Twitter launched a full redesign to its website Tuesday, showing off changes that lead Twitter.com away from its humble stream-of-updates past and towards a more interactive, app-like future.
The new Twitter went live to a select few users Tuesday afternoon and began rolling out to everyone else Wednesday. If you don’t see it yet, you will soon.
The website now has a new two-panel view. Your familiar stream of tweets runs down the left side. On the right side is a dashboard of sorts, where you can see recent activity from your followers and the people you follow, trending topics, and the list of people you might want to follow.
Google has launched a developer’s preview of its Chrome Web Store — the company’s directory where users can browse and install Chrome extensions, web apps and downloadable apps that run in the browser.
There are no listings available yet in Thursday’s preview, but you can start creating apps and uploading them to the store so they’ll be available as soon as it opens later this year. All the tools you’ll need to publish apps are available there, as well as instructions on how to use the Licensing API so you can charge for your apps if you wish.
Interestingly, Google is recommending developers pursue a freemium model for paid apps. “A freshly installed app should always provide something useful or interesting, even if the user hasn’t paid yet,” the documentation says. “If the first page the user sees is useless — nothing but a payment wall, for example — the user is likely to uninstall your app, and you might get some scathing reviews.”
According to a report on TechCrunch, Google will take a five percent cut of sales revenue.
What’s up with installable web apps, you ask? Don’t web apps get served to a client from a web server? Well, yes, there’s that kind, and then there’s the kind you download and install. Google describes an installable web app as “a normal website with a bit of extra metadata.” The app is packaged, then downloaded and installed by the user, where it runs in the browser (online or off) and can access local storage.
Here’s a video that covers the details of Thursday’s developer preview:
Go to the Yahoo Mail website on your iPad and you’ll see the new, fully juiced-up HTML5 version instead of the older mobile version.
Yahoo mail the world’s largest webmail site — it has over 275 million users — but the site lags behind second-runner-up Gmail when it comes to innovation with HTML5 on the iPad and other touchy-swipey browsing devices.
Still, the new Yahoo Mail looks pretty slick. Scrollable photo previews now appear inside e-mail messages, and it supports offline local cache so you can keep working even when you’re out of range.
Two roads diverge on a tablet screen. One is the path to the native app, the other leads to the open web.
Luckily, you can take both. The latest mobile devices ship with a thoroughly modern browser capable of handling emerging web standards. Beneath that is a modern operating system with access to the magic inside the hardware: the camera, GPS, gyroscope and compass. But if you had to pick one — native app or web app — which would you choose? Your decision will make all the difference in how you approach your design, development and distribution.
The Issues
Native Apps
Web Apps
Internet access
Not required
Required, except for rare apps with offline capability
Installation/updates
Must be deployed or downloaded
Hit refresh
User interface
Native apps are responsive and functional
Browsers can be clunky, but new advancements in JavaScript like jQuery Mobile are catching up fast
Device compatibility
Platform-dependent, hardware-dependent
Platform-agnostic, content can be reformatted with CSS to suit any device
Animation/Graphics
Fast and responsive
Web apps are getting closer, but will probably always lag
Streaming media
Few problems with audio and video. Flash works, but only if the device supports it
Flash works where supported. Browser-based audio and video are getting there, but still beset by compatibility headaches. Give it a year or two
Fonts
Tight control over typefaces, layout
Almost on par, thanks to advancements in web standards. Give it six months
Is my content searchable?
Not on the web
By default
Sharable/Tweetable?
Only if you build it in
Web links are shared freely. Social APIs and widgets allow easy one-click posting
Discussion and collaboration
Only if you build it, and it’s more difficult if data is disparate
Discussion is easy, all data is stored on a server
Access to hardware sensors
Yes, all of them: camera, gyroscope, microphone, compass, accelerometer, GPS
Access through the browser is limited, though geolocation is common
Development
Specific tools required for some platforms (like Apple’s). You have to build a new app for each target platform
Write once, publish once, view it anywhere. Multiple tools and libraries to choose from
Can I sell it?
Charge whatever you want. Most app distributors take a slice, up to 30%
Advertising is tolerated, subscriptions and paywalls less so. No distribution costs beyond server fees
Distribution
Most app stores require approval. And you gotta wait
No such hassle
Outside access to your content
No, the reader must download your app
Yep, just click a link
Advertising
Control over design (though limited in iAds) and rate
More choices for design, plus access to web analytics. Rates vary widely
The folks at DeviantArt, a website best known for hosting images of fairies and vampires created by gothy art students, have debuted a new browser-based drawing tool created entirely with web standards.
Muro works in all modern browsers, and you can dive in and start drawing on a blank canvas, all without Flash or any other plug-in. There are several brushes available to everyone, but to access the more advanced features, you’ll need to create a DeviantArt account and log in.
The image above was created by DeviantArt user loish using the new tool. It’s amazing to see what people are creating with it.
Muro is reminiscent of other browser-based drawing tools like Odosketch, which uses Flash, and Sketchpad, which, like Muro, uses only web standards. But Muro is cleaner and more of a joy to use than any other HTML5-based sketching app I’ve seen.
As browsers become more powerful and web technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript become more advanced, we’re seeing more and more killer web apps emerge. But productivity apps, fancy fonts and media playback hacks aren’t just interesting tricks we can all marvel at, they are examples of how the web is quickly maturing into a true computing platform.
I found Muro to be more useful on an iPad — a fingertip is much more forgiving than a mouse or a trackball when you’re trying to draw something on a screen. Also, the default settings seem to be optimized for the iPad’s browser. In Chrome and Firefox, it took some fiddling to get the brushes to the point where they produced the desired results. But once you get the hang of it, it’s super easy and fun. You’ll waste a lot of time if you’re not careful.
I also asked Dennis Crothers, Wired.com’s head of user experience, to give it a test drive with his Wacom tablet. You need to be running Wacom’s tablet data plug-in (which you probably already have installed if you have the device) for it to work. He was impressed. He says Muro isn’t the best drawing tool out there — this is coming from a designer who spends the bulk of his days in Adobe Illustrator — but for an HTML5 web app, he says it’s an excellent piece of work. I agree.
Browse Our Tutorials
Cheat Sheets
Color Charts
Cut & Paste Code