Re: Web Apps

Thanks for the info - I was interested in iPad apps, but put off by the $99 just to download and look over the SDK.

A web app sounds better - you wouldn't have to write a different one for every smartphone.


-----Original Message-----
>From: Bill Stephenson <[email protected]>
>Sent: Feb 21, 2010 4:19 PM
>To: Perl MacOSX <[email protected]>
>Subject: Web Apps
>
>I started playing with iPhone/iTouch/iPad "web apps" just last week.
>
>http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/navigation/ 
>index.html#section=Resource%20Types&topic=Coding%20How-Tos
>
>Apple has made it incredibly easy to create a web app that runs exactly  
>like a native app on these devices.
>
>Of course, perl is a perfect server side language to power these apps,  
>and BBEdit and Perl on a Mac make the perfect IDE to create these web  
>apps.
>
>While poking around there I also found out that Safari on the Mac OS  
>also provides some big enhancements for web based apps now too. Check  
>this out:
>
>"Safari on iPhone, Mac OS X, and Windows all implement the Offline Web  
>Applications feature of HTML5. This feature allows you to cache all of  
>the resource files for your web application on the client, improving  
>the load time of your application and making it possible to create an  
>application which is fully functional even when there is no network  
>connection."
>
>(source:  
>http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/codinghowtos/Desktop/ 
>DataManagement/index.html)
>
>This is actually fulfilling a vision I expressed right here waaay back  
>in 2005:
>
>http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg08946.html
>
>Geez, It's like they've been working all this time for me entirely for  
>free ;)
>
>Seriously, according to the news this week it now looks like most all  
>"Smart Phone" makers will adapt a similar, if not the same, approach to  
>web based apps that run on these devices.
>
>Think about it, Apple knows that laptops and desktops need to be able  
>to run these same applications because it provides a fast and  
>inexpensive way for developers to integrate the use of these  
>applications with these different devices. Users want that, and they  
>want them to "Feel" like a native application too. Apple is essentially  
>giving them that.
>
>So, looking forward it's easy to imagine that many "Native" apps will  
>really be "Web Apps". The client side will contain the necessary tools  
>to run them. Updates and upgrades happen "at the atomic level" on the  
>server side and are instant and seamless and distributed as soon as the  
>software is accessed. (that's something I learned right here ;)
>
>The advantages to developers both small and large are huge. I now  
>believe this is exactly where Apple is heading and as you can imagine,  
>I'm absolutely thrilled about it :)
>
>--
>
>Bill Stephenson
>