jdubray
02/02/12

Is HTML 5 losing mindshare?

Robert Scoble thinks so.

The new Path? The one that won a Crunchie last night for great design? It’s not done in HTML 5.

This morning I saw something new coming soon from Storify. Not done in HTML 5. This morning I visited Foodspotting which just shipped hot new apps on iOS, Android, and Blackberry. Not done in HTML 5.

More and more I’m hearing that designers and developers are ignoring HTML 5, especially for the high end of apps.

After building Canappi, I can only wholeheartedly agree with Bob. HTML5 has certainly a place in the mobile landscape, if for nothing else to "mobilize" your web site, but when it comes to user experience, we don't see how it can compete with Native Frameworks at least in the years to come: For every successful mobile web app, someone will build a superior native experience that users will adopt. There is simply no room to compete.

I am currently building Canappi's jQuery Mobile code generator and from what I can tell, it is extremely limited compared to the native iOS and Android SDKs.

The fundamental reason for Web Apps to emerge in the late 90s and 2000s was the "client update" problem and to a lesser degree the number of platforms on which the app should run. In the 90s, assistants used to roam the buildings with CD-ROM (and Floppy disks) to update every single client.

Today, App Stores have completely solved the update client problem (for mobile and desktop apps), and running on multiple platforms really means running on iOS and Android (although the fragmentation of Android is a bit of a concern).

Web Apps have many fundamental flaws, from flowing layouts which simply don't work in small form factors, to cluncky off line experience, not to mention bandwidth and power consumption.

If you combine a horrible developer experience to a horrible user experience, (Mobile) Web Apps have simply no room to grow from here.

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