Apple Handcuffs Web Apps On iPhone Home Screen 298
SF Polack writes "On Apple's iOS 4.3, HTML5 and JavaScript apps are running significantly slower when they're run from the iPhone or iPad home screen rather than Safari, and the OS is hindering the performance of these apps in other ways. The end result is that it's harder for web apps to compete with native iOS app sold through the App Store, where Apple takes a 30 per cent of sales."
Uh. (Score:2)
Doesn't iOS have backends that needs tending, like I don't know, being able to receive calls and mail?
Re:Uh. (Score:5, Funny)
The iPad is the new IE6 (Score:4, Informative)
This is the opinion(not mine, I know this will be downvoted regardless) of this very interesting and detailed article which I wanted to post.
http://blog.millermedeiros.com/2011/01/ipad-is-the-new-ie6/ [millermedeiros.com]
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Mr. Coward,
As I said, that's not my opinion, so no need to attack me. Feel free to attack the author of that article instead.
BTW: Using webkit doesn't automagically make things better. Maybe you should address the points raised in that article instead of handwaving with some mumbojumbo about OSS and monopolies thrown in?
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Sure.
HTML wasn’t created for dynamic/interactive content, it was created to present academic documents.
And the USPS wasn't created to ship you books from Amazon. And the telephone network wasn't created to use DSL modems. And the cable network wasn't created to deliver video on demand or internet service. And computers weren't created to connect to a global information network. What's the point? Because HTML 1.0 wasn't intended for this stuff, HTML 5 can't be? That's silly. HTML 5 and HTML 1 are two d
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>How about we take SunSpider from Anandtech's review of the iPad 2
Umm... maybe the article was written before the iPad 2 came out?
Again, with the lack of any data or benchmarks... OK, I'll give you the fact that iOS canvas performance is slow. So is Android's: neither iOS or Android have fully hardware accelerated browsers. But barely usable? A bit of an exaggeration, I think. So let's put this one as "Sure, but that's about the same for most mobile browsers."
If HTML5 was pushed a replacement for Flash, and if it fails at the very basic tag to create Flash like content that's not possible in HTML5. See Jobs' rant against Flash about a year ago. http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ [apple.com]
If Apple is unable to get HTML5 even close to Flash in a whole year, I don't know what that says. Maybe they don't want HTML5 apps which will p
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People who need to attack ad hominem anonymously* because of not being able to talk about content shouldn't be posting comments.
*That's a stretch considering even registered accounts are pretty anonymous, maybe you didn't want to sully your real account with this garbage comment?)
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In both situations, you end up with the same result (page running in safari). When you use the home screen shortcut, you get less performance.
As to backends, if you're phone app requires CPU power to *wait* for calls, you're doing it wrong. (memory I can understand. actively polling a hardware si
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Doesn't iOS have backends that needs tending, like I don't know, being able to receive calls and mail?
If that's a gay Apple joke you're making, I am sure most are not getting it. /joke.
Re:Uh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sadly, How many people ACTUALLY use their phones to make calls today ? Most people I see use them for playing games and sending out text messages and that's about it.
"Sadly?" What's sad about it? Some us who always hated talking on the phone and would be happy if phones became obsolete (although they won't of course). I also hated faxes, you're not sad about them are you?
Anyway, if the increasingly inaccurate "phone" designation really annoys you, just pretend they're mutated calculators.
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With future additions of NFC and other technologies to t
Re:Uh. (Score:5, Interesting)
>The cellular data network will still be important, but in some areas of the world, WiFi saturation may make it less necessary.
Good luck with this. The wireless companies engage in an illegal practice known as "tying" - You buy whatever THEY deem as a "smart" device and you are REQUIRED to buy a data plan. Even if you purchase the device outright, you have to pay hundreds of dollars a year more for data service you may not want or need.
Here's my analogy: You buy a nice new 55" 1080p LED-LCD 3D TV. You've never seen a need for cable before, but your mother-in-law has moved into your spare bedroom and she likes to watch cable. You call the cable company for basic cable. Their first question is "What kind of television do you have?". Strange question, but you answer. Cable- "OK, Sir. You have a screen over 40", so you have to get a HD box. Since it's also a 3D TV, you have to get all the movie channels and sports packages." You-"But I just want basic for my M-I-L to watch the news and normal programming". Cable "Sorry, Sir - that's our policy".
