So What’s A Web App?

The different types of applications (games, tools, etc) available for the iphone can get a little confusing, so I thought I’d clear it all up a little.

The first type of application is the System Installed App. These are installed by Apple by default on the phone and will always appear. Things like Safari (the web browser), YouTube and Mail. These are probably the applications you’ll use the most. Installed Applications run “inside” your phone and therefore run faster, have access to your phone’s data (address book etc) and can do things with your hardware (like the camera).

The second application type is a Web App. This is just a web page; like any other page you would normally access on the internet using a PC. You’ll often see the term Web App and Web Site used interchangeably, but basically an “App” tends to be more functional (like a game) and a “Site” is more just content. It’s a blurry line though.

Some Web Apps/Sites have been modified to suit the small screen size on the iPhone. Often these will be alternate versions of web sites. A great example to try is: http://iphone.facebook.com. You’ll notice the interface is substantially different to the normal Facebook site, and is much easier to use from an iPhone. (Some people actually use the iPhone version of Facebook on their computers because it’s so much faster.)

Web Apps have little or no access to your phone’s hardware (this may change in the future) and are somewhat limited by what you can do with a browser, so Installed Applications will tend to do a bit more, and do it faster. Accessing a Web App is as easy as opening Safari and navigating to the site.

The third type of application you can get is a Third-Party Installed Application (Third Party Apps for short). These are applications you install on the phone (Installed Apps) but are not provided by Apple. Right now the iPhone does NOT officially support any applications not developed by Apple. They say this is due to quality control (keeping your iPhone clean of nasty applications) but this hasn’t really been an issue with other phone platforms (like Windows Mobile), so the argument is a little cheap. Apple are planning on letting third-party applications be provided (through Apple certification channels like iTunes) sometime early in 2008. There will be an explosion of apps available once they do that, and all the big application developers will be converting their popular content over to suit the iPhone.

In the mean time you can install third-party applications using a method called “Jail Breaking”. This basically means installed software on your iPhone that breaks it out of Apple “jail”. Once you install the software you can then add your own applications – the software includes a directory of applications you can install. This used to be an easy process, but with the latest firmware update on the iPhone (v1.1.2). The process has gotten harder (here’s a good guide if you want to give it a go).