Web Developer Admits: Objective-C Beats HTML5

http://engblog.polyvore.com/2012/12/web-developer-admits-objective-c-html.html

by jesskah • 14 years ago

25 25 14 years ago

engblog.polyvore.com

Beats it in how easy it is to create, yes. But HTML5 is cross platform, and if done properly, the speed differences are not noticeable to the human eye.

In fact, "Fastbook" is proof that an HTML5 app can be FASTER than it's iOS counterpart. http://www.sencha.com/blog/the-making-of-fastbook-an-html5-l...

Check out their video. They literally duplicated the iOS functionality, and made it faster, with HTML5.

millstone• 14 years ago

They did not "literally duplicate the iOS functionality." After months of work, and modifying their own framework, they produced...a technology demo, which omits core functionality like searching.

Also, I don't agree that the Fastbook app is HTML5 "done properly." From their article:

So the Fastbook app is the first to make use of a brand new “Sandbox Container” which programmatically detaches complex views and renders them into their own iframes, and thus partitioning the DOM tree...events, positioning, styling, and JavaScript code have to be proxied between the parent window and the child sandboxes.

I would characterize this as "heroics."

chrisringrose8• 14 years ago

No, of course they didn't duplicate every bit of Facebook's functionality. You missed the point, I'm afraid. The very specific functionality they targeted performed as well as the native app, and in some cases, better.

They are both pulling the same data from Facebook, and just displaying it to the user. One is native, one is HTML5.

jmcdonald-ut2• 14 years ago

Given the considerable resources that Facebook has, and the amount of effort they put into an HTML5 application at first, it seems reasonable that native still gives a much superior experience. Sencha has done some great things, but one must consider the bias Sencha has for HTML5 to be great. It is in Facebook's best interest to deliver the best experience possible, but it is in Sencha's interest to deliver promising HTML5 results.

I'm not sure we can mark this as a win for HTML5, but what Sencha did is impressive. HTML5 will certainly continue to grow, and this is a fantastic step forward.

You are also correct that HTML5 is cross platform, and Sencha has proven that HTML5 can be taken into serious consideration when starting a new project.

greggman2• 14 years ago

> Given the considerable resources that ____ has ...

This is far from true. Example: Given the amount of resources Microsoft has and all the effort they put in UX it seems reasonable they have made the best UX decisions

No, that's provably not true.

It seems logical that the large resources of big companies would work that way but that's not how the real world works. It always comes down to just a few people and their taste. Rarely are these kinds of decisions made based on anything more than a few people's opinions whether it's Microsoft, Google, Apple or Facebook. Whoever is the lead programmer for a particular project or lead UX designer for another or one of the 2 or 3 people around them decide this stuff based on nothing more than their professional opinion. That opinion might be more informed than your average joe but it has nothing to do with the size of the company and their "considerable resources".

mikeash2• 14 years ago

Do you have any example of HTML5 "done properly"? I don't believe I've ever seen any. (Yes, saw the video link, but it would be nice to have something I can actually try.)

chrisringrose8• 14 years ago

Sure. Gmail.com run on the iPhone. In some cases, such as opening a subfolder that I haven't been in, loads more quickly than Apple's Mail app. (This is provably because of IMAP lag.)

chrisringrose8• 14 years ago

For more examples of HTML5 in use, check: http://12devsofxmas.co.uk/post/2012-12-26-day-1-the-future-o...

pooriaazimi3• 14 years ago

> HTML5 done properly

I've seen Gmail.app on a friend's iPhone 4S (with dual-core A5) and it's slower than Apple's Mail.app on my sister's iPhone 3G (with a 300MHz ARMv6, which I think is under clocked to 230MHz or something like that).

When Google (king of the Internet and HTML5) fails to "do HTML5 properly", then the rest of us really don't have much chance.

(and, no, it's not (entirely) UIWebView's fault. If Google were allowed to use Nitro or V8, Gmail.app would be 40% faster. But that iPhone 5's CPU is like 20 times faster than that crummy old iPhone 3G)

greggman2• 14 years ago

I wasn't aware the gmail ios app is HTML5. Do you have some link that claims that it is?

chrisringrose8• 14 years ago

An email app like Mail just download and keep offline copies of most of the mail. Opening the app and it instantly shows the pre-downloaded stuff. Yes, so in that sense, the mail app is faster. Bravo.

The 40% faster boost takes us into the range of not-really-noticeable. If there were a dev tool to make efficient HTML5 apps just like there is to make native, and this speed difference was in miliseconds, not seconds, developers will flock to HTML5.

hayksaakian• 14 years ago

Right tool for the right job and all that jazz.

We don't need more flamebait like the OP.

jonathantrevor2• 14 years ago

One of the points I was trying to get through, and perhaps didn't do a great job of, was that I keep seeing people/apps trying to use HTML and various wrapping frameworks / toolkits to create the look and feel of an iOS app. Even worse, many of these "apps" don't even need to be apps (end of the article).

We went this route too and hoped we could re-use lots of code we already had but, as you say, the right tool for an iOS app is Objective-C. Un-JITed JS inside a wrapped app with a zillion Objective-C stubs using the DOM in a view-like manner its not meant to represent just doesn't do it.

yuhong• 14 years ago

Personally I think "HTML5" is a misnomer even as a buzzword. Better to compare a specific browser instead.

jayfuerstenberg• 14 years ago

I loved this quote: "The best way of creating that awesome app is not to insulate yourself from the power of the operating system you are running on but to embrace it."

Executor• 14 years ago

Title should be renamed to "native code beats html5". I'd rather program in html5/js than obj-c anyday!

jonathantrevor2• 14 years ago

Its not really a question of what you'd prefer to code in (you'll always prefer something familiar) but what delivers the best result for what you're trying to do. In essence we created two real, not test, apps, one using HTML and one using Objective-C. The clear winner was Objective-C in our experience, at this time. Creating a great mobile interface using HTML5 is certainly worth doing and can be done - but I dont think it should be made to look and feel like an app (either in safari or wrapped) since the "not-quite-right" issues just keep piling up, and if you want the look and feel of iOS you should just go native in the first place.

Web Developer Admits: Objective-C Beats HTML5

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