Using HTML5 on Your Smartphone - Some Benefits

The number of people using Smartphone has increased remarkably over the last few years or so, to keep pace with the number of people using the internet on their mobile devices. Therefore, to keep pace with this ever changing digital world that is very much dominated by Smartphones and Tablets, software and mobile apps developing companies are facing a new challenge of satisfying the customers’ demands, when it comes to offering them state of the art mobile websites that are as comprehensive or user-friendly as the conventional desktop software systems as well as websites.

For accomplishing this, the most comprehensive tool that the developers have in their arsenal is HTML5, the latest as well as the most state of the art language that facilitates HTML coding. The language offers developers, the option of delivering richer as well as the most intuitive end user experience in the fraternity of mobile browsers. Besides, the language also comes up with a string of benefits that come to the aid of the Smartphone users.

It offers an experience similar to apps for the browser
HTML5 helps in creating a rich end user experience that is akin to the apps found in the mobile browsers. This indicates that the users do not have to look for a separate app and download it. The mobile interfaces that are designed with the help of HTML5 have striking similarities with the apps. Besides, the language also has the ability of recognizing gestures. Hence, the end users have the option of switching from one site to another with ease, just as it is possible in case of apps. These maneuvers include seamlessly browsing through the navigation, zooming in or out on selected areas, pinching etc.

Again, just like the apps, mobile sites designed with the help of HTML5 come up with the option of providing local storage facility that helps the developers to store data with the memory of the browser. This helps the sites to have the capacity of storing data that are commonly used, with the browser itself, along with reducing the number of interactions that take place with the server at the back end. This ultimately lends much faster page loading time.

Location Awareness
Another significant feature of HTML5 is its ability of incorporating location awareness to a browser. Companies that are running conventional brick and mortar businesses are immensely benefited from this as the end users are able to recognize the location of a store with the help of the ‘Find Near Me’ option that helps them to find out the stores that are closest to their address, much like the ‘store locator’ option.

Simplify and reorganize Shopping Cart
For those running online businesses, use of HTML5 is greatly advantageous, as it simplifies the shopping cart as well as the checkout mechanism, thus helping even those who are unfamiliar with technology to browse or shop online without any difficulty whatsoever.

Semantic Enrichment
One of the most significant advantages of Smartphones, developed with the help of HTML5 is the capacity of serving various high-resolution photo galleries. One of the major areas of concerns for the developers has been the problem faced by the users in viewing detailed images. This has instigated the developers to incorporate certain features into HTML5 that facilitate display of high quality, multiple images of products in the format of a gallery. Furthermore, it also helps the users in taking a much closer look at the product images, by double tapping to zoom them in, or view them in a much more detailed as well as specific way, than what was previously possible. This particularly comes in handy in case of Smartphone users, because of their much smaller size of screens.

Collapsible Menus along with Expandable Navigation Facilities
Another advantage the HTML5 poses is that it helps brands to target a specific sect of the market with relevant promos and specific products in a much easier and cost effective way. It is possible through its ‘scroll-through-the-banner’ feature that it comes up with. This feature provides the users the option of scrolling up and down the banners on the home page. It further streamlines the user experience by offering the unique option of integrating the collapsible and expandable menus with the pop-up windows on the browser homepage as well as the category pages.

A Rich Media
HTML5 also comes up with a native support for the video and the audio elements with the user not having to download plug ins for watching Youtube or for listening to any audio package. Again, when it is said that HTML5 has these video and audio files already embedded, the feature does not put any extra pressure on the battery, and this extends the battery backup of the Smartphones to a significant extent – a feature that has made the language immensely popular.

You can hire developers from top custom HTML5 development company in India who can help you develop applications within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide HTML5 web development services. If you would like to hire HTML5 programmers from our team, please reach out to us at Mindfire Solutions.

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.