Tag: Apple

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Google announces new hardware and “Actions on Google” platform

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Welcome to DeveloperEconomics’ weekly news roundup. In this edition Google announces new hardware and “Actions on Google” platform, Apple and Deloitte team-up for enterprise solutions and HTC’s Viveport VR app store goes live globally. Read on for the full news rundown.

 

Google announces new hardware and “Actions on Google” platform

 

Google has launched two new premium smartphones using the Pixel brand, a Daydream VR headset, a new WiFi router, and a 4k Chromecast. They have also announced dates and pricing for the previously announced Google Home speaker. On top of this, December will see the availability of a new ‘Actions on Google’ platform for developers to add to Google’s new Assistant in Allo, Google Home and exclusively on Pixel phones.

 

Google combines services under ‘Cloud’ brand

 

Google has created a new umbrella brand for its cloud services. Google for Work – Google’s Cloud Platform – and Google Apps for Work – which itself is being rebranded as GSuite – all now fall under the newly created Google Cloud brand. Google said its decision to rebrand underscores its seriousness about enterprise services.

 

Android Wear 2.0 delayed until 2017

 

The release of Android Wear 2.0 will be delayed until 2017, Google has announced. The release, originally scheduled for this autumn, was pushed back to allow Google to collect more feedback and fine tune the software. Google has instead released the third developer preview of the OS, which includes Google Play on Android Wear.

 

Genymobile announces cloud-based Android platform

Genymobile has announced a new cloud platform to help enterprises build and test Android applications. Genymotion Cloud features support for Jenkins and Bamboo, along with support for testing frameworks such as Robotium, Appium, Expresso and Calabash. The platform also features virtual device sharing, live demos and app sharing for cross-company collaboration.

 

HTC’s Viveport VR store goes global

 

HTC has launched its official store for the Vive VR headset. Viveport is launching in 30 countries, with around 60 titles covering categories such as education, design, art, social, video, music , sports and health. The store is currently highlighting content from the likes of Everest VR, The Blu, Google Spotlight Stores and Stonehenge VR.

 

Occipital launches $500 VR dev kit for smartphones

Start-up Occipital has released a dev kit that offers room-scale motion tracking for iOS and Android phones. The $500 kit uses Occipital’s Structure sensor, which has already been used on smartphones to create 3D meshes of environments. The kit includes a Structure Sensor, custom faceplate, phone case and 120-degree wide vision lens.

 

Codenvy partners with Bitnami for “one click” cloud stacks

 

Codenvy and Bitnami have teamed-up to offer “one-click” programming stacks for common frameworks. The stacks integrate the Che cloud IDE and workplace server with Bitnami stacks, allowing devs to intantly access Dockerized workspaces, removing the need to set-up and configure IDEs and frameworks before writing code. Frameworks supported include Express, Swift, Play and Rails.

 

Waratek enhances Java app security with RASP

Waratek has released a new version of its AppSecurity platform for Java apps. The release lets developers modernise the security capabilities of older Java apps with a RASP plug-in that the eliminates the need to replace existing Java Runtime Environments. Waratek adds that its virtualisation-based architecture avoids the performance penalties associated with other RASP products.

 

Oracle loses appeal against Google in Java battle

Oracle has lost its appeal against Google, in the long-running legal battle over whether Android infringes on Java copyrights. This latest appeal concerns whether Google failed to disclose its intent to develop tools to run Android on the desktop using the Android App Runtime for Chrome. A District Court Judge denied the motion, saying it had “no consequence with the defined scope of our trials.”

 

Apple and Deloitte announce iOS partnership

 

Apple has teamed-up with Deloitte to help companies get to grips with the enterprise features of iOS. The partnership involves a “first-of-its-kind” Apple practice with over 5,000 strategic advisors, who are focused on helping business take advantage of the iOS ecosystem. The deal will also see Deloitte offer native app development services for ERP, CRM and HR departments.

