Fans of the popular Flash-to-HTML crunching Skyfire browser on the iPhone (and many other platforms) will be happy to know that the Skyfire team is working on an iPad-specific version. At the time of writing, there aren’t many details to share. Ok, there aren’t any details to share. For a possible release date keep checking back.
So far, my personal experience with Skyfire has been pretty good. The only hiccups were around launch day when the servers imploded under the insane stress placed upon them by countless hundreds of thousands if not millions of users. So stay tuned iPad users, your day is soon coming…
Yesterday we told you that Skyfire was officially coming to iOS this Thursday at 9am. Well, we were wrong — but in a good way. Apple jumped the gun because Skyfire is now live in the App Store!
A quick refresher as to why you should care about Skyfire:
Play millions of embedded flash videos
Desktop/Mobile options
Private Browsing
…And pure blinding speed
There’s plenty more to like about Skyfire, but you should really experience it for yourself. Pick up Skyfire in the App Store for $2.99 — [iTunes Link]
Update
Well that was quick — Skyfire has officially been pulled from the App Store…by Skyfire. Apparently, they drastically underestimated the wrath tens of million sof iOS users would place on their Flash-to-HTML 5 rendering servers. The short oversight nearly melted their headquarters (just kidding). In all seriousness, Skyfire has said that they are upgrading their systems as fast as possible and that we’ll see Skyfire back up in the App Store at the earliest possible time.
Did you snag it before it was pulled? How’s your experience been so far?
It isn’t often that we praise Internet Explorer for it’s web savy, specification prowess. But IE9 is turning out to be quite a contender in the desktop browser wars. Let the image above do the talking — you can see it’s speed and fairly standards compliant. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that the HTML 5 isn’t finished yet. Several tantalizing features of HTML 5 like web workers, file API’s, local storag, and several other more minor specs are not yet supported. As such, the browser developers can’t possibly come to terms with something they don’t know how to develop for.
Another thing worth questioning as well is just how long Microsoft could remain on top. Sure their latest browser rocks socks right now, but how will it fair in 6 months time when several of the other major browsers have gone through an update or two? IE9 is a slow beast to update, especially with major advancements. Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari are usually the ones who test the edges of the web first.
As IE 9 inches closer to release, it will sure be interesting to see further refinements and how its competitors respond.
A good article on Webmonkey shows things may not be as rosey as the test portrays…
Site owners and social bugs: how would you like it if YouTube spit out some embed code that automatically served up HTML5 or Flash versions on the fly depending on the end users’ system? New tests being conducted by the online video giant are doing just that. What it means for those who spend a lot of time copying & pasting embed code is that those who want to test out the latest in HTML5 video don’t have to choose between the two technologies. Now the code does it all on its own!
The only real big caveat to HTML 5 video still holding off mass adoption by some companies is the lack of advertising potential. HTML 5 doesn’t have a cut and dry method for easily delivering ads. In these circumstances, the hybrid HTML 5/Flash embed code defaults to Flash. Conversely , if an end user is on a system that doesn’t have Flash installed, the HTML 5 video will automatically start playing.
Oh the irony. Apple today took the wraps off of a new HTML 5 & Web Standards page, showing off to devs and end users alike what HTML 5 and other bleeding edge web standards are capable of. Only problem — this “openness” is limited (artificially) to only Apple’s Safari browser.
Now I know for a fact the latest betas of Chrome and Firefox can do at least half the stuff in the demos. But I digress. For Safari users, head on over to the HTML 5 Demo Page and have fun.
For the rest of us…you can skip Apple’s artificial limitations by pointing your seemingly incompetent browsers here — (developer.apple.com/safaridemos/).
Microsoft is certainly finding every last duck and throwing them into line aren’t they? I mean, WinPhone 7 is shaping up to be quite the mobile OS savior. Windows 7 is right up their with 10.6 as far as desktop OS’s go (subjective, I know). And now, one of the most criticized Microsoft products, Internet Explorer, is shaping up to be quite the looker even it’s extremely early preview stage. The biggest news on the IE 9 front is the move to a webkit-based rendering engine. This change will finally allow Redmond’s in-house browser to stay neck and neck with faster, “more modern” browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, and Safari to name a few.
