Facebook looking to circumvent Apple's App Store with HTML5 platform - Page 2

Like I explained earlier why Facebook would want to go this path of using HTML5. But, just because FB is going one way (or bringing in 80 or so developer to same path as story mentioned), you are not going to find all the developers jumping on this FB wagon. Can't say enough - For Apple, this is a moot point!

Half a billion is nothing to sneeze at.

ha ! good one - sheesh...

It's like you admitted that you don't have social life. Typical geeky-wanna-be.

last week it was ft. this week it is fb. it's moot for now... but i am sure someone in Cupertino is paying attention.

Seeing less of Facebook. It's a good thing.

Hah! This from a company that cant even develop a native iPad App?

Who would trust a service this infamous for bilging basic personal information onto search engines and newspapers with something as sensitive as their credit card details?

Enjoy playing farmville while the hackers are mining your bank account.

Agreed. If nothing else, this is likely to give a few developers ideas on how to work around Apple's policies for getting content on iOS devices, which isn't likely to sit well with Stevie-J and Co.

Meh! Apple can offset this by switching its car insurance to Geico.

It would seem a lot of people trust Facebook with credit card details, as their website has made Zynga the richest game developer in the world, beyond long-time developers of traditional games like EA and Activision.

Winner.

/thread

it's ok. i will be playing on an Apple device. And we all know nothing bad could ever happen on an iDevice.

Facebook sucks - its populated by a large percentage of lonely housewives talking about their kids soccer games. Facebook is trying to subvert the internet and have everything on the net tied to them and going through them. Please fail, quickly and painfully. It's such a load of worthless crap. Pick up the phone and call your mother for god's sake.

HTML5 apps need to break out of the browser wrapper to be on equal ground with native apps.
It also needs platform specific tie-ins to be able to connect to specific services like push notification, (iCloud) syncing and all other API's that abstract the hardware.
Eventually - if this is realized - developers could have a choice in development tools and this would be a plus. (You have to realize though, that this wouldn't mean that you can write your code and run it everywhere.)
But one very crucial difference - especially for low power mobile devices - remains: 'HTML5 coding' is done with JavaScript and that's an interpreted language and an order of magnitude slower than C and Objective C used to code native apps.

J

Who would ever partner with Mark Zuckerberg? He is proud of being the jerk that he is.

deleted

Zynga don't make "games" so much as they manufacture environments where people make micro-transactions in order to "do stuff". They basically appropriated the same business model used by slot machines. Cigarette manufacturers also have a successful business model. Does their economic success absolve them of their social responsibilities?

Yoda, his English teacher was.

Apparently it does, since they're allowed to peddle their wares despite the effects, just as a website with questionable privacy policies is allowed to gather people's credit card info.

And no matter what sub-label you want to put on Zynga, they are a game developer. Even if it's on the same level as slot machines, it's still a game; people are still willing to pay for it; and they're still making money hand-over-fist.

Yeah. I can see it working. Why, doesn't everyone want to open their smart phone up to all manner if bots and other malware via the Facebook model?

deleted

Most people don't have a clue of what can be done with html5 on an iPad. It's very powerful. With the right programming most apps would be hard to tell whether HTML5 or native. Check this very simple multi touch demo which was one of the first hits I got when I searched for multitouch html5 iOS demo.
http://paal.org/2010/html/02_MultiTouchMe3D.html

@guch20 & @Jacksons

You both are seriously clueless to what makes Apple tick, and what makes them money.

It's the hardware. Apple has the best on the planet, including desktop, laptop, tablets, music players and phones. That's not going to change, and neither is Apple's margins. Some people see paying for it, some don't. So is the marketplace. But regardless, their devices are consistently the one's that are held up as the one's to beat.

FB going HTML5 is GREAT news for Apple and it's statement re: Flash, because FB is picking up the (beach) ball that Flash is, and kicking it into the toilet, where it so rightly belongs. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple lends a helping hand even. If they don't, MS probably will, because they're an even bigger and actively pushing fan of HTML5 than Apple is. They even made the mistake of stating that Win8 was going to be built around HTML5, which sent the devs into a tizzy

As far as I'm concerned, ALL web platforms and sites should be making the transition to HTML5, or have plans to do so in the near future. Or else just give up. Publishers especially. The idea of repackaging a website as a magazine or newspaper app is just so dumb. FT is doing it right.

NOTE: I happen to be helping a number of other small pubs and sites do the very same thing with the help of Sencha

Don't see what the fuss is about. This type of thing will become more and more popular in the future. IMO it is good for everyone - apple, android, linux - everyone except microsoft that is (and adobe)

I agree with your points I just find it overwhelmingly depressing that "$" is the benchmark of "success".