 

Skymind raises $3m for Java deep-learning library

 

Skymind, which offers an open-source deep-learning library for Java, has raised $3 million from investors such as Tencent, SV Angel and Mandra Capital. The start-up aims to build a library that lets Java developers work on AI deep learning. Skymind says its libraries have been downloaded 22 thousand times just in the last month.

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News and Resources

Google planning hybrid Android/Chrome OS tablets

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Welcome to DeveloperEconomics’ weekly news roundup. In this edition Google is reportedly planning hybrid devices that run both Android and Chrome, game developers boycott Oculus due to its founder’s support for Donald Trump and Google takes its Daydream SDK out of beta. Read on for the full news rundown.

 

Google planning hybrid Android/Chrome OS tablets

Google is reportedly planning hybrid devices that run both Android and Chrome, according to 9to5Google. The Andromeda project bakes Chrome OS features into Android and is reportedly being released on a Nexus-branded tablet and a convertible laptop. Rumours suggests the laptop device will launch in Q3 2017.

 

IBM releases IBM Bluemix Runtime for Swift

IBM has introduced a production-ready Swift runtime on the IBM Cloud. The release allows enterprises to take advantage of the server-side capabilities in Apple’s programming language, for building microservice APIs on its cloud platform. IBM says by unlocking Swift for enterprises it’s “reached another milestone” in its “shared journey with Apple.”

 

Microsoft announces 400m Windows 10 users

Microsoft says Windows 10 now has over 400 million active users. The last update on user growth was in July, when the OS hit 350, just before it ended its free upgrade period. Microsoft’s original goal was to have one billion devices running Windows 10 by 2018, but the company has since backtracked and is not specifying when it will hit the one billion milestone.

 

Oracle announces new products for cloud platform

Oracle unveiled 20 new products and services for its Oracle Cloud Platform at the annual OpenWorld conference last week. New products include the cloud-based Oracle Database 12c Release 2, along with an SaaS offering, which combines third party data with real-time analytics for “adaptive” app development. During the announcements, Oracle’s CTO Larry Ellison said Amazon now has “serious competition going forward.”

 

SoundCloud devs must submit application for API access

SoundCloud has announced changes to its API policy, requiring devs to apply for access. The application form asks devs what categories their app falls under, how it makes money and whether the app plays content from the SoundCloud API. SoundCloud says the changes were made to stop apps from using content without the permission of creators.

 

Mopub modular ad SDK reduces app sizes

Twitter’s MoPub ad network has announced a new SDK that lets devs cut out the ad formats they don’t use. The modular SDK means devs can save up to 60% on disk space for Android apps and up to 35% for iOS apps, without losing any functionality. MoPub says the space savings will be particularly useful for Asia-Pacific devs, where expensive data plans can impact bigger apps.

 

Google takes Daydream VR tools out of beta

Google has released a new VR SDK, allowing devs to build VR experiences for Daydream-ready phones and headsets. The Daydream VR SDK 1.0 supports “integrated asynchronous reprojection, high fidelity spatialized audio and interactions using the Daydream controller.” The release also supports native integration in both Unity and Unreal Engine 4.

 

Facebook rolls-out Profile Expression Kit SDK

Developers can now integrate Facebook’s Profile Expression media into the apps. The Profile Expression Kit lets users turn media – such as Vine videos, Bommerang GIFs and Lollicam stickers – into profile pictures. Facebook says profiles are the second most visited surface on Facebook, allowing Expression Kit apps to generate a lot of exposure.

 

Onsen UI 2.0 now available

The Onsen UI team has released version 2.0 of its UI framework, which helps developers create native mobile apps with HTML5. While Onsen 1.x was based on Angular JS, the new version has no library dependencies, as well as new Material Design components. The team has also released new and improved documentation to make it easier for devs to get to grips with the framework.

