This is ultimately it. LinkedIn is now a large business, with a very large technology team. That they can spend the time and effort to optimize each platform should surprise absolutely no one.
But does it apply to you and me? In most cases, not even remotely.
I was recently involved with a team building a pretty amazing, full-featured web app (in the investor information space). Out of the pure magic of HTML, most of the app worked brilliantly not only on the desktop, but on the iPad, iPhone, Android devices, and so on. There were small edge issues, but overall it was simply brilliant, and for an investor on the go they could easily get an up to date snapshot of their portfolio with dynamic graphics, etc. It was a complete win for the web.
Yet even there a narrative erupted where some people pushed hard for native apps. That this tiny team of six developers that apparently needed to fracture to start building iOS, Android, etc, clients. It was utter insanity, and of course LinkedIn and Facebook both appeared as if they were the benchmarks we should follow ("See, they abandoned HTML! So should we").
Sure, if you have the resources of LinkedIn and Facebook, feel confident making those decisions. For the rest of us, HTML5 is pretty fracken amazing.
> It was utter insanity, and of course LinkedIn and Facebook both appeared as if they were the benchmarks we should follow ("See, they abandoned HTML! So should we").
This story amused me to no end. About 18 months ago, I worked on a team that made the (not unanimous) decision to build a hybrid app, and those who pushed for that technology pointed to LinkedIn and Facebook as the benchmark we should follow ("See, they use web code in an app! So should we!")
It's easy to say this with hindsight, but we really should have just picked the best technology for our team and product, instead of assuming that larger companies knew something special or magic that we didn't.
Indeed, that was an earlier iteration of the internal argument (the appeal to authority of Facebook and LinkedIn and their well known embracing of HTML). What you say is absolutely true, and the truth is that these shops are staffed with often pretty standard technology guys, but because they're big everything they say and do gets more technically credibility than it perhaps should. Recall when the startup world was rushing to listen to Digg's profound statements on databases (most of which we quickly debunked)
I typed in my comment pretty quickly, and thus ignored the point you make, but I concur with it completely. It's all about tradeoffs, and for a small team/startup, you're going to have to look at them more carefully than a big company that can just throw money at things.
That they can spend the time and effort to optimize each platform should surprise absolutely no one.
The first point is that you're doing this anyway with an app that has any complexity. Each mobile browser and device has its own quirks. If you're going to spend optimization time for each device you might as well go native and make the most of that time.
That this tiny team of six developers that apparently needed to fracture to start building iOS, Android, etc, clients. It was utter insanity, and of course LinkedIn and Facebook both appeared as if they were the benchmarks we should follow ("See, they abandoned HTML! So should we").
Our first mobile app was native iOS and built by 3 of us in about 8 weeks. One of the team had some iOS experience at the time. I prototyped the Android version in a weekend and we had a releasable version ~6 weeks later with 2 of us working on it. Neither of us had any prior Android experience and that other guy had never done Java.
My point is that iOS/Android apps are not hard to build natively. That time spent means you can get the best the device can offer. Of course if you're only showing a simple web page opposed to an app then html5 may make more sense, but the discussion here is about apps.
The first point is that you're doing this anyway with an app that has any complexity.
Enormously complex application with widgets, dynamic graphs, etc. Close to nothing had to be customized for those targets because it used standardization and shims where possible, and already was built to work across the major desktop platforms. I read this "you'll have to dramatically rewrite anyways" claim a lot and it simply doesn't ring true.
My point is that iOS/Android apps are not hard to build natively. That time spent means you can get the best the device can offer.
Is it possible for you to point to the app? I've done a significant amount of Android development (no iOS dev to this point) and my natural assumption is that a short effort app by people new to the platform would generally be terrible (which is sadly the case for most apps on the platform).
But does it apply to you and me? In most cases, not even remotely.
I was recently involved with a team building a pretty amazing, full-featured web app (in the investor information space). Out of the pure magic of HTML, most of the app worked brilliantly not only on the desktop, but on the iPad, iPhone, Android devices, and so on. There were small edge issues, but overall it was simply brilliant, and for an investor on the go they could easily get an up to date snapshot of their portfolio with dynamic graphics, etc. It was a complete win for the web.
Yet even there a narrative erupted where some people pushed hard for native apps. That this tiny team of six developers that apparently needed to fracture to start building iOS, Android, etc, clients. It was utter insanity, and of course LinkedIn and Facebook both appeared as if they were the benchmarks we should follow ("See, they abandoned HTML! So should we").
Sure, if you have the resources of LinkedIn and Facebook, feel confident making those decisions. For the rest of us, HTML5 is pretty fracken amazing.