Native v HTML5 An Event Planner s Primer

Transcription

1 v HTML5 An Event Planner s Primer If you ve researched mobile apps for your conference, tradeshow or event, you ve probably come across the question or HTML5? Both provide an app experience designed for iphone, ipad, Android, and other devices, so what s the difference? Should you care? This primer will set you straight! History: Desktop to Browser to Mobile... 2 What do native and HTML5 mean?... 3 Feature Comparisons... 4 Installing... 4 Launching... 4 Signing In... 5 Speed... 6 Offline Access... 6 Cost and Deploy Time... 7 Summary HTML5 v : An Event Planner s Primer

2 History: Desktop to Browser to Mobile Back in the 1980 s and 1990 s, Microsoft rose to dominance by providing the operating system (OS) that most software ran on, Windows. If you wanted to use a word processor, line of business application, or a game, you had to buy a Windows computer to run it on. The secret to their rule was the virtuous cycle : few people would buy a non-windows computer because all the interesting software was written for Windows. Software developers would look around, see that all their potential customers were Windows users, so all the new software coming out would be Windows-only. As a result, all the interesting software was written for Windows. And so on. Then, along came the Internet. Simple web browsers could deliver great software no matter what operating system you had: Windows, Mac, even Linux. The OS didn t matter, or, put another way, the Web was the OS. This, in turn, led to the browser wars. Remember when Microsoft was declared a monopoly for trying to use its OS dominance to force people to use their web browser? That s why they did it: they saw the web undermining their virtuous cycle. Then, it seemed that the Internet had democratized the software industry: it didn t matter what OS you used, as long as it had a web browser, you could use Google, Wikipedia, Gmail, Facebook, and Expedia. As a software developer, it was a dream. You didn t have to choose what operating system you wrote to, you just wrote HTML and javascript it worked everywhere. And then along came Apple s ios operating system and Google s Android. Suddenly, software developers had to choose again: which platform do you write for? The more things change, the more they stay the same. 2 HTML5 v : An Event Planner s Primer

3 What do native and HTML5 mean? A native mobile app refers to software that was written specifically for a particular type of device (e.g., iphone, Android, BlackBerry). A native app can only run on the specific device, or platform, it was written for. If you want an app to run on both iphone and Android phones, you will need two different versions, one for each. They may look and behave the same, but each must be created separately. An HTML5 app (sometimes called mobile web app ) refers to software that runs in your phone s web browser (called Safari on Apple s iphone and Chrome on Google s Android devices). Instead of downloading from the app store, you simply navigate to the app s web address (e.g., it loads in the browser, just like a web page. The exact same HTML5 mobile web app will run on iphone, Android, Windows Mobile and other modern devices (including the recent BlackBerry devices). HTML5 refers to the latest standards for creating web applications, and includes a combination of HTML, JavaScript and other web technologies. An HTML5 web app is a bit different from a standard web page, in that you can load a complete, interactive web site as a single page. As you interact with it, instead of each click causing a new page to download from the server, the software manipulates and changes the page that s already on your phone. This has several advantages, most important being speed. So which is better? It depends on your circumstances, and what s important to you. 3 HTML5 v : An Event Planner s Primer

4 Feature Comparisons Installing From itunes App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone Store, etc. No install required, just click link or open URL A native app must be installed from an app store. The end-user must open the app store on their phone, search for the app in the store, and manually choose to install it. In some cases, a direct link to the app store can be provided through your web site, but this typically involves launching the app store application. An HTML5 mobile web app, on the other hand, can be used without being formally installed. Open the web address on your device browser (by clicking a link, for example), and it is ready for use.. In some ways, this gives the advantage to the HTML5 web app, since it involves fewer steps, but for some users who have been trained to look in the app store, they may become confused if they are unable to find it there. Launching Tap desktop icon Desktop icon requires manual install. As previously noted, an HTML5 app does not need to be installed. You simply click a link (from or another web page) and it loads. 4 HTML5 v : An Event Planner s Primer

5 However, if the user wants to return to the page later without re-typing the link (or re-opening the with the link), they will have to manually create a bookmark or add a link to their phone s desktop. This can be a multi-step process that may flummox the less advanced users. is the winner in this category. Signing In Requires manually typing username / password Click link If your conference attendees need to sign in to your app (to retrieve sessions selected during registration or online, for example), mobile web apps are the clear winner. apps don t, and can t, support automatic sign-in. The first time an attendee launches a native app, they must enter a username and password by hand to get access to their personal data. On the tiny keyboards that most phones come with, and even the larger on-screen keyboards that tablets sport, this is arduous and error-prone. You will get a significant number of users who just give up. We ve seen it time and again. There is no way around this for a native app. Architecturally, they do not support passing in credentials. However, most native apps will at least store this information so it only need be entered once. HTML5 web apps, on the other hand, can be launched from a link that can include an authentication token, an encrypted string of characters that securely and uniquely identify the attendee, and automatically signs them in to their account. Attendees can use personalized links from that automatically signs them in to their account, no entering complex passwords on the tiny phone keyboard required. Advantage HTML5. 5 HTML5 v : An Event Planner s Primer

