stanlemon

So after writing my diddy on Appification and reacting to RIM's CEO's remarks at the Web 2.0 Summit I saw come across Twitter a link to an exchange between John Resig (of jQuery fame) and Thomas Zuchs. The argument is over Zepto which attempts to be a very platform-specific replacement for jQuery. Zepto is specifically focussed on Webkit mobile, ie. iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad though it seems Android gets a little love too.

The reason this is relevant to my Appification diddy is because I essentially argued that developing specifically for iOS was a good thing. I still believe that, but I think there is an important distinction that needs to be made. If you are developing a web site that delivers content you have a responsibility to make that as portable as possible. If you are developing a web application, I believe, you get a little more license to get platform specific and even dare I say neglect other platforms.

Content needs to be accessible, and so a progressively degrading user experience becomes important. If I am posting material I want disseminated everyone from Kindle users to iPhone users to Windows users need to be able to get at that content. As an app developer though, I may be developing some exclusively to run in an environment because that environment caters the functionality I am trying to deliver.

Consider the changes in iOS 4.2 that bring the Accelerometer to Webkit. To the best of my knowledge there is no other web platform that adds this functionality, so if you want to develop a cool web app with roll, pitch and yaw you're out of luck if you want to being universally run. If you're developing a web app experience for Webkit you're in luck though, because iOS can do that!

I think this is an important and helpful distinction to make, and I want to be clear that I am absolutely a proponent of cross-platform compatibility when it comes to content. If you don't believe me, check out the Higher Things website in Internet Exploder 6!