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BREAKING NEWS & VIEWS
Review: FT’s iOS Web App Revels in HTML5 Delights, Snubs AppleFriday, June 10, 2011 Financial Times is making no secret of the fact that its new Web app for FT is a way around the Apple iTunes model for giving publishers 70% of subscription revenue and 0% user  data. FT itself reported about its own app in that very context this week. This is the first major publisher to deliberately and vocally recruit its subscribers into an HTML5-powered Web app alternative to the downloadable version available in iTunes. FT reports that “Robert Grimshaw, managing director of FT.com, said that FT had no plans to pull out of any app store, but that it would encourage users to adopt the Web app with a marketing campaign including a week’s free access.” There is a lot at stake in this tussle. According to reports, the FT app in the iOS App Store is responsible for 10% of new digital subscribers to the brand. The app itself behaves very much like its formal downloadable counterpart, and that is a good thing. Upon first accessing the app.ft.com URL on an iPad, the site instructs the user to make the site into a home page icon in order to take advantage of all its features. When first launched from the iPad’s home screen icon, FT’s Web apps asks permission to maintain a 50MB cache of data on the device. This cache allows for offline reading of material and smoother performance of the interface. The layout and functionality of app.ft.com are very close to the downloadable app. A telescoping ribbon menu at top allows easy lateral access to the main content silos of the site. Many elements on the page slide easily with swiping actions. The Global Market Map is present on the front page and lets the user tap a map interface to call up visual snapshots of worldwide markets. A row of video links with thumbnails occupies the waist of the site. Tapping a link brings up a large, hi-res video overlay window. Also impressive is the cross-platform execution. The FT Web app adapts seamlessly to the iPhone environment, where all of the functionality remains without seeming compressed or constrained. The publisher has succeeded in maintaining the look, feel and user experience across Web, tablet and phone. Individual articles have all the usual FT.com and FT app cross-linking into market data for the relevant companies. The articles can be shared over Twitter, Facebook or email. Text typefaces can be enlarged to five different levels. And as in the standard apps, articles that the reader has already accessed are slightly greyed out. The Web app is an excellent demonstration of how HTML5 coding can bring much of the standard app functionality and user experience to a Web URL. That said, there were noticeable glitches. The videos we played suffered lip synch problems, sometimes to a distracting degree. We also had occasional problems when scrolling the front page with sluggish movements and scrolling errors. The display would get stuck on occasion in the bottom half of the page. While HTML5 holds great promise in bringing app functionality to the browser, it is an unfinished standard that is known to suffer performance problems. Overall, however, FT has definitely set a new bar for leveraging a media brand as a tablet app outside of the App Store itself. Deliberately or not, the company has taken a bite out of Apple’s notorious obsession with control.  If you have breaking news to share please contact Steve Smith at ssmith@accessintel.com
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At the same time, the App Store is yet another way Apple makes sure the user experience of its product meets its standards. I buy Apple precisely because there is little or no configuration required. Many people are the same way. Apple devices and software also tend (but not always) to be very clean interfaces that are easy to figure out, which is part of their intended user experience.
So you both get a cookie for being correct.