Kevin Benedict's What's New in HTML5 - Week of September 16, 2012

I read an article by one of Facebook's developers this morning in which he discussed their challenges with HTML5.  He called for additional browser tools that would help with debugging HTML5 apps and hardware issues, especially in the area of tracking down memory problems.  It seems that Facebook manages so many photos and other media in their news feeds that its HTML5 mobile app was constantly having scrolling problems due to memory and hardware issues which made for a poor user experience and a buggy app.

The Facebook developer still thinks HTML5 mobile apps will ultimately win over native, but after some time and additional features have been added to the standard.

Tylted CEO Lon Otremba feels that the adoption of HTML5 as a development platform will revolutionize how the games industry becomes mobile.  Read Original Content

Since its upgrade to HTML5, ShopNBC has exceeded expectations, with a 7 percent increase in page views and a 77 percent increase in mobile traffic.  Read Original Content

Vertical Solutions, Inc. has launched HTML5-based mobile versions of its customer relationship management and field service software solutions.  Read Original Content

Music streaming site Grooveshark has launched a new HTML5-based site.  CEO Sam Tarantino praises HTML5, stating “Thanks to technologies such as HTML5, we are able to offer our service with much better device compatibility, which will expand our user and revenue base for our partner labels and artists”.  Read Original Content

Despite the setback with Facebook rewriting its iOS app in Objective C, interest in HTML5 is still growing.  Facebook is still a supporter, with a company representative stating “Facebook is not moving away from HTML5, as we use it for our mobile site, which gets more traffic than our native apps”.   Read Original Content

YouTube uses Adobe Flash to display videos; however it is in a trial phase for HTML5 playback for some videos.  Christopher Park explains “How to Enable HTML5 in YouTube”.  Read Original Content

Ketan Anjaria, founder and CEO of app maker CardFlick notes that there are several advantages of HTML5 over native apps, but warns they come at a price.  “It's extremely easy to get updates out to everybody, you're always running the latest version, you can change things at will, you can track and analyze users a lot better. But you don't get performance. You don't get animation, and even though HTML5 says you can build on one platform and run on many, you still have to build for mobile platforms."  Read Original Content

The Open Mobile Summit will be held November 7-9, 2012 in San Francisco, and will explore the key themes of today's mobile industry, including app monetization, HTML5, mobile advertising, cross-platform brands and the cloud.  Read Original Content

A report from French group faberNovel on HTML5 and how to rethink web strategy is embedded as slides in this article from techcrunch.com “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About HTML5* (*But Were Afraid To Ask)”.  Read Original Content

Analysts at Gartner warn that HTML5 still has a long way to go in the enterprise.  “There is visible momentum around HTML5; however, as with most technologies, especially on the Web, interest is occurring primarily outside the enterprise sector--among progressive Web designers and among mobile application developers.”  Read Original Content

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg admitted that “the biggest mistake we made as a company was betting too much on HTML5 instead of native”, such as Apple’s native Cocoa Touch platform.  Read Original Content

According to ABI Research, 32 percent of the top iOS Apps can be built as HTML5 web apps within 18 months.  “However, in many big-ticket categories, the majority of titles are distinctly native. Games, productivity, utilities, music apps won’t have much to gain from HTML5 anytime soon”, says an ABI senior analyst.  Read Original Content

The HTML5-responsive redesign of The Chicago Tribune search pages brought “significant improvements in user experience for mobile users and sizable increases in visits to these pages”, according to Perfect Market.  Read Original Content

Mozilla has posted a new video that provides a glimpse of the new Firefox OS built using HTML5.  The video is embedded in this article “Get a Sneak Peek at Firefox OS in This New Mozilla Video” in PCWorld.  ReadOriginal Content

*************************************************************

Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC (Social, MOBILE, Analytics and Cloud), Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Strategic Enterprise Mobility Linkedin Group

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Kevin Benedict's What's New in HTML5 - Week of September 9, 2012

This week I spoke at the ClickConnect 2012 conference.  While attending I listened to the product guys/gals at ClickSoftware discuss their mobile application development platform called ClickMobile Touch which is a development platform for HTML5 based enterprise mobility apps.  While some may question the value of HTML5 for the enterprise, ClickSoftware is not one of them.

