Difference between revisions of "1367: Installing"

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{{comic
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| number    = 1367
 
| date      = May 12, 2014
 
| title    = Installing
 
| image    = installing.png
 
| titletext = But still, my scheme for creating and saving user config files and data locally to preserve them across reinstalls might be useful for--wait, that's cookies.
 
}}
 
 
 
==Explanation==
 
This comic refers to the kind of "inventions" which seem new from the point of view of a {{w|smartphone}} (handheld {{w|computer}}) user, but have already been around for a long time on desktop or {{w|laptop}}/notebook computers.
 
 
 
[[Cueball]] has a clever idea to skip the installing of applications on mobile phones: he would host the applications online instead, and provide links to the servers. The apps wouldn't stay on the phone all the time; instead the phone would download each app again every time the user wanted to run it.
 
 
 
However, web pages and {{w|web application}}s already work like this. Clicking a link will make the browser download a web page and render {{w|HTML|HTML code}} and {{w|JavaScript}} that it links to.
 
 
 
The page usually isn't saved long-term on the user's computer; instead the browser downloads it again when needed. {{w|HTML5}} does however offer the option of {{w|Cache_manifest_in_HTML5|caching web application files locally}} so it can remain operational when there is no network connection.
 
 
 
In the title text, Cueball's idea for local application storage already exists in the HTTP protocol as {{w|HTTP cookie|cookies}}. The more flexible {{w|Web storage|web storage}} was originally part of the HTML5 specification, but it's now in a separate specification.
 
 
 
Native phone applications and web applications are not completely interchangeable. Web applications may not allow access to more advanced or platform-specific resources. Projects like {{w|Apache Cordova}} make these resources available to web applications by creating a native application wrapper for the web application.
 
 
 
==Transcript==
 
:[Cueball and Megan are standing next to each other.]
 
:Cueball: Installing things has gotten so fast and painless.
 
:Cueball: Why not skip it entirely, and make a phone that has every app "installed" already and just downloads and runs them on the fly?
 
 
 
:[Caption below the panel:]
 
:I felt pretty clever until I realized I'd invented webpages.
 
 
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
 
[[Category:Computers]]
 
[[Category:Smartphones]]
 

Revision as of 18:37, 3 May 2022

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