devcon5 presentation handout

Thursday, July 28, 11

HTML5 Is The Future(But Not Like You Think)Devcon5 - July 27, 2011


Take Aways• HTML5 will become the dominate app platform for mobile,

PCs and televisions in the coming years.• These won’t be your father’s web apps.• A whole new tool chain is developing to make this

possible.


Great Forces At Work

There are some great forces at work in the market today that pretty much guarantees the way you write software is going to have to change.

The primary driving force behind this shift: mobile.


To give you an idea of the size of what’s happening in mobile, you only need to look at the number of shipments of devices.

PC’s after 20 years have topped out around 400M units per year.

Best estimates are that smartphones and tablets will top out closer to 1B units per year.

Once you take into account device turnover etc. it turns out that the total installed base for PC’s is around 1B units. For smartphones and tablets - it will easily reach 2B by 2015.

Mobile is not just huge - it is the biggest technological shift to hit the computing industry ever. By at least a factor of 2x.


Nokia31m

Apple16m

Google33m

RIM15m

Microsoft3m

Others3m

Global smartphone shipments (Q4 2010)

But the real problem - the REAL problem - is that you are going to have to build apps for this new world. And that is guaranteed to be a major challenge.

For starters - because this is a multi-platform world. Lot’s of different platforms are taking off and there aren’t any signs to indicate there will be one OS to Rule Them All like we had with the PC.


Even if there was One OS to Rule Them All - you still have the form factor problem.

I talk to a lot of mobile developers in my line of work. The ones that are most successful will tell you that the key to gaining high user engagement is to be everywhere with the same app.

It’s really important to understand how “lazy consumers” see your product. Take Facebook for example.

Facebook has a website, an iphone app, and soon an iPad app. Average consumers don’t see it that way - they think of Facebook - which they may happen to access on their phone, tablet, PC etc. It doesn’t matter to them what tech you used or how they acquire it - they care about the core features.


App Store Web Browser

Ability To Add New Features Limited only by hardware Limited to browser APIs

Complexity Build many versions(@$100,000/yr/app) Build one version

Discoverablility App Store only(along with 500,000 other apps) Google, Twitter, Facebook.

Distribution ModelTo make all this worse you also have a distribution problem.

Today you basically have two main ways to distribute software to your customers - you can use an App Store or you can use the Web Browser.

Neither solution is optimal.


• Runs on every major mobile and desktop OS (and most TV’s) today.

• Built by the platform vendors.

• Supports most common application features.

• BUT .. it only runs in the browser! (or does it?)


This Ain’t Your Father’s Web App(or even your older brother’s)


The first version of the web was about you going to pages. You went from place to place to place.

The new web is about bringing the web to you in an experience that you will love.


Browsers !== Web


Here is an example of an app we built. It’s a digital magazine.


Beyond that, this is about experiencing apps outside of the browser as well.

Using native wrappers like PhoneGap we can create apps that can be distributed through both the browser AND the app store.


Multiscreen Web Appnoun. A web-based application designed to be used across different form factors and platforms, both inside and outside the browser.


Multiscreen Architecture


Server-SideFramework

DeploymentInfrastructure

HostingService

+ +


Client-SideFrameworks

HTML5 BuildTools

WebServices

+ +BPM


Take Aways• HTML5 will become the dominate app platform for mobile,

PCs and televisions in the coming years.• These won’t be your father’s web apps.• A whole new tool chain is developing to make this

possible.


www.strobecorp.com@strobe

Charles [email protected]


http://www.strobecorp.com

http://www.strobecorp.com

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

devcon5 presentation handout

Technology