The future of the internet: what is HTML5?

2010

Mar

By Hugh Fidgen

The internet has been abuzz recently with talk of a new kid in town: HTML5. There has been a slew of articles detailing the new features that this version of HTML offers and what they mean for the web, but the real question is whether or not HTML5 can topple Flash from its position as the king of rich media.

What is HTML5?

HTML is the coding language that the internet is built on. With this in mind, HTML5 is just an upgrade providing some new tricks and features as well as some judicious trimming of the fat and old outdated code.

Which browsers support HTML5 features?

Safari 4
Firefox 3.6
Opera 10.5
IE9 (coming 2011)

The main improvements are:

Video support – You won’t need a plugin (such as Flash) to watch video on websites. A HTML5 compliant browser will do the whole thing for you! You can actually see this in action on YouTube now.
Vector graphics – Draw things directly in your browser! This site has an amazing implementation of this feature, enabling you to create and save quite complex graphics right there in your browser.
Background processing – Smart web developers will be able to make websites/applications which perform all the coding and crunching in the background and so won’t affect page load or response times for the bits you are interacting with on the screen. Normal computer programs like Outlook or Photoshop do this all the time; HTML5 enables websites to do so too.
Applications can be saved for offline use – Web developers can save their applications to your hard drive, so that you can use them offline. Google Gears is doing this right now, so if you’re using this, congratulations: you’re already in the HTML5 future.

It’s clear that HTML5 is bringing more power to the browser, turning it from just a window for the web to a full application environment able to run complex programmes.

This is undeniably a powerful combination, but a lot of people are concerned that browsers are set to become “Jack of all trade” tools, but not really very efficient or stable. For example, could a poorly coded and complex HTML5 website bring your computer grinding to a halt? At this stage, we can’t really find the answer to that one…

Is HTML5 the beginning of the end of Flash?

Steve Jobs and Apple certainly think so! In fact Apple have pinned their colours firmly to the mast over this issue, openly slating Adobe’s Flash software as buggy and poorly developed. Our office has been arguing over this for the past couple of weeks and, although no one died, there was some mild wounding and some very unsportsmanlike behaviour.

The balance of the argument is this:

Flash Good

Could you really code something like this in HTML5? The day we see it, is the day we’ll all be convinced.
You can develop really complex applications with gorgeous graphics and interface. It’s excellent at drawing graphics allowing you to scale up from a small widget in the corner of a website to full screen with no real loss in definition.
Flash is simple to get good results with. You don’t need to be a programming genius to turn out some very acceptable and professional work.
Flash CS5 (the latest release) also comes packaged with the ability to develop iPhone apps. Sure, you might not be able to view Flash webpages, but Flash is certinly going to lead a boom in the “app” market.
Flash works on your desktop too – enabling you to build offline applications. (So does HTML5, so this is a 50:50 argument).

Flash Bad

If you don’t have Flash installed, you aint seeing anything on a Flash website… This is the core of the pro-HTML5 argument. Flash is proprietary software and although it is freely available, many users simply do not have it installed – or even are not allowed to install it: some companies have a no-Flash policy on their office computers.
Flash is hard to make accessible to screen readers. It’s possible to do so, but it’s not exactly straight forward and quite often doesn’t work.
If you don’t use the mouse, you can’t do much interesting stuff with Flash. It just doesn’t know what to do if the mouse isn’t moving or clicking! This makes it really hard to use with touch screens such as the iPhone or iPad (Apple and Adobe, of course, failed to come to any agreement about Flash on these devices, so even if Flash worked better without a mouse, you still wouldn’t be able to use Flash apps on your iPhone).

Conclusion

We think that there will be a compromise position, at least for the next few years. HTML5 isn’t mainstream yet. Unless you’ve got one of the latest browsers (such as Firefox 3.6) you’re not even going to be able to use it, and this means that HTML5 is currently inaccessible to the majority of internet users. Adobe have also had a huge kick up the backside, so expect a slew of new features and developments as they fight for their market share.

The bottom line is basic common sense. Developers will need to ask the question “who am I designing for?”.

If you want to reach the widest audience possible, including phones, then use HTML-5.
If your audience is tech-savvy and you don’t mind losing a few iPhone users, use Flash.

HTML5 isn’t capable of killing off Flash just yet, and that’s not even a real objective of the HTML5 movement – but it’s going to be an interesting fight to see as browser based computing gains momentum, eating into the raison d’être for Flash in the first place.