MacNewsWorld Talkback

Re: Is iPhone's Web-Only App Stance Sustainable?
Posted by: Chris Maxcer 2007-09-20 07:09:35

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The iPhone, perhaps the hottest smartphone in the history of smartphones, lacks one of the most basic functions of pretty much every other smartphone on the market: the ability to accept, load and save third-party applications. Apple's conciliatory approach to address the situation is to allow users access to third-party applications via the built-in Safari browser. The iPhone version of Safari doesn't support Java or Adobe's Flash, which leaves out a couple of key technologies that help create rich applications.

Re: Is iPhone's Web-Only App Stance Sustainable?
Posted by: Go-mac-go 2007-09-21 07:06:14 In reply to: Chris Maxcer

I think these experts are in denial about Web 2.0.
Web 2.0 is going to become more common, not less.
What the article doesn't mention is that there are a lot of poorly written applications for phones that ruin their experience.
Also, with Web 2.0 applications distribution is automatically handled.

fake controversy over "smartphone"
Posted by: inviscid 2007-09-20 08:00:35 In reply to: Chris Maxcer

Since the iPhone downloads and runs Web applications (Javascript, Ajax, etc.) it is clearly a smartphone. Just because other "smartphones" can't really do that seems like a bad reason for excluding iPhone from the club.
iPhone can also download and store Web applications as "data:" urls. That is, a multi-megabyte URL containing an entire application can be saved as a bookmark! For example, here's a link to a very nice scientific calculator for the iPhone that works that way: "http://scicalc.belfry.com/". No need to be online to use this.