 

Developers boycott Oculus over Trump-supporting founder

A number of Oculus developers are boycotting the VR platform due to the political views of its founder, Palmer Luckey. According to a Daily Beast report, Luckey funded a pro-Trump activist group, which posted anti-Hilary Clinton ads. Developer Scruta Games said it will “cancel Oculus support” unless Luckey steps down from his position at Oculus.

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News and Resources

News round up – Razer launches new fund for VR & gaming start-ups

razer fund gaming startups

Welcome to DeveloperEconomics’ weekly news roundup. In this edition, Blackstorm raises $33.5m for a ‘post-app store”, Razer launches a new fund for VR and gaming start-ups and Kony releases a new survey on the challenges of wearable development. Read on for the full news rundown.

Blackstorm raises $33.5m for ‘post-app store’ platform

Blackstorm has raised $33.5 million for what it calls a “post app store” solution, letting developers share apps outside of typical store fronts. Blackstorm offers a universal IDE designed to create apps that are shared across different distribution channels, such as messaging apps and mobile browsers. The company says its goal is to power “the infrastructure to trade and distribute software to all the post app-store platforms.”

Aruba announces platform to accelerate enterprise IoT adoption

HP’s Aruba has released the Aruba Mobile First platform, which aims to build a dev eco-system around its ArubaOS operating system. Aruba says the platform, which incorporates ArubaOS 8, lets third party devs quickly improve apps or create new ones based on its wireless networking technologies. The platform also collects data from IoT and mobile devices and customises networking functions dynamically in real time.

Google issues Nougat security update

Google has released a security update for Android Nougat. The update fixed a vulnerability that could enable remote code execution on an affected device. However, Google added that it’s had no reports of active customer exploitation or abuse of the fixed issues.

Korean firms consider legal action over Apple’s API policy

A group of Korean financial tech firms are reportedly launching a complaint to state regulators against Apple’s closed API policy around NFC functions. The companies complain that Apple is blocking providers such as Samsung Card and BC Card from accessing the NFC features. A similar complaint was previously lodged by Australian banks with regulators in the country.

PerfectlySoft releases Perfect 2.0 framework for Swift 3.0

PerfectlySoft has released the latest version of its server-side development framework for Swift 3.0. Perfect 2.0 features support for additional datasources, such as Redis and Filemaker, as well as “significant” performance and scalability enhancements. The company says Swift is “evolving extremely rapidly” and its framework helps developers keep up with the changes.

AWS SDK for C++ now available for production use

Amazon has released version 1.0 of its AWS SDK for C++. The SDK has received a number of improvements following developer feedback, including an improved Transfer Manager and symmetric cryptography support. The SDK also now follows semantic versioning so devs can upgrade within the 1.x series without breaking their build.

InfluxDB version 1.0 releases

InfluxData has released version 1.0 of its InfluxDB open-source time-series database. Influx DB was written in the Go programming language and is already being used by companies to monitor network infrastructure, security, container infrastructure, solar panels, and more. InfluxData says the database has been in development for nearly three years.

Box releases updates to attract more developers

Storage platform Box has released a series of updates aimed at developers. The platform now supports annotations, watermarking and new content types. Devs using the JavaScript SDK can now benefit from HD video, 3D models, VR files and 360-degree content. Box is also releasing a UI Kit that makes it easier to integrate elements into their web apps.

MySQL 8.0.0 Milestone Release is available

MySQL have announced that their 8.0.0 milestone release is now available for download. In their blog post, the engineers have outlined the most significant changes, some of which address problems that have plagued MySQL. The source code is available at GitHub.

Razer launches $30m fund for VR, IoT and gaming start-ups

Gaming hardware company Razer has launched zVentures, a new fund for investing in start-ups focused on gaming, VR, robotics and IoT. Razer is looking to fund early-stage start-ups with investments ranging from $100,000 to $1 million. The fund is based out of San Francisco and Singapore.