I'm around WIFI all day. I don't have any use for data while I make my commute. I would love to have a new Android gadget phone. Can't get one on Verizon (or any others) without paying $360/yr for data that I WILL NOT HAVE ANY USE FOR. Sure, I could probably find something I'd use it for, but I get along great without it. It's Tying, and it is ILLEGAL. Unfortunately, no one with the deep pockets to fight it cares, they just pay the $360/yr.
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Virgin Mobile USA sells two Android phones for $150 and $200 and you don't need any service at all from them. If you want phone/data you can pay $25/mo (not a contract, just month to month) but the phone works fine without that. The first thing I did with mine was hook it up to my WiFi, before I'd even ported my number over from my old phone.
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I did exactly that for a long time. I went through a few semi-smart phones that played mp3's, but none had decent players till my current LG Env Touch (Verizon had some conflict with this phone - When I got it, data was optional, then later it wasn't, then it was again - go figure). I quit carrying 2 devices, and don't really wish to go back. I have a 42 mile commute. I listen to a LOT of audio books. A player that will remember your place in a book if you leave the player app is very important. It's nice t
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Ummm sure you can. I've got a Fuze and no data plan. Sure it isn't the latest tech, but even when I got the phone, data plans were a "requirement". I activated the account with my old RAZR and moved the sim over.
Of course, on companies like Sprint w/ no SIM, you're pretty much screwed in that regard.
Re:Uh. (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually you can - quite easily. All you have to do is go to a carrier and buy the cheapest dumbphone with SIM that you can (AT&T is good for this) and get it on a "no contract length" plan (so.. a dumbphone will probably be about $100 - you'll have to pay that) - get the voice service you want on it with no data plan. Take the SIM out and put it in your android or blackberry phone. Your data services will not work, your voice services will.
I live in Canada and have an unlocked Blackberry Bold 9700 on Rogers with a normal blackberry data/voice/etc. plan for around $60/mo. I travel to the US regularly - many weeks a year. I went to an AT&T store and bought a $129 dumbphone with a $24/mo voice plan, no data, etc. I have that service automatically charged to my credit card each month so I just ignore its existence for the most part. When I travel to the US I pop my Rogers SIM out, pop my AT&T SIM in, and I'm good to go - I'm on a US phone number for making and receiving calls, and I have no data or blackberry service, but whenever I'm around WIFI I can use that for any data apps / web browsing.
Previously I had been paying around $600/yr in roaming costs when in the US. (typically ~$50 per week I was there). I now pay $300/yr for my US phone service and I get more minutes than I'll ever use while there and I use the Blackberry just fine with no data plan. My wife does the same with her Android phone using my SIM when she has to go to the US as well.
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Too many, and I wish more wouldn't. Mostly because a lot of them haven't figured out that they're talking to the phone, not to the people around them and as such don't need to yell.
Personally, I've got a Nexus One, and I use it primarily for the other things, because most of the time I don't need to talk. And frequently trying to talk just causes more problems, because lets face it, the carriers around here suck.
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They are not phones.
They are high end PDAs that include telephony as a feature, and you can choose to or not to use that feature.
There, does that make you happy? :-)
People like them. They're very powerful and can do a lot and industry leaders have been talking about "convergence" technologies for about 25 years but only now has it become reality.
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Some people do use them for work. With VPN + ssh my android phone gets used for work a lot.
Re:Uh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hahahahaha. Oh wow.
"Stop pretending it is a world-changing piece of technology because it isn't."
How is it (or rather smart phones in general) not? It's at least as world changing as the internet itself.
Being able to access nearly any piece of human knowledge whether I'm standing in line at the grocery store or out camping in the woods is pretty fucking amazing to me.
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You honestly believe that having a phone and small touch screen computer in one device is at least as world changing as a network that can carry data (mostly unhindered) to a great portion of the world?
