The App Store may soon arrive on the scene to see a new dangerous threat. To challenge the giant of Cupertino is another giant of Silicon Valley, based in Palo Alto that: a clear question of Facebook, whose medium-term projects seem to include the creation of a new platform dedicated to developing and deploying mobile operating system of Apple, able to stand as an alternative to the traditional channel for the purchase of the app.
To make it even more interesting the whole story is the way in which this alternative will be proposed to users: The new platform will in fact be accessed via Safari, browse the integrated device by Apple in its iPhone OS. Everything will be based on HTML5 and will allow developers to create web-app to be distributed via the new Facebook weblog, which in fact assume the characteristics of a tool that can replace the App Store in Cupertino.
About the project still maintain the strictest confidence, but despite what the name of the battle is already known: Spartan Project represents the final landing of the world’s most popular social network in the mobile app. According to early rumors, some 80 programmers were recruited from the top to set up the Facebook platform, with many companies’ attractive opportunities right now that such a prospect would open wide: Zynga, for example, could export their applications on the terminals of Cupertino, opening the doors to all fans of video games distributed through the social network.
Project Spartan would then represent the ultimate expression of a project already well underway: the intentions of Facebook there are in fact the demonstration of applications to create complete and functional exclusively by HTML5, without recourse to technologies such as Flash. The same Zynga has previously agreed to this project, in some cases abandoning the tool developed by Adobe to make way for the new version of the markup language for Web documents. With this in mind, Apple could even benefit from the arrival of a new platform such as that being developed in the Facebook sites, confirming the thesis to the world once more exposed by CEO Steve Jobs that flash turns out to be outdated technology, too vulnerable and functionally interchangeable with HTML5.
Project Spartan yet know very little, but what is certain is the integration with a number of features already present in social networks: developers may in fact be given the opportunity to use Facebook as a claims payment system for both applications and purchases in-app, is now offering these tools into what turns into a real virtual store. A store where the entry point will be the home page of the social networks, the mobile version which will provide users with a menu to access the different apps available: the latter may vary from games to news tools for consultation, through many other categories. The launch of the platform also seems to have been planned in the coming weeks, although at first could only be shown in previews some of the functionality of the system, waiting for the final release.