Why Apple Wants Web Apps for the iPhone
Posted Monday June 18, 2007 in Business
At last week’s Apple World Wide Developer Conference, Apple CEO Steve Jobs revealed how third-party software developers could get their programs on the hotly-anticipated iPhone: they could write Web applications that iPhone users could access through the iPhone’s integrated Safari browser. A lot of traditional application developers are pissed off by this; a lot of Web developers are enthused. Apple doesn’t care. They didn’t choose this approach to make developers happy, or even for technical reasons; Apple is focusing on Web apps because this is the only strategy that will bring them back into the business space.
Apple and Business
Apple has had a sad and checkered history with business. The Apple II burst onto the scene because middle managers were buying the computer to run the first-ever spreadsheet application, VisiCalc. With VisiCalc, an executive could, in a few hours, model the effects of a wide range of possible business decisions, rather than waiting weeks or even months to see more limited models come out of a company’s finance department. Suddenly, Apples were on everyone’s desk — but business problems prevented the VisiCalc developers from keeping up with the market and soon Lotus 1-2-3 on the IBM PC was every executive’s favorite. At the same time, IT departments felt more comfortable buying products from the established IBM than the upstart Apple, and so the Apple IIs went away.
The Mac was a moderate success in business but Apple was always fighting an uphill battle against the entrenched PC, first running DOS and later Windows. As time passed, the range of applications available for the PC outstripped those for the Mac, and Macs substantially disappeared from business desktops.
Who will buy the iPhone?
But Apple needs business for the iPhone. Most — although by no means all — smartphone purchases are for business purposes, and, if Apple wants to dominate the smartphone category, it needs to get businesspeople to buy its phone. That’s not hard; the iPhone oozes the kind of cool that will make senior execs, salespeople, and creatives crave it. But, ultimately, the iPhone will be a flash in the pan if people can’t use it to accomplish the tasks that they need to accomplish every day, and, for businesspeople, that means the iPhone needs to work with the usual set of business applications.
Business and Web apps
A lot of those applications have been moving online lately. Everything from the comprehensive and high-end Salesforce.com to the fairly basic Google Docs & Spreadsheets lets businesspeople work with business applications online. And businesses are warming to Web apps. They offer good functionality, are available on the road, and free businesses from many IT costs — a good deal in many ways.
The iPhone and Web apps
On the other hand, the Mac is still missing key business applications. It’s possible that the upcoming ubiquity of the iPhone could drive programmers to port their applications to Mac OS X, which runs on both traditional Macintosh computers and the iPhone, but, given the iPhone’s innovative interface, it’s not clear that a port to the iPhone would mean a port to the desktop OS, or vice versa.
On the other hand, Web apps require no porting. With a full or close-to-full version of Safari onboard, the iPhone can run most Web apps.
Openness and Web apps
Best of all, Web application developers are incentivized to build applications that run in any browser. New cross-platform interface toolkits like that Yahoo! interface library and the Prototype framework let designers create cool interfaces that work everywhere, and the more browsers that your Web application can work in, the more customers you can have. The best Web application developers are committed to developing applications that work in all major browsers.
From Web apps to microformats
Apple has made the iPhone do more than display Web pages — it’s made the iPhone understand many common formats for data on the Internet. For instance, in the demo application Steve Jobs showed at WWDC, the iPhone automatically knew how to display data from a server that showed the Apple employee directory in LDAP format;1 the iPhone knew how to recognize the phone number in the employee’s directory data, dialing it with a click; it even knew how to recognize the address and show a Google map of it. There are open — free or licensable and publicly-available — formats for a lot of data delivered on the Internet, and new formats are being developed to identify increasingly specific and discrete kinds of data. If the iPhone knows how to recognize these formats, it can handle them appropriately and be incredibly useful.
Using the iPhone to keep business open
Today, many businesses keep directory information in Microsoft Exchange servers. Imagine an executive who buys a hip, sexy iPhone, enthusiastically takes it home, and then browses the company directory. The executive can read the directory online, through a Web interface, but, unlike in the ad, he can’t just click on someone’s address and get a map. What’s wrong? What do you mean, our servers use proprietary, closed Microsoft Exchange systems? Can’t they work with the iPhone? Well, is LDAP standard? Oh, it’s a free, open standard? Why don’t we use it? I want my iPhone to work like on TV. Make it happen.