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To a degree, yes. The internet for many people shifted the location of their information from libraries into the home. When I was a kid and I wanted to check a random fact or lookup a recipe or find out just what was the last year of production for the Chevy Corvair, I could find that information out - but I had to go to the library. It was inconvenient, and it was slow. The internet brought that information a step closer. Now, you could access that information at home.
Mobile devices do the same thing
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While I completely agree with you, you should stop feeding the trolls. These big animals are becoming a commonplace over here lately.
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> How is it (or rather smart phones in general) not? It's at least as world changing as the internet itself.
> Being able to access nearly any piece of human knowledge whether I'm standing in line at the grocery store or out camping
> in the woods is pretty fucking amazing to me.
Sure, we didn't have that 10 years ago with the PDA rage, right? And you weren't able to do that 30 years ago? Think harder ;-)
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Its [sic] a communication device.
Correct.
Its [sic] the same fucking thing that Kirk and Spock used.
Incorrect - Not even close to what Kirk and Spock had, even in TOS. A Star Trek communicator fit it one's hand and could reach a vessel in orbit, even if it wasn't geosynchronous over their head. Signals seemed to bypass most EM interference, and the devices allow nearly instantaneous communication at distances that would otherwise require more time to traverse. Most sat-phones today are bulky wi
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Yeah, if by "convergence" you mean 100 fart apps and other pointless diversions
What you choose to load into your smart phone is your own business. Personally, I only have a couple of apps on my iPhone, but I use the browser every day, and the map function at least once a week.
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Yeah, if by "convergence" you mean 100 fart apps and other pointless diversions. Apple has succeeded marvelously at resurrecting the shareware concept and all it's awful baggage.
It is a toy, plain and simple. An expensive "activity generator" with a telephone attached. Stop pretending it is a world-changing piece of technology because it isn't.
You really should consider getting one.
I think there's an navigation app that will allow you to travel to and return from any destination and ensure that both routes taken are uphill.
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Yeah, if by "convergence" you mean 100 fart apps and other pointless diversions.
The old tired excuse that the cell phones are filled with "fart" apps is really getting less and less viable. My phone is now my primary method of GPS navigation. It also has a fairly good guitar tuning app on it. My music, podcasts, email, etc are all right there. With the SSH client I can login to my home PC and do certain tasks anywhere I need. I can identify any song I happen to hear in the background.
And most importantly, I can just open a web browser. That's something that you obviously have som
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Disregarding the improved UI (almost all people seem to work much quicker with a capacitive touch screen versus a stylus), neither of those devices had a GPS, nor (most importantly) a functional internet connection that is available 99% of the time you are away from home.
Seriously, the "always there" internet connection on these devices pretty much the main driving factor in their popularity - you can't compare them to devices of old that lack that important part. It's like trying to compare automobiles to
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What's sad about that?
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Me? I think it's pretty friggin' cool that in addition to supporting voice (and face-to-face/video conversations) today's portal wallet-sized devices are also able to connect me to the entire world in other ways too. (Not to mention entertaining me from time to time.)
Re:Uh. (Score:5, Funny)
There is an app for that.
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That quote is actually misattributed [bgr.com]. It was the person writing to Steve Jobs who wrote that, not Jobs.
Here's what the site in question says: "UPDATE: The last line in the email exchange was actually not said by Mr. Jobs; rather it was by “Tom.” We corrected it as soon as we were made aware."
Jobs closed his half of the email exchange with "You may be working from bad data. Not your fault. Stay tuned. We are working on it."
BTW, I'm not in any way condoning Apple's de facto classification of home
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Why not start patenting words next.
Ironically, they already own the trademark NeXT.
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Like Windows, Apple, Sun, Oracle?
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Errr, I guess it's just trolling, but I'll bite. iPhone receives calls whatever state it's in. Unless you're having a data connection over Edge, but that's a network limitation.
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It's a bit to soon to say for sure (Score:5, Interesting)
Why would it be about 30%, most web apps are free and 30% of zero is zero. Apple allow free apps in their store.
This bug only occurs when you launch a web app that contains a meta tag of name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes"
If your 'web app' is just a shortcut to Safari on your homescreen then you won't see this bug.
Basically this web app meta tag launches the app fullscreen without any Safari chrome. To the user it looks like a separate app rather than it's running in the browser.
