Disconnection doesn't necessarily mean Broken Web App

I was wrong about something yesterday…

Peter-Paul Koch unambiguously sets this straight

Let’s debunk one argument. It is perfectly possible to write an offline Web app for Safari iPhone. The browser supports appcache and local storage for storing the application and its data, respectively.

Both Web apps and native apps can work offline. Thus this argument has no value.

I still think web apps suck. They suck on a desktop. Running them on a phone, with a fraction of the clock speed, a fraction of the cores, a fraction of the RAM, and they're going to suck an order of magnitude more.

iPod Touch, iPhone, Native vs Web Apps and pinch of ChromeOS

I'm prompted to write this by John Gruber's iPhone Web Apps Alternative post.

I pretty much agree with Gruber on this, but he neglects to consider the iPod Touch. Most apps, unless they use the camera, compass or GPS, are iPod Touch apps too. Apple screwed up by not having a common name for the two devices (No, I can't think of a good one), and I don't think they expected or planned for the iPod Touch to be such a success.

Many apps require connectivity to work because the data is in the cloud. Most of the apps that rely on data in the cloud could be written as web apps. They would probably be slow and suck, and suck more life of the 3G network, but they'd do the job. It's the difference between www.twitter.com and Tweetie or Twitterific. Twitter sucks in a desktop browser. It sucks really badly in the mobile optimised version on the iPod/iPhone. (Thinks: "iApp" as a common name?)

An app that doesn't need data from the cloud should be written as a native app. It'd be faster, not suck as much, and not require any wifi/3G bandwidth at all. Most importantly, it would work on an iPod Touch where there was no accessible Wi-Fi. (And on an iPhone where there was no 3G or edge).

An app that lives in the cloud and uses data from the cloud is sometimes necessary, such as a webmail client. These still suck compared to native clients, but needs must when the devil vomits into your kettle.

I have no problem not using Mail, Twitter, Safari, NNW, Facebook, linked etc when I'm on a bus or a train. To not be able to play Bpop or boxed-in or Bones or Reversi because of no connectivity makes no sense whatsoever.

Apps and data in the cloud break when connectivity breaks.

It's why ChromeOS makes little sense to me.