Chrome OS spotlights rapidly changing mobile Web environment

IDG News Service — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:08:51 -0400

Google's announcement of its ambitious Chrome OS has thrown a spotlight on a number of emerging Web technologies that promise to transform mobile application development.

For enterprise IT, the transformation means faster, simpler development of mobile applications that can run inside powerful modern Web browsers, many based on the open source Webkit technology, and mimic many of the characteristics of native applications that are written for and compiled to a specific underlying operating system.

Both Google with Chrome OS and Palm with its webOS are making use of these same technologies, but doing so outside the browser. Both are using a Linux kernel as the foundation, then marrying it with the latest version of the open source Webkit HTML rendering and JavaScript engine, a kind of "headless" browser. The Webkit engine will act as the execution engine for native applications, accessing device and Linux features as needed, written in JavaScript.

This new breed of mobile Web applications (and Google's major revision of Gmail for mobile earlier this year is a good example) can be stored locally, along with user and other data, so it can run even without an Internet connection. Written in JavaScript, these applications can run up to five times faster than just a year ago, thanks to a new generation of powerful JavaScript engines. They offer a degree of interactivity and richness not possible before. And, at least in theory, such applications could run with any of the modern browsers that also support the latest relevant standards, such as HTML 5 and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) 3.

They're much more sophisticated than Web widgets, or even the thousands of JavaScript or Zool extensions for FireFox, and much simpler to create than traditional browser plugins written in C or C++

But such mobile applications will also pose the same kind of security challenges as desktop browsers. Performance differences with native applications persist. Browser applications typically can't reach outside to access specific device features or OS services (though even that is in flux). And neither enterprise IT nor enterprise users may be ready to fully depend on their existing cellular or Wi-Fi networks for the essential Internet connectivity that these applications ultimately require.

"If you look at browser innovation over the last 12 months, there's been an unprecedented acceleration," says Matt Waddell, Chief of Staff, Mobile and Developer Products, Google. One area of innovation is the growing adoption of parts of the still-emerging HTML 5 spec. "[HTML 5] represents a brand new set of browser functionality, to enable an entirely new set of Web applications."

Google has already been making use of two key HTML 5 APIs: Database and Application (or "AppCache"). Both were used in the new mobile version of Gmail. Database lets a mobile browser locally store Gmail messages in a local MySQL database; AppCache lets it locally store the Gmail functions and user interface in JavaScript and CSS files.

Mobile users now are able to work offline with and manage their Gmail account, says Alex Nicolao, Engineering Manager, Gmail for Mobile, at Google. And developers can design and build "bigger" browser application, with more functions and features, because they don't have to be so concerned about network-determined "wait times," he says. Once the application and data is downloaded to the browser, where it executes, it's no longer waiting on cloud-based services mediated by low-bandwidth links.

"Now you can do the same kind of heavy lifting with large amounts of data on the client side," says Mike Smith, staff representative for the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) to the W3C HTML Working Group, which is drafting the HTML 5 specification. Previously, he says, the only way to keep any session data or state information locally was through cookies. With AppCache and Database, "you don't have to be doing expensive requests over the net to get data, once it's cached on the device."

CSS 3 promises to make browser-based application UIs far more like the richly interactive native applications. "CSS3 gives the develop far greater control over styling the user interface," says Ryan Seddon, Senior Frontend Web Developer with DTDigital, a Melbourne, Australia Web design firm. Seddon has his own Web site: The CSS Ninja.

"With CSS3, you can create effects that would usually [otherwise] require a mixture of CSS, JavaScript, and images, essentially reducing [page] load times and increasing the overall 'snappiness' of the Web app," Seddon explains.

But there are tradeoffs with the new generation of browser applications. Because JavaScript is not compiled for a given operating system, "you lose a lot a level of [application] optimization for the underlying platform," says Dan Sharoni, Emerging Mobility Lead, with Accenture Technology Labs, the R&D arm of the global consulting and technology services firm.

"It's a not a 'mobile phone' anymore: it's a computing platform," he says. "So it's very important to give developers access to those features so they can take advantage of them." One possible solution, he says, is for device makers create and publish new JavaScript APIs or other programs specifically for this purpose.

Enterprise developers need to be aware of limitations still inherent in mobile browsers, says Samir Karande, head of mobile vertical, at Persistent Systems, a global outsourced software development firm in Pune, India., with a decade of work in mobile applications. "If I want to place an e-commerce app on a mobile device, it may not be possible with just a browser app," he says. "Because I need personal information stored on the device, more than just a username and password stored in a cookie."

One of the big promises of the new generation of mobile browser applications is that they can be written once and then deployed easily by any compatible browser. But in practice things are not yet that simple, Karande says. "A browser might support HTML5, but not completely," he says. "If you have CSS and JavaScript, most likely every mobile operating system will present it differently. There are different versions of Webkit, and they may not all behave in the same way."

Infinity Software of Beaverton, Ore., offers a range of calculation programs, such as FastFigures, for PCs and mobile platforms, including the iPhone, Windows Mobile, and RIM's BlackBerry OS. A Web browser development model would simplify development and deployment and cut costs, says CEO, Elia Freedman, who started the company as a college senior 12 years ago, writing software for the PalmOS. But he's not doing it for two reasons.

"But I talked to my customers and they are not comfortable with [relying on] the Internet connections for their mobile devices," he says. "Having a Web-only app is a major problem because customers can't assume the network connection will be there, or be fast enough."

Secondly, FastFigure incorporates a powerful calculation engine written in C (another version is in Java) for optimal performance, and far beyond what JavaScript can handle.

It's especially frustrating to Freedman, who was excited by the original iPhone release because Apple insisted at the time it would only permit applications that would run inside its advanced mobile Safari browser. "It was the first time that mobile developers had a real browser to play with, with a real JavaScript engine, a real Web connection," he says. With the release of the Apple SDK for iPhone requiring applications to be written in Apple's Objective C, "Apple abandoned all the Web developers," he says. He blogs on this and other issues.

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Chrome OS spotlights rapidly changing mobile Web environment