An HTML5 mobile app no doubt can smoothly expand into a tablet or laptop-based Web app.
In Antenna’s whitepaper on Human Centered Mobility, one of the more important topics we discussed is the key concept of building HTML5 Web apps not only as the primary means of delivering a mobile Web application, but also for utilizing it as your primary Web app modeling framework. My own belief is that building HTML5 (and of course CSS and JavaScript) apps not only serves the modeling purpose, but will likely prove ‘good enough’ at least 85 percent of the time to actually serve as the final mobile Web app product – even in the case where the original specification called for building a native app.
Further – and this is often lost in translation – the resulting HTML5 mobile app can easily be expanded into a far more robust tablet, or laptop-based Web app. The ability to expand mobile apps in this way will meet a fast-rising need in strategic enterprise app development to cross every possible channel with one core code base. I absolutely believe that the starting point always needs to be the mobile app DNA – it is far easier to expand apps to bigger platforms than to shrink apps to smaller platforms. HTML5 is the perfect means to achieving this huge enterprise goal.
A single, well-understood code base also makes it far easier to not only develop, test and deploy great graphics capabilities and user UIs, it also makes it easy to quickly get updates into the field. Update the HTML5 app and the user instantly has access to the next great version. There is no need for the user to think about updates at all (aside from learning about new and/or improved features).
I’ll leave it to you to do the math on overall mobile app development costs – HTML5 is a sweet deal indeed.
In a previous post, Antenna’s Volt Mobile App Publisher – High Voltage Enterprise Mobile Management!, I dug into Antenna’s HTML5-driven Volt Web app-development platform. In particular there are sections in that post that cover the one code base (true write once, deploy to many) approach, the means by which security and user-liable issues disappear, and – of major importance to both enterprises with large employee numbers and to companies that have huge consumer-side audiences – the ability to securely launch secure mobile apps outside of all app stores. Note my emphasis on “security.”
HTML5 in the Real World
This is all fine in theory, but it’s always great and far more satisfying to see the theory lab-tested and observed in the real world. The good news is that this is exactly what is beginning to take place.
What do you think? Has FT captured its FT-ness?
Most recently (well, back in early June 2011, a lifetime ago from a mobile perspective) the Financial Times (FT), which obviously has that huge consumer audience in hand, pulled off the HTML5 approach and essentially sited all of the above reasons for doing so. FT has provided a handy FAQ on it, so no need for me to repeat it here. But it is great to see our HTML5 theories realized in major deployments.
Aside from overall functionality, the most crucial thing about any mobile app is the user interface. Easy to use? Intuitive? Heck, is it truly delightful? In FT’s case I believe they’ve both captured the essence of what good mobile app design is about (check the whitepaper I noted above for much more on this) but FT has also managed to retain the flavor of what FT is – the app has managed to capture the FT brand and this is critical for insuring that the core brand attributes FT’s readers anticipate are in place and remain in place.
Good as Native?
You know, this is almost a meaningless question. Sure, the native app will always have just a bit more UI crispness, just a bit more access to native capabilities (perhaps a lot more if it’s a detailed action game, at least at this point in time) but I find it to be a very fair trade-off.
Here’s the thing – given the choice between, say, a BMW 5 series and an Acura TL, I will absolutely pick the BMW (the native app) over the Acura (the HTML5 app). If someone presents me with an Acura TL and no alternative, I may know about the BMW but I will truly be a very happy guy driving the TL! (In the real world the Acura TL is what I happen to very happily drive – I’ve no real lust for the BMW. But a Porsche 911…that would be the equivalent of Apple’s GarageBand, and HTML5 is not ready to make that happen!)
HTML5 has a ton of promise behind it – and I absolutely believe that HTML5 will deliver on the promise, though GarageBand is probably a three-year wait. There is a very well done, and I think accurate, PowerPoint narrative by Redfin’s Sasha Aickin on HTML5 vs Native. Take a look. I highly recommend it.
In the meantime, real world mobile HTML5 apps like FT’s are truly here and they deliver what needs to be delivered.
Tags: Antenna, Enterprise Mobility, HTML5, Human Centered Mobility, Mobile Apps, Mobile Devices, Mobile Observatory, Tony Rizzo
