CLOUD APPS – JUST BUILD ONE VERSION

Posted on June 30, 2011

Apple came along and created  ’apps’
And very good they are
Everybody loves apps and everybody wants apps
Thus every platform and device needs to have apps
And of course a suitable app store from where consumers can fill there device

But for Apple it was easy
They have one device with one OS and one screen resolution
Creating an app for multiple platforms is no fun
In fact, it is a nightmare (believe me I have lived that nightmare)

You begin with one platform – lets say android.
Android define three screen sizes; small, medium and large.
For an app with 10 key screens
You will need to design a total of 30 screens.

Now lets add Java touch (think Nokia).
Maybe just two key resolutions
Thats another 20 screens to design

Now add Java non-touch, Blackberry and Windows
Suddenly you are designing 80 screens for your simple app
thats 8 variations of each screen

This is not a lot of fun for anyone involved in the project
And a huge waste of time and money
(and that is not to mention all the time coding each of these different versions)


This is another great reason to be moving towards HTML 5 apps,
or Cloud Apps as a colleague called them the other day.

We keep the strict UI – this is great for users
We keep the tightly focused functionality – also great for users
We loose the constant updates

And we only design and build one version