Survey highlights top challenges around wearables development

Kony has released a new survey looking at the challenges around developing apps for wearables. According to the survey, wearables will be “commonplace” in the enterprise by 2020 and 78% of devs surveyed said they are working on 2 wearable apps or more. Forty percent said the lack of communication between designers, stakeholders and developers is the biggest challenge for wearable development.

 

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News and Resources

News roundup – Google opens Early Access beta testing to more developers

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Welcome to DeveloperEconomics’ weekly news roundup. In this edition, Google cancels its modular smartphone project, Apple plans to delete abandoned apps from the App Store and Epic releases a new version of Unreal Engine 4. Read on for the full news rundown.

Google opens Early Access beta testing to more developers

Google has expanded its Early Access beta testing, allowing any developer apply for the program. Previously, Early Access was only available to 29 hand-picked developers, who got to test out their apps with early-adopters (although other devs were given different testing options). Google says the Early Access program generated over 1 million beta installs since launching in May and “demand is only growing.”

Google Search can now look-up content within apps

Google has introduced a new search mode in its Google app that lets users perform in-app searches The “In App” feature currently only works with Gmail, Spotify and YouTube, but will soon feature in-app searching on Facebook Messenger, LinkedIn, Evernote, Gilde, Todoist and more. Because the search function involves the OS itself, In Apps currently only works on Android.

Apple removing outdated apps from App Store

Apple will begin removing apps from the App Store if they no longer work, are outdated or “don’t follow current guidelines.” The company will also prevent devs from using overly long app names to game app searches, limiting app names to 50 characters or less. Apple will start reviewing apps on September 7 and will remove the ones that crash on launch immediately.

Amazon rumoured to announce Echo UK launch on September 14

Amazon has sent out press invites to what’s rumoured to be the UK launch of its voice-controlled Echo device, which features the Alexa voice assistant. The event is scheduled to take place on September 14 in London, although it doesn’t mention the Echo. According to Engadget, if you ask Alexa what she has planned for the 14th, she replies “a visit to London.”

Google cancels modular Project Ara smartphone

Google has pulled the plug on Project Ara, its modular smartphone concept. Project Ara was designed to let users upgrade and customise their device with camera, speakers, microphones and other modules. According to Reuters, Google may consider licensing Ara to its hardware partners, enabling some of its features to appear on devices in the future.

Google to reveal Daydream VR and Pixel devices on October 4

Google will reportedly reveal its in-house design for a Daydream VR viewer device at an event on October 4. According to Android Police, the company will also show-off two Pixel-branded smartphones (which replace the Nexus brand) and a 4K Chromecast. The event will also provide more details on Google’s Amazon Echo-rival Google Home.

Qualcomm unveils VR all-in-one headset

Qualcomm has unveiled a new reference platform for standalone virtual reality headsets, which it’s calling the Snapdragon VR820. It’s built upon the Snapdragon VR SDK and is designed to help developers create the hardware, software and content needed to create VR experiences. It’s anticipated that it wil be available in Q4 2016.

Baidu launches open source machine learning project

Chinese search engine Baidu has released PaddlePaddle, an open source software platform for the deep learning community. According to Baidu, the platform provides an intuitive interface for data handling and specifying model structure. PaddlePaddle was originally developed for internal use on Baidu’s deep learning apps.

HP announces machine-learning tool for drag and drop app development

HP has announced Haven OnDemand Combinations, a new tool that combines machine learning APIs and a drag and drop interface for mixing and matching them. The tool is built upon HP’s Haven OnDemand could platform, which has 70 AI APIs and more than 180,000 users. HP says the new tool is the quickest way to add intelligence to apps.

Unreal Engine 4.13 released

Epic has released the latest version of Unreal Engine, bringing over 145 improvements to the game development platform. Major new features include shadow map caching for movable lights, a new live recording feature, Voronoi noise for material creation, new mesh decals and new VR features such as project templates and support for mesh and foliage painting with VR controllers.

