HTML5 IS Mobile

Let me start by saying I'm not a hater. I really like much of Adobe's offerings - but I've hated Flash for a long time. I've hated it all the more because, for a long time, it was an absolute necessity. After slaving for several months in 1999/2000 writing one of the first cross-browser "DHTML" libraries, I really had to admit that Flash was a better solution - in fact it may still be in the desktop world.

So, I just gave up on the desktop world a few years ago. Don't ask me about it, in my eyes it barely exists anymore. If you don't know that Mobile is where the action is at, then you've apparently been on walk-about for the last few years. I'd lay odds that within 3 years tablets will have replaced 75%+ of laptop and desktop sales.

So, let's take a quick look at the mobile world's browsers - iPhone = webkit, Android = webkit, Nokia = webkit, HP/Palm = webkit, Blackberry 6.0 = webkit ... see where I'm going here? Did you notice any major mobile smart device platform that isn't on the list? Of course you didn't - because the one you're thinking of is as irrelevant right now as the desktop.

I know, you'll try and tell me that webkit doesn't equal HTML5 ... I'm not one to get stuck on semantics. Webkit is the closest thing to that mythical HTML5 beast as you'll find in the wild. And I'll tell you what, it's better than Flash! If you don't believe me, check out http://www.appmobi.com/gallery.aspx to see samples of what you can do in native apps