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Dec

29

Why Does Apple Stifle Mobile Safari’s True Potential?

Filed Under Software, apple, technology | 6 Comments

The iPhone is hot. Its a badass micro-computer-internet-having-app-installing-jizz-casting-awesome-machine that can also make phone calls, but I have to bitch about one major flaw in the entire thing, and that flaw is Mobile Safari. Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of the mobile browser, it is leaps and bounds greater than anything else out on the market, but I ask you Apple, why not make it the greatest mobile browser on the market?

So what am I bitching about specifically? The iPhone has immense data harvesting capabilities, from geo-location, to the accelorometer, etc. But all of these fantastic API’s are available only to native, objective-c based applications, not Mobile Safari!? Explain this to my Apple, why is this not exposed through a JavaScript API? That is absolutely trivial to provide to the lowly web developer!

Apple and the iPhone are doing amazing things with the types of datasets it makes available to developers in the native context, all I am saying is, make it available to every context of applications! Libraries like PhoneGap are attempting to make this a reality, but again, the biggest limitation is the fact that PhoneGap still requires you to create a native application to act as a wrapper to your web application, this seems like a stop gap solution (heh) or an unfortunate hack.

Its also very apparent that Mozilla sees the future of location-based services being able to provide very personalized and exciting experiences to the web through their efforts in Mozilla Geode. Perhaps its true that at this point, that sort of data availability in a web browser could be seen as negative, but I am not sure I agree. I am willing to bet that within the next 6 years, Apple will be introducing GPS into their laptops, providing application developers with the same location-awareness capabilities on their computers that exist today on their phones.

Hopefully Apple will wise up in the future, but I highly doubt it. Something tells me this is a designed limitation, they are probably doing their best to keep control over what people are doing with that data through the app store vetting process. Oh well, one can dream!


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6 Comments so far

  1. John on December 29, 2008 11:44 pm

    While I’ll admit it sounds cool, isn’t this just going to up issues with “this site only works on iPhone”? Do we really need more sites that only work on one browser or are feature limited on certain browsers? Case in point – i recently had to launch IE in Parallels to visit my states tax web site because they only support IE.

    I’d rather see Apple spend their dollars on making Mobile Safari every bit as good as a modern browser before making it unique.

    Just my opinion though.

  2. Erik on December 30, 2008 8:25 am

    Amen. I founded a “social network” made exclusively for the iPhone and was delighted to know I wasn’t missing out on anything while Apple publicly rejected native development for the device. However, I always knew they would come around and open up an API but I never thought we’d get shafted the way we have as web developers. I always felt a little shafted, considering I could never open a a file selection dialogue even just to pick a photo from my camera. My site has always been email based to get around these issues, which is a huge stumbling block for new users. I have been really trying to learn Objective C but after developing in Flex and Flash for a few years I really have a hard time understanding why I should learn something so arcane and obtuse as Cocoa. I’d really love to see Apple provide a means of accessing Core Location, Camera Roll and some other basic functions such as full screen web apps. The API is nice and all but it just doesn’t make sense for us to redevelop our entire app natively. There ARE benefits to web applications over native ones.

  3. Derek P. on December 30, 2008 3:09 pm

    @John, I totally don’t agree with this viewpoint for a number of reasons, but most specifically because a large number of vendors are embracing “iPhone only” or “iPhone optimized” gateways.

    Its very very easy to make JavaScript degrade and ignore the usage of the Safari-based implementations, this is done all the time in the background using things like jQuery or Prototype for abstractions.

  4. Justin Carter on December 30, 2008 5:05 pm

    I think the bigger question is why doesn’t Apple consider the future of mobile browsing, instead of going down the same old path of building proprietary features that will later end up biting us – the developers – in the ass. Didn’t anyone learn form the rise of desktop web browsers?

    Opera are on the right path with Opera Mobile – it’s highly standards compliant, has a great JS engine (not crippled like mobile Safari), Flash support is on the way, and isn’t aiming to corner the mobile web for profit. IMO as a developer, it’s Opera 1, Apple 0, even though most consumers would be clueless as to whats going on :P

  5. bud on December 30, 2008 10:47 pm

    I can’t wait for all those hot accelerometer, GPS enabled, otherwise normal regular web pages. Just think, an annoying pop up ad shows up telling you about the local crap you weren’t interested in, and then you can shake your laptop to get the annoying thing off your desktop.

    Oh, wait. I really don’t want my location or velocity known unless I am using a service built SPECIFICALLY FOR THAT FUNCTION. Mobile Safari doesn’t need that.

  6. Derek P. on December 31, 2008 4:58 pm

    @bud,

    that is a little close minded. If you actually own an iPhone, you’d realize that this problem has already been solved by Apple which makes sure you explicitly provide access to features like GPS to the applications of your choice. You are describing a non-existent problem.