I’m going to make an unusual prediction for the Apple Tablet: it’ll be a great platform for web apps. How do I know this? Because of what’s on the iPhone right now.
At WWDC 2007, Steve Jobs infamously announced Apple’s “pretty sweet” solution for iPhone development: web apps. The response was developer derision and an eventual native SDK.
Nevertheless, Apple has been steadily working on web technology and improvements for Safari Mobile. Among the App Store hoopla, they’ve built a nice (if largely ignored) secondary app platform.
The rundown
Here are the key web app technologies present into the iPhone today:
Web clips
Web apps can put their icon on the home screen and launch just like regular apps. You get a full-screen view with no Safari UI, and even a custom splash image while loading.
Offline
Apps can be cached for completely offline functionality – all you need is a manifest. You also get HTML5 offline storage for all your database needs.
Location
Apps have access to Core Location (with user permission) for GPS and Wi-Fi triangulation. Just ask for coordinates through a JavaScript API.
3D effects
Apple’s extensions to CSS give you hardware-accelerated 3D transformations. It may not be enough for realistic games, but plenty for smooth animation, UI work and transitions.
Dashcode: Apple’s best kept public secret
Apple has published a JavaScript framework for making iPhone-like web apps, and a visual IDE to go with it. Dashcode used to be an editor for Dashboard widgets, but now it makes iPhone apps as well.
Making apps with Dashcode involves no HTML or CSS. Instead, you get an Interface Builder -like tool for visually constructing your UI out of ready-made parts.
The code side of Dashcode resembles iPhone development, though in JavaScript instead of Objective-C and Cocoa Touch. A list view is connected to a corresponding view controller, for example.
Dashcode includes several templates for common app needs such as hierarchic navigation and flip-around settings views. Apple has not been too busy documenting the system, though.
So, I hear there’s this tablet coming up…
The Tablet is supposedly based on the iPhone OS, and its version of Safari will no doubt contain all the same technology as on the phone side.
Obvious advantages for the Tablet are a bigger screen and more power. Web apps will launch faster, and they will have more real estate for compelling user interfaces.
What could Apple add to the Tablet? Some possibilities are more APIs for internal sensors (acceleration, compass), access to local data (photos, contacts…) and support for new multi-finger gestures.
Some of these additions are more likely than others. Web apps are not high on Apple’s list of priorities, so chances of integration with local data might be low. On the other hand, new gestures seem likely, especially if they bring benefits to all sites.
In any case, I predict that in the next year, there will be several high-profile web apps tailored for the Tablet. Web apps may not get the same kind of media attention as the App Store, but more and more developers will discover it.
And of course, there’s the matter of Google’s all-web-all-the-time Chrome OS. Having web app developers on their side might be a pretty smart move for Apple.