Google releases pure JavaScript Closure Compiler

Google’s Closure Compiler is now available in pure JavaScript. Closure Compiler is a JavaScript optimizer, transpiler and type checker. This new version isn’t a rewrite in JavaScript, says Google, but rather compiles the Java source to JS to run under Node.

Bloomberg releases BuckleScript optimising compiler

Bloomberg’s tech arm has announced BuckleScript, a new optimising compiler strongly inspired” by TypeScript. According to Bloomberg, BuckleScript offers an “industrial strength” type system and provides strong type inference, to generate more efficient code. Bloomberg adds that the compiler is at least 10x faster than TypeScript.

HTC invests $5 million in VR start-up Steel Wool

VR gaming start-up Steel Wool Studios has closed a $5 million round of funding, coming entirely from HTC. Steel Wool was one of the early developers for HTC and Valve’s Vive headset, creating the action strategy title Quar: Battle for Gate 18. Steel Wool said the funding does not mean their games will be exclusive to the Vive.

Intel acquiring drone start-up Movidius

Intel is buying Movidius, a start-up that makes computer vision processors used in drones and VR devices. Intel says it wants to combine Movidius’ technology with its RealSense depth-sensing camera tech, covering markets such as VR, AR, drones and digital security cameras. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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Business Platforms Tools

State of the Developer Nation: The App Economy Consolidates Before the Next Gold Rush

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Our 7th Developer Economics survey broke all records again, reaching more than 10,000 app developers from 137 different countries. The full report with the survey findings has just been published and is available for free download!

The view of the app economy that they collectively provide is one of consolidation. Developers are focusing their attention on fewer platforms and app revenues are becoming increasingly concentrated amongst the top publishers. Consolidation in the developers tools sector may also be partly responsible for the decline we see in tools usage. This is also reflected by the platforms, with BlackBerry moving their focus away from consumer smartphones and Microsoft killing their recently acquired Asha and Nokia X platforms to double down on Windows Phone. Fortunately there are several indicators that the next gold rush is just getting started.

Platform Wars in the App Economy

On a global level the platform wars are ending with iOS claiming the majority of the high-end device market and Android winning almost everywhere else. This results in [tweetable]Android leading in developer mindshare at 70% with iOS a clear second with 51% of developers targeting the platform[/tweetable]. However, we’ve been tracking this metric since 2010 and there is a new pattern. [tweetable]Windows Phone was the only platform to gain developer mindshare, rising steadily to 28%[/tweetable], despite failing to gain device market share. Although Android and iOS lost developer mindshare, this was not fewer developers prioritising either platform, rather more developers are now choosing sides. The average number of platforms a developer targets has fallen from 2.9 to 2.2 over the last 12 months, with more than 40% only targeting a single platform.

DE2014Q3_Mindshare

BlackBerry 10 is rapidly leaking developer mindshare, down to 11%, having failed to gain traction with consumers. Meanwhile, it’s now becoming increasingly clear that [tweetable]the future of HTML5 lies beyond the browser[/tweetable]. Although HTML5 is used by 42% of developers as a technology for app development, only 15% still target mobile browsers as a distribution platform.

A surprisingly high 47% of iOS developers and 42% of Android developers are using something other than the native language on their platforms. While hybrid apps are the most popular non-native option for building Android and iOS apps, they’re only used by 13% of developers. Hybrid apps are HTML5 apps with a native wrapper, typically created by tools such as Cordova.

DE2014Q3_NativeMyths

App Revenues

The majority of app businesses are not sustainable at current revenue levels. [tweetable]50% of iOS developers and 64% of Android developers are below the “app poverty line” of $500 per app per month[/tweetable]. 24% of developers interested in making money earn nothing at all. A further 23% make less than $100 per app per month. The overall app economy, including all revenue sources not just the app stores, is still growing but the revenues are highly concentrated. At the top end of the revenue scale there are just 1.6% of developers with apps earning more than $500k per month, collectively they earn multiples of the other 98.4% combined.

