Smartphones are fantastic devices. They have come a long way since a two-megabyte disk drive was the size of a small car 40 years ago. Today, smartphones provide an unprecedented amount of computing power in your pocket.
This power can be used for the latest HTML technology HTML5, a markup language that is changing the digital landscape allowing quicker creation of content and brand applications. But does HTML5 match the power of native development?
What is HTML5 and how it works
Most smartphones use a web technology called WebKit. Without all the gory details on what WebKit does or where it comes from, it can be summed up in three simple points:
1) Feature rich code to render web pages
2) Used in most handsets
3) Supports most of the modern HTML5 standards
WebKit is an open source library, which basically means that anyone can take it, use it and build products around it. It provides a common and great way to display web pages and many smartphone manufacturers are using this technology.
The great thing about common technology like this is that an HTML5 application written to run on WebKit will work out of the box with most of the smartphones on the market today. Compatibility issues that plagued early mobile phones are a thing of the past.
In recent years the HTML standard language that you use to create web pages has evolved from simple text based pages, with a few links and images, to a media capable of fully interactive content.
The latest in these changes is HTML5, which has a huge amount of features, giving marketers the freedom to create spectacular rich content. More importantly, because WebKit is used on both iOS (iPhone) and Android smartphones, everybody has it.
Native vs. HTML5 – what are the benefits for marketers?
When looking at HTML5 vs. native apps, in my opinion the choice is simple. HTML5 wins every time.
The reason – it’s much cheaper and quicker to build than native applications because more people know how to put web pages together than they do about coding in Objective-C or Java. Additionally, unlike a native application, developers don’t have to create an app for each smartphone platform, significantly cutting the development time which can make going native very expensive.
There are of course some benefits to developing a native app. For example, they do provide the ability to run offline due to the application remaining installed on the device from the original download, so no internet connection is required meaning users get peak performance at all times. They are also easier to monetise, you set a price and when users buy it, you make money immediately.
However, HTML5 apps don’t incur any app store costs, which is particularly significant for iOS apps where Apple take a 30% slice of revenues from digital products sold through its app store.
Currently using HTML5 means that you’re unlikely to get a console game level experience. But HTML5 is a very fast paced industry at the moment, with new frameworks and devices coming out on an almost daily basis. Indie software houses are being created just to produce HTML5 games and frameworks.
This is an ever-evolving market, and mobile devices are becoming more and more powerful. Creating your campaign using HTML5 is therefore a no brainer.
So you have chosen HTML5 – What next?
There are many important points to bear in mind when it comes to developing a HTML5 app, here are just a few:
- Don’t just package your website, do something different and make sure you format your content for mobile
- Take the time to read the development guides from the major mobile platform vendors and address their recommendations – they know what they’re talking about
- Format your content for mobile. Remember that very few mobile apps allow zooming or scaling. Sites that do responsive design properly don’t need to zoom. Allow zoom for images and other appropriate content, but design the app UI so it’s not necessary
- Take care not to abuse mobile web functionality. People downloading an app expect an app experience, and will feel somewhat ripped off if they were forced to download an app just to get the exact same experience they used to get with a browser, with some features removed.
A framework makes the job of a developer much easier, it provides a set of features that they may, or may not need and presents a quick way to use them. Embedding HTML5 applications within native applications is becoming more popular and several frameworks have sprung up to aid in this task. There is a mountain of them, each with their own specific merits.
Two of the main players in the space are JQuery.Mobile and PhoneGap, for very different reasons. JQuery.Mobile make native looking interfaces in HTML. If you need the look and feel of a native application but are using HTML, this is the framework for you. It’s built on the back of the hugely popular JQuery project and is designed for mobile devices specifically.
PhoneGap has also grown into a powerful tool for building applications quickly. It uses standard HTML5, along with a few custom extensions to get mobile device features like the accelerometer into web pages.
Having HTML5 in your bag of tricks is a brilliant way to get your message out on a mobile platform quickly and easily. Both native and HTML5 present different offerings and cost in terms of money, time, and resources.
Ultimately, it’s more likely that HTML5 with its cross-platform potential and the fact that it’s so commonly used, will win out.
