Why should you use HTML5 right now?

Industry demands feature rich web apps: Tablets and smart phones have been spreading in the market like tsunami. Both the demand as well as response for these modern hand held computer devices is getting an over whelming response from around the globe. Understanding the situation, three major smart phone operating system producers i.e., Apple, Google and Microsoft are giving all their effort to make it even more successful. Moreover Google is trying to give a long fly to this market through various encouraging projects like Android ONE. To make a balance between the demand and supply, all smart phone manufacturers are also trying hard to produce industry standard devices at an affordable cost. These devices are having a wide range of hardware specification, screen sizes and resolutions etc. Though this is a good thing from the user’s point of view but it creates trouble for the web developer and app developers to deal with such variety of devices.

Why is Apple considered to be the best friend for HTML5 development

Apple the brand of Quality and user friendly: We don’t need to give an introduction about the quality and user experience that apple provides to its customers. If anything created a buzz for user experience in the industry then its none other than apple. Before a decade, windows’ was ruling the industry with its monopoly nature but, with the introduction of iOS and OSX, the situation changed a lot. Industry understood the importance of user satisfaction over profit margin. Now, Apple has set a bench mark for its competitors in the industry. In the course of time, iOS developers also got a wonderful platform to showcase their innovation to the world.

HTML5 for your mobile website. How good is it?

In past decade, we have seen a tremendous growth in the use of mobile devices due to entry of low cost budget handsets in developing countries like India and China. Moreover new touch screen based operating systems are being well accepted by the users. Google’s Andriod, Apple’s iOS and Microsoft’s Windows 8.1 are making the environment warmer. At this point of time, web developers in the industry are also inclining towards developing web applications for smart phones and tablets. Due to portability and small in size, mobile devices like Smart Phones and PDAs are getting an overnight popularity. Moreover, these devices are having all time internet connectivity through mobile networks using 2G and 3G services. As a result, users love to browse internet using these portable devices. This triggers the web developers to develop modern mobile websites and mobile apps for their users.

HTML5 Apps Versus Native Mobile Apps: Unveiling Popular Myths

With the rapid proliferation of the mobile web technology, there is much discussion over the most suitable application that would deliver consumers access to any form of content irrespective of place or time. HTML5 became increasingly popular in 2012 and spread across the internet, defining all latest practices for navigation, layout and content structure of web pages. Yet there are concerns about the architecture of HTML5 which sparks a debate regarding the use of native mobile applications versus those applications which are developed for the mobile web.

As consumers get hooked to their Smartphones for browsing the web, playing games, downloading applications, and streaming movies, apps developers need to spend considerable time on determining how to render more functional and richer experiences across the numerous device platforms available. An inappropriate choice may result in unnecessary expense or may invite user dissatisfaction due to dull performance and poor quality.

In comparison to the previous versions, HTML5 makes it more convenient to develop feature-rich web-oriented applications that facilitate remote updating with new functionality without requiring repeated installation or download. In short HTML5 bridges the functionality gap between mobile apps and websites.

On the other hand, a native app can be directly installed within the Smartphone and can operate without internet connection. However, while an HTML5 app can operate on many platforms, a native app is platform specific and hence is more expensive.

A host of companies have already started taking advantage of the HTML5 hype. For instance, Burberry gained considerable popularity when it turned to HTML5 for launching one mobile application. Again, HTML5 is being increasingly used for mobile applications by newspaper organizations like Financial Times and Guardian. But native apps are not far behind in terms of making headlines with an average download of 40 applications per Smartphones within a year.

HTML5 however, has its own shortcomings and limitations. To begin with, the implementation procedure is different for different browsers and mobile platforms. This type of fragmentation in technology creates a hindrance for software developers wishing to understand which part of HTML5 can be utilized. Moreover, HTML5 apps can suffer from reduced speed and often work erroneously in the event of an intermittent data connection.

Other limitations of HTML5 as compared to native apps pertain to the lack of Digital Rights Management, required for handling numerous multimedia services and the non-availability of support for background processing. Moreover, HTML5 does not provide any kind of notifications or secure storage outside of the applications. Because of these shortcomings, some renowned companies have cut down on their use of HTML5.

The big myth revolving around the mobile web market is that native apps and HTML5 are the only two options. Some of the above-mentioned limitations may be dealt with by adopting a hybrid application approach, wherein considerable parts of the application are composed in web technology, but incorporating native code features within an HTML5 wrapper. This enables developers to add components of reusable HTML5 to operate over the native code so that the choicest features of each platform can be leveraged. Interestingly industry experts foresee the use of mobile web-based or hybrid apps in 80% of HTML5 mobile app development projects, by 2015.

