www.chetansharma.com/blog/category/us-wireless-market/p -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 3/6/2009
Last Visited: 6/27/2009
These features include a graphics tool called Canvas, "persistent storage," and an "application cache," explains Shyam Sheth, product manager on Google's mobile team.
Canvas is something of an alternative to the popular Adobe Flash software that's commonly used to create graphics and animation on the Web.
Persistent storage provides a way for data, originally on a remote server (such as Google's e-mail servers), to be stored locally, on the device.
The HTML 5 application cache keeps important information about an application on the device that allows it to open quickly, as if it were running directly on the hardware instead of remotely.
The iPhone version of Gmail uses only HTML 5, whereas Android uses a combination of HTML 5 and Gears (a Google software add-on that enables its Web apps to run offline).
Sheth says that there are a number of advantages for developers who build mobile applications via the Web.
While there are only three major operating systems for desktops that developers need to learn, there are tens of mobile-device platforms with various different requirements.
Applications can be built on the Web and need to be modified only slightly for different mobile devices.
"Given the number of platforms we have in the mobile space," says Sheth, "we really need a unifying platform . . . That's why Google is so heavily investing in the Web becoming the common platform."
Sheth notes that many developers are already familiar with writing software for the Web.
Another advantage of mobile Web apps, he says, is the ability to roll out an update without needing to deploy new code to individual devices.
11 online sources [ view sources ]
Profile is not claimed [ claim profile ]
