A presentation at PhoneGap Day EU in in Amsterdam, Netherlands by Niels Leenheer
the android webview niels leenheer - phonegap day eu 2015
what is a webview? a system level component for displaying html in applications
up to android 4.3, the webview was based on webkit android 4.4 and later use a webview based on chromium
the old webkit webview has not been properly updated in the last four years almost no changes between android 4.0 and 4.3
the webkit webview is slow and has outdated standards support its standards support can be compared to ios 4 or 5
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
the chromium webview will be updated regularly android 4.4 ⟶ chromium 30 android 4.4.3 ⟶ chromium 33 android 5 ⟶ chromium 37 or higher
in a couple of years all android phones will have the chromium webview
but today we still have to deal with the webkit webview 4.4 40% 5 10% 2.2 - 2.3 6% 4.0 5% 4.1 - 4.3 39%
but unfortunately we are not dealing with just one webkit webview
device manufacturers improved the default browser differentiation by having better standards support than your competitors
differentiation is just a pretty name for fragmentation
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
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
webgl ? form field types webaudio indexeddb requestanimationframe websockets
having frequent updates is not always good! removing older apis and features can cause legacy apps to break
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
bad performance limited standards support vendor specific versions
better standards support limited control
fragmentation
how to deal with this mess
test as often as possible, on as many devices as possible
perhaps try an open device lab? 144 labs across 34 countries and 4002 devices available
test as often as possible, on as many devices as possible
but there is also another solution
crosswalk
thank you @html5test
The Android WebView is a system level component that handles HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and can be used by other applications. One of the applications that uses the WebView is the default Android browser, but your own PhoneGap apps are also using it. In fact, PhoneGap is just a wrapper that extends the WebView. Unfortunately there is not just one WebView. The WebView changes between versions of Android. Sometimes these changes are just bug fixes, and sometimes they include new features. What’s even worse: device manufactures apparently also like to make their own modifications to the WebView. Recently Google tried to solve this mess and created a new backwards compatible WebView for Android 4.4 and higher. The new WebView is no longer based on WebKit, but uses Chromium instead. What are the differences and how does this impact your applications? Is the new WebView really backwards compatible? Which web platform features should you avoid in your PhoneGap app and which are safe to use? How do you deal with creating apps for a multitude of WebViews that all behave slightly different? Which devices do you need to properly test your app? And finally, are there other solutions to these problems?
Here’s what was said about this presentation on social media.
