What To Expect From HTML5

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Neil McAllister takes a deeper look at HTML5, outlining what developers should expect from this overhaul of HTML — one that some believe could put an end to proprietary Web technologies such as Flash and Silverlight. Among the most eagerly anticipated additions to HTML5 are new elements and APIs that allow content authors to create rich media using nothing more than standards-based HTML. The standard also introduces browser-based application caches, which enable Web apps to store information on the client device. 'But for all of HTML5's new features, users shouldn't expect plug-ins to disappear overnight. The Web has a long history of many competing technologies and media formats, and the inertia of that legacy will be difficult to overcome. It may yet be many years before a pure-HTML5 browser will be able to match the capabilities of today's patchwork clients,' McAllister writes. 'In the end, browser market share may be the most significant hurdle for developers interested in making the most of HTML5. Until these legacy browsers are replaced with modern updates, Web developers may be stuck maintaining two versions of their sites: a rich version for HTML5-enabled users, and a version for legacy browsers that falls back on outdated rendering tricks.'"

Comments

Thank you Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Big thanks to Apple for standing up to the Flash juggernaut and showing the world we could live without it, thereby paving the way for HTML 5.

Re:Thank you Apple

[LWATCDR]

Well I think it has less to do with Apple standing up than it does with the fact that Flash didn't scale to mobile devices well.
Before the iPhone mobile friendly sites where few and far between. Once the iPhone started selling great guns more and more people moved to have their sites be mobile friendly.

Of course Apple isn't going to support Thedora so with that desision they are pushing HTML5 to be more proprietary than it could have been.
Of course Apple's choice is probably motivated by the fact that they already have hardware support for h.264 in their devices.

Re:Thank you Apple

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Big thanks to Apple for standing up to the Flash juggernaut and showing the world we could live without it, thereby paving the way for HTML 5.

And big thanks to Google for creating a non-Flash dependent version of YouTube to help Apple do it, and starting to move YouTube away from Flash in general.

Silverlight's greatest achievement

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting mentioned next to Flash in all of these "End of..." articles.

Vector animation?

[tepples]

In order that HTML 5 may replace Flash on Newgrounds.com, what tool for creating vector animations for HTML 5 is comparable to Adobe Flash CS series?

Re:Vector animation?

[Anonymous Coward]

no, no, no, you're getting this all wrong - this isn't about what people want or what actually happens in the real world!

it's about a type of consumer so brainwashed they actually believe that apple are a real force for good, and that anything that stands in the way of their favorite company's marketing machine is sheer anathema.

oh and not forgetting the stunted ideologue who will sing the praises of html5, knowing full well it won't amount to squat. who could forget them around here!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

End of Proprietary Formats?

[StormReaver]

I don't understand why anyone thinks this will put an end to Flash, Silverlight, etc., since HTML5 doesn't specify allowed CODECs. All this means is that those proprietary codecs will be specified with an HTML5 tag. Everything else will remain the same.

Re:End of Proprietary Formats?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

While the situation RE: Software patents isn't really where Free software enthusiasts would like it(among others, it isn't hard to find people who think that software patents are a serious clusterfuck); there is big difference:

If something is done in flash, it is almost definitely done using a proprietary codec(either one of Adobe's weirdo legacy proprietary codecs, or h264), wrapped in Flash, a proprietary runtime for which no good-enough-to-be-particularly-useful implementations exist. If something is done with an HTML 5 video tag, it will(outside of nests of Free software idealists) almost certainly be h264. However, while the patent situation is a mess, good Free implementations of h264 exist, and Free browsers will be on the leading edge of HTML5 development.

With flash based stuff, it is essentially impossible to function on a Free stack, no matter where you live, what patent licences you either posses or are willing to ignore, or whatever. It just isn't possible. Gnash is Not There Yet, and even if you are willing to go proprietary, Flash pretty much sucks on anything that isn't 32-bit windows, and it's a pit of resource consumption and security flaws even there. Silverlight is incrementally better, with Moonlight covering a greater subset of Silverlight than Gnash does Flash, and it not sucking architecturally as much; but it still doesn't cover enough(and pretty much any Silverlight based media application will be using a patent encumbered codec and/or DRM in any event).

h264/HTML5 still suffers patent encumbrance; but anybody not subject to, or willing to ignore, those patents can have a very functional Free implementation more or less now. That counts for something.

Re:End of Proprietary Formats?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I don't understand why anyone thinks this will put an end to Flash, Silverlight, etc., since HTML5 doesn't specify allowed CODECs. All this means is that those proprietary codecs will be specified with an HTML5 tag. Everything else will remain the same.

Picture this, in 5 years you're developing new Web site and you want a Web application on that site. Say it's a little Web based game. Will you:

• Create a version in Flash and not support the iPhone, iPad, and several other phones.
• Create a version in Flash and a version in HTML5 to support both regular Web browsers and the iPhone, iPad, and Mobile devices that don't do Flash?
• Just create an HTML5 version without Flash, and still support both all major browsers and the iPhone, iPad, and other mobile browsers, excluding some very old versions of browsers that have not installed the Google Frame plug-in?

Basically, for applications, Flash becomes redundant since you need to use HTM for other devices anyway and HTML 5 supports everything important Flash does. For video, Flash becomes useless overhead, since you can just specify a codec already used in Flash which will save the user's processor and using Flash limits your audience to a subset of what just specifying a standard codec or two does.

Re:End of Proprietary Formats?

[Draek]

If something is done with an HTML 5 video tag, it will(outside of nests of Free software idealists) almost certainly be h264.

You think? just like people only posted MPEG2 videos back in the days before Flash? no, what will happen is that everything will almost certainly be h.264, until there's a better codec out there (let's call it h.265) at which point half the content will be in h.264 and half in h.265, then large companies will smell the blood and jump in with their own, improved formats (let's call them WMV2) and lobby large content providers to use it, until browser makers start seeing h.264 as 'legacy' by being so incredibly inefficient compared to h.265 and WMV2 and drop support for it (it's not specified in the standard, remember?) and before you know it, we're in the exact same situation we had before Flash and all you've gained is that the propietary crap is wrapped in a 'video' tag rather than an 'object' one, for all the good that does to you.

No, the only solution is to specify *one* baseline codec that must be supported to comply with the standard, but leave web devs able to specify their own alternative if they so desire. That was what was going to happen with Theora as the baseline but devs able to specify h.264 or whatever shiny toy came later, until Apple began to pout and cry and refuse to implement Theora no matter what, leading us to the current situation.

InfoWorld SUCKS

[e2d2]

And here is what to expect from an InfoWorld article - very little substance littered over at least 5 pages soaked with advertisements.

I understand the substance of your complaint

[circletimessquare]

however I would assert that

(please click the next comment below the parent to see more insight)

I'm probably the minority, but

[McBeer]

Honestly I'm not rooting for html 5 to replace flash/Silverlight for RIA. I don't like having to have 5 times as many tests in my matrix (one for each browser). I don't like having to write ajax shims whenever I want to use the db from the client. I don't like how hard it is to make reusable html controls that can't break other parts of the site. I don't like how javascript scales up for larger projects... the list goes on. I'm welcome some improvements to html+javascript and for using it to display documents. That said, It simply isn't designed for RIA. Flash/Silverlight are.

I understand the substance of your complaint

[circletimessquare]

its not really that much of a problem to read

(please click the next comment in this series for our exciting conclusion)

I understand the substance of your complaint

[circletimessquare]

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