ShoutEm has unveiled a development platform for the creation of HTML5 mobile web apps with much of the same functionality as native apps.  Read Original Content

It doesn’t have to be “native vs. HTML5” for mobile apps if developers take a hybrid approach.  The hybrid app will be built individually for each mobile platform, but developers can add layers of HTML5 to run on top of native code in order to take advantage of each platform's best features.  Read Original Content

HTML5 Goodies presents a tutorial on how to create a simple Windows 8 game using HTML5, JavaScript, WinJS and libraries from CreateJS.  Read Original Content.  The HTML5 Development Center can be found at:  http://www.htmlgoodies.com/html5/index.php#fbid=ZNEP4ORbKct

Indian online entertainment store Hungama.com is launching a new HTML5 version to enable users to listen and stream on all iOS, Android and Windows 8 platforms (the service already exists for BlackBerry and Symbian interfaces).  Read Original Content

Developer Horia Dragomir discusses the challenges of writing HTML5 apps and games for mobile devices in this interview in InfoQ.  (Both video and transcript of the interview are available.)  Read Original Content

Amazon is adding a Cross-Origin Resource Sharing capability to its S3 Simple Storage Service, allowing developers to implement HTML5-based drag and drop uploads, show upload progress and update content without running a custom proxy server between their web app and S3.  Read Original Content

Chinese search engine Baidu has launched a new Android browser featuring a new HTML5 and JavaScript engine which scored an impressive 482 out of 500 on the HTML5 Browser Test.  Read Original Content

Conde Nast has overhauled its British Vogue website (vogue.co.uk), with a new site built in HTML5 and CSS3,”ensuring it adapts to both the small screens of tablet devices, on the largest of desktop monitors, and all sizes in between”.  Read OriginalContent

The new Free HTML5 Video Player and Converter app solves cross browser compatibility issues by enabling the creation of videos once for playback in all HTML5 compatible browsers.  Read Original Content

appMobi has launched two new cloud-based services for hybrid HTML5 apps, openBuild and storeView.  openBuild enables developers to compile HTML5 code into a distributable “hybrid” app and storeView, for PhoneGap and hybrid HTML5 app developers, aggregates and displays detailed app analytics in a single dashboard.  Read Original Content

Distribution, monetization, platform power and network effects, and functionality are reasons the apps vs. HTML5 debate is important.  A new report from BI Intelligence explains these reasons and what an HTML future will look like for consumers, developers, and brands.  ReadOriginal Content

A new infographic in Tnooz provides information to help organizations with the question of whether to build a mobile app or a mobile website.  Read Original Content

HTML5 has a future, but is currently losing as far as mobile devices are concerned as it’s out-performed by native apps, says David Meyer in this article, “Why HTML5 is in Trouble on the Mobile Front”, in ZDNet.  Read Original Content

According to Tom Petrocelli in his article “Big Differences in Mobile Support for the Social Enterprise” in CMSWire, HTML5 is the lowest common denominator for reaching all platforms and HTML5 support will be on the rise and will be “a core part of the Social Enterprise feature set”.  Read Original Content

appMobi has launched a new free remote debugging tool for HTML5, JavaScript and CSS3.  debugMobi simplifies remote debugging on mobile devices with a configuration-free, hosted version of the open source tool Web Inspector Remote that developers can access from anywhere on the Internet.  ReadOriginal Content

*************************************************************

Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst and Mobile Strategy Consultant

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Strategic Enterprise Mobility Linkedin Group

Full Disclosure: I am a mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Enterprise Mobility and Changing Business Models

Have you read about the on-demand, smartphone oriented car service called Uber?  They are turning the taxi and car service industry on their heads.  Why?  They allow you to use a free mobile app to hail an available car service or taxi with the push of a button.  You can see the location of available cars.  You can review the passenger ratings of drivers.  Payment is integrated with the application so you don't need cash.  You can call the driver with the push of the button.