The slow behaviour is just using the iOS 4.2 JavaScript engine. It's possible that this is either an oversight or that Apple deliberately kept the old JavaScript engine for web apps in case it broke functionality that the app was depending on.
We'll see in the coming weeks I'm sure.
Re:It's a bit to soon to say for sure (Score:5, Funny)
most web apps are free and 30% of zero is zero.
You must be new here. The correct way of saying that would be "Apple takes 100% of the royalties of most apps!"
Write that up, post it on a blog somewhere, and submit it, quick!
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The correct way of saying that would be "Apple takes 100% of the royalties of most apps!"
It's worse than that... they take an arbitrary amount and they never inform the developer.
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<sarcasm>What this really means is that we can expect web apps to be phased out in two to three years.</sarcasm>
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True, but to be honest, most of those were fairly elegant.
Not anymore.... (Score:4, Interesting)
>Why would it be about 30%, most web apps are free and 30% of zero is zero. Apple allow free apps in their store.
Not anymore if it involves any money exchanged between the user and the app provider. Now Apple is forcing (users of) subscription services like Amazon and Netflix to pay up 30%. ( an extra 43% to the user). It's curtains from June.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/19/AR2011021902399.html [washingtonpost.com]
Free app Readability already got banned for this.
http://blog.readability.com/2011/02/an-open-letter-to-apple/ [readability.com]
Free Sony e-reader app banned:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2011/02/apple_bans_sony_e-reader_app_a.html [washingtonpost.com]
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>Why would it be about 30%, most web apps are free and 30% of zero is zero. Apple allow free apps in their store.
Not anymore if it involves any money exchanged between the user and the app provider. Now Apple is forcing (users of) subscription services like Amazon and Netflix to pay up 30%. ( an extra 43% to the user). It's curtains from June.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/19/AR2011021902399.html [washingtonpost.com]
Free app Readability already got banned for this.
http://blog.readability.com/2011/02/an-open-letter-to-apple/ [readability.com]
Free Sony e-reader app banned:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2011/02/apple_bans_sony_e-reader_app_a.html [washingtonpost.com]
We're not talking about these apps which were native apps and not web apps.
I'm just saying that most webapps are free and so it doesn't affect apples profits whether they're distributed as webapps or through the app store.
Remember, when the iPhone was launched web apps were the only way to get your app on the phone. The app store came later.
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I think that was a counterpoint to this line:
Apple allow free apps in their store.
Readability was a free app before it was pulled with the new rules.
Anyway, Readability made a HTML5 app after they got rejected.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/09/readability-html5/ [techcrunch.com]
They can't be too happy with this news and might be thinking it is intentional to close the HTML5 loophole for subscription apps.
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Its not really free if they need a subscription.
Re:Not anymore.... (Score:4, Informative)
You don't need a subscription for the Kindle app. There are tons of free Kindle ebooks too. But Apple wants 30% of the cost of any ebooks that Amazon sells through the Kindle app.
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You mean the free app that charges authors 30% for doing nothing but allowing them to be viewed on the Readability platform.....that business tactic seems awfully familiar....
Oh the solution that Apple gave developers before the app store came on-line and that everyone cried foul about?
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You mean the free app that charges authors 30% for doing nothing but allowing them to be viewed on the Readability platform.....that business tactic seems awfully familiar....
Oh the solution that Apple gave developers before the app store came on-line and that everyone cried foul about?
Umm, users can opt to pay for ad free content, 30% of which Readability keeps. Perhaps you can provide a service like this if you think it's easy and Readability shoudn't charge or charges too much. The content authors are utterly free to offer this kind of service through any other app or their own app or website.Where do iUsers and Readability go if the App Store doesn't carry it? There are no ways to offer apps directly(due to strict DRM) or through another store like the Amazon store like in Android.
A
Re:Not anymore.... (Score:5, Informative)
We're not talking about these apps which were native apps and not web apps.
Yes, that's exactly what we are talking about. The whole point of the article is that if these services now want to be on the iPhone, etc without paying that cut to Apple they will need to create a web app, and when they attempt to integrate them seamlessly using Apple's recommended method, they will run more slowly for no apparent reason.