So Microsoft unveiled a boat load of information about their next browser. How does it stack up to the competition? In short: pretty darn good. HTML 5 support is the biggie of course with the video support via .h264 as well as hardware accelerated graphics being pegged as other reasons to get all excited. In regards to the embedded video support, at M’s demo today in Vegas, two 720p videos were shown off side by side, stutter free and smooth as warm butter. That’s something I can certainly appreciate even if several other browsers have featured the same features for months now.
Another bragging point can be seen above in the rendering performance with the new webkit roots. Granted, it’s still not as fast as several newer browsers such as the freshly-out-of-beta Opera 10.5 or Chrome 5 dev version. But IE 9 itself is in the extreme early stages. A notable and intriguing showing no less.
I’ve been a very outspoken critic of Microsoft for a while. Not because I loathe them, but because I honestly hope that someday an employee would stumble by here and think: “Hmmm, where can we improve?” Whether they heard my criticisms or not, across the board Microsoft is making some decent and noteworthy strides. I’d even go as far to say that I’d love to see Microsoft take the whole IE9, Windows 7, Xbox, Media Center ecosystems and mesh them altogether into some uber platform that truly fits together — every nook and cranny. Such cohesion is generally an Apple-only trait. But if Microsoft can pull it off, they’ll have something special.
Excited — if not for the shear awesomeness (I can’t believe I’m saying “awesome” — in a positive tone — and “IE” in the same sentence) of any particular Microsoft product of late but instead of the overall picture that finally looks to be coming together? Focusing more specifically on IE 9, is this the browser from Microsoft that will finally be worth using and even recommended?
The curious bunch can pick up a copy of the early IE 9 preview here+. Bear in mind however that it is extremely basic as of right now, lacking even a basic address bar. Let us know how it goes for you!
If those accidental shots of the iPad running flash on Apple’s sight the other day created any sense of hope in your little heads, it’s best to go on ahead and chuck said hope right out the window. Shortly after the flash supporting iPad video was spied on Apple’s site, the video was removed and replaced with a blue brick displaying video indicating that flash was in fact not present. But the real knee-jerker is El Jobso response when questioned about Adobe, Adobe’s response to Apple’s resistance to include their products, and the future of the mobile internet…
Per Wired interview with Steve Jobs:
On Google: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullshit.” Audience roars.
About Adobe: They are lazy, Jobs says. They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it. They don’t do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy, he says. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.
Clearly Adobe and Apple have some chips on their shoulders regarding each other. On one hand, I’m glad Apple is standing up to Adobe as they pretty much hold a monopoly in the whole internet video thing with Flash. At the same time, consumers should at least have an option should they not? Perhaps acting as if it doesn’t exist at all and pushing HTML5 on the masses will get this whole Flash defection moving all the quicker no?
I’m just ready to open up to tabs with heavy amounts of video content and not have my computer come to a halt because the flash content is rapping my processor. Am I alone?
The App Store is for mobile devices what iTunes was for mp3 players. Apple’s 180 on native applications after first announcing web apps were the way to do back in 2007 was a shock to many and welcomed by most. Since the App Store’s launch however, numerous complaints have been made and even websites created to highlight Apple’s draconian and sometimes senseless decisions concerning the App Store and polices within. It is that negative image and bad press that has re-energized the view of many iPhone devs into the world of web apps.
Wait a second. Weren’t web apps poo-pooed because they were inferior to native apps back in ’07? Why yes, yes they were. Don’t forget however that the mobile market has undergone some vast changes over the last year and a half. Not only has the mobile app world changed in regard to the limits mobile apps could obtain but also in the technologies used for said apps. Like their native cousins, web apps and the supporting technology have equally improved.
