At the moment Flutter web support is available in the beta channel. If you test Flutter web demos you may notice that selecting and copying text into clipboard isn't possible.
However, this is how mobile applications work. In the Amazon mobile application you can't select and copy all the text elements. In the Amazon website you can.
So, is Flutter web support aimed only for implementing application-like websites (like games, visualizations, utilities etc.) or will it be good also for implementing content oriented websites (like stackoverflow.com for example)?
Related
I took a look to the new Financial Times web application for mobile and I read this article about that, it's HTML5 web application. It seems to be an interesting way to deploy web application for multiplatform mobile (Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Mobile). How is it possible to create that kind of application? Just HTML and Css for mobile and Java or .NET app for the dynamic content generation, isn't it?
What do you think about that?
It's a nice idea, but there're problems too:
1) Not every mobile web browser has the same standards, which creates problems. Some for example support HTML 5, others do not. Some only support *3GP videos, others support a variety of formats. Mobile Safari supports TIFF images, other web browsers tend not to.
2) There're a lot of different screen sizes to handle if you're aiming at multiple platforms. We all know the screen sizes for iOS devices because there aren't that many. But in Android's case, there're a lot of different sizes which you'll have to be prepared for.
Just my two cents :)
Check out this article (http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/11/03/how-to-build-a-mobile-website/) for some examples on how to get started.
Wondering if someone could point me in the right direction, as I am unsure of the correct terminology. I am looking to create a mobile website, which loads in a browser based application (iPhone, Android).
I have seen this done before. For example, the bank of america application is actually installed via the App Store, however, it is simple a browser window that loads the Bank of America mobile site (which is built to look and function like an app).
I find this to more cost-effective, as developing a mobile app is less intense, as opposed to developing applications for 2-3 different mobile platforms.
Can someone provide insight into the terminology or methods used to accomplish this? Looking for articles, examples, etc.
Thanks in advanced!
I would suggest to use IBM Worklight.
Worklight is an Eclipse-based visual development and server platform for mobile apps. Using Worklight and popular open technologies, you can build, test, deploy, and manage your smartphone and tablet apps for iOS, Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone devices, with maximum code reuse and per-device optimization.
Worklight supports open technologies such as HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Apache Cordova, and popular JavaScript frameworks such as jQuery, Dojo Mobile, and Sencha Touch.
Worklight offers extensive runtime libraries and client APIs that expose and interface with native device functionality.
Worklight includes a browser simulator so you can test and optimize the user experience of your mobile content on varying mobile devices.
Worklight consists of an IDE (Worklight Studio), a Java-based server, device runtime components, a web-based console for managing deployments, and an application center.
for more info see
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mobile/worklight/getting-started.html
Take a look at PhoneGap or Appcelerator, two of the bigger names in this "native wrapper" technology.
What are the analytics tools available for a mobile web similar to the "Flurry" which is meant for mobile native applications?
Piwik
Piwik is an open-source Web analytics application developed using PHP and MySQL. It has a "plugins" system that allows for utmost extensibility and customization. Install only the plugins you need or go overboard and install them all – the choice is up to you. The plugins system, as you can imagine, also opens up possibilities for you to create your own custom extensions. This thing’s lightweight – the download’s only 1.9MB.
FireStats
FireStats is a simple and straight-forward Web analytics application written in PHP/MySQL. It supports numerous platforms and set-ups including C# sites, Django sites, Drupal, Joomla!, WordPress, and several others. Are you a resourceful developer who needs moar cowbell? FireStats has an excellent API that will assist you in creating your own custom apps or publishing platform components (imagine: displaying the top 10 most downloaded files in your WordPress site) based on your FireStats data.
Snoop
Snoop is a desktop-based application that runs on the Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista platforms. It sits nicely on your system status bar/system tray, notifying you with audible sounds whenever something happens. Another outstanding Snoop feature is the Name Tags option which allows you to "tag" visitors for easier identification. So when Joe over at the accounting department visits your site, you’ll instantly know.
I think the most popular is google analytics www.google.com/analytics/
big advantage is that almost all platforms (ao. android, ios, web, ...) are supported, this makes it easy to compare the performance of all your online properties
What is a hybrid app for mobiles? What is basic architecture to follow while developing? What are the components? What will be the back end and what will be the UI? Is it for only iPhone or can be for any mobile device?
With iOS, you can create an application that combines features of native applications and webpages.
A hybrid application is a native iPhone application that provides most of its structure and functionality through a web viewing area, but also tends to contain standard iOS user interface elements.
A hybrid application gives users access to web content with an element called a web view (described in “Web Views”).
Precisely how you use a web view in your application is up to you, but it’s important to avoid giving users the impression that your application is merely a mini web browser.
A hybrid application should behave and appear like a native iPhone application; it should not draw attention to the fact that it depends upon web sources.
