As you may know, I sincerely enjoy developing stuff for the web. But I also enjoy using native applications on my iPhone, so learning iPhone development has been on my todo list for a long time. Today, I stroke the item off the list, without having learnt anything about it. It’s just not interesting to me any more.
In order to explain my reasons, I have assembled a list that compares the possibilities of native iPhone development using Objective-C with web development.
| iPhone | web | |
|---|---|---|
| Apps can be used by other mobile operating systems? | no | yes |
| Familiar web technologies like HTML and JavaScript can be reused? | no | yes |
| Apps can be updated whenever you want/need to? | no | yes |
| You can use new technologies like NoSQL and node.js? | no | yes |
| Apps have to go through some stupid review process? | yes | no |
| Available features and languages are defined by some kind of control freak? | yes | no |
| Apps that compete with Apple software will be banned? | yes | no |
| You have to submit a final app (costing time and money) to find out whether your app will be accepted? | yes | no |
Just counting the yes and nos, there is no clear winner. Of course, this list is 100% objective and complete. If you have anything to add, against all expectations and common sense, please leave a comment.
Update: This blog post by 37signals sums up my feelings about Apple pretty well.