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Tim Bray is joining Google as a “Developer Advocate”. In the blog post where he announces this, he is excited about Android as more open, more developer-friendly platform. I will agree with both those points.

This, however, struck me as a bit odd:

…

What I specifically find…

That’s just two different things: web apps & phone native apps.

Right now, phones are still “limited” devices when it comes to web experience. Native apps make efficient use of the resources & need little data transfer compared to the browser. Example: the facebook app. Problem: you need platform specific apps for Symbian, Antroid, Blackberry, iPhone…

Web apps use the browser. I don’t use a facebook app on my laptop - my browser does the job. And data transfer? It’s higher volume, but I don’t care since I have a fast data flatrate.

Why apps then? Because current phones have relatively small screens & little power, plus limited data bandwidth. The more powerful phones you see over the next years - like Nokias N900 which has a 800 × 480 running a 600 MHz ARM, which is quite big compared to my first CRT who had 640x480 and ran on my 33 MHz 386 - the more mobile web apps you’ll see.

The iPhone is one step ahead, since it was mostly sold with data contracts during a time when there simply was no big mobile web demand yet. Now, it’s using it’s headstart to dominate the market.

I’m really curious how this is going to develop over the next couple of years.