Native vs. HTML5: looked at objectively, the debate is over
thinkmobile.appcelerator.com
thinkmobile.appcelerator.com
So, native wins over html5- for what actual purpose? Isn't this something you evaluate on a case by case basis depending on client, need, budget, maintainability, and on and on? What prize exactly has native "objectively" won?
Isn't this the thinking that has led to the plague of "DOWNLOAD OUR APP" banners preventing me from seeing anyone's content when I'm on a mobile phone? Have native apps won so hard that nobody can bear to look at a piece of text without a round trip to the app store?
For example, currently html rendering performance is very slow but surely will be improved in the near future. My personal problem is when it's intolerable slow.
failure to use even easy performance wins like html5 app cache, css3 3d transforms (hardware accelerated), local storage, etc. etc.
But it's all tech, which is putting the cart before the horse. I'm a local mom and pop grocery store. Do I need an app?
The author just lost all credibility, in my eyes, with this claim. Security by obscurity is well established as a myth. Like the author says: there is no debate.
"- the security of data at rest on the device; on a native app, it’s completely secure. In HTML, the browser is typically not secure and as a result exposes the data it’s accessing within its caches."
It's completely secure, except when it isn't. The recent Android signing flaw is a perfect example.
"- the security of data in transit; when using HTML, you are pretty much restricted to using SSL. VPNs are just too slow. With native apps, you can also run VPNs and other encrypted solutions, without ruining performance."
How does SSL ruin performance? Data is encrypted either way. And how many apps really use anything but TCP streams anyway, such that HTTPS with pipelining is sufficient?
Best to leave security experts to make comments about security, eh?
"Almost a year ago I wrote a white paper...Strangely, though, the debate rages on."
This always comes back to the same arguments, we had this conversation multiple times now. Yes native is better, but you can still build a good quality app with html compatible of multiple platforms, specially if your app is only a text crud.
But in the case of Appcelerator they seems to certainly do not want open technology like html5 to win & prefer selling their tech.
well I better buy your product right away!
Aha, doesn't even consider wrappers like phonegap.
Another of those lame articles that doesn't look at the whole picture instead only extremes.
The security paragraph is a bad joke in itself. I'd say this is a really bad advertisement for appcelerator when they have to resort to such bad claims.
I think the only people debating this are web developers who don't want to learn anything new.
Some examples: A voice recorder. A calculator. A camera application. A compass. A drawing program. A photo editor. A program that auto-tunes your voice. Games.
As a matter of fact, even for those non-app websites that offer an app - I find the app usually offers a better experience compared to the site, but like you - I'm not installing a separate app for each one of them.
The experience might be better, but there might be other valid reasons not to use them. That's a trade off vendors have to have in mind as well. Native apps are not always the optimal solution given certain constraints.
In my ideal world, I'd prefer a native app for all things. The web sucks in my opinion. Honestly, I wish there were a browser that dealt exclusively in native GUI elements and other computing resources. I'd also want some very finely-grained native resource permission controls.
I don't every want to layout my UI by saying "div div div div div div div". I want to say "window menubar toolbar grid treeview datagrid statusbar" and then I want it to show me the native representation of those things.