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We're not talking about these apps which were native apps and not web apps.
Yes, that's exactly what we are talking about. The whole point of the article is that if these services now want to be on the iPhone, etc without paying that cut to Apple they will need to create a web app, and when they attempt to integrate them seamlessly using Apple's recommended method, they will run more slowly for no apparent reason.
No dumbass we're not. Subscription services now HAVE to offer in app purchase as well as web store purchases at the same price. There is no reason to force them to be slower when using a web store.
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I'm not sure he's lying. I think it's more like logical prediction. If Netflix is making a profit at price point X and they're profit is not 30% then when Apple comes along to take 30% of X Netflix will be out that money. Being a company they will pass that cost to the customer which is a 43% increase in end-user price. Now, Apple may very well not allow an application that charges more than the non-application price. Netflix has two ways of recourse here. One, they could raise the price across the board by
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Why would it be about 30%, most web apps are free and 30% of zero is zero. Apple allow free apps in their store.
It also cost $100 or so a year to be in the app store.
Re:It's a bit to soon to say for sure (Score:5, Informative)
> Apple allow free apps in their store.
Apple still gets money for that. $99/year to host a free app. If you stop paying the $99/year, Apple removes the app from the store.
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Doesn't it cost $99 / year to host any number of free apps?
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"It's possible that this is either an oversight or that Apple deliberately kept the old JavaScript engine for web apps in case it broke functionality that the app was depending on."
No, it's a security thing. This was noted when people first found out about Nitro.
"apparently iOS 4.3 features JS JIT. did they lift restriction from the kernel that prevented mmap-ing rwx memory pages? hmm."
http://twitter.com/mraleph/status/43030240175468544
So in 4.3 they've lifted it for Safari.app and only Safari.app. Presumab
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The big problem is with web apps that allow purchases or subscription services.
If you want to create an iOS app (even if the app is free) and it includes a subscription service or sells in-app items, Apple now wants a 30% cut of ANYTHING you buy from the device. Buy an online magazine subscription, or sign up for an MMORPG through your iPad? Apple wants 30% of the fees ONGOING. Want to buy eBooks through Amazon or Sony? 30% goes to them. I mean, come on, these days even the ultra-competitive brick and
UPDATE (Score:2)
Note this bit in the same Reg article:
All three issues also affect native iOS web applications that uses Apple's UIWebView API – i.e., native applications that tap the web in a big way.
So it's saying apps available through the app store are also affected if they use the built in HTML renderer. Doesn't this show that it wasn't an intentional way to make apps look better, otherwise apps would have access to the new faster engine too,
The Reg is just trolling for pageviews.
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FACTS?! How dare you!? This is SLASHDOT!!! Take your facts somewhere else, Mr.!!!!
Who saw it coming.. (Score:2)
After Jobs said in public Apple was committed to supporting HTML5?
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You might have hit the nail on its head. http://blog.millermedeiros.com/2011/01/ipad-is-the-new-ie6/ [millermedeiros.com]
The only difference seems to be that MS didn't have sensitive fanboys armed with modpoints and blogs full of worship and long justifications for the shit that Apple pulls.
I smell troll bait (Score:3, Insightful)
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RTFA.
It says (near the end) that the Apple mobile team has confirmed the issue and Apple engineers also said that it will not be fixed.
It doesn't matter whether the new behavior was introduced deliberately or not, the negative effects are there. And Apple is saying they won't be fixing it. Therefore the article is not a troll.
Wrong way round? (Score:2)
Exactly the opposite? (Score:2)
What? You can't install "web apps" on your home screen. Except for shortcuts that launch Safari, which would run with the newer, faster engine.
AFAIK those "native iOS app sold through the App Store, where Apple takes a 30 per cent of sales." are precisely those that get launched from the home screen, which will be slow when displaying an embedded "WebView".
Did I understand this the other way around or did the summary just twist facts about 540 degrees? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
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You can save a bookmark to a web page on your home screen. If that web page has a <meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes"> then it launches in a full screen (no status bar) chromeless window without the safari interface.
Apparently it also runs slower if you do that.
