HawkMan, on 14 February 2013 - 13:42, said:
it's easier to code for mobile isn't because 90% of mobile internet users are on iOS/Webkit/Safar. it's because they'r eon mobile and mobile sites by default are simpler and easier.
omg it's easier to put together a 20 piece puzzle than a 500 pieze one, THE REVELATION!!!
Absolutely wrong..
Have you written serious web apps for mobile? Well I have.
The reason why it's easier to write is because of Webkit.. we have most of the features unified (with some slight differences that Apple added on iOS Safari but are really not deal breaking - aka you don't have to use them and have mostly to do with scaling and zooming in/out pages). The only real big difference is that Apple uses Nitro JS VM while Google uses V8 so there might be some discrepancy in JS performance but that's not really much of an issue as well because they are both pretty fast.
The reason HTML5 actually started getting used more and more is exactly BECAUSE of mobile. The first and more advanced web apps have been written for mobile first because the HTML5 features have been added rapidly for both Android and iOS. Both Android and iOS browsers have been able to innovate very quickly and bring new features and fix issues that didn't work.
CSS3 stuff has been working on both since pretty much the beginning when no desktop browser really supported it (I built things in 2008 for iOS that used cool 3D effects and crap). The only difference between the two were that Google got a bit later in to have hardware acceleration on CSS3 transitions and stuff but that was because of the OS and not really related with webkit.
Today even, HTML5 is hardly used on the desktop because of the mess it is in, however people have started building full blown apps with HTML5 on mobile and they are now combining with tools that package that code along with hardware APIs so we can access specific device capabilities (aka PhoneGap and others).
You won't see this ubiquity on the desktop web for a while. If we are lucky in 5 years. Which would make it about 10-11 years since HTML5 officially got to W3C/WHATWG.
Hell, even WebGL is now being introduced in Chrome on Android (via
--enable-webgl flag - experimental) and most likely in Safari soon as well when Google officially pushes it.
And it's going to have 90%+ support on mobile years before it will have that ubiquity on desktop (if ever).
I'm not sure what you are talking about when you say it's not easier.. it's 10 times easier. It's nicer for development too. Less waste of time and unnecessary code just to make your web app appear and work the same across browser. It's really a joy to develop for unlike for desktop.