Google I/O 2011: HTML5 versus Android: Apps or Web for Mobile Development?

Reto Meier, Michael Mahemoff

Native apps or mobile web? It's often a hard choice when deciding where to invest your mobile development resources. While the mobile web continues to grow, native apps and App Stores are incredibly popular. We will present both perspectives in an app development smackdown.

• Category

  Science & Technology

[babujsr1]

Brilliant. I have never earnt an income like this, I just make money just from using Monthly Bill Nutshell (search for it on Google).

[Pat Monardo]

2011...2012 would even be too dated!

[digitalsketchguy]

This debate is already dated. That's technology for you! Two years old...wow!

[Pat Monardo]

I should disclose that I have zero clients and am really thinking JavaScript 7 will be great and I am choosing that path now.

so the future is ecmascript. if you are programming with todays platform. choice might be different

[Pat Monardo]

I choose html5 over android. I think the case for better hardware or software advantage in android is short sighted and actually misguided.

[Rick Beacham]

Good point. How much energy is used to develop an app on one platform compared to another platform. If you look at Game Development on consoles it can take significantly longer while a flash based one is much shorter. But is the end user experience that same? No. The console is usually better. But in the case with flash it can do the same thing but with less energy in development. So it really depends on your target audience. Flash is great solution but not for all users.

[Rick Beacham]

Yes i see what you are saying. Unity3d can provide a great user experience but html5 is accessible to much more platforms and you can write apps much easier. Unity3d also has other technologies that compete with it such as Gamebryo and even openGL ES. The amount of energy developing for Unity apps for specific solutions is also higher. I really like Unity3d but i think a more compelling idea would be to intergrate html5 into unity game engine. YOu can request CGI programs in unity i think.

[Rick Beacham]

Does that browser have access to the phone and device data anyways?