Re:Exactly the opposite? (Score:4, Interesting)
What? You can't install "web apps" on your home screen. Except for shortcuts that launch Safari
Yes, that's what we're talking about. Shortcuts that launch Safari.
which would run with the newer, faster engine.
Ah... well, you'd certainly think so. Except that the whole point of this article appears to be that that assumption is, in fact, incorrect.
If it's a shortcut on your homescreen then safari will open and the app will run at normal speed using the 4.3 Javascript engine.
If there's a special meta tag it will open full screen like a separate app, this is currently using the old 4.2 Javascript engine.
So basically - webapps with the meta tag will currently run the same speed as they did before the iOS upgrade, whereas web pages can use the new faster Javascript engine.
We'll see as time progresses whether this is intentional or not, but the fact is nothing is being slowed down it's just using a different javascript engine.
Two explanations... (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that Web-based apps are typically free, I'm a bit skeptical about #1. But guess which explanation made the headline?
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Its more about control than money.
Web-based apps == less control for Steve == bad for Apple
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Having the app in the app store instead of being a web app is better for "casual users" (the type that buy Apple devices at least) and better for Apple's profits from developer subscriptions and potentially app sales.
Extremely deceptive article! The cause... (Score:5, Informative)
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The cause of this has been discovered already; it's a software bug. iOS 4.3 has a new JavaScript engine. Websites launched from the home screen seem to be reverting to and using the old JavaScript engine from iOS 4.2.
And as a software professional that would have been my first guess, "Sounds like a bug to me"
The article makes it sound like a conspiracy. I'm sure it'll be patched soon; I can think of no obvious reason to do this but give the same apps full speed if bookmarked within the web browser.
It would appear that the anything iOS related brings out the tinfoil hat crowd. Time to up the meds guys.
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I hope you're right, but from the article:
"This developer reiterates that if Apple didn't specifically introduce these problems in iOS, it's aware of them now. And he says that the Mobile Safari team has indicated the issues will not be fixed."
It is still hearsay. Some guy claims that Apple will not fix it but there was no statement from Apple on the issue.
Sensationalist Link Bait (Score:5, Insightful)
It's unclear whether these are accidental bugs or issues consciously introduced by Apple.
So, they have no idea whether or not it's actually malicious, but they've decided to run with the story using an inflammatory headline anyway.
According to Apple developers posting to the web, the speed issue has been discussed in the company's developer support forums, and one developer – the same unnamed developer quoted above – confirms with The Reg that multiple bugs have been filed on the issue.
Developers are using proper channels to report what's most likely a bug and this is most likely a non-story as of the next minor update, but they've still decided to run with it anyway.
Apple isn't degrading the speed of home screen web apps. It's boosting the speed of web apps in the browser. But in the long run, the effect is the same. And if this is a bug, Apple has yet to fix it.
So, in fact, Apple hasn't intentionally hobbled anything, it's just that they haven't sped them up, possibly due to a bug, yet they're still going to run this story.
This developer reiterates that if Apple didn't specifically introduce these problems in iOS, it's aware of them now. And he says that the Mobile Safari team has indicated the issues will not be fixed.
You'd think that such damning evidence would be posted, but it isn't. Complete hearsay, but they've decided to run the story, inflammatory headline and all, regardless.
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Your post is so far down the slashdot page that few people will be distracted from their rants against the imagined Apple monopolistic conspiracy.
Let the mindless flames continue!
Android. (Score:2)
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But it just isn't putting me into an ecosystem with a situation like that.
A situation like what? The apps still work just as well as they did prior to an update - they just didn't speed UP. Nothing was "lost".
Misleading: Not handcuffed, just not upgraded. (Score:3)
They didn't cripple, handcuff, or kneecap anything.
They just didn't UPGRADE the web-app-run Safari to the new Javascript engine.
web-app-run websites will run at the same speed as in 4.2, they just won't run FASTER, as a 'Safari-run' website would.
Still not great, but not what people are calling it out as.
staying compatible (Score:2)
Caching works for my webapp (Score:3)
I wrote one of these that caches some graphics and the single html page the comprises the app, which is mostly javascript. Using 4.3 it still runs fine offline, so whatever cashing bug exists does not affect everything. Running the app through iphone's Safari might be a little faster. I didn't time it, but the difference, if there is one, is not dramatic.
