2012: The Year HTML5 Gains the Upper Hand on Native Mobile Apps?

Will 2012 be the year HTML5 gains the upper hand on B2C/B2B native mobile apps? HTML5 has begun transforming the existing relatively short life of native mobile development paradigm of the desktop, mobile web and app marketplace. HTML5 promises to deliver universal access, and make the creation of portable, scalable applications for browsers, and mobile devices a reality with increased time to market and true lower Total-Cost-of-Ownership (TCO).

As we know, mobile device usage is continues to grow- fast. According to estimates from Juniper Research, global tablet shipments will reach 81 million by 2015, and in July IMS Research announced expected smartphone sales to exceed one billion by 2016. What does this really mean? The mobile landscape right now is at the edge of a perfect storm driven by the duel business / consumer mix.  The low cost combination of marketplace availability of smart devices, universal access to internet services everywhere, anytime and the standard feature sets– including social, media and geo-location– continues to support a growing influence in everyone’s daily lives. As a result, the appetite for more mobile features and analytics to pro-actively react to mobile behavior so mobile experiences become even more rewarding and personalized must be critical to an organizations mobile strategy.

Businesses are trying to solve the problem of keeping up with consumer demand while navigating the myriad of devices, on-going maintenance of apps, new enhancements, application certification and distribution.  Supporting a native app requires a specialized knowledge of the unique framework, device features and style guidelines; all need to be replicated per each native platform often with no re-usability. I liken this to a popular novel that must be translated into multiple languages and distributed to each country.  Same story but different dialect, grammar and languages are necessary to write each book.

HTML5 allows for standardized and faster development, along with multi-platform support, with more flexibility at a decreased cost. Since device feature sets such as geolocation, local storage, camera, video and audio are accessible via HTML5, the need for native development diminishes. This is a huge value proposition, not only in terms of cross-device scalability, but also in the post-deployment maintenance and support required for all successful apps.

Big brands are taking notice. Facebook statistics reported that the more than 350 million active users who access Facebook through their mobile devices are twice as active as non-mobile users. As a result Facebook announced the launch of the HTML5 Resource Center, giving developers tools to build, test and deploy Facebook applications using HTML5.

Everyday, news about the adoption and advancement of HTML5 within large software companies emerges. Recently appMobi open sourced a number of their HTML5 development technologies, and by now you’ve heard that Adobe announced it will discontinue development of Flash for mobile devices, putting its efforts instead towards HTML5; using HTML5, iPhone supports video without the need for Adobe Flash. Danny Winokur, VP and GM of Interactive Development at Adobe said recently: “HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices…in some cases exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms…These changes will allow us to increase investment in HTML5…”

While this all sounds great, there are still hurdles, specifically in B2B market adoption. HTML5 requires a browser capable of supporting its framework.  Older browsers may support some but not all the capabilities leaving organizations in a form of purgatory in terms of their ability to fully develop, and implement HTML5 apps.  All of that said, most agree it is a forgone conclusion that HMTL5 will be fully embraced as a universal solution, with the reality pointing to 2012 as when the tipping point occurs.