The times of fascination and bashing HTML5 have passed. Now it’s clear that the landscape of mobile is changing, and HTML5 is going to occupy a certain place on the shelf among the mobile development technologies. We just need to understand what it has to bring to the table.
The experience of previous years proves that HTML5 is not a silver bullet. The idea of ‘write once, run everywhere’ does work, but ‘write once, run WELL everywhere’ is not there yet. HTML5 app face problems monetization, distribution, and they still fall behind in user experience and performance comparing to the native apps (details can be found here – HTML5 Apps vs Native Development).
However, these issues shouldn’t be overstated as HTML5 is maturing with every day. In his blog post Chris Heilmann, principle developer evangelist at Mozilla, did a great job busting the negative myths that have surround HTML5 and confidently proved that even the biggest problem – user interface – is conquerable. That’s why, many developers are planning on actively using this technology.
As of now, HTML5 proves to be a niche technology, which could be a good choice in several cases in mobile:
- When you are looking to build a simple content-based app;
- When you need an MVP for a bootstrap startup (just to test your idea with the first users);
- When you need to skip the 30% app market tax (just like the Financial Times did – Financial Times: ‘There is no drawback to working in HTML5’).
Also, you can read more about merits of HTML5 here).
Recently HTML5 has faced a big rise in enterprise. Many companies look into HTML5 for their cross-platform mobile solutions as well in order to optimize budgets. However, when we talk mobile, we must keep in mind that users evaluate enterprise apps just like they do with the apps they get from an app market. So, if your corporate app performs poorly, don’t expect hundreds of dedicated users.
The most important thing is that users don’t really care about technology used in the development of a mobile app. The product has to satisfy their needs. While HTML5 is a moving target, for now the best users interface and performance can be provided with native apps. So, that’s what we at Stanfy are working on 🙂