OK- here is the association train of thought:

Facebook is a bunch of Farmville updates.

They want me to buy apps from a store they create?

No.

The end...

BTW: it has been reported just this week (Google it) that FB use is starting to slide. Can't say that I'm surprised.

I was, and still am, surprised that so many people still use it... and actually don't know how to really use it, when it comes to security and your personal info... and your FRIENDS info as well.

My thought has always been: while I don't have anything to hide, what happens when I'm on someone's friend list that does something bad. Am I guilty by association? When these decisions are being made by software algorithms, I very well could be, and it does raise a red-flag. Well... to me any way.

Same reason I'm not so hot on Google services or docs. It just doesn't seem logical to me to give a company that much direct access to my personal info and everything about me, including my correspondence, contacts, etc. What happens when a contact does something nefarious, say like insider trading? Will I be searched and seized too, without me actually knowing about it? Or just seriously scrutinized and added to a watch list of some kind?

Either or, I'd rather play on the safe side, and not even get involved by actually aiding the "bots" by getting caught up in a trend.

Last but not least, so every one can think that I have my "Tin Hat" squarely positioned:
FaceBook, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft were all represented at the recent Bilderberg Group meetings this past weekend. MS and Google have participated many times, while this was a first time for Facebook and Amazon.

I'm not into the conspiracy nut ramblings of what that meeting represents or what goes on there, however... I would like to point out that, at no time has Apple or a representative ever attended. Rather odd for the largest tech company on the planet, wouldn't you think? Neither has RIM for that matter.

I'm amazed that not much is reported about the Bilderberg Group, because it is THE group that makes the world go round. Even more so than G8 or any other conference of it's kind. Just sayin'.

EDIT: Don't bother with Google when finding out more about the Bilderberg Group, the top listings are all conspiracy freak sites. Go to the Wikipedia page for an unbiased history.

You haven't been paying attention, have you?

Who gives a rat's ass? The Financial Rags have been garbage for decades.

I only use it to say hi to a few people. The rest of the time the account is idle.

C and Objective C can be used to write device drivers, but that's not what app developers use it for.
The reason they use it is that the native iOS API's interface is Objective C.
So its direct access to the API's that counts, not replicating programming language features.

But as I said, performance is everything for embedded devices, even with 1GHz or more processors because of power consumption.
So Apples effort to enhance JavaScript interpretation speed is because of this and indicates that this is a big issue.

And its not JavaScript alone that's the problem, HTML parsing is also on the fly (in real time) and costly.
Also, running an app within an app (Safari) isn't ideal, and should be done by the OS itself.
So its essential to be able to run the HTML app outside the browser (think for example of the confusing double user interface).

And HTML itself isn't ideal for lots of applications, its paradigm is mainly focused on page makeup and page formatting.

The point is that the quality of apps is directly tied to the quality and richness of the platform API's and services and is seriously hampered when APIs are lacking and/or partly bolted upon other API's to sort of get the same effect.
Its even a bigger problem if the code is glued together with slow interpreted languages and HTML parsing.

But that doesn't make it impossible to write ok apps in HTML - I didn't say that by the way - when the type of app is suited for HTML and doesn't need to use the rich platform specific API's.
Apple thought so too when they released the iOS platform.

J.

The Browser is written in C/C++/ObjC/ObjC++. Who the hell wants to write in Javascript when you have the entire Cocoa stack to leverage?

That's another way to say it.

You can count me in with him/her too. Social integration? Meh...

Apple has always been a proponent of HTML5 especially if it include killing Flash too. Most welcome. Hardware is the shit. Not middleware.

I say hi to people in person, if I'm keen. Or the telephone, usually my iPhone

My account does not exist. I don't stay idle for too long

Facebook has had so many privacy issues, it's hard to believe they aren't attacking users' privacy on purpose. Facebook has a barely workable iPhone app and STILL NO IPAD APP! Their site (mobile and regular are very spotty on the iPad. Facebook growth has slowed and IMHO, it is about to become yesterday's news. This is not the sort of company that I'd bet to succeed with suvh a project.

ping will fail until it's integrated with facebook...

You can already make purchases within Zynga Apps without using iTunes and what is actually better than Apple is that transactions are at current exchange rates, not the inflationary time warp of Apple's iTunes where I pay $A1.19 for a $0.99 App which is $1.27 in US currency.

You do realize that it could get you banned.