Why spend your life recompiling native client apps when you have HTML5 and the mighty mobile web at your disposal? WhitherApps sets out to debunk some contemporary mobile myths.
WhitherApps is a bandwagon-busting experiment. I believe there are far too many native client apps which could have been far better written as mobile web apps. What I’m trying to do with the project is take a few particularly obvious examples, apply a little reverse-engineering, and rewrite them, warts and all, with web technologies.
I’m focussing on native client apps that are free to download. These wouldn’t have suffered commercially had they been written this way in the first place. Obviously, I’ll also focus on feasible genres of apps. No 3D games or background apps, for example. To start with, informational media apps (such as newspapers and broadcasters) will be in the spotlight.
But otherwise, I may not need to pull too many punches. Offline access? Through the wonders of HTML5, that should be OK. Native device API access? Well, BONDI and proprietary libraries permitting, I’ll have a go – and there’s always PhoneGap too.
Each post on the site will be a walkthrough (or part of a walkhrough) of the process. As I get my hands dirty, from the protocol-sniffing to the pixel-jiggling, you can follow the steps I took.
Stay tuned and wish me luck!