Is AJAX the future of mobile phone development?
Many have criticized the iPhone for not having a development platform.
Apple has said that AJAX is the development platform. Developers say
that's a lame answer and want integrated apps. I think AJAX may actually
be the future of mobile devices, but not on the current iteration of hardware.
I mean any hardware from anyone, not just the iPhone. Whenever I
mention this to my developer and AJAX friends they all look at me like I'm
crazy. I am nuts, but here are a few ways that AJAX or a technology like
it would really kick some major butt on a mobile platform. Below are some
random thoughts on the subject, feel free to add your own thoughts or call me
crazy in the comments:
-
Being able to develop once and deploy to not only iPhones everywhere but
any mobile device that's AJAX enabled would be very powerful.
-
Support would become easy because there would only be one version of the
app out there.
-
Theft would become easier to control since everyone needs to hit your
server to authenticate.
-
No mobile hardware is ready for this yet. It's all too slow.
Heck a 3GHz computer is barely able to deal with heavy AJAX apps,
how is a 400MHz phone going to be able to do the same?
-
The AJAX apps need to behave like an integrated app. It shouldn't
feel like a web app. The browser status bars should all auto hide
and make way for the AJAX application.
-
There needs to be offline support such as Google Gears for any AJAX app.
If I have no or slow bandwidth the mobile device should be able to
run the app from cache.
-
The device needs uber fast data connection at all times. WiFi is a
good first step, HSDPA is a good second step, HSUPA would be a better
step. EDGE is not on the map anywhere.
-
There should be a mobile AJAX standard that all handsets follow.
This would allow me to develop an app for an iPhone and have it work
on a Windows Mobile, Symbian or Palm device. I won't hold my breath
on this one.
-
The AJAX app needs to have hooks to the mobile device. The mobile
device needs to know what a phone number is, address is, etc. and allow me
to dial right from the app. There could be special code snippets
that tell the device what a phone number is which would get around the
device itself trying to interpret this. The benefit of tags is that
the phone always knows what's what.
-
If AJAX is the premiere development platform for the iPhone then why are
there any integrated apps at all? Why not run everything as an AJAX
app (probably because the iPhone isn't ready for this yet).
-
An AJAX app needs to have a button or launcher item just like an
integrated app. n00b users who don't know AJAX from soap should not
be able to tell the difference between the two apps, which means that even
the way they launch should be the same.
I know a lot of people have discounted the technology all together, but
there's potential behind the raw idea. We just need faster devices,
more streamlined AJAX (it's really heavy right now) and some method to keep
the client/server connection open while not drawing uber amounts of power
from the device. We're probably several years off, but it can be done.
Will it be done though? I sure think it would be a very clean
way of distributing applications.
ajax would be a nice standard to go by for the mobile platform. but when has anything ever been "nice" for the consumer when it comes to technology. everything's proprietary!
hi ben, i read your post with great interest and took the chance to answer some of our points on my own blog in a separate post (http://www.pavingways.com/mobile-ajax-post-answered_127.html)
thanks - looking forward to the webcast.
its very interesting that ajax is the development plaform for iphone, cause there's so many people who knows ajax and that will make iphone more open to more users and developers
1. Posted by: Gautham Ganapathy on August 31, 2007 7:14 AM:
Till AJAX gets lighter, J2ME is probably a good platform. The mobile apps for gmail and google maps are really good