Super Volatile

A lot of people think this is a discussion largely about the future of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. While these are certainly important components which influence the web greatly, I think they actually represent the least important “pieces” of the web. A web composed of XML and Python would in my opinion still be the web. Alternatively, a native platform that happened to use HTML and JavaScript but forced you through a marketplace would hold very few of the virtues of the web.

Take a look at iTunes: it is well known that the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) is written in HTML and JavaScript and hosted in a WebKit View within the app. However, since it is confined to the iTunes cage, it couldn’t behave any less like the web.

A voice in the debate sparked by Joe Hewitt on the development of web technologies, especially in mobile.

What makes the internet special is that it is a magical enabler of what the Stanford scholar Barbara van Schewick calls "permissionless innovation". If you're bright and have a good idea that can be implemented via software, then the internet will run it for you, with no questions asked and with very low entry barriers. At the moment, there are no gatekeepers who can keep out an innovator, no incumbents who can impose a swingeing tax on an innovative idea. But an internet accessed mainly via smartphones would be a very different kind of space – dominated by giant companies determined to repel newcomers, to protect obsolete business models and ensure that innovation happens at a pace determined by them rather than by the possibilities of technology and human ingenuity.

How smarter devices put innovation inherent to the internet in danger. However, computers still enable creativity that's not possible on smartphones or tablets. As long as that's the case, internet innovation will thrive.

Link via @helen_off_troy.

If we calculate it across the total number of Wooden Labyrinth 3D games downloaded, Qvik has earned a "massive" 0.24 Euro cents (0.3 US cents) per game download. One quarter of one Euro cent, or almost one third of one US cent, per downloaded game. Thats your business case right there.

On making money from mobile apps. Worth reading.

Because browser detection is never perfect, web sites should let readers choose between mobile and full content. They can try to guess the right version by default, but please let users opt in or out.

On usability of automatic switching between mobile and desktop versions of websites, based on User Agent detection.

In 2011, we think that mobile web technology is firmly back in play, and an area of renewed attention for many developers. We think Apple has a great opportunity to build again on the platform’s original prospect of first-class web applications.

Not that Apple seems to care about what developers want, but still, these things would be very much welcome.

Above all, do users care? I doubt it, as few, if any, can tell. If it works well, and looks good, they’ll use it, and if not, they won’t. Users could care less, the same attitude they have had towards most platforms for decades.

The author argues that it doesn't really matter if the mobile app was built with web technologies, especially when it's deployed with tools like Phone Gap.

The iPhone and iPad user is interested in buying content–that’s one of the reasons they bought the device. The Android buyer is different. It’s a great phone–make no mistake about it. But if you really want first rate digital content on a device, your first look will probably be an iPhone. And on the tablet, an iPad.

Clearly, market size itself is not the only factor when picking up a platform to develop for.

I think the whole 'war for mobile' will end in exactly the same way as the war for the desktop did. The web standards,phones and browsers will adapt to the point where 'always on' is the norm, all traffic including voice is data and 'apps' will be delivered through the web rather than installed from an App store. Someone might even win the war and end up with an end-run around their victory by the users that simply use whatever browser they've got and they won't care one bit what OS their phone runs.

That seem inevitable too as well, but before that happens, the cake IS there and surely it is tasty.

And then Android really began to make a run. Android market share increased and more and more customers were asking for Android apps for our web apps. So we stopped and thought about it for a bit. Do we want to have to hire an iOS developer and an Android developer? That’s a lot of specialization, and we’re usually anti-specialization when it comes to development.

When 37signals people write about what they're doing, they make it sound revolutionary and extremely creative. However, this is really the most sane approach to make mobile apps. I hope it will make more people reflect on the hype of writing native apps for closed environments that cover small fractions of the market.

The would-be suicide bomber was planning to detonate a suicide belt bomb near Red Square, a plan that was foiled when her wireless carrier sent her an SMS while she was still at a safe house, setting off the bomb and killing her. The message reportedly wished her a Happy New Years, according to the report, which sourced the info from security forces in Russia.

Ultimate proof that cellphones kill.