DE2014Q3_iOS_vs_Android_Revenues

State of the Game Developer Nation

Games dominate app store revenues, yet most games developers struggle. [tweetable]33% of developers make games but 57% of those games make less than $500 per month[/tweetable]. Experience breeds success in the games market. The more games a developer has shipped the more likely they are to be financially successful. However, 70% of games developers have shipped less than 4 titles.

Games is a multi-platform world with the average games developer targeting 3 platforms versus 1.75 platforms for non-games developers. Multi-platform games benefit from cross-platform game development tools with Unity by far the most popular, used by 47% of developers. The next paid tool, Adobe Air, comes a distant second at 15%. Apple and Google’s latest graphics technologies launch a battle for the richest gaming experiences. Third party game development tools like Unity and the Unreal Engine will be key to developers exploiting these capabilities.

DE2014Q3_Game_Dev_Tools

Tools of the App Developer Trade

Third-party tools are a critical part of successful app businesses. There’s a strong correlation between tool use and revenues, the more tools a developer uses, the more money they make. We successfully predicted the rise of the Mega-SDK, where consolidation amongst tools companies allows developers to integrate multiple tool categories from a single vendor. Despite this, tool use is declining, partly due to the rapid influx of new mobile developers. These new developers are typically not aware of the tools that are available and thus reduce the average usage levels. 26% of developers that are interested in making money don’t use any third party tools, up from 14% just 12 months ago.

DE2014Q3_Tool_Popularity

The most popular category of tool is Ad Networks, with 30% of developers using them. However, this is one of the few tool categories that is not associated with higher than average revenues. More experienced and successful developers show a preference for Cloud Computing platforms, such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure, with 40% of those with 6+ years experience in mobile apps adopting them.

Enterprise Apps – The Next Gold Rush

[tweetable]Enterprise apps are already the safest bet in the app economy and they’re only just getting started[/tweetable]. 67% of mobile app developers primarily target consumers and 11% target professionals directly. The 16% of developers who target enterprises are twice as likely to be earning over $5k per app per month and almost 3 times as likely to earn more than $25k per app per month.

DE2014Q3_Enterprise_vs_Consumer

Penetration of enterprises with mobile devices and solutions is already broad but not yet deep. Currently iOS appears to be winning the battle for enterprise adoption and revenues. Yet many developers are focusing on the wrong platform with 10% more enterprise developers targeting Android than iOS. Although enterprise apps have been a historical strength for them, Microsoft and BlackBerry are seeing very weak adoption for their new platforms amongst enterprise developers due to lack of demand from enterprises.

This battle is in the very early stages. Microsoft is re-focussing on their core competence in productivity software while Apple and Google move rapidly to embrace enterprises. Google’s integration of Samsung’s Knox platform into the Android platform is a major step forward. Meanwhile Apple’s new partnership with IBM gives them a strong proposition in all the major vertical markets. These moves will undoubtedly drive greater adoption of mobile technology in enterprises and create countless opportunities for developers to help re-think the way we work.

For more information, download the full Developer Economics Q3 2014: State of the Developer Nation report and check out the war between the European and the Asian app economy.

 

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APIs Tools

Accelerating Web Apps – It’s all about politics

On desktop computers web apps have come to dominate many application categories. They are easier to develop and deploy across multiple platforms and it’s possible to iterate much faster. A very large number of developers would like to be able to apply the same technologies and techniques on mobile devices but very few are able to do so successfully, particularly for mass market consumer apps. One of the most important reasons for this is performance. Resolving this issue is much more about politics than technology.

Are mobile web apps doomed to be slow?

