Quick iteration allows developer to use webOS as a proving ground 17
Developers have plenty of options when it comes to mobile platforms to develop for. You have, just to name a few: Android, MeeGo, Bada, iOS, Windows Phone 7, Symbian, BlackBerry and well, the list could continue on. Despite this huge amount of choice, developers still choose webOS as their platform of choice, with one of the bigger reasons being cited being how quickly they can iterate their applications and add features when compared to some of the other platforms.
One such developer is YouVersion, who has applications deployed across a few of the platforms mentioned above. In the latest post on their blog introducing a new "profiles" feature for their flagship application, they sing praises about developing for webOS and why their Pre and Pixi users will often see features before others do: that the speed of development that webOS allows has (read that bit about rapid iteration above) has turned the platform into a proving ground for them: "Our Palm app is likely to be a preview of what you'll see very soon in all of our other apps."
And if Palm's most recent developer podcast talking all about Ares is any indication, developing for webOS is only going to get easier as time goes on as tool-chains become ever more efficient.
Source: YouVersion Blog; thanks to Jake for the tip!
17 Comments
UNO!!! I WIN!!
I want more API's, WebOS is still very young and immature
I agree that WebOS is a great platform on which to start a multiplatform project. The relative speed of development helps you quickly create, test and refine features and interfaces.
In my case, I have developed a project completely on WebOS which I will be porting to Android. I am sure that developing and refining the app on WebOS first and then porting will result in a shorter combined development schedule than if I had started on Android then moved to WebOS.
Having said that, I would NEVER use Ares for development. It's cute for noobs and simple apps, but I wouldn't use it for anything complex that needs to have efficient and fast performance. Starting with canned code will always screw you down the road when you want to do something that the canned code doesn't do. Canned code is also never as lean as well written code. Keep it!
Do yourself a favor, learn to "hand code" your apps. You will learn more and your app will ultimately be better(assuming you're a good dev that is).
As someone who is currently working on his first app, I couldn't agree more. I've used canned web design programs in the past and while hand coding always took longer, it produced a better, and more satisying, result.
Even if I wasn't a Pre owner, the ease of developing for WebOS would still make this my first choice for developing my first app.
As someone with no programming experience whatsoever - I have a question. I've been reading that there will be a way for programmers to port their IPhone apps to webOS easily and quickly.
1) Is that for games - or will other cool applications be made available.
2) Is it feasible to enable the same type of thing for Droid apps - in terms of porting them to webOS?
Thanks
Wow, is this really true?
"Despite this huge amount of choice, developers still choose webOS as their platform of choice...".
If this is really true, why do we not see thousands upon thousands of applications in the app catalog? Sure, some choose it over the others, but if the use of "developers" is meant to encompass the entirety of the community of developers for smartphones, then a more accurate statement would be "a very small amount of developers choose webOS as their platform of choice...".
I hate to say that P|C is quickly becoming phanboyish, but some of these articles as of late sure seem to make it be leaning in that direction.
I mean I get it, the point is that the platform makes development more easy than others, but why go so far out on a limb to say something that implies the vast majority of developers prefer it?
Yeah, I caught that too. Really hope that's a typo and would like to see it fixed.
Perhaps they should change this sentence:
"Despite this huge amount of choice, developers still choose webOS as their platform of choice..."
to this:
"Despite this huge amount of choice, YouVision developers still choose webOS as their platform of choice..."
As it stands this article is terrible because it is singled sourced and makes interpretations as if the entire world is rapidly adopting webOS as their "development proving ground".
I wish this were true, several cross-platform developers seem to take forever for implementing features on WebOS. Like Trileet and their newsreader NewsRoom hasn't seen an update in months while owners of their application can see regular updates to their Android application in the feed of their blog which is a pre-installed feed in the app.
Why are there so few application for WebOS if this is such a great development base? After 18 - 19 months there are approximately 2700 aps in the catelog. 2650 of those are crap! Four tip calculators?...give me a break. How many people need those? There are very very few serious aps being developed for WebOS. The long time Palm OS developers are not porting their products to WebOS. Why?
http://www.appcelerator.com/assets/appcelerator-mobile-developer-survey-...
Your link was cut off...here's a tiny url version: http://tiny.cc/5va4d
your missing the point. the problem isn't how easy it is for developers, they may prefer it because its really easy but it might not be financially smart for them to develop for webos, lets face it we're not a big group. Developers want to go where there is a bigger mass of potential customers.
dont get me wrong i agree with ppl that say "well its a smaller app cat so you will stand out more" yes very true, lets be honest when a new semi intresting app comes alone quite a few of us test it out because there just isn't that many new ones being churned out. but in the grand scheme of things, the devs are attracted to the idea of being exposed to 4+million people on iphones. or the growing mass of android ppl.
This is where I think the article is fundamentally flawed. It appears to make the claim that masses of developers are using webOS as a proving ground for developing their apps because of quick iteration on features. Instead the article is completely based on a single developer, developing a single application for several mobile platforms.
Nowhere in the article does it point out that this is 1 developer, it makes broad sweeping generalizations. They could have at least talked to several developers about why they love developing for webOS.
No. "developers" does NOT mean "all developers" or "most developers". It very specifically does NOT quantify how many developers... The article then says "one such developer...", which is also very specific. This article is not written in any misleading way.
You took the word out of context to prove your point; and you are correct as long as you only consider the literal meaning of the word. However, in the context of the article, it is used as a generalization and it is that generalization that some of the posters are disagreeing with.
The first paragraph starts out with "Developers have plenty of options..." and continues with "developers choose...". The author does not get specific until the second paragraph where a particular developer is discussed as an example.
As I mentioned above, this whole article is single sourced -- it relies on one, and only one, source: the blog entry linked to. Therefore there is no way the author can use the plural of a word -- he can say "developer" he cannot say "developers".
You may think this is nitpicking, I think this (and other articles as of late) is the beginning of the lose of P|C's objectivity. If this continues, it will not be long and this site will just be a propaganda arm of HPalm.