HMTL5 - back to the future

HTML5 offers a flashier, but open future. Smooth animations and seamless graphics have been the preserve of proprietary technology (Flash most obviously, but also mobile Apps), but are open standards set for a comeback?

Divergence in a converging world

We expect to be able to access the same information seemlessly through a wide range of technologies - PC, mobile and tablet (both with iOS, Android & Windows variants), TV and games consoles. But this desire for convergence is causing a high degree of divergence as these platforms use a variety of proprietary technology.

There is, however, a common thread - they are all delivered through the Internet and they all have web browsers and increasingly sophisticated ones at that.

The problem

As the number of platforms grows, only the biggest publishers can afford to develop proprietary solutions for them all. Publishers are faced with a choice between the cost of developing for mulitple platforms, or of losing out on their audience as they move between platforms. The rest of us will just lose out!

The solution

The scene is set for the open source champion to deliver a viable alternative; will HTML5 with its partners CSS3 and javascript be that champion?

HTML has always been the beacon of a common standard for the web. Its main benefit is that it's supported by all internet platforms, its Achilles heal is that it just didn't look very good!

HTML5 with CSS3 and a solid smattering of java, on the other hand, has the potential to take on these proprietary solutions. They can deliver the look and feel as well as the functionality of the proprietary technologies across multiple platforms. And as an open standard, will offer them on all platforms.

Screensize will, of course, mean that there will always be differences, but I think that this will prove to be less of a problem than you may think. Personally I often eschew the m-version of websites served up to me on my phone, perfering the richer full web version. It's down to personal preference, of course, but clever design as likely to provide the answer as technology.

Which is why I believe that over the next few years there will be a step back away from proprietary App development towards our old friend HTML, albeit version 5.

Published by: Mr Tom Barnes

Published 5th July, 2011

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