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matthewcc is offline matthewcc
2009-12-18 , 15:56
Posts: 267 | Thanked: 128 times | Joined on Sep 2009 @ Somerville MA - USA
#1
'yea, i don't need an app for that - it just does it'

Thats been my tagline for the n900 in the current app centric world. There is a nice article about Firefox Mobile and its quest to kill the app store.

From: Tech.blorge
Mozilla is finally ready to release the first version of its Firefox Mobile browser after over a year and a misstep that required the company to start over from scratch. So how on earth does Mozilla plan to kill the App Store model with its mobile browser?

Mozilla is set to release its mobile browser, codenamed Fennec, for the Nokia N900 tablet with versions coming next year for Windows Mobile and Android. While the company has shown some interface mock-ups previously, this is the first sign that the new browser is ready for prime time three years after the iPhone’s mobile Safari changed the way we interact with the mobile Web.

The browser will be touch-friendly, have a plugin system and can even sync the tabs you’re viewing on your desktop computer with your mobile device. However there are a lot of things that it can’t do that make other applications worthwhile.

These functions include anything that requires your GPS location which isn’t broadcast through a browser for security reasons, applications that look up or update your contacts and streaming media applications. So with all of these functions that can’t run in a mobile browser, how does Mozilla expect to get users to ditch the App Store?

The company is basing this assumption on the fact that the same thing happened on the desktop Web. Once the Internet matured, users started moving their contacts and even streaming Flash-based music and video content over the Web.

While it’s likely that some applications will be made obsolete as the mobile Web matures, Mozilla isn’t quite ready to make that happen yet. After all, the company hasn’t even released a browser that will run on any of the top mobile platforms yet.’

Mozilla’s vision and ambition are both admirable, the company needs to focus on shipping good lightweight applications that they can build upon. Otherwise Firefox mobile could end up throttling mobile devices much like its bloated cousin does to desktop machines.
I love this, this is what the n900 is about - the web in your pocket etc. I would like to see nokia jump on this and push the concept.
 

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ARJWright is offline ARJWright
2009-12-18 , 16:01
Posts: 861 | Thanked: 734 times | Joined on Jan 2008 @ Nomadic
#2
Nokia and others have always had this concept. They - rightly - took it as a personal pleasure to build a device that was a solution that didn't need much else but specalized applications to help you along the way.

Just because users haven't paid attention to that doesn't mean that Nokia (and others) haven't.

As for a mobile device as a platform where the browser and browser-based frameworks are used, reference Nokia+WRT+W3C+mobile web standards. They've not only been quite active there from a policy side, but since the N95, have been pushing such an idea.

Google's Chrome OS and Palm's webOS proport the same things that WRT does - with tighter hardware integration and easier inroads to development - whether the *tech* journalism scene realizes this or not is another thing entirely. There's no app for intelligence.
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hypnotik is offline hypnotik
2009-12-18 , 16:01
Posts: 486 | Thanked: 154 times | Joined on Sep 2009 @ New York City
#3
What about if you don't have an internet connection handy?
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matthewcc is offline matthewcc
2009-12-18 , 16:03
Posts: 267 | Thanked: 128 times | Joined on Sep 2009 @ Somerville MA - USA
#4
Originally Posted by hypnotik View Post
What about if you don't have an internet connection handy?
How long till Firefox mobile will support Google gears? I agree with the concept of an app for unconnected functionality. but i believe technology is catching up and will make it unnecessary soon.
 
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zehjotkah is offline zehjotkah
2009-12-18 , 16:04
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#5
Originally Posted by hypnotik View Post
What about if you don't have an internet connection handy?
then also the apps, that use the web are useless...
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ARJWright is offline ARJWright
2009-12-18 , 16:09
Posts: 861 | Thanked: 734 times | Joined on Jan 2008 @ Nomadic
#6
Originally Posted by hypnotik View Post
What about if you don't have an internet connection handy?
You don't need a web connection to work in an application built with a browser's framework* - if there's no live data being calculated from a datastore that's not on the device.

*I really wish people could divorce the idea of a browser from the action of being online.
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hypnotik is offline hypnotik
2009-12-18 , 16:09
Posts: 486 | Thanked: 154 times | Joined on Sep 2009 @ New York City
#7
Originally Posted by matthewcc View Post
How long till Firefox mobile will support Google gears? I agree with the concept of an app for unconnected functionality. but i believe technology is catching up and will make it unnecessary soon.
Well, considering that Google gears is End of Life - Google is dropping it soon, probably never.

Soon is probably a few years, the mean time we still need installable apps. Besides, I don't know about you, but I'm not comfortable with having all my data access be in the cloud, controlled by a faceless corporation (or person).
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ARJWright is offline ARJWright
2009-12-18 , 16:10
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#8
Originally Posted by matthewcc View Post
How long till Firefox mobile will support Google gears? I agree with the concept of an app for unconnected functionality. but i believe technology is catching up and will make it unnecessary soon.
That's not coming. Gears has gone away for the W3C endorsed HTML5 model, which supports local caching of content until a connection is seen by the device.
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fatalsaint is offline fatalsaint
2009-12-18 , 16:12
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#9
Originally Posted by ARJWright View Post
*I really wish people could divorce the idea of a browser from the action of being online.
See.. I guess I'm of the opposite end. I think things in the browser should "be" online. 'Applications' should be separate and run stand-alone. I've never been big on the whole "Browser"-application kind of thing.
 

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ARJWright is offline ARJWright
2009-12-18 , 16:12
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#10
Originally Posted by hypnotik View Post
Soon is probably a few years, the mean time we still need installable apps. Besides, I don't know about you, but I'm not comfortable with having all my data access be in the cloud, controlled by a faceless corporation (or person).
This is an innacurate comment.

You don't need to be online to use a browser. You don't have to share content with any server to compute data within a browser.
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