Macadamian Blog

The Current State of HTML5

A lot of people are starting to hear about HTML5, but news about it is scattered and current uses and trends are hard to keep up with. After talking with a colleague about how HTML5 is being used right now and who the major players are behind the technology, we realized that this information could be useful to others as well. On that note, here's a quick overview of the current state of HTML5.

The Major Players

Most of the news with HTML5 lately has been about politics. There are a lot of different entities that are pushing the HTML5 specification along, for many different reasons. Here's a quick recap:

• Apple is promoting HTML5 because their browser, Safari, has good HTML5 support and Apple can use the advanced interface features and video playback of HTML5 in place of Flash on their mobile devices.
• Google is also a big supporter of HTML5, though their motives aren't quite as specific. As the top innovator on the web, Google must remain as up-to-date as possible on something as core as a new version of HTML, and their main push has been keeping the specification open (devoid of patents and licensing, more on that in a moment).
• Mozilla, maker of Firefox, is in a similar position to Google regarding HTML5. Firefox is seen as a big innovator in the browser space, and Mozilla is a strong supporter of open source.
• Microsoft has finally accepted that to stay competitive in the browser space, it needs to embrace HTML5. This will happen with Internet Explorer 9, which isn't expected to be released until 2011.

The main quarrels so far have been related to the audio and video codecs that should be supported by HTML5. Apple and Microsoft are in favor of licensed formats (such as H.264 and MP3) while Google and many other browser-makers would rather see completely open formats (read: Ogg Vorbis and Theora). While this has been a stalemate for quite some time, the recent announcement of WebM, a video codec that might work for everyone, is a step in the right direction.

Current Usage and Trends

In terms of what is available now in terms of killer HTML5 applications, there still isn't much. None of the currently available versions of Internet Explorer support any HTML5, which is really holding back broad market adoption. This leaves two main ways that HTML5 is being used right now:

1. For proof-of-concepts and progressive enhancement. Since all non-Microsoft browsers currently support HTML5, some developers are testing out what can be done and occasionally adding non-critical "bonus" features to their designs that use HTML5. These enhancements are shown in browsers that support the required HTML5 features, and are ignored in browsers that do not.
2. In very niche markets, where it's fair to assume that all users will have a browser that supports HTML5. This is why HTML5 is gaining traction in the mobile space. All major smartphones ship with a browser that supports HTML5, so it's perfectly safe to build an HTML5-based webapp that targets the mobile device market (and there are certainly compelling reasons to do so).

Looking to the future, the mobile space will get more interesting as the iPad and its competitors become more popular, so HTML5 may start to pick up even more speed in that area. These trends will likely continue until the arrival of Internet Explorer 9, which will open up the possibility of developing HTML5 applications to a much wider market.