Many have criticized the iPhone for not having a development platform. Apple has said that AJAX is the development platform. Developers saythat’s a lame answer and want integrated apps.  I think AJAX may actuallybe the future of mobile devices, but not on the current iteration of hardware. I mean any hardware from anyone, not just the iPhone.  Whenever Imention this to my developer and AJAX friends they all look at me like I’mcrazy.  I am nuts, but here are a few ways that AJAX or a technology likeit would really kick some major butt on a mobile platform.  Below are somerandom thoughts on the subject, feel free to add your own thoughts or call mecrazy in the comments:

• Being able to develop once and deploy to not only iPhones everywhere butany mobile device that’s AJAX enabled would be very powerful.
• Support would become easy because there would only be one version of theapp out there.
• Theft would become easier to control since everyone needs to hit yourserver to authenticate.
• No mobile hardware is ready for this yet.  It’s all too slow. Heck a 3GHz computer is barely able to deal with heavy AJAX apps,how is a 400MHz phone going to be able to do the same?
• The AJAX apps need to behave like an integrated app.  It shouldn’tfeel like a web app.  The browser status bars should all auto hideand make way for the AJAX application. 
• There needs to be offline support such as Google Gears for any AJAX app. If I have no or slow bandwidth the mobile device should be able torun the app from cache.
• The device needs uber fast data connection at all times.  WiFi is agood first step, HSDPA is a good second step, HSUPA would be a betterstep.  EDGE is not on the map anywhere.
• There should be a mobile AJAX standard that all handsets follow. This would allow me to develop an app for an iPhone and have it workon a Windows Mobile, Symbian or Palm device.  I won’t hold my breathon this one. 
• The AJAX app needs to have hooks to the mobile device.  The mobiledevice needs to know what a phone number is, address is, etc. and allow meto dial right from the app.  There could be special code snippetsthat tell the device what a phone number is which would get around thedevice itself trying to interpret this.  The benefit of tags is thatthe phone always knows what’s what.
• If AJAX is the premiere development platform for the iPhone then why arethere any integrated apps at all?  Why not run everything as an AJAXapp (probably because the iPhone isn’t ready for this yet).
• An AJAX app needs to have a button or launcher item just like anintegrated app.  n00b users who don’t know AJAX from soap should notbe able to tell the difference between the two apps, which means that eventhe way they launch should be the same.

I know a lot of people have discounted the technology all together, butthere’s potential behind the raw idea.  We just need faster devices,more streamlined AJAX (it’s really heavy right now) and some method to keepthe client/server connection open while not drawing uber amounts of powerfrom the device.  We’re probably several years off, but it can be done. Will it be done though?  I sure think it would be a very cleanway of distributing applications.

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