So long as the coveted tool demands certain formats, Apple’s betting that executives will insist on those formats. By putting its money behind open formats, Apple has minimized IT departments’ ability to complain that they can’t deliver data in those formats.
Network speed
A lot of people complain about the speed of the AT&T network the iPhone is exclusively sold on; they suggest that, without a faster network, ultimately people won’t use Web apps on their iPhone. But moving data over the network is easy if you’re not transmitting extra information to present that data attractively — and the iPhone automatically provides attractive presentation for specialized formats and microformats. This means that the iPhone will be faster than any other phone on the same network, just because it won’t spend any time pushing around bits that only define appearance.
It’s not the killer platform, it’s the killer application
But why should Apple win at Web apps? Microsoft’s new Silverlight, and Adobe’s only slightly older Flex, are comprehensive platforms that let developers create complex Web applications that mimic traditional applications in functionality and usability. Both require plugins and services that may not be available on the iPhone. Why won’t proprietary, Windows-only software push business away from the iPhone, just like proprietary, Windows-only software pushed business away from the Mac?
Apple learned something interesting from the iPod. While Microsoft went and created its complex PlaysForSure system, a comprehensive music selling, purchasing, rights management, and playing platform, Apple built the iPod. The iPod was cool. The iPod was easier and more fun to use. Everyone wanted to own an iPod, even if it wasn’t a good platform for development.2 So PlaysForSure died, and iPods are ubiquitous. And hardware developers have invented thousands of products for the iPod, because everyone has one.
Silverlight, I’m sure, is a great platform, as is Flex. But nobody’s using them yet, and the iPhone is cool. The iPhone has great usability and looks fun. The iPhone has the potential to become the premier platform on which Web applications are used. Business application developers moved to Windows because everyone had a Windows computer.3 Silverlight or not, everyone will develop Web applications for the iPhone because it will be the hottest new phone and most exciting new deployment environment in the next year. And, even if they don’t, so long as a developer designs a Web application so that it can be used on the most platforms possible — as makes business sense for the vast majority of Web applications — that application will run on the iPhone. So Silverlight and Flex don’t matter, only open standards like AJAX and HTML and LDAP and hCard.
Betting on UI
Of course, open standards and standards-compliant Web applications can be used anywhere. MP3s can also be played anywhere; they’re being played on iPods because iPods are cool and easy-to-use. Apple’s betting that it can deliver a similar experience with the iPhone — that nobody will be able to match its combination of cool, ease-of-use, and features. If you’ve ever used a cell phone, and struggled with a mediocre user interface, then you know that’s a good bet. And it’s a brave bet — Apple’s challenging itself to be the best.
From iPhone to the Mac
There’s a good spillover to this strategic choice. If a Web application can run on an iPhone, it can run on a Mac. After an executive has become used to using a Web application, why won’t she want the sexy-looking Macbook Pro with the lighted keyboard that’s easy to type on in the dark? After all, it runs the same Web applications that she uses every day,4 and it looks better than that plasticky Dell or boxy ThinkPad. Maybe some people will make this choice, maybe not; either way, it’s a side benefit that Apple gets for free. And that’s good business.
1 I’m aware that LDAP is a protocol that delivers data in LDIF format, but that’s an unnecessary level of detail for the argument I’m presenting here. The overall point is that, by betting on LDAP servers, and other open protocols and formats, Apple has put itself in a powerful position.
2 In fact, iPod + iTunes + FairPlay may qualify as a platform, just a closed one.
3 And more people bought Windows computers because they had the needed business applications.
4 Obviously, this is a scary thought for desktop application developers. And, it’s true, they don’t like the iPhone’s focus on Web apps. But Apple lost the battle for the desktop more than ten years ago; why would it refight that bloody disaster? The company’s better off changing the game. And top Web app developers love it.
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