The user experience is wonderful, according to a patient colleague of mine that I questioned over dinner last night.  You can see the distance an available car is from you, and then watch the car's progress as it drives to pick you up.  When it nears, you receive a text message, and when it arrives you receive a text message.

Probably one of the coolest features is the receipt you receive upon completion of the ride.  It includes pick-up location on a map, route taken, drop-off location, distance traveled, a photo of your driver and the amount paid.

I want to hail a taxi or car service right now!  This is a great example of how a simple mobile application, GPS tracking technologies, integrated payment systems, etc., can change an entire industry.  I was told that Uber is being sued by taxi companies all over, because they are changing the industry.  They are introducing efficiencies where they never before existed.  They are removing the middleman.  They are removing friction from the system and improving market visibility.

Enterprise mobility is like that.  It will change industries and competitive landscapes.  You can be the Uber, out front and achieving competitive advantages with mobile solutions, or be the litigating taxi companies.  Your pick.

*************************************************************

Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst and Mobile Strategy Consultant

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Strategic Enterprise Mobility Linkedin Group

Full Disclosure: I am a mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Kevin Benedict's What's New in HTML5 - Week of September 2, 2012

As many readers may know, Facebook replaced their HTML5 version of their mobile app a few weeks ago, in favor of a native application written in Object C.  It is much faster and smoother now, however, several functions disappeared with this change.  You can no longer just steal your friends photos by holding down on the image and selecting "Save Image."  You can also no longer simply swipe to delete a snarky comment that seemed funny when it first entered your brain, but now seems ill conceived (I used this a lot!), and pasted links are now handled awkwardly.  This is the give and take between HTML5 and native applications that makes our lives interesting.

Telenav’s Scout for Apps, the HTML5-based voice guided mobile GPS navigation service is now available for Android and Windows Phone platforms.  Read Original Content

Gizmodo asks “Do you prefer the unregulated world of HTML5 apps, or would you rather stick to the status quo of native apps, with their additional polish and ability to better function offline?” and receives a wide range of responses.  Read OriginalContent

Facebook has abandoned HTML5 and unveiled the rebuilt app (rewritten in Objective C) for iPhone and iPad devices, addressing numerous performance issues with the HTML5 version.  Read Original Content

Adobe has released the new version of Contribute, 6.5, now with HTML5 and jQuery Mobile support.  Read Original Content

This article, “Property Finder - a Cross-Platform HTML5 Mobile App”, is a tutorial for the development of a cross-platform HTML5 mobile app for searching property listings in the U.K. using JavaScript, jQuery Mobile, Knockout, and Apache Cordova (formerly called PhoneGap).  Read Original Content

HTML5 Apps

Rob Gravelle reviews and provides examples for using the HTML5 Canvas charting library PlotKit in this article from HTML Goodies.  Read Original Content

Research and Markets has added a new report titled “HTML5: New Monetization Opportunities for Service Providers”, which focuses on opportunities created by HTML5 and its implications for mobile applications.  Read Original Content

The new version of Firefox for Android is now available with new HTML5 capabilities, enabling developers to create Web apps and websites based on HTML5, JavaScript, CSS and other open Web standards.  Read Original Content

The website caniuse.com provides compatibility tables for support of HTML5, CSS3, SVG and more in desktop and mobile browsers.  This view is for HTML5 on mobile browsers.  Read Original Content

“HTML5 will fundamentally change the way we make video games.”  HTML5 is a great platform for powering games and the tools used to build them.  Developers need to be aware of the limitations and understand that the standard is still evolving.  ReadOriginal Content

The W3C has published the first editor’s draft of the HTML Responsive Images Extension, available here:  http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-proposals/raw-file/tip/responsive-images/responsive-images.html  Read Original Content

Location analytics startup Placed has announced the launch of support for mobile websites, now providing location data from any mobile browser that supports HTML5.  ReadOriginal Content

