Characterizing RESTful Web Services Usage on Smartphones: A Tale of Native Apps and Web Apps

Yi Liu; Xuanzhe Liu; Yun Ma; Yunxin Liu; Zibin Zheng; Gang Huang; M. Brian Blake

doi:10.1109/ICWS.2015.53

Characterizing RESTful Web Services Usage on Smartphones: A Tale of Native Apps and Web Apps

Yi Liu, Xuanzhe Liu, Yun Ma, Yunxin Liu, Zibin Zheng, Gang Huang, M. Brian Blake

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

16 Scopus citations

Abstract

The burst of Web-based Restful services brings us a number of facilities in our life and work. We are used to take smartphones to access these Web services, like location-based services, weather search, mapping, social networking, et al. On smartphones, we have two options of service consumers, a.k.a, Native apps and Web apps. Despite the platform-independence, Web apps are claimed to provide the same features and comparable user experiences with native apps. However, one fact is that more and more people prefer native apps rather than Web apps. In this paper, we make an empirical study on characterizing the performance disparity of native apps and Web apps. Given the same functionalities provided by the same service providers, we explore the Restful Web services that are used by native apps and Web apps. With HTTP-level trace analysis, we demystify the workflows on how native apps and Web apps use Web services and summarize different service usage patterns from architectural style perspective. Then we characterize the performance differences between native apps and Web apps on realizing Restful Web services including GET, DELETE, PUT & POST, in terms of number of network connections, response time, and data drain, given the same functional features. Our observations reveal that Web apps do not always perform worse than native apps using Restful Web services under the same context. We further propose some implications to improve both native apps and Web apps on smartphones.

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	Proceedings - 2015 IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2015
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages	337-344
Number of pages	8
ISBN (Print)	9781467380904
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/ICWS.2015.53
State	Published - Aug 13 2015
Externally published	Yes
Event	IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2015 - New York, United States Duration: Jun 27 2015 → Jul 2 2015

Other

Other	IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2015
Country	United States
City	New York
Period	6/27/15 → 7/2/15

Keywords

Conferences
Mobile
native apps
Restful Web services
Web apps
Web services

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Computer Science Applications
Human-Computer Interaction
Computer Networks and Communications

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Liu, Y., Liu, X., Ma, Y., Liu, Y., Zheng, Z., Huang, G., & Blake, M. B. (2015). Characterizing RESTful Web Services Usage on Smartphones: A Tale of Native Apps and Web Apps. In Proceedings - 2015 IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2015 (pp. 337-344). [7195587] Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICWS.2015.53

Characterizing RESTful Web Services Usage on Smartphones : A Tale of Native Apps and Web Apps. / Liu, Yi; Liu, Xuanzhe; Ma, Yun; Liu, Yunxin; Zheng, Zibin; Huang, Gang; Blake, M. Brian.

Proceedings - 2015 IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2015. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2015. p. 337-344 7195587.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Liu, Y, Liu, X, Ma, Y, Liu, Y, Zheng, Z, Huang, G & Blake, MB 2015, Characterizing RESTful Web Services Usage on Smartphones: A Tale of Native Apps and Web Apps. in Proceedings - 2015 IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2015., 7195587, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., pp. 337-344, IEEE International Conference on Web Services, ICWS 2015, New York, United States, 6/27/15. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICWS.2015.53

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abstract = "The burst of Web-based Restful services brings us a number of facilities in our life and work. We are used to take smartphones to access these Web services, like location-based services, weather search, mapping, social networking, et al. On smartphones, we have two options of service consumers, a.k.a, Native apps and Web apps. Despite the platform-independence, Web apps are claimed to provide the same features and comparable user experiences with native apps. However, one fact is that more and more people prefer native apps rather than Web apps. In this paper, we make an empirical study on characterizing the performance disparity of native apps and Web apps. Given the same functionalities provided by the same service providers, we explore the Restful Web services that are used by native apps and Web apps. With HTTP-level trace analysis, we demystify the workflows on how native apps and Web apps use Web services and summarize different service usage patterns from architectural style perspective. Then we characterize the performance differences between native apps and Web apps on realizing Restful Web services including GET, DELETE, PUT & POST, in terms of number of network connections, response time, and data drain, given the same functional features. Our observations reveal that Web apps do not always perform worse than native apps using Restful Web services under the same context. We further propose some implications to improve both native apps and Web apps on smartphones.",

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Characterizing RESTful Web Services Usage on Smartphones: A Tale of Native Apps and Web Apps

Abstract

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Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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