Will PhoneGap apps seemingly suck because of UIWebView in iOS 4.3?
So Blaze Software made some headlines touting that in a recent browser speed tests, Android was faster than iPhone by a fairly large margin. Apple said non-sense, because you didn’t use Safari in your tests. Blaze put a UIWebView control in an app and used it to do the tests. Which opened up another can of worms.
UIWebView is what is used on Apple platforms like the iPhone by some developers who create iPhone / iPad apps. With the latest update to iOS, there are reports that HTML5 and JavaScript apps are running significantly slower when they’re run from the iPhone or iPad home screen.
So right now there’s a debate raging about browser performance. Some people claim this is fan boy stupidity of the highest order because who cares if a page loads 600ms faster on one platform versus the other. Others point out that this is very important because those 600ms will add up with HTML based apps and those that use a lot of Ajax. Which brings us to our headline.
The Register in the UK is reporting an exclusive on this. In the article, they quote a mobile web app developer (who requested anonymity) as saying:
“Apple is basically using subtle defects to make web apps appear to be low quality – even when they claim HTML5 is a fully supported platform,”
That’s a pretty serious accusation.
If you have an app that uses UIWebView and the user puts in on their home screen, the app will appear sucky according to this article. Or at the very least, Apple is being very slow to fix an obvious bug.
Basically, PhoneGap developers are getting no Nitro Love. So you want your UIWebView app to be popular, but not so popular that the user puts in on their home screen next to other apps.
Apparently, there are two JavaScript engines according to one blogger quoted. One for the Safari browser and one for non-Safari browsing.
“Essentially, there are two different JavaScript engines,” says Alex Kessinger, a mobile application developer and blogger who has focused on building web-standards-based apps for the iPhone. “They’re not using the new JavaScript engine with applications that launch from the home screen.”
If this turns out to be true, platforms like PhoneGap could suffer greatly. PhoneGap is an awesome tool that lets developers write mobile apps using technologies like those mentioned above (HTML5 and JavaScript). In fact, my good friend Josh over at EvolvingWe has a popular app called GoodDay that he wrote with PhoneGap. He’s also doing a cool set of training videos called OneDayApp that you can get more info about here if you are interested in creating your own iPhone app.
My friend Ken, at Twin Engine Labs, told me he would only recommend going native when doing app development. That all the time you save using a cross platform tool are lost due to market place integration issues, problems with updating your app, and being beholden to a third party to ensure delivery of your app. Twin Engine Labs has created some awesome stuff, and are getting tons of press and were recently on the SXSW Startup Bus.
I respect both of these guys immensely, so you’ll have to decide for yourself which direction you wish to go.
My advice? If you want to create an app for fun or prototyping, PhoneGap might be a great tool to check out. If you are wanting to write apps professionally, however, you can avoid all of this mess by just writing the app in Objective C; the native language iOS applications.
I believe native is the best long term strategy.
So what evidence does the Register present to support the claim of Apple slowing down web apps in their latest edition of iOS? Compare these two screenshots below. The one on the left was run on an iPhone 4 loaded with iOS 4.3. Sunspider took about 4047ms to run. Meanwhile, running from the home screen took about 10747ms.
The Resister points out that Apple isn’t degrading the speed of home screen web apps. Instead, it’s boosting the speed of web apps in the browser.
On top of this, in iOS 4.2 caching was cut off. That feature let your app run in “offline” mode. Nor do they use Apple’s newer “asynchronous mode”, but have to stay in the “synchronous mode” sandbox. This means they don’t quite look as good.
Although Apple has not responded to multiple requests for comment by The Register, they are apparently aware of all three issues.
Apple has the bugs on file according to the developer forums. However, if your app is out there in the app store and someone installs right now and it runs incredibly slow; will the user chalk that up to a bug in the Apple operating system or will they think your app sucks and uninstall it? The answer is so very, very obvious.
Here’s the rub, folks.
If you want to create iPhone apps, make sure your app runs native code. You’ll avoid a lot of headaches and heartache. Take the time to invest in yourself to learn how to do this. Ken gave me this advice when I was just starting out, and when I see stories like this I’m thankful he took the time to give me guidance.
Don’t just delete files and folders with personal data. Erase them with a FOSS tool.
If you have a hard drive and you want to make sure you do more than delete your data off of it, there’s a nice tool to take care of this. But first, deleting a file doesn’t actually erase the data, it only makes the file invisible to the operating system so it can reuse the space.
Basically, until that space is over-written, your file and data are still there. Many undelete utilities take advantage of this. If you delete a file by accident, there numerous tools that will help you get your file back. You should move to recover your file as quickly as possible for best results.