Recent research from ComScore MobiLens revealed a preference for mobile users to download content via apps (51.1 percent) rather than through a browser (49.8 percent).  Organizations must decide the best fit for their business - mobile apps or mobile websites.  Mike Ricci from Webtrends believes that HTML5 provides developers a tool for creating a mobile website that is virtually indistinguishable from an app and actually addresses some of the shortcomings for apps, closing the gap between apps and mobile websites.  Read Original Content

Microsoft is adding more HTML5 and CSS3 features in Internet Explorer 10 and is showing them off in a partnership with Atari that brings users 8 classic games.  Read OriginalContent

*************************************************************

Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst and Mobile Strategy Consultant

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility Linkedin Group

Full Disclosure: I am a mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Kevin Benedict's What's New in HTML5 - Week of August 26, 2012

Last week I downloaded the new native application version of Facebook mobile for my iPhone.  I must admit that I like the native application far better than the HTML5 version.  The HTML5 version was jerky, slow to load, and scrolling up and down the news feeds was rough.  The native version is much smoother and faster.  The winner of the Facebook mobile challenge is definitely the native application version. 

Now for the news...

According to the article “HTML5 vs. Flash for Gaming and Internet” from Gamer Syndrome, HTML5 is quicker and simpler than Flash and its benefits greatly outweigh the limitations.  Read Original Content

Research from InformationWeek Reports reveals that 74 percent of organizations have or will build custom mobile apps, and 52 percent of those building native apps say that until HTML5 matures, they can’t get the functionality they need in a browser app.  Read Original Content

The Dolphin Browser beta has passed the second of three hurdles in the Ringmark test designed by Facebook.  The test checks support for a wide range of HTML5 features. [Kevin Comment] this may no longer be relevant.  Read Original Content

SkyMotion has launched an HTML5-based web app that uses geolocation, radar observation, motion tracking and other technology bring the user precise up-to-the-minute knowledge of precipitation at their exact location. [Kevin Comment]  I like this! Read Original Content

Is HTML5 replacing the App Store?   While falling short on delivery of heavily animated or specialized experiences the user may expect, HTML5 brings a cost savings in both development and distribution.  Read Original Content

At the New York Times’ recent TimesOpen HTML5, Apps and JavaScript event, Terry Ryan from Adobe presented an update on what Adobe is doing around HTML5.  A slideshow of his presentation, “Adobe & Modern Web Development”, is available here - http://www.slideshare.net/tpryan/adobe-and-modern-web-development  Read Original Content

Fort Payne Alabama’s Times-Journal has unveiled a new HTML5-based mobile website, stating they used HTML5 “to produce a website that is optimized for mobile devices without the limitations that have prevented users from being able to look at certain sites on smartphones or tablets”.  Read Original Content

Web video consultant Lisa Larson-Kelley presents a high-level view of Flash, HTML5, and native app solutions, along with a clear strategy for playback across the widest variety of devices and platforms in this video, also downloadable as a PDF file.  Read Original Content

Adobe’s Muse HTML5 tool has been upgraded with added capabilities for planning, designing and publishing original HTML pages with built-in support for contact forms.  The upgrade also adds support for HTML5 animations created with Adobe edge.  Read Original Content

Transportation company Quality Distribution Inc., is utilizing HTML5 to enable employees and affiliates to access business applications via their mobile devices.  Read Original Content

Gartner’s recent Hype Cycle report (http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=2124315) shows HTML5 currently climbing the “peak of inflated expectations”, then it’s forecast to drop into the “trough of disillusionment” before climbing the "slope of enlightenment" in five to 10 years.  IDC, however, reported in March of 2012 that 79 percent of developers plan to integrate HTML5 in one form or another into their mobile apps in 2012.  Read Original Content

Robert Reinhardt of VideoRx provides a tutorial on “How to Optimize Video for HTML5 and Flash” in this video that can also be downloaded as a PDF file.  Read Original Content

Centigon has introduced the new version of its GMaps Mobile HTML5-based business productivity app for Apple’s iPad.  Read Original Content

w3schools.com provides free online tutorials on HTML5 features, elements, forms and more.  ReadOriginal Content

*************************************************************

Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst and Mobile Strategy Consultant

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility Linkedin Group

Full Disclosure: I am a mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.