tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1233073253115884208.post2524039454556108543..comments2024-02-15T03:29:16.280-07:00Comments on Dan’s Diary: Mobile Computing Growing PainsDan Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13437237801383466177noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1233073253115884208.post-3644237138754797492010-04-30T12:15:01.096-06:002010-04-30T12:15:01.096-06:00To follow-up on this hastily-written post...
I...To follow-up on this hastily-written post...<br /><br />I've looked a little further into HTML5, and if I'm understanding it correctly, it holds quite a bit of promise for the creation and delivery of book-like content in a way that's platform independent. To work for physics books, of course, it'll have to incorporate <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MathML" rel="nofollow">MathML</a>, which my Safari browser doesn't yet support. And for simple simulations and animations, the "canvas" element may suffice. <a href="http://www.efeion.com/canvastest/test.html" rel="nofollow">Here's a great example</a> that runs fine under Safari on my Mac, but extremely slowly on my first-generation iPhone. Will "canvas" ever be able to completely replace the kinds of Java applets I've been writing? Perhaps, but it seems like that day is still a long way off.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Steve Jobs has posted a <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/29/steve-jobs-publishes-some-thoughts-on-flash-many-many-thou/" rel="nofollow">lengthy and defensive explanation of Apple's policy</a>, framed specifically as an attack on Flash. I've never developed in Flash; I instead want to know why Apple's mobile devices won't support Java applets. The openness argument doesn't seem to apply to Java, and many of Jobs' other arguments don't seem to make sense at all, since they would apply equally well to html/css (e.g., rollovers) or to the canvas element (performance, battery life). The bottom line seems to be that Apple doesn't want to support good-quality web-delivered apps, because they want you to get these through their app store. Their strategy will work if an only if they can convince most developers to create custom, stand-alone apps.<br /><br />Apple's competitors therefore have a golden opportunity here: They can choose to support Flash and/or Java in their mobile web browsers, and thereby offer their users access to a lot of additional web-delivered content. Let's hope they succeed, and thus pressure Apple to be more reasonable.Dan Schroederhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13437237801383466177noreply@blogger.com