The Android WebView @ PhoneGap Day

Transcript

1. 1.

   the android webview niels leenheer - phonegap day eu 2015

2. 2.

   what is a webview? a system level component for 


   displaying html in applications
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   up to android 4.3, 
 the webview was based on

   webkit android 4.4 and later use a webview based on chromium
4. 4.

   the old webkit webview has 
 not been properly updated

   in 
 the last four years almost no changes between 
 android 4.0 and 4.3
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   the webkit webview is slow and has outdated standards support

   its standards support can be 
 compared to ios 4 or 5
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   the chromium webview is not only much faster, it has

   much better standards support at the same level or even better standards support as ios 8
7. 7.

   the chromium webview will 
 be updated regularly android 4.4

   ⟶ chromium 30
 android 4.4.3 ⟶ chromium 33
 android 5 ⟶ chromium 37 or higher
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   in a couple of years all android
 phones will have

   the chromium
 webview
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   but today we still have to deal with
 the webkit

   webview 5 10% 4.4 40% 4.1 - 4.3 39% 4.0 5% 2.2 - 2.3 6%
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    but unfortunately we are not dealing with just one webkit

    webview
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    device manufacturers improved the default browser differentiation by having better

    standards support than your competitors
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    differentiation is just a pretty name for fragmentation

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    the reality is that we now have many different webviews

    that all behave slightly different not only different versions of webkit, but also different features enabled
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    better standards support is useless if it is only available

    on a subset of devices apps still need to be build for the lowest common denominator
15. 15.

    ? webgl indexeddb websockets webaudio requestanimationframe form field types

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    having frequent updates is not 
 always good! removing older

    apis and features 
 can cause legacy apps to break
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    some devices will never get an upgrade to android 5

    chromium 30 and 33 based webviews will be around for the next couple of years
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    bad performance limited standards support vendor specific versions

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    better standards support limited control

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    fragmentation

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    how to deal with this mess

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    test as often as possible, 
 on as many devices

    as possible
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    perhaps try an 
 open device lab? 
 144 labs

    across 34 countries 
 and 4002 devices available
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    test as often as possible, 
 on as many devices

    as possible
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    but there is also 
 another solution

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    crosswalk

27. 27.

    None
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    thank you @html5test