I see dozens of ignorant comments here claiming that webapps on the home screen are just Safari bookmarks. What makes them real apps is that they can store themselves and the resources they need on the device and work offline.
What's the difference between these apps? (Score:2)
This is the way I want it. (Score:3)
When Safari is up front and center, let it have the majority of the CPU time. When a "web app" is on the home screen, let it compete for clock cycles with the rest of the "web apps" on the home screen and the main functions of the home screen (and the phone in general).
Maybe I am not qualified to speak on this topic, because I don't use any "web apps" to speak of on my iPhone 4, as I vastly prefer native apps. I have no web pages pinned to my home screen at all.
And stop bitching about the 30 percent that Apple takes for App Store sales. It's right in line with what Kagi, et. al., take for selling software. I fail to see how it is unfair in the least, as Apple is bringing developers a huge audience, hosting the files, footing the bandwidth, managing the update system, etc. In an ideal world, the standard percentage that a distributor takes would be less, but 30 percent is perfectly average in not only the software distribution world, but in other areas too (e.g., 20th Century Fox generally gets a lot more than 30 percent on the first run of the movies it distributes for other producers--it's more like 50 or 60 percent; maybe it will get down to 30 percent at second-run movie houses and for DVD sales).
It's just a UIWebView issue (Score:3)
So the real story here is "iOS Safari has got lots better in 4.3 and iOS web apps run just like they used to." Doesn't exactly sound like Apple adding handcuffs to me. Sadly that didn't make a good enough headline for The Register and anyway El Reg loves a conspiracy theory.
The fact is that this is almost certainly just a versioning issue with the UIWebView code. When you launch a Web App in iOS what actually happens is that it a launches a dummy app that just consists of a full screen UIWebView pointed at the web page. Other than when Apple releases new full version (e.g. x.0 release) the UIWebView code has typically trailed the code in Safari by at least one point release. This "bug" quite possibly "won't be fixed" as a bug because it will just come out in the wash. If there is ever an iOS 4.4 I'd expect to see it resolved there, otherwise I'll put money on it being fixed in iOS 5.0 come the summer. Apple aren't going to put up with on-going maintenance of diverging WebKit code bases just to make sure that Objective-C applications stay running even faster than JavaScript than they would with Nitro.
Re: (Score:2)
Chronic is not capable of saying that.
How does Chronic know that Apple forgot?
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Nor is the writer of this article capable of saying that apple intentionally handcuffed webapps from the home screen.
How does the writer know if Apple did it on purpose?
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Also true.
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Add in a higher than average up front cost for the device. iOS users need to speak out on this. Stop paying more for less!
If iOS users were interested in freedom (either as in beer or as in speech), they wouldn't be iOS users in the first place. They have iPhones and iPads because they like the product and/or because it's fashionable in their peer group. Big deal. And if you don't like the product, there's a workaround: buy something else.
That's not intended to be a defense of Apple. I don't like their products or their business model. But despite the hype, they're not going to drive all the alternatives out of business. This
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One man's "fact" is another man's "value for money", since you're not just buying hardware, but I have noticed the trend has shifted form "Macs are overpriced" to "Macs are overpriced for the hardware they have".
I was being facetious with my comments, but all three were accurate at one point: you were stuck at 640x480 resolution in Ubuntu because the settings window was taller than that and there was no way to select or click "ok" to change it. This bug has been fixed.
Android phones were sending text messag
Re: (Score:2)
Nitro is a JIT. As a JIT, it builds machine code on the fly and executes it. In the iOS security model, that's considered “uncool”, and regular apps aren't allowed to do it.
And what is the "regular app" involved in a WebView? (Note: "app" in this context means something with an executable image; the Web app itself isn't the "regular app", obviously.)
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And what is the "regular app" involved in a WebView? (Note: "app" in this context means something with an executable image; the Web app itself isn't the "regular app", obviously.)
According to another posting [slashdot.org], it's Web.app.
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And Android is supported by Google because they believe in "openness" and "freedom".......