This is secondary, of course to a good backup plan. I recommend CrashPlan. It’s inexpensive and it works. For people like myself with multiple computers, the Family Plan is great value. You can do machine to machine backups for free.
In the simplest of terms, your hard drive is like a library and card catalog system. Some of you may remember card catalogs and the Dewey Decimal System. When you delete a file, all your computer is doing is taking the card out of the catalog. If someone spent the time, they could still find the book on the selves.
So when you delete a file, its contents don’t die and go away. Instead, the data lingers there. The longer it lingers, the less healthy the data is, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be read.
What you really want to do is go shred the book.
So there’s a free, open source (FOSS) software utility that integrates nicely into Windows Explorer called Eraser. Once you install it, you can right click on the files or folders you want to make sure no one ever reads and chose erase.
Applications will also make copies of files you are working with while you have them open. Think of Microsoft Office temporary files. This files still linger also. Just because a program deleted them doesn’t mean it did it securely. Eraser will also securely erase the parts of your drive that still have data on them while you sleep via its scheduler.
If you try Eraser and it works for you I would encourage you to donate any amount, no matter how small, to support quality free apps like Eraser. You can do so here: http://www.ohloh.net/p/eraser?ref=WidgetProjectPartnerBadge
Please note, you should always securely erase the entire hard drive before you give it away, recycle it, or sell it. Erasure is a tool to use and maintain the data on your computer securely. Also, if you are using a solid state drive (SSD), you may do research regarding erasing files and the impact / wear leveling technology of your SSD before proceeding. PCWorld has a video with some tips if you need to completely clean your hard drive.
Anticipation: from ketchup to the slimmest slate of them all?
So I’m a little busy lately trying to push this project out the door. Thanks to my beta testers, I still need more so if you have an Android device please fill out the contact info. Anyway, I saw this new teaser from Samsung for the 8.9” Galaxy Tab.
Next week is the CTIA’s Wireless 2011 trade show. This has traditionally been a big event for product announcements and industry developments. The new Samsung tablet is expected to be announced and I wonder if the specs will be enough to cause some droid envy amongst iPad 2 owners? I highly doubt it, though. Apple doesn’t want us comparing tablets on technical specs. What about physical ones?
If you’ve been holding off on buying a tablet and you didn’t get swept up in the iPad 2 fever, just hold out for a few more weeks. Your patience may be rewarded.
Samsung’s marketing machine is in full gear working to drum up some hype for their new tablet. Here’s the teaser. One thing that’s interesting is the several references to how thin it is.
This is interesting and a shift from touting how the seven inch tablet is so easy to hold. Since the iPad2 has been fawned over for its thinness, it seems Samsung’s taken a page from that and is trying to shift their message; or was it their goal from day one?
As you can see from these snapshots I made from the video, the device looks thin. I have an original Galaxy Tab and it is plenty thin for me. I love it and the thickness wasn’t anything I considered until recently.
There are people more obsessed with this stuff than me, if you can believe that. My wife would beg to differ; she’d say that I just obsess is different ways.
However, in my defense, I present so you a seriously OCD effort by someone out there to get a handle on just what this new Samsung Tablet will look like and what its specs will be.
This someone, with way too much time on their hands, took some of the micro edited pictures of the tablet from the video and estimated the thickness of the tablet based on a glimpse of the headphone jack.
If this is accurate, the new Samsung 8.9 inch Galaxy Tab will be on mere 7.8mm thick.
That’s extremely thin.
So thin, that according to this screen grab, I noticed they actually had to increase the thickness for the 4mm headphone jack.
The slight bevel may not be flat. I suspect this tablet is about the same thickness as the iPad 2. We’re talking millimeters here, folks. At some point, the tablets are going to become too thin!
What would be interesting, if this turns out to be true, is this new tablet would become the new state-of-the-art slim slate. I think the iPad 2 is very cool, but how will the die hard iPad 2 fans take this news? A whole 1mm thinner.
We will have to wait until the 22nd, the first day of CTIA. With the tagline 78910, information week asks is Samsung saying they’re going to have a 7”, an 8.9”, and a 10” tablet?
Information Week also points out what Samsung has admitted; that they’re challenged to compete with the iPad 2 on price. For example, the WiFi only iPad 2 starts at $499 for the 16GB variant. Interestingly, it seems he’s comparing opening price of the Tab versus the current price of the iPad?
It’s not really accurate to do this since the 7” Galaxy Tab sports MicroSD support. Which means I can put a 32GB card in it; and swap it out with another for music and another for music and another for books. Removable storage is important to me, I wish all tablets had it.