We are now at a point where tools such as “PastryKit” allow web developers to code and create webapps that feature some of the most desktop/native-like style and features yet, blurring the line between what is native and what is web. Right about now you’re probably asking yourself what the heck PastryKit is. Allow me to indulge…
PastryKit
PastryKit is an innovative and constantly improving set of tools allowing web apps. A blend of multiple technologies and languages including JavaScript, CSS, and some supporting graphics resources ensures the new generation of web apps is more robust, functional, and visually appealing. Need an example? If you own an iPhone, simply navigate to support.apple.com/manuals/iphone/ and notice the iPhone optimized manual that loads. Said manual relies on — you guessed it — PastryKit.
For now, consumers will have to wait it out or figure out the workings of PastryKit themselves as Apple hasn’t released the necessary information and source material to include PastryKit in any non-Apple/3rd party solutions. Such an approach has to at least have to do in some part with preventing App Store devs an easy out from App Store restrictions by way of open and free web apps powered by PastryKit. Still, those with the know-how will figure it out soon enough and spread the knowledge to others.
I’m not a developer so I couldn’t begin to explain the pros and cons to each method being used, but if any developer — native or web — want’s to speak up and give some insight into this hotly debated topic, feel free to jump in.
Even though Apple’s App Store continually gets knocked for god awful delays in getting apps approved, updates issued, etc., Apple will never close down the actual approval process. Sad as it is, it’s just something we’ll have to live with. But devs who don’t want to deal with App Store woes have a new tool in their arsenal — HTML5.
The iPhone’s Safari browser supports HTML5. What’s the big deal? HTML5 allows web pages and web apps to act and display extremely close to what an actual native app would appear. The benefits of course are instant updates, not approval wait process, and no nanny deciding what is/isn’t acceptable. It’s no secret the approvers behind the whole shindig aren’t exactly the most consistent or bright so any chance to get away from the hot mess (this time hot mess is not good) that is the approval process will be gladly taken.
It’s rather funny actually. If web apps and HTML 5 continue growing in popularity, it will make a complete circle in the iPhone platform and mobile platform as a whole. When the iPhone first launched, Apple made a big deal about web apps and how native apps were dead. The web apps of 2007 were just so-so which didn’t please end users whom demanded a more desktop-like experience that native apps still hold over web apps. Then 2008 came as did the app store which as we have witnessed, has taken the mobile market by storm. Finally, we arrive here at the end of 2009 with developers once again eying web apps as a replacement for native applications.
One such company that is pushing the App Store model out of the way is Nextstop. Their self-titled app is purely web based and allows users to share cool things to do around your current location. The reasons Nextstop gave Scobleizer for ditching on-device apps were pretty much the same thing I’ve mentioned above:
Quick, uninhibited updates
easy “copy&paste” route to make actual app later down the road
Easier to develop and debug
Better fits larger number of users across multiple platforms
All are noteworthy reasons to go it alone with an HTML 5 powered web app. Though one problem that I don’t see with an immediate fix is how do you make money? Mobile ads are of course a given but I’m talking more in lines with the typical “app entrance fee” to purchase the app. Maybe I’m overlooking something incredibly easy here…? Nextop isn’t alone. With continuous advancements in HTML technology, it’s only a matter of time before native apps lose dominance to web apps as more developers make the switch, moving to an ultimately cheaper “platform” to develop for.
Check out Nextstop explaining their thoughts and development path below:
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The App Store is for mobile devices what iTunes was for mp3 players. Apple’s 180 on native applications after first announcing web apps were the way to do back in 2007 was a shock to many and welcomed by most. Since the App Store’s launch however, numerous complaints have been made and even websites created to highlight Apple’s draconian and sometimes senseless decisions concerning the App Store and polices within. It is that negative image and bad press that has re-energized the view of many iPhone devs into the world of web apps.
Even though Apple’s App Store continually gets knocked for god awful delays in getting apps approved, updates issued, etc., Apple will never close down the actual approval process. Sad as it is, it’s just something we’ll have to live with. But devs who don’t want to deal with App Store woes have a new tool in their arsenal — 
