Matthew Gertner

Mobile web apps have long been considered inferior to native mobile apps. Mark Zuckerberg’s assertion in 2012 that use of HTML5 in the Facebook app was “the biggest mistake we made as a company” and similar statements have reinforced the idea that mobile web apps are too slow and clunky to provide a satisfying user experience. 

To a large extent, these attitudes are now outdated. Mobile devices have made incredible improvements in performance, access to native hardware and many other areas over the past few years. 

In this talk, we examine in detail the reasons for negative attitudes about mobile web apps among developers. We then ask whether these attitudes still make sense today. 

We also discuss the role of Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) and how newer frameworks like React Native should influence developers’ decisions about which route to take when developing a modern mobile app.