Input on future mobile platform

Thu Aug 8 14:18:32 UTC 2013

On Thu, Aug 08, 2013 at 12:14:33AM -0400, Antonio Sun wrote:
> What I forgot to emphasis in my OP was that, the reason that I was
> asking was that, being a programmer that want to get into the mobile
> programming world, with zero previous experience, I am trying to catch
> the "next wave", because I'm not into the Apple's ObjectC niche
> market, and I don't want to get into the Java-based Android
> programming either.

Well out of the current mobile development systems, I think Apple's is
the only one I even remotely like.  Blackberry and Android use java,
Windows Phone uses .net (which is pretty much just Microsoft's version
of java), and Apple uses ObjectiveC.  Unfortunately I hate Apple's
corporate policies, even though their hardware and software is very nice.

No wonder I don't own any smartphone.

> I'm planning to get my foot wet into something that'll be cross
> platform, i.e. good for phone, tablet, and desktop as well. However,
> that's easy to set a goal than to find where actually to go.

Unfortunately, different systems will have different APIs, so cross
platform will somehow involve yet another abstraction layer if you
don't want to write different code for each system for at least part of
your application.  Yet another layer means yet more slowdown and waste
of resources, which is bad enough already on the various smart phones.
So there simply is no good way to do that.

> I tend to agree more with the article
> 
> Writing native Android applications with Javascript? Not yet.
> http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/writing_native_android_applications_javascript_not_yet

http://sealedabstract.com/rants/why-mobile-web-apps-are-slow/

javascript will never be the solution given battery life and performance
really does matter.

> I.e., It's all about timing. Google/Android chose Java because there
> were no other good alternatives. Now things have been completely
> changed -- "So, what has changed? Two words: 1) Chrome 2) Javascript I
> am convinced that Chrome and Javascript changed the whole IT landscape
> radically." . . .

No it really hasn't changed.  Javascript has gotten somewhat better,
but there really isn't anything left you can do to javascript to make
it faster, and it is still 5 times slower than native code.  You need
a better language than javascript if you want a chance to fix this.
Then you need to convince every browser to support your new better
and more efficient language in order to get cross platform to be an
option again.  Good luck.

> "In the end, if Google had to decide how to build Android in 2008
> rather than 2005, I have little doubt that they would have picked
> Javascript as their language of choice. Instead, Android has fully
> embraced Java"...
> 
> Quite agree with that, so I'm quoting straight from the article.

I don't.  It is wrong.

> Alright, alright. Let me share my view first, and anyone can share
> theirs as well. Again, we don't need to agree with each other. I tend
> to think that the discussion will be kind of a reminder -- "Hey, here
> is another way to look at it".
> 
> First of all, I want to emphasis again, being a programmer, I think it
> *is* the technology renovation that lead to the "surviving/leading"
> mobile phone or tablet, It is not about the consumer at all. Anyone ,
> any company who is not actively seeking the next renovation will be
> end up like blackberry/Nokia/Motorola/etc.
> 
> So what's trending?

Well it seems twitter and facebook and such are.  Not sure why that is.
Certainly not because they are particularly good, they are just popular.

> Again, being a programmer who embrace the open-source world most, I
> care more on what's in Google's mind than in Apple's. I thinking
> Google is putting more and more their bet on Javascript and Chrome
> (concurring the above article). Android is not the *only* popular
> mobile OS that Google owns. The other popular mobile OS that Google
> owns is Chrome OS, the product being Chrome Book. This is what Google
> prefers for now I believe. There is an estimation that the Chrome Book
> sales will increase by 300% this year.

Chrome OS is popular?  Since when?  Also increasing their sales by 300%
isn't much given I dout their current sales are anything impressive.

> Look at what Google has been putting their efforts in now, that'll
> pretty safely predict what the future mobile product/platform etc
> would be. Has anyone see the Racer demo at Google I/O 2013? That tells
> what Google has been putting their efforts in now.  "Racer was built
> to show what’s possible on today’s mobile devices using an entirely
> in-browser experience. The goal was to create a touch-enabled
> experience that plays out across multiple screens (and speakers). "
> Google says "the web technologies that made this Chrome Experiment
> [would be] “street-legal” in a couple of months". The web technologies
> used include:
> 
> - the solution is cross platform, works for either phones or tablets
> (different screen sizes of course), with:
> - 2D vector drawings on HTML5 Canvas
> - sound is shared and synced across multiple devices using the Web
> Audio API (Each device plays one slice of Giorgio Moroder’s symphony
> of sound—requiring five devices at once to hear his full composition.
> )
> - syncing the phones or tablets is done by WebSockets, which enables
> rapid two-way communication between devices.
> - the next step is to use WebRTC data channels—the next generation of
> speedy Web communication

All neat, but still not anywhere near the performance of native code.

> Details available from
> http://blog.chromium.org/2013/06/race-across-screens-and-platforms.html
> 
> To recap, to me, Google is working at a *cross platform* solution that
> works for phones, tablets or desktops, and this "pure web-based"
> solution is their goal, and they have already achieved it. See, no
> Java in sight at all!

Pure web conviniently forces you to be online where they can track you
and advertise to you all the time.  Of course that is _their_ goal.

> So, being a programmer who has zero previous experience in the mobile
> programming, if I start learning now from Java-based Android
> programming, I'll completely miss the point if I want to catch up with
> the next/leading wave.
> 
> Now, what's your view on what's trending in new mobile technology?

I think the current state of mobile devices sucks, and I mainly blame
android for destroying what was looking slightly promising (although it
may all have failed anyhow).

Also Steve Jobs was amazing at what he did and a complete ass hole too.
Too bad he couldn't have just ben the first and not such a complete
control freak.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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