HTML5 and jQuery: The Light at the End of the Tunnel
Will the app that you installed on your phone last until 2020? Will it last for twenty minutes? Maybe by 2020, using apps will be something to look back on with nostalgia.
A mobithinking.com report highlights a 2010 study from ABI Research that predicts 2013 will see the peak of app usage before a steady decline as people migrate to web apps. Just look at Facebook. Its app isn’t an app at all but a link to its mobile site.
Consumers might like apps, but delivering them is quite costly in development time. Developing an Internet site is relatively cheap compared to developing and maintaining an app for users of Apple, Blackberry, Nokia, Windows, and Android.
The fragmentation in the app sector is like oil companies having to develop a special gasoline for each manufacturer of cars and updating it every time a new model hits the market. This logistical nightmare cannot be sustainable except for the most successful and profitable apps. How many of them are there? Doesn’t everyone look for free apps first?
Companies have been forced by market pressures to create apps. Developers for those apps are in hot demand, but for how long? How long before companies move away from the cost of an iPhone app developer, a Windows app developer, a Blackberry app developer, and an Android developer? The question is what will they move to?
Greg Rewis's video at the bottom of this article offers an interesting insight into HTML5 and app development. It's what got me thinking about this subject.
The light at the end of the tunnel is HTML5 and jQuery. Here we have tools that can live on any Internet browser that supports them, and they can operate across devices—iPhones, iPads, Galaxies, Blackberrys, etc.—unlike an app that can only work on one device, possibly only one version of an operating system, before an update is required.
HTML5 is still in development, but its future looks certain. Just look at some of these HTML 5 demos on why some think it rocks.
John Resig saw a way to change how JavaScript could work and put it out there. Now people and companies are already using these tools to create new tools. The shackles on the device will be smashed. The 1984 Apple ad to introduce the Apple Mac springs to mind.
It seems to me that in moving to technology that lets us create first, our lives might get that little bit simpler, allowing us to focus more on the creative stuff and less on the boring maintenance work. What are your thoughts on webapps, HTML5, and jQuery vs. the traditional app?