Back in July, Drew Crawford wrote a blog post that got a lot of attention essentially claiming that JavaScript performance on mobile devices was simply too slow for serious apps and likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. It showed, amongst other things, that the browser on the iPhone 4S was around four times slower than the slowest browsers capable of running Google docs real-time collaboration or Google Wave back in 2010. He claimed that ARM processors were not going to get faster rapidly enough to make a difference and JavaScript runtime improvements had stalled and were unlikely to make significant progress. Technically both of these points seem to have been proven wrong already. Apple just announced the iPhone 5S, with a processor twice as fast as the iPhone 5, which was in turn twice as fast as the iPhone 4S – so we have four times more raw CPU performance than we had just two years ago, theoretically enough to support 2010 desktop class browser performance. Also, Mozilla are working on asm.js, which uses a subset of JavaScript compiled ahead of time (AOT) and promises to enable apps to run in the browser at just 1.3 times slower than native performance – almost another four times speed increase versus the current five times slower than native performance of modern JIT compilers.

In addition to being at least partly incorrect this is also looking at a very narrow area of browser performance, a point well made in Sencha’s blog post in response. Across all vendors there are key performance areas where each is 10-40 times behind another. In reality, most of the major performance issues that prevent web apps from being competitive with native apps are related to graphics performance. Mobile device users have come to expect slick animated UIs which are only enabled by GPUs on the devices rather than, say, manipulating the DOM with JavaScript. Fortunately HTML5 and CSS3 provide several opportunities for GPU accelerated graphics with e.g. Canvas, CSS animations and WebGL. So, as mobile hardware and browser software continue to improve over the next couple of years competitive web apps should be just around the corner, shouldn’t they?

Platform wars and politics

With the technologies available or on the very near horizon today, plus improvements to mobile browsers across the major platforms, there’s almost no doubt that we could have competitive web app performance. The problem is that to get there requires platform providers and OEMs to adopt the technologies and implement the improvements – it’s not necessarily in their interests to do so.

Apple and Microsoft want users locked-in while Google wants them logged-in. Mozilla wants the open web everywhere but Google funds them. Opera recently gave up on writing their own browser core and use Google’s instead. That’s over-simplifying but fairly accurate. With other browser vendors attempting to prevent the user tracking that Google’s business model depends on (through default Do Not Track settings or third party cookie blocking) the best way to ensure users stay logged-in is to get them all using Chrome. This means they’re fighting a new browser war for control of the desktop web and taking that to the bulk of the mobile market through Android. In the process they are building several browser technologies to differentiate rather than standardise (e.g. they’ll prefer their own Native Client solution to asm.js).

At the same time Apple wants a great browsing experience but wants developers to build native apps rather than cross-platform web apps. As such they adopt most new web standards quickly but are very slow to include any that might enable high performance web apps – e.g. WebGL has been implemented since iOS 4.2 but only enabled for iAd, not in the browser, also Apple has famously not enabled their JIT compiler in the WebViews used by wrapped web apps* (needed to access native APIs) slowing their JavaScript performance by almost four times. Mozilla’s asm.js seems a very unlikely candidate for Apple to adopt anytime soon. Unless their new CEO makes a major change of strategy, Microsoft seem determined to follow the Apple model, although they might need first class web apps enough to accelerate their standards adoption.

A ray of light?

While there may be several classes of app for which mobile browsers are already good enough, for those hoping to develop all apps with web technologies, the news is not all bad. Although it seems unlikely to be possible to deliver a single solution with great performance everywhere, we might not be far from being able to deliver a good level of performance almost everywhere. Although Apple appear to have some strategic performance limitations, they also have some of the fastest hardware on the market. At the other end of the spectrum good Android browsers are reaching low end smartphones and the Firefox OS, also targeted at low cost devices, has an excellent web app environment. The other good news is that while we have real competition in the mobile market, browsers should keep getting better all round. We’re unlikely to see the return to stagnation of the Internet Explorer dominated early 2000’s.

* Apple do have a good security reason for doing this but they haven’t been in a hurry to resolve it either.