Hello Inside iPhone readers. I'm Dave Aiello, an Internet application developer and ice hockey official. I've been blogging at Operation Gadget for almost five years, and I've been a proud owner of an iPhone since June 30, 2007, which is Day 1.
I'm joining the Inside iPhone team to contribute to the blog, and perhaps write a feature article or two if they'll let me.
I've got some experience developing web applications for the iPhone, so I hope to be able to talk about why it's premature to suggest that native iPhone applications will replace all well-designed, iPhone-centric web apps.
I spent this past weekend riveted to my desk chair, playing with the new iPhone 2.0 Firmware and the iTunes App Store. I installed a bunch of native iPhone apps from the App Store over the weekend, and wondered aloud for a few of them, "... and this is better than an iPhone web app because?"
On the other hand, I installed some iPhone apps against my better judgement and ended up saying, "Wow, the developers added some unexpected value to this native app." I'll discuss the applications I tried and why I felt the way I did in my next article.
I hope to have fun in my time here and contribute something interesting to the conversation. Please let me know what you think of the work I'm doing, and I'll see you around the site.
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Web apps are only available if you have Internet connectivity, which is a rather large problem that makes them mere curiosities rather than anything actually useful.
@Jeremy - I wouldn't agree with that. An iPhone is built for flexible communications. If not WiFi, 3G; if not 3G, 2G. I think I counted 7 supported cellular bands that the phone supports. A phone is a communications device at heart. For me, apps for an iPhone without communications is more curious.
Dave - glad to have your perspective at this blog. I myself have been struggling with where and how to draw the line between web apps and native apps (in general, not just for the iPhone). And having experienced the instability (performance and crashing problems) of the current state of iPhone OS 2.0 apps, this question has again come to the fore of my mind.
Sorry for the delay in responding @saggymac. I started a new job this week (in addition to this new freelance writing gig), and I'm sure you know all of the issues that crop up at times like that.
There are many iPhone apps that only really make sense in a web context @Jeremy. For instance, who really needs a stand-alone Twitter client? I would argue that 90%+ of the functionality can be accomplished by a web app. Hahlo is a great example of this.