Examining the landscape of the mobile development, the hidden challenges of the iPhone app store, and the middle way provided by hybrid applications. Presented at Where 2.0 in San Jose, March 31, 2010

1. Native
vs
Web
vs
Hybrid
Mobile Development Choices
Jason Grigsby • Where 2.0 2010
@grigs on Twitter • jason@cloudfour.com
cloudfour.com/blog • mobileportand.com

4. Surprise Story of 2008
Flickr photo by Drift Words: http://www.flickr.com/photos/44124413076@N01/11846265/

5. Flickr photo by Civisi: http://www.flickr.com/photos/civisi/2611679744/
Web 2.0 iPhone App Store
Web-based Apps Native Apps
Services & Mashups Few APIs between apps
Software as Service No Recurring Revenue
Cloud Computing Local Storage

6. What makes the App Store successful?
Carriers App Store
Open to anyone
Openness Closed, Seek permission
who signs agreement
Entry Cost Thousands of dollars $99
Revenue Split 60/40 to 50/50 70/30
Restrictions Many Few
Releases Difficult, Timely 1 to 2 weeks
Micropayments Inconsistent iTunes for every phone

7. 76 million
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/02/shoot-is-iphone.html#c148364123
devices
175,000
http://www.newsweek.com/id/174266
apps
3 billion
http://businessweek.com/@@0M43kIYQYKPISw0A/technology/content/sep2008/tc20080930_257832.htm downloads

8. Gold Rush was On

11. Ringtone Apps
FYI: It shipped at $2.99. Then Justin sold his iPhone business.
http://twitter.com/justin/status/1210786170
http://furbo.org/2008/12/09/ring-tone-apps/
http://furbo.org/2009/02/16/raising-prices/

12. Throwaway Apps
http://www.pinchmedia.com/appstore-secrets/

13. More Open ≠ No Gatekeeper
96%
Approved
(what about that 4%?)

14. 4.6
Billion
Mobile phone for
>1/2 the planet.
Flickr photo by Pingnews: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pingnews/370061022/

15. 4.6 Billion in Perspective
Source: http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2007/01/putting_27_bill.html
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2008/01/when-there-is-a.html

16. iPhone Only Part of World Wide Market
Symbian RIM iPhone Windows Mobile Linux
Android WebOS
90000
80878
67500
45000
34346
24889 22500
15027
8126
6798 0
1112
2009 Smartphone Sales — Thousands of Units
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1306513

17. iPhone Only Part of US Market — Jan 2010
Platform Market Share Point Change
(compared to Oct 09)
RIM 43.0% 1.7
Apple 25.1% 0.3
Microsoft 15.7% -4.0
Google 7.1% 4.3
Palm 5.7% -2.1
http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/3/
comScore_Reports_January_2010_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share

18. Symbian Windows Mobile
Objective C WebOS
C
Java ME Dalvik
Palm
Visual Basic
C++
.NET Compact
BREW
Flickr photo by André-Batista: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=408700622&size=o

19. Google Mobile — App Challenges
• Pressure from CEO for rapid releases
• 10+ platforms to support
• Over 100 different builds
http://www.flickr.com/photos/83731031@N00/445924458/ • http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcdave/142758127/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nataliejohnson/290541732/

20. Fragmentation:
This is what the
web is supposed
to solve.
Flickr photo by .Hessam: http://www.flickr.com/photos/essamo/1070527547/

21. Mobile Web Distribution
Carriers App Store Mobile Web
Closed, Seek Open to anyone
Openness Completely Open
permission who signs agreement
Entry Cost Thousands of dollars $99 None
Revenue Split 60/40 to 50/50 70/30 100%
Restrictions Many Few None
Releases Difficult, Timely 1 to 2 weeks Instantaneous
Micropayments Inconsistent iTunes for every phone Not yet

22. Ok Hot Shot, How are You Going to Create
Super Monkey Ball with HTML?
<div id=”bridge”
class=”rope”>
<div id=”bubble”>
<span id=”monkey sprite-
replace”>
Monkey</span>
jquery-banana.js
Some Applications Have to Be Native

23. Five Common Reasons for Native Apps
Performance
Offline Mode
Findability
Monetization
Device Attributes
Flickr photo byboklm: http://www.flickr.com/photos/boklm/486646486/

24. 1. Performance
Not for all applications
Good enough for many applications
Javascript Performance improving
Hardware Accelerated CSS
Web developers must improve
Flickr: Uploaded February 11, 2007 by hawridger

25. We’ve Become Bandwidth Gluttons | Use YSlow
Since 2003:
• Web Page Size Tripled
•# of Objects Doubled
Since 1995:
• Web Page Size: 22x
•# of Objects: 21x
Source: http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/average-web-page/

26. 2. Offline Support
• HTML 5
• Client-side Database Storage API
• Application Cache
• Essentially SQLite in browser
• Available on iPhone since 2.0
• Google Gears, Android, Nokia soon?

27. Gmail Using HTML5
< 10 seconds on EDGE, 3 seconds on 3G

28. 3. Findability
175,000 apps
Your app will be
easy to find.
http://148apps.biz

30. 4. Monetization
Flickr photo by Lyza Gardner: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lyza/49545547/

31. 5. Device Attributes
Location
Camera
Address Book
Accelerometer
Compass

32. http://code.google.com/p/geo-location-javascript/

35. Flickr photo by Thomas Purves: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomaspurves/744225198/

36. http://phonegap.com
http://wiki.phonegap.com/Roadmap

37. What can you do with Phone Gap?
http://www.keypointapp.com/ http://harmoniousapp.com/

38. Other Hybrid Approaches
• Appcelerator Titanium
http://www.appcelerator.com/
• QuickConnect
http://quickconnect.pbworks.com
• Rhomobile
http://rhomobile.com
• Big 5
http://big5apps.com/

39. Hybrid
Apps?
Yes
we
can

40. There is no right answer.
Understand your options.
Pick the best technology (or
tech combo) for your needs.

41. Thank You for Your Time!
@grigs on Twitter • jason@cloudfour.com
cloudfour.com/blog • mobileportand.com
Flickr photo by Pingnews: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pingnews/370061022/