Hi,
I'm going to offer another perspective that's perhaps not in line with
the popular opinion. This is based on a couple of key product and design
decisions:
* Apps are primarily about mobile where the "browser" is either an
invisible runtime (Android) or in the case of B2G, the phone is the browser.
* Apps are peers to the browser application. A user's mental model for
apps is that they launch apps from native launch targets (such as the
taskbar on a windows desktop, their home screen on their phone etc) and
these apps run *outside* the frame of the browser application and not as
a tab within the frame of the browser.
Both of these are enabled in Firefox (nightly) via the WebRT mode/feature.
Firefox is also the first (and currently, only) browser to implement
WebRT mode.
Over time, we expect other browsers to implement WebRT mode at which
point users will have the ability to choose which WebRT they'd prefer to
use to execute their HTML 5 apps. We have been talking to the Chrome
team about this idea for the past few weeks/months.
Until such time, this is what I believe we should do:
* We should proudly promote Firefox (WebRT specifically) as the solution
that is going to offer the best possible experience for users looking
for cross platform apps.
* We should strongly encourage users visiting the marketplace from other
browsers to download Firefox (and hence WebRT) and use it as the runtime
for HTML 5 apps.
Having said that, I also believe we should allow users to refuse the
better experience and offer a downgraded experience (such as "visiting"
their installed apps from a non-WebRT browser, launching these apps
inside a tab etc).
The web is the platform - it is just unevenly distributed. :)
Regards,
Ragavan
Gervase Markham wrote:
This is a different question to "native Linux support". I'm asking as a
result of the discussion in the meeting on Monday, where the position on
this question didn't seem to be clear.
It's also not a marketing but a technical question, so follow-ups to
mozilla.dev.webapps.
For quite a long time, there are going to be people out there using
browsers which do not support native integration. Firefox on Linux for
now, plus also IE, Safari, Chrome etc, plus Safari on iOS and other
platforms where Firefox is not welcome.
Our principle is "the web is the platform". What is the user experience
going to be like for users of those browsers visiting the Mozilla
Marketplace?
Here's what I think it should be:
* For free apps, users can click and just start using the app in a
browser window.
If this doesn't pretty much work _today_, then I'd say we've gone very
wrong somewhere with "the web is the platform".
* For paid apps, users should be able to go through a payment process
and then get a login to use the app.
This probably requires more support from the marketplace, and may
require the user to have a Persona account. That's OK - Persona works
everywhere, by design.
Users with downlevel browsers who use the marketplace won't be able to
get OS integration. They also might not be able to use some apps for
technical reasons - if IE doesn't support an API for accessing the
camera, then the "Photo Me!" app won't work. (Although for popular
downlevel browsers, we might look at doing shims/plugins.)
But other than those reasons, if "the web is the platform", why can't
they use the apps?
So:
- Is this the plan?
- If it is the plan, does it work today?
- If it doesn't work today, when will it work, and what help is needed?
- If it's not the plan, why on earth not? :-)
Gerv
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