The status of HTML5 for mobile devices

Posted in: Android, Blog, iPhone by openhanced on January 29, 2010

After doing some work on cross platform web app deployment (Hybrid Mobile) the conclusion is that it isn’t easy to do but doable with a few workarounds. As anyone knows Google has pushed Google Gears for a while and did not support HTML5 in the Android 1.5 and 1.6 (not 100% sure of this last one). Apple with the iPod, iPhone and iPad however does support HTML5 for the features that mobile developers need.

As a web app. developer that brings in a few difficulties. Probably you would prefer local storage of private information (possible in HTML5) and that works for Android 2.x, and all Apple devices. However, this rules out the G1 and Hero (HTC refuses to release the update till now). In practice this means you have to either use Google Gears (lof of problems till now) or stick to the cookie solution or live SQL storage (slower). A cookie solution is ok but has some security issues if not programmed in a decent way.

That basically means your web apps. have to support two methods till every Android device is upgraded to version 2.x. Luckily Google is now giving heavy support to HTML5.

Till that moment Openhanced and other developers have to stick to both above described solutions

Hybrid approach to Mobile development

Posted in: Android, Blog, Mobile, iPhone by openhanced on January 24, 2010

Before we start our post, you know these discussions between developers?

Web apps. vs Native apps., Desktop vs Cloud, Managed vs Unmanaged. These discussions go on and on for years between developers and organizations but is it really relevant?

If your most important factor is the user (every developer should have this focus) none of these discussions are really relevant. Sure, for maintenance etc. maybe but that is not the first priority when building an application. If maintainability of your application is always the first priority you are not building the applications that users want and if there is one thing we all know for sure, demand from users pays the bill!

In this post I focus on Web apps. vs Native and there will be an introduction to Hybrid Mobile development as I call it.

It is interesting to see, the Desktop moves to the Cloud (browser based) but Apple moved with the iPhone to the mobile device (native). This seems to be a contradiction at first glance but there are a few logical reasons for this:

• Slower Mobile internet speed;
• Access to the mobile device its hardware.

Web apps. vs Native app.s

A few people have made some excellent remarks about this and summed up the pros and cons. This post on O’Reilly really makes clear how you should approach this as an organization that wants to develop and deploy an mobile application.

The Hybrid approach (from web app. to native)

Openhanced has come up with a hybrid approach that is suitable for every company that wants to move into releasing its own mobile applications. In this approach there are a few important factors:

• User experience;
• Fast release of prototype;
• Short development cycles;
• User feedback and statistics;
• Upgradability;
• Maintainability;
• and a few more.

Start with a web app.

The modern browsers on iPhone and Android (unfortunately MS has not made this step yet, no Webkit) support HTML5 and because of that offer great possibilities for things like: local storage, caching and JQuery and Flash. Basically we don’t use Flash for our projects, the new HTML5 canvas video object (Youtube and Vimeo are already starting this) will put Flash in a difficult position. HTML5’s local options speeds up the web app. significantly.

The web app. is your prototype (and sometimes production) before you seriously start developing a native app. Objective C developers (iPhone) are sparse and the investments in a native application are high. Same for Android developers, all former web developers try to start making big money with development for mobile devices.

Key factor: If you need an app. with access to hardware go for the native route. Web apps. are perfect for access to legacy systems (web services) and remote databases.

The web app. can be delivered in fast development cycles and can be changed easily (one remark in the O’Reilly post).

For the web apps. Openhanced uses the JQtouch library from David Kaneda. This library makes it possible to create very slick applications for Android and iPhone. We have added our own (the Enhanced in OpEnhanced) feature set to make the applications even better.

User feedback and statistics

When the web app. is released it is important to monitor traffic and get user feedback. Openhanced has partnered with a few companies to offer specific statistics and also do advanced handset detection. We use the handset detection to present either iPhone rendering or Android rendering depending on the device. On top of that we offer GEO location by using a web service instead of the GPS, in many cases this is sufficient during the prototype phase.

Below you can see a screenshot of the statistics that can be collected:

Upgradability

Because it is a web application it can always easily be upgraded for all users at once. As everyone knows, the Apple AppStore has a slow process for updating applications.

Enhancing

In a continues effort to make better web apps. even better we will continue building new extensions or web services that can be integrated in your application.

Move on to native if needed

Openhanced is not limited to web apps., if you want to move on based on good statistics (it does not make sense to move on if your app. is not popular) we can help you to turn your application into a native application, both iPhone and Android (if needed also Windows Mobile).

Native cross platform

We are working with a company where we can deploy cross platform if needed, that means iPhone and Android. For Windows Mobile development we still have some expertise in-house.

Using JQTouch or iWebkit to show pages from Layar actions

Posted in: Blog, Open Source by openhanced on January 22, 2010

Layar (Augmented Reaility) is a nice application and with the possibility to execute actions from within a Layar it even makes it better. However, we sometimes simply want to display web pages when clicking on an action. Of course not normal styled web pages but pages that look like the Android or iPhone.

There are basically two ways to style the pages that way, JQTouch and iWebkit. I prefer JQTouch because i think it looks more slick but iWebkit is fine too. See below QR codes to go to the sites.

Mobile- and Dutch versions of our site are live

Posted in: Blog, Open Source by openhanced on January 20, 2010

Openhanced just finished the Dutch version of the site (www.openhanced.nl) and also a mobile version. Both of the sites will do a language detection and forward you to the correct site based on browser language settings.

As a big fan of Open Source tools we use the Carrington Mobile framework by Crowd Favorite to show the correct site based on user agents. This framework is a plugin for Wordpress.

We hope you enjoy our efforts to bring you the best browsing experience possible independent of device.

Transform Twitgoo search query to Media RSS

Posted in: Blog, Open Source by openhanced on January 19, 2010

For a small internal project we needed to transform the Twitgoo search query (through API) to a Media RSS feed. Below you can find some sample code how to do this:

GEOAPI, infrastructure for your GEO spatial data (now owned by Twitter)

Posted in: Blog, GEO by openhanced on January 9, 2010

There are a few GEO spatial infrastructure suppliers (sorry for this terrible word). Besides Google we have:

• SimpleGEO (still in stealth mode);
• GEOAPI.

SimpleGEO looks promising and what they provide is an infrastructure to store and query your POIs. They seem to be backed by a fistfull of dollars so expect a big push in the coming months.

GEOAPI was already promising an the fact that Twitter took it over proves something to me. Their API looks very extensive and they add new services on a regular basis. They already have a POI database of 16 mil. points and as a developer you can build your own layer on top of that.

Because of the fact that location is hot (see Foursquare and Gowalla) we can probably expect more infrastructure suppliers popup soon. We will keep you posted.

Openstrategy.nl site

Posted in: Blog, Open Strategy by openhanced on January 8, 2010

The Openstrategy.nl site is closed and all future posts on an Open Strategy for your company will be posted here.

Two critical points for HTC and the Hero

Posted in: Android, Blog by hbblaauw on January 4, 2010

I’m a big fan of the hero but why HTC do we need to wait so long for an update to Android 1.6 or even 2.1? Second, why is this back button on the right side of the phone while most people are right handed? Serious design failure but it seems to be fixed on the Nexus One (Google Phone).

See below picture, I really have to overstretch my thumb:

Anyway, the good news is that the ROM has been tracked down and an update for the Hero is underway. And…. it seems to be Android 2.1, WOW!