Web browser developer Opera Software states in a digi.no article (Norwegian, but an English google translation can be found here) that iPhone and Android native apps will die and be replaced by HTML5 web apps.
I understand why they have to “predict” this… They have to say it to push their stock value and I don’t doubt that they’ve joked about it in the coridors at Opera HQ.
It’s understandable that a browser developer would want everything to be hosted within a browser control or windows, but is it possible? I don’t think so.
So, from a technological point of view how would a world that needed web browsers to be able to run applications? It would be boring, very boring.
How would phone manufacturers compete and differentiate? When every single bit of innovation had to be standardized before it was implemented into every browser and then made available to developers, according to the update frequency of the browser provider? Or does the dream also include impending doom for all but Opera? (one ring (circle? O-logo?) to bind them all….)
I predict (rather risk-free) that native and web apps will co-exist for as long as there is more than one mobile operating system and more than one device manufacturer. In a “native app free world” we, the developers would be left waiting for implementation. Firstly, any technological advancement would have to become part of a standard. Then every browser vendor would have to implement the standard before we would be allowed to use it.
It just won’t work. Sorry Opera you’re just sooo off here..