Apart from gaining an in-depth knowledge about the potential of HTML5 and other related web technologies, companies can opt for the following:

• Watch out for any “one size fits all” promise: There are various types of mobile apps and there are rapid changes in user expectations. Hence there is least possibility of the existence of a single development method or tool that is suitable for all cases.
  
• Take care of back-end design and device software: While designing user-experience for business services, check whether you are dealing with mobile friendly services. The crucial road to making a business mobile through a website or apps normally starts with building web-oriented interfaces for portraying existing services.
  
• Optimize the mobile web presence: As consumers are increasingly turning to mobile devices for accessing websites, the user-experience factor cannot be ignored. Keeping separate desktop and mobile web presence becomes unmanageable after some point of time. So it is advisable to look forward to responsive design opportunities to ensure effective user interfaces.
  
• Make use of standard technologies to suffice your needs: It is good to go for a continual reassessment of the status of technologies associated with HTML5 to leverage this opportunity, as the ecosystem is rapidly evolving.

Hybrid apps are very significant because they offer opportunity to build an efficient mobile strategy on the basis of factors like necessary device functionality, programmer’s skills, and the significance of interoperability and security. While the debate over whether to go for HTML5 apps, native apps or hybrid application goes on, for the time being the best approach is to leverage what is available, to keep up with the pace of the rapidly moving mobile world.

We provide HTML5 development services. If you would like to discuss with an expert HTML5 developer from our team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

Battleground Rich Media: the conflict between HTML 5 and Flash

Drawing a comparison between HTML5 and Flash is like comparing two dissimilar objects, the former being a specification while the latter a software. However, a comparison between these two is not out of place if we take into consideration the ripples that these two technologies have created in the Information Technology sector. HTML5 is the new version of Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) which incorporates native support for video and audio, a feature that has threatened the existence of Flash. Adobe Flash, ruling rich media for more than 10 years, has become almost omnipresent in the virtual world. Now, the conflict between HTML5 and Flash revolves around rich media, or even more particularly, streaming video. Let’s introduce these two technologies briefly and then compare them to see how each scores against various parameters.

HTML5 and Flash: a brief introduction

HTML5 is the latest version of HTML, The new HTML5 web development platform which comes with a range of new mark-up features. The striking feature of HTML5 is that it is compatible with everything that operated in HTML4, thus ensuring seamless upgrading. The most striking feature of HTML5 is the newly developed media elements, the major cause of worry for Flash. These media elements enable video and audio support without the help of add-ons like the Flash Player.

Adobe Flash is a technology that operates on several platforms like web browsers, electronic gadgets and mobile devices. The technology is rampant over the web and is offered through the Adobe Flash Player. It is specifically used for interactivity, video and animation. All the major browsers have the requisite add-ons to support Flash, making this technology a standard option for producing rich video-based web content.

Comparison between HTML5 and Flash

Embedding Video: HTML 5 ensures sufficient flexibility with its (video) tag. Due to the availability of numerous options in native HTML code, embedding a video on a web page through HTML 5 is quite simple and convenient. Talking about Flash, it is indeed difficult to add a Flash video within a web page using hand coding. Hence, it is clear that the coding process of HTML5 is much simpler. Apart from a complex coding scenario, Flash involves a lot of moving components like the HTML page, the video, the Flash Player, Flash installation files, SWF files and JavaScript file.

Game Development: Performance is a crucial factor to be considered during game development because enthusiastic gamers will simply not tolerate any kinds of lags. When it comes to the gaming market, Flash has 70% of the share, so it’s obvious that HTML5 is yet to catch up. Interestingly, HTML5 was pinpointed by Steve Jobs as the choicest technology for iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone Browsers. So, the tremendous growth in the mobile market indeed implies a positive thrust for HTML5. Although Flash still has considerable monopoly in mobile gaming, it is expected that the game will turn towards HTML5 within half a decade, a phenomenon all the more evident with mobile game manufacturers already using html5 in game creation.

CPU Utilization: Although CPU utilization by Flash is more than that of HTML5 in some operating systems, it has been found that with access to components for hardware acceleration, Flash and HTML5 are on even grounds so far as performance is concerned.

As we compared Flash and HTML5 on parameters like video embedding, game development and CPU utilization, it seems that the outcome of the battle is still to come. It should also be that Flash, developed in 1996, scores higher than HTML5 on grounds of platform maturity. It is true that presently HTML5 is still in its developmental stage, but it can be a serious threat to Flash in the long term. Whatever happens, it is certain that this grueling completion will help the end-users.

We provide HTML5 development services. If you would like to know more about the expertise of our HTML5 games development, please visit Mindfire Solutions.