6 Speed Tend to run faster apps tend perform more quickly than HTML5 apps, because the programming language they re written in is more highly optimized for the specific hardware they re running on. Programmers will say it s closer to the metal (i.e., the code has fewer steps to go through before it is speaking the bit-flipping language of the silicon chips that are the brains of the device). That said, modern mobile web browsers are becoming more and more efficient at running JavaScript (the most common language used), and a well-written mobile web app can be as fast as a common native app (and faster than a poorly written one). Apple s iphone, in particular, has implemented a technology called Nitro that pre-compiles JavaScript so that it behaves more like native code. Overall, native apps will tend to be peppier. However, a well-written HTML5 mobile web app can minimize this difference down to insignificance. Offline Access Usually, but not always, supports offline Usually does not support offline, but can. Pathable does support offline. Providing Internet wifi access in to conference and tradeshow attendees can be expensive. Even when it s been paid for, it may become overwhelmed if thousands of attendees are all checking their schedule at once (e.g., when 6 HTML5 v : An Event Planner s Primer

7 an educational session block lets out). For this reason, giving conference attendees access to your app data even when the Internet connection is flaky or absent, is critical. It used to be that if you wanted to guarantee that your conference attendees would have access to the program even when no Internet access was available, you had to go native. The web requires an Internet connection, right? Wrong! With the advent of the latest round of HTML5 standards and browsers updates, web apps have access to an offline cache that allows them store the entire site and its data in a local database for use when the Internet goes away. Not all HTML5 web apps take advantage of this. It s new and technically tricky to implement. Pathable ( is one of the only mobile web apps to support offline access. Note too that even some native apps don t support offline access! Just because the code that runs the app is installed doesn t mean the database that holds the schedule and exhibit information is stored on the phone. Be sure to ask! Cost and Deploy Time Pro Tip: If your app does support offline, be sure to evaluate how the local database updates itself with new information. Some apps will reload the entire database each time you open them, which can take several minutes. When you re trying to find your way to a session or hosted buyer meeting, that can be the difference between being on time and being late! Tends to be more expensive Tends to be cheaper Because building a native app for an iphone must be written in a different programming language than the exact same native app running on an Android device (Objective C vs Java), the cost of development for authoring 7 HTML5 v : An Event Planner s Primer

8 and maintaining separate application offerings for multiple platforms goes up with the number of platforms supported. It costs twice as much to develop native apps for iphone and Android as it does either alone. HTML5 however, runs exactly the same code on iphone, ipad, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone and other major platforms. The cost of development is profoundly lower. These cost savings are often passed to the consumer (or pushed back into broader feature support). In addition, when submitting to Apple s store, there may be a several week delay while Apple reviews and approves the app (Google s store, called Google Play does not review apps, so the process of releasing an Android app can be much quicker than Apple.) To deploy an HTML5 web app, on the other hand, the developer simply enters the data for the app into their database and it s available on the web. When new features are added, a single change is available on all platforms without extra effort. As such, it can be less expensive to deploy an HTML5 web app than a native app on multiple platforms. 8 HTML5 v : An Event Planner s Primer

9 Summary Installing Launching Signing In Speed Offline Cost and Deploy Time From itunes App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone Store, etc. Tap desktop icon Requires manually typing username / password Tend to run faster Usually, but not always, supports offline Tends to be more expensive No install required, just click link or open URL Desktop icon requires manual install. Click link Usually does not support offline, but can. Pathable does support offline. Tends to be cheaper So, which one is better? The bottom line is that a well-written HTML5 app will be better than a poorly written native app, and a well-written native app will be better than a poorly written HTML5 web app. From our experience, the only strong advantage native holds over mobile web apps is that some people have become accustomed to installing an app from the app store. Even if they don t need to, they will still search for it there and may become frustrated if they don t find it. Honestly, that s the main reason Pathable is moving to support native as well as HTML5. On the other side, Pathable and other mobile web app providers are able to go from start to launch literally in hours, as opposed to the weeks it takes to pull together and launch a native app. As a result, mobile web apps can fit a budget that a native app can not. 9 HTML5 v : An Event Planner s Primer

10 Should you choose to offer both (and many do), be sure to evaluate the HTML5 web app experience that your mobile app vendor is providing carefully. Many native app producers offer an HTML5 web version that comes off feeling like an afterthought, and may leave your BlackBerry or other users who don t have a native option feeling like second-class citizens. Pathable is the leading provider of desktop and mobile event apps, including online community and business networking software for conferences, tradeshows and events. Contact: sales@pathable.com 10 HTML5 v : An Event Planner s Primer