Hewitt sees web apps as workaround for developers

Joe Hewitt -- who famously walked away from developing the Facebook iPhone app, over issues with Apple's app review policies -- is now speaking enthusiastically about the iPad. The coder says the iPad "is exactly the product I've been wishing for," and that it overcomes the limitations of the iPhone, giving developers and end users more room to work with in much larger screen space.

Hewitt is also speaking positively about the iPhone OS, describing it as more secure due to the isolation of the OS as a whole, and the isolation of each app running with it. Apps cannot directly access the filesystem, the hardware or other programs, preventing damage that is routine on Macs and PCs.

In regards to working around the App Store approval process, Hewitt proposes web apps as the main inroad to iPad development, free of restraints -- although this does require a developer to host the app on their own server. Web apps are the key to client-side freedom too, the developer says.

by MacNN Staff