It seems fairly obvious that Apple is betting the future of computing on multi-touch interfaces built around a two-tiered architecture of browser-based HTML5 web apps and local apps more closely tied to the operating system – iOS. Google are also taking a similar path, albeit with a more web-centric approach. I’ve been thinking about this recently and want to talk a little about where I see it all going.
There’s been a lot of talk of web applications overtaking and replacing traditional client-side applications and in some respects it’s already happened. I spend approximately 80% of my computing time in Firefox and to me a computer without an internet connection is a bit of a blunt tool these days. The main upside to moving online is that you can access your data/services anywhere regardless of what operating system you’re using and there is no need to worry about backups. Some paranoid types worry about privacy and security but at the end of the day it’s in the best interests of the service provider to protect your content and respect your privacy if they want to retain the trust and custom of its users.…