/Android/Kindle. But that's the difference.
I largely agree with you (and there will be situations where you need native apps), but to play devil's advocate, the differences between an iOS device and an Android device are less noticeable than the differences between a Mac and a PC. If a cross-platform toolkit is ever going to work, it will be where the platforms are (relatively) similar.
But these analysts are too short sighted to remember than when Apple rolled out the iPhone it was web apps only. That was there initial business model for the device.
They adjusted and dominated the market because of public pressure to do so. I think Apple probably have business models up there sleeve from years ago they never implemented.
Just because there was no SDK when the iPhone shipped in June 2007 doesn't mean they hadn't planned to release one all along, which of course they did.
And just for the record, Apple released the first version of the iPhone SDK in March 2008, just 9 months after the iPhone shipped. That's an awfully quick turnaround for a company that supposedly wasn't going to release a SDK at all until there was pressure.
Id hazard a guess the 9 months was more than luckily 9 months security testing than developing an API for the public.
As anyone else who's worked closely with Apple can confirm, they don't change strategy based on public pressure.
The iPhone was in development 2.5 years prior to its introduction in 2007; the decision to support native 3rd party apps was made long before any of us heard of the iPhone.
I think you're right that Apple don't change tack due to pressure. However the iPhone was a volatile product, with a high risk of failure.
It also ran the risk of getting booted off carriers for abusing network, and runs all sorts of security issues... remembering in an abstracted way its hooked to your bank account.. to your personal finances. I mean the last thing Apple needs is a porn dialer and malware problem like Android has got.
I would say they had plans to do the App store all along, you'd be foolish not to at least explore the concept. They where already doing games and little things for the iPod, so in a sense it already existed.
But I bet there hand was forced... or maybe the carriers hand was forced letting Apple win the argument... by public pressure and hackers already writing there own code.
Look at the apps Google removed from the Android market, they got significant less downloads as people had to visit the app site to get them.
Flash builder definitely builds for the iOS appstore now.
http://www.webkitchen.be/2011/06/20/build-ios-applications-w...
Android has some major challenges. Android tablets haven't really "just worked", and have had crippling return rates and price points that do not truly reflect their quality relative to the iPad.
Non-standard android builds (aka, the Kindle Fire is a fork of an old, non-tablet based android) are getting more prolific, and hopefully do not fully fragment the market into two.
What $14 kindle books are you talking about btw? I've never paid more than $10 that I noticed.
Another issue is Android is becoming the gateway drug to smartphones, instead of holding share, a huge number of people buy it for their first app wielding smart phone, then step over to apple for the second. They need to become more "the windows to mac"(works okay, but has hairs, standardized) instead of the "Desktop linux to mac" (can customize anything, but all over the place and confusing to non-technical people), and I feel they're still hovering much closer to the second category there than the first.
Additionally, you should probably be classifying the 5" "tablets" such as the Galaxy S into the same market as smartphones, as well as the iPodTouch, for the purposes of looking at things like app sales. They are in some ways more important, because their dominent purpose is consumption, instead of phone calls.
The ebook issue is well-known now and is the reason that many ebooks are more expensive than their paper equivalents despite having near-zero transportation costs, no warehousing costs, no storefront costs, no production costs after the first one, no ability to resell so no used market, etc. Some details, including Steve Jobs' quote showing he knew exactly what was happening, are here: http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/home/891584-264/apple_and_b...
Android tablets based on Honeycomb are quite good now and I have a couple friends that are using them, one of whom ditched his top-model iPad for it after ditching his iPhone for a Samsung Galaxy 2. Personally, I'd wait on Ice Cream Sandwich - aka Android 4, due out next month - as that'll be the point that both the tablet and phone versions of Android are in sync and open source (Android 3.x isn't yet open source like Android 2.x is).