The interaction gap between the Mobile Web and the App is closing.

Some time ago, IDG.se reported that Financial Times is choosing to skip Apple and instead make a mobile website with HTML5 rather than selling an app via Apple’s app store. This is in line with what I have previously written about when it is the right time to choose a mobile website over an app: An app is only useful when you need to access the various APIs available in the phone. This can be something as silly as just wanting to get a “ping” in your phone whenever something new is posted, but most often it’s about accessing cool features like camera, gyro, etc.

Improved interaction in the next generation of mobile webs

The problem with building a mobile web today is that it is not possible to use position: fixed;. That is, it is not possible to put menu items and other things “over” the content as it is possible on a “regular” computer. Everything will instead be fixed positioned. The next generation of mobile webs will allow us to do this and these will look like apps via tools that already exist today. It’s really just a matter of these tools gaining popularity and getting the last bugs ironed out.

The frameworks that exist today have no access to the phone’s API, but with the help of JavaScript you go about how things are “supposed” to work in the phone’s browser, and provide access to interaction elements that you would not normally expect to work in the browser. Most importantly, it fixes the very annoying position: fixed bug, and website menu systems can finally be built as if they were apps – with a footer/header always included.