Whatever happened to HTML5?

Ten months since they put a ring on it, is the new web standard advancing at the speed it should?

HTML5 was supposed to be the next evolution in web design. After the stable "Recommendation" version emerged from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in October 2014, it looked like full steam ahead for the markup language.

It was in 2010 that Apple's Steve Jobs famously stated that Adobe's Flash, already long-despised by him after years of traded blows between the companies, had "had its day" and that "HTML5 looks like the technology that is on the ascendancy now".

But just how far has it ascended?

Ryan French, head of web at mobile app development consultancy Mubaloo, believes HTML5 is still lagging behind native builds - certainly in the mobile industry - but that this isn't a particular drawback for the time being.

"If you're building a native HTML5 app it is [still slower than native], and that's a limitation, a bit like if you've only just opened Safari and are browsing a website, for example," French says.

"That's because it only gets a limited set of resources to run."

French prefers Apache Cordova as an API set to access native functions when coding for Apple, Android and their rivals - it's still generally faster than falling back on HTML5. For now, anyway.

"In Cordova, you're not going to get the 60fps you'd need to run an application. But eventually you will. But iOS and the latest version of Android - and Safari as well - are getting close. But you don't want to be using HTML5 for those kinds of applications anyway. A native app in iOS or Android is still where you'll get faster performance."

French says the web is certainly "moving the way" Steve Jobs predicted.

"We see things like [web-building JavaScript framework] AngularJS - and Google are focusing on this," he says,

"It's definitely there - support for audio and video is pretty much universal in modern browsers. But on the other hand, lack of DRM [digital rights management] within APIs can hold things back. Most developers don't like that idea, but businesses of course do."

Alex Kontos has his own strong views on HTML5 - not to mention DRM - and the influence of big business on its birth and development. Founding the 64-bit Waterfox browser project in 2011 when he was only 16, in order to "expand on the ideals of what Mozilla had for a free and open web", Kontos keeps a close eye on both Mozilla and its rival Google.

He reckons that "2015 is the year of HTML5."

"Before final standardisation last October, people weren't sure which parts to implement. And developers themselves didn't see the point of putting the effort into it," he tells Computing.

"It took the W3C and WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group) a while to see eye to eye over what should be implemented. Mozilla were adamant they were never going to implement DRM, and Google were like ‘No, we want to implement this because we've got interest in DRM for YouTube and other services'," he explains.

"Eventually that got resolved and Google caved."

Disputes of this kind occurred throughout the standard's development, he says.

"I think Google tried to get through a bunch of things they wanted, which wouldn't necessarily benefit everyone. An example would be the WebP image format, which Google developed and Mozilla said ‘We're not too comfortable implementing this'.

"You can go on the bug report forums and see this massive conversation opening among developers and customers. And while Google are meant to be this ‘Do no evil', white knight company, it's dodgy, because it's just not as open as Mozilla are with everything."

Kontos still laments the fact Chrome is still only "partly open", with developers still denied access to the Google Play APIs, for example.

Politics, Kontos claims, can sometimes sour relations between Mozilla and HTML5 developers generally.

"A few weeks ago, from one of the developer firms that Mozilla has, a user posted an HTML5 feature for filling out forms [in a browser running HTML5]. The standard is that an interface pops up to pick a calendar date, and the browser is supposed to implement that - it's their responsibility to do it across platforms. But when a user asked to use it for a project, the Mozilla developers were like ‘We need to talk to the UX guys, and the UX guys said they'd need to talk to the guys in the backend, and after two weeks the conversation stalled."

Kontos also believes uptake of HTML5 has also been slowed by cost issues.

"There's cost of implementation, and it costs to relearn everything in HTML5. And all the fragmentation that still exists in the market also adds to the cost."

The trouble, says Kontos, is that while coding in HTML5 is supposed to be the same for all browsers, "in real life, we know that's not true".

"So compatibility across everything drives up development time and cost."

Despite these issues, Kontos believes HTML5's usurpation of Java is just a matter of time.

"Flash is gradually dying out - it's become like a zombie," he says. "Eventually it will just go. And with YouTube switching to HTML5, too..."

Andy Clark, engineering manager at remote access firm RealVNC, and Adam Greenwood Byrne, VP of strategic alliances at the company, are very much involved in the growing migration from Java to HTML5.

"We've been quite staunch supporters of Java in the past," says Greenwood Byrne.

"But we've seen browsers move away from supporting those applets. In the past few months, with Chrome taking away plugin support for Java, it's been the same kind of shift as when Steve Jobs said ‘there's no Flash on the iPAD', which forced people to move on."