You can create Phonegap app and still using native controls of cocoa for powerful features like Mapkit api, UIWebview (Childbrowser plugin) etc
A hybrid app is a mobile application in which the same app can be worked in different mobile operating systems like iOS, Android, Windows, etc…, and even in browsers (Mozilla, Chrome, IE, etc.. ). It is the same as mobile applications for users, which can be installed from App Store or Google Play store. But technically it’s different, its works with a combination of HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
More read-: http://webduratech.com/what-is-hybrid-app-how-it-can-help-small-scale-business/+
A hybrid application blends web views (loading a webpage into the app) and native code together to create a single seamless application. In most cases it is faster than developing the entire app in native code, because developing for the web is easier (there are tons of web frameworks and it is just easier to develop good looking content on the web vs via native code, such as swift).
Ex: Amazon uses web views for the products page on the iOS app, being able to reuse the code on iOS, Android and the web saves them a ton of time.
In a hybrid app, the core of the app (navigation, location) are normally done in native code and stuff such as showing images and information is generally done via web views.
Since web views are a web page, you can develop them in any HTML 5 framework you would like to use.
The most important part is to have an app that works and runs super well for your users, and having web views in the app is very tricky, but a huge time saver.
Hi I have been recently exploring some of the Javascript mobile frameworks that can be used for developing mobile web apps like Sencha, JQTouch, JQuery mobile etc.
I know the adv and disadvantages of both.
I just need some recent stats which show the market's adoption or opinion.
I tried three ways to develop mobile applications.
First method is to use frameworks that will take your html/css/js files and package them into mobile applications depending on your targets (BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, ...). I used PhoneGap (known today as Cordova). I didn't like it at all because the UI's rendering is so ugly on some devices and the user experience is broken. I had to use it with jQuery Mobile because it gave me a good UI design start. I tried some Phonegap Android generated applications on my personal device and it's really horrible. Some of them got rejected by Apple because of that ...
Second method is to use Appcelerator Titanium SDK. One word to sum it up: Awesome. One language to use (javascript) to create your UI/Controller. It's so easy to learn, so powerful to develop with and it has many out-of-the-box functionnalities (like facebook API, Yahoo Query Language, ...) that will allow you to put in place solutions easily for both Android and iPhone. BlackBerry is coming soon. What I liked the most is that it converts the written Javascript into the targetted platform with the default UI. It's really great. And, above all, the UI is easily customizable (with a css like system).
Personally, I put in place apps that can: Take a photo with the device then send it to a remote server, send messages to twitter/facebook, advanced geolocation, etc.
Third method: Native! It would take time if you target both iPhone and Android but, the big advantage is that you can create anything you want without being tied to a Framework for areas such as games, augmented reality , etc.
In my opinion, if you want to create simple applications with some nice features (weather, twitter feeds, sending on a facebook wall, ...), use Appcelerator Titanium SDK.
It converts your code into NATIVE.
If you have time to spend learning native languages, do it. It's the best way ;)
Hope it helps.
Regards.
I've summed up my thoughts on the whole "native vs. web" discussion in a blog post here: http://www.springenwerk.com/2011/09/thoughts-on-mobile-ui-design.html
In a nutshell: You can't get around getting to know the platform you are targeting if you want to provide a great user experience. Plus, you shouldn't try to mimic native UI/UX in a web application, it will only disappoint your users.
here are some pros and cons of native apps vs. web apps:
Native apps:
Native apps have more security
Native apps have higher user engagement, it has higher click-through rate (CTR) among the ad-serving publishers
When it comes to aesthetics and overall user experience, it is incredibly difficult for web apps to trump native apps
you don't have to buy a server and maintain it, therefore, for small businesses it is the ideal solution, not web apps which require a server.
Web apps:
it's cross platform - that means your one app will work on both iphone and android
cheaper and faster to develop and maintain
you will find programmers easier than native apps
updates are easier
Check out this post for some more opinion - http://www.thorntech.com/2013/01/html5-vs-native-apps-which-will-win-the-mobile-app-development-battle/
In particular, the last paragraph is worth noting. If you go down the path of building an HTML5 app, it is worth having some type of background "syncing" of content so you are not always pulling it from the web in real time. The app will be much more responsive if you load HTML pages from disk.
From my experience, the success rate of a native apps are much better than html or javascript based ones. I do not have sufficient numbers to back it up, but these are some issues that may crop up when trying to build html5 apps for different platforms. e.g.
Browser OS or webkit differences can cause unexpected bugs, css issues that could take quite a while to debug.
Your app is running on top of a webkit browser engine which takes up additional resources.
Older or non-smart phone devices may not have a modern webkit engine.
Nevertheless if you have good web skills over native, then getting an app to the market the quicket and cheapest route would be html5. Some apps lend very well for html5 such as data listing, and text content driven apps. I have written a writeup on HTML5 vs Native on my blog. Hope its useful.