Web applications on the iPad

fierarul | karma 2305 | avg karma 2.31 · 2010-01-28 02:51:38

AppStore isn't useful just because you get native stuff, it's essential because you need somebody to handle the actual payment from users.

Sure, it's easy to move some free apps towards the web, but what if you want to make some money ?

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jeff18 | karma 4871 | avg karma 9.61 · 2010-01-28 03:24:21

It is actually quite easy to handle payments by yourself. You can go direct with PayPal, Amazon FPS, and Google Checkout, or go through a service like Kagi, Plimus, etc. which will abstract it even further.

However, I would expect most web application developers to be experienced enough web programmers, that setting up a payment processor would be about 1 hour of work. ;)

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Tichy | karma 16300 | avg karma 1.62 · 2010-01-28 04:17:14

It's still harder to get people to pay, though. With the app store, users are already registered.

Tichy | karma 16300 | avg karma 1.62 · 2010-01-28 09:10:07+00:00

Can it be true that Safari on the iPhone still doesn't support Web Workers? I've created a site to test it - Android seems to have Web Workers, but Safari (on my iPod Touch) doesn't. My test is a game AI written in JavaScript, which is difficult to do without web workers.

jeff18 | karma 4871 | avg karma 9.61 · 2010-01-28 03:21:25

Safari has supported Web Workers since Safari 4, so if they are not in Mobile Safari yet, they will almost certainly be in soon!

izendejas | karma 677 | avg karma 2.48 · 2010-01-28 04:39:58

This explains why Apple bought Quattro Wireless. Many developers are going to make the move to web-based apps (for portability, convenience, etc) and my guess is Apple's ensuring it doesn't lose much cash in the process.

maccman | karma 6439 | avg karma 24.96 · 2010-01-28 14:01:01+00:00

I'm sure all the missing functionality he mentions (access to camera, microphone etc) could be exposed by a development framework on top of WebKit. You can expose Objective C functions to JS - I'm sure if it hasn't already been build, it will be. You'd still have to go through the App Store approval process, but at least you could build your apps in HTML/JS, and have low level access.

catch23 | karma 2157 | avg karma 2.23 · 2010-01-28 14:03:45+00:00

There's something that already does this -- phonegap. write an app in js/html and have access to native calls. It produces a native app so you'd have to go through the approval process like you mention.