"People are seeing that as a good accelerant," confirms Clark.

"We've been working in HTML5 as a prototype for quite a few years now, anyway."

Clark sees a move away from browser plugins such as Java as a generally positive trend anyway - particularly as far as end users are concerned.

"I don't think the average user abstracts plugins away from the browser," he says.

"If there's a problem in Chrome, then reputationally there's a problem [generally] with Chrome.

"It can feel very jarring to use applets now," says Greenwood Byrne. "But HTML5 is now gaining traction because it's supported natively."

But so-called "native" support can still be the limiter.

Echoing Mubaloo's French, Clark describes how the choice of platform, particularly in mobile, can still have a bearing on performance when using HTML5.

"One of the key things with mobile is the speed of the platform, and we face that every day," he says.

"Browsers are evolving at a crazy pace with new handsets out every six months with more power than ever before. It's only a matter of time before a web-based platform works well on mobile. But we're not there yet."

Despite HTML5, he says "we see the mobile experience as slower than desktops at the moment".

The difference between HTML5 and native applications is so obvious, Clark remarks, that advanced benchmarking isn't even necessary.

"[But] I think it's going to change, and we're doing a lot of R&D on that side," he says.

Greenwood Byrne is also concerned that having to find, open and navigate a web page is simply not as user friendly as Apple's self-contained app model.

"The relative difference of native and HTML5 is one issue, but [native] is also going to look like other apps, and still do something intelligent when the web isn't there," he says.

"There's also the problem of discoverability if you don't use apps.

"How do I know how to get to an HTML5 web app? I think the world needs to make those things synonymous. And as a developer, building things like app wrappers is just adding overheads."

Echoing Kontos, Clark says: "App environments give you consistent, stable and well-documented frameworks that will work for months or years. In HTML5 there are a whole range of browser vendors, a standardisation process that doesn't keep pace with all the innovation across the board, and a whole range of fragmentation too."

There's another side to the story - that of the professional using the web to maintain a corporate image.

Mark Boulton, design director at typesetting and typeface design firm Monotype, describes his role as "making sure digital things are on-brand and telling the right story visually". Better flexibility and user-friendliness in the presentation of web pages being one of the key drivers behind the development of HTML5, it's interesting to see how Mark's experience is unfolding.

"In work we've done and the work we're doing now, HTML5 isn't really a problem," says Boulton, "until we start talking about advertising - then it's a problem. But it's mostly not a technology problem, and more a people problem.

"In advertising, the workforce don't want to change. There's a whole load of reasons why it's difficult to go from Flash to HTML5. Flash is a very visual medium. HTML5 is semantic mark-up. A lot of tools have been mostly built around networks, and so device proliferation has forced the hand of the market," he says.

"The downside [with HTML5] is still performance," he adds. "Large inventory-based ad unit sales are based on page rate specifications which hadn't moved an awful lot in ages. It's adding weight to websites."

While Boulton acknowledges that Flash's single advertising callbacks are inferior to the multiple callbacks HTML5 can provide, performance and willingness among coders to jump on board remain issues.

Windows 10 effect

With Windows 10 having launched in only the past couple of weeks, French and Clark believe the new OS's HTML5-friendly Edge browser should boost uptake.

"I think the most interesting thing about it is, it's going to become like Chrome is," remarks French.

"It'll patch itself in the background and match more quickly, and update specs without having to wait for the next update cycle," he enthuses.

"So that should hopefully change things a lot - it's very important. The free Windows 10 upgrades are good there, too."

"In the past few months, the Microsoft Edge browser as a plugin system [Clark is referring to the pre-release version of Windows 10], and Chrome, have both come along," chimes in Clark.

"And this is to reduce the number of security risks. The plugin model was always a rich target for attackers to go for. So trying to eliminate that, and not putting a negative spin on experiences, is important. We're happy to be getting rid of plugins too, as it means people can run our software right out of the box."

To conclude, it seems HTML5 is largely right where its instigators felt it should be. All it requires now is the right support, the right business ecosystems, and a willingness - as in many points of crossover in IT history - to jump on board and make full use of the system. While the native-friendly app-based model of Steve Jobs' iOS still proliferates from Android to BlackBerry, projects like Mozilla's Firefox OS have shown that even hybrid HTML5 and app-based development models can work.

But as HTML5 grows in stature and more key web pillars, such as YouTube, ally with it, progress should start to pick up speed for all stakeholders.