(Duplicating this mail, as I wasn't subscribed to mobile-l a minute ago.)
On Sat, 16 Aug 2014, at 12:45, Nkansah Rexford wrote:
[...] The Wikipedia app is currently under good development and I think its doing great.
We don't need apps. We need mobile websites which work as good as an app does. Oh, the waste of effort.
I truly pledge you to work together to make a website which is so good that an 'app' is redundant.
svetlana
On 16 August 2014 00:29, svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au wrote:
We don't need apps.
Read this to find out why you're wrong: http://gigaom.com/2014/08/01/wikipedias-new-apps-are-good-for-you-but-theyre...
Dan
On Sun, 17 Aug 2014, at 00:18, Dan Garry wrote:
On 16 August 2014 00:29, svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au wrote:
We don't need apps.
Read this to find out why you're wrong: http://gigaom.com/2014/08/01/wikipedias-new-apps-are-good-for-you-but-theyre...
Dan
Why not use in-browser offline storage? http://www.html5rocks.com/en/features/storage
[then you're not missing out people who have neither android nor ios]
svetlana
On Sun, Aug 17, 2014 at 12:40 AM, svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au wrote:
Why not use in-browser offline storage? http://www.html5rocks.com/en/features/storage
One of my favorite articles: http://alistapart.com/article/application-cache-is-a-douchebag
The fact that you don't see the benefits of the native app over the mobile website is simply an indication that we still have a lot of work to do with the apps, which we are excited to do.
But, is it a waste of effort to bring a truly integrated, seamless Wikipedia experience to our users' mobile devices? I don't think so. Nor is it a waste of effort for the WMF to be seen as a driving force in mobile design and mobile user experience.
-Dmitry
On Sat, Aug 16, 2014 at 7:40 PM, svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au wrote:
On Sun, 17 Aug 2014, at 00:18, Dan Garry wrote:
On 16 August 2014 00:29, svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au wrote:
We don't need apps.
Read this to find out why you're wrong:
http://gigaom.com/2014/08/01/wikipedias-new-apps-are-good-for-you-but-theyre...
Dan
Why not use in-browser offline storage? http://www.html5rocks.com/en/features/storage
[then you're not missing out people who have neither android nor ios]
svetlana
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Dmitry Brant wrote:
The fact that you don't see the benefits of the native app over the mobile website is simply an indication that we still have a lot of work to do with the apps, which we are excited to do.
Partly this is because you don't support my mobile platform.
Dmitry Brant wrote:
But, is it a waste of effort to bring a truly integrated, seamless Wikipedia experience to our users' mobile devices? I don't think so. Nor is it a waste of effort for the WMF to be seen as a driving force in mobile design and mobile user experience.
I was assuming that integration and being seamless are easily doable from a web browser.
Offline storage is hard in a browser, as you pointed out; that's too much detail for me to understand quickly, and I have no comment yet. In principle, such concern is valid.
Documenting extra differences and shortcomings of web browsers could be a nice task.
svetlana
Offline storage is hard in a browser, as you pointed out; that's too much
detail for me to understand >quickly, and I have no comment yet. In principle, such concern is valid. Even the w3 held a working group for a while that was around how broken app cache was (http://www.w3.org/community/fixing-appcache/)
It is still broken and been so for many years, well documented since 2011: http://www.w3.org/2011/web-apps-ws/papers/Facebook.html
On Sun, Aug 17, 2014 at 5:33 AM, svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au wrote:
Dmitry Brant wrote:
The fact that you don't see the benefits of the native app over the
mobile
website is simply an indication that we still have a lot of work to do
with
the apps, which we are excited to do.
Partly this is because you don't support my mobile platform.
Dmitry Brant wrote:
But, is it a waste of effort to bring a truly integrated, seamless Wikipedia experience to our users' mobile devices? I don't think so.
Nor
is it a waste of effort for the WMF to be seen as a driving force in
mobile
design and mobile user experience.
I was assuming that integration and being seamless are easily doable from a web browser.
Offline storage is hard in a browser, as you pointed out; that's too much detail for me to understand quickly, and I have no comment yet. In principle, such concern is valid.
Documenting extra differences and shortcomings of web browsers could be a nice task.
svetlana
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Hi,
I had earlier (around middle of August) made an assumption that mobile apps are a waste of effort. I would like to apologize for that, here; I was assuming that in an ideal world, browsers are consistent, their styling is pretty, their cache and storage is functional and reliable. This is not the case, and mobile apps exist partly for this reason - to bring a reliable pretty application to a specific platform.
An interesting question is whether we can expect to see that ideal world coming. Is there something that prevents it from being reached, in theory? How does the Boot2Gecko project help to meet this goal, if at all?
svetlana
The general problem is that everything's a moving target; new capabilities come to the web browsers.... but often a year or two behind native app interfaces, or only for the latest versions. Android 2.3's browser is still hanging around out there, it's the IE 6 of the mobile web. :)
Boot2Gecko/Firefox OS is very interesting, but we don't have a lot of resources assigned to it right now. (Our Firefox OS app is based on the old PhoneGap-based web/native hybrid app codebase, but runs as a "pure" web app with no special on-device privileges.)
Currently the Wikipedia Zero team has ownership on the Firefox OS Wikipedia app as FxOS is mostly being rolled out in developing countries so that ties in with carrier relationships and preinstall agreements that are in that group's territory. If you're interested in helping out with refactoring it, some folks may be interested as well!
(Another initiative of interest is Chrome mobile apps -- I don't have a link handy but I've heard that Google's working on a Chrome-based web app runtime for at least Android phones that sounds similar to how Firefox for Android handles Firefox web apps, making them available "almost native" but with a specific browser runtime instead of the old crappy default browser.)
It might though be more interesting to try to bring progressive enhancement to the MediaWiki+MobileFrontend web interface; but it's tricky to make things like offline really work reliably without a lot of retooling of the frontend into JavaScript.
-- brion
On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 9:43 AM, Svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au wrote:
Hi,
I had earlier (around middle of August) made an assumption that mobile apps are a waste of effort. I would like to apologize for that, here; I was assuming that in an ideal world, browsers are consistent, their styling is pretty, their cache and storage is functional and reliable. This is not the case, and mobile apps exist partly for this reason - to bring a reliable pretty application to a specific platform.
An interesting question is whether we can expect to see that ideal world coming. Is there something that prevents it from being reached, in theory? How does the Boot2Gecko project help to meet this goal, if at all?
svetlana
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
On 16 August 2014 00:29, svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au wrote:
We don't need apps. We need mobile websites which work as good as an app does. Oh, the waste of effort.
It appears to me like you have issues with this project that go way beyond what I can help you with. I suggest you take it up with the senior management. I won't be responding to this thread further.
Dan
On Sun, 17 Aug 2014, at 10:04, Dan Garry wrote:
On 16 August 2014 00:29, svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au wrote:
We don't need apps. We need mobile websites which work as good as an app does. Oh, the waste of effort.
It appears to me like you have issues with this project that go way beyond what I can help you with. I suggest you take it up with the senior management. I won't be responding to this thread further.
Dan
That is OK, you and Yuvi Panda highlighted some important points. Thanks to both - I'll follow-up if I find solution to the application cache issues raised in the blog post linked earlier.
svetlana