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Facebook Aiming to Undermine AppStore With HTML5 Effort
MG Siegler at TechCrunch broke a story today that, if true, sends a strong signal that Facebook plans to attempt to subvert at least some of Apple's heavy-handed control of iOS (iPhone, iPad, etc.) apps through the AppStore. According to Siegler, who claims first-hand knowledge of Project Spartan at Facebook, the plan is to get a sizable number (80 or more) of current AppStore-successful developers to create apps in HTML5 rather than Flash and to make those apps available through Facebook as a medium/platform.
And therein lies the potential Achilles Heel for FB. Facebook apps, almost without exception, are time-wasters, mind-numbers and thumb-twiddlers. While they're popular among a big portion of the FB crowd, it remains to be seen if enough users of that social net service are ready to look to FB to be a provider or publisher of more serious business, productivity or utility apps that run in a browser and take advantage of iOS device attributes. I hope they do but I'm pretty skeptical about the potential here.
I've made no secret of my belief that Web apps, as contrasted with native iOS apps, are the real wave of the future in smartphone development. But it's been clear for some time that the biggest problem wasn't going to be development tools or platform access; rather, it was going to be the issue of how developers could get their Web apps into consumer hands easily and in large numbers. Facebook has the potential to play that pivotal role here. Apple won't. Google, with its Android plans, probably can't either. That really leaves Facebook to do this work and become solidified as the third player in the Big Time Dev Game for smart devices.
With its massive installed base of users, many if not most of whom are regular visitors to the Facebook space, these guys could provide a huge marketplace for the right kinds of apps.
And therein lies the potential Achilles Heel for FB. Facebook apps, almost without exception, are time-wasters, mind-numbers and thumb-twiddlers. While they're popular among a big portion of the FB crowd, it remains to be seen if enough users of that social net service are ready to look to FB to be a provider or publisher of more serious business, productivity or utility apps that run in a browser and take advantage of iOS device attributes. I hope they do but I'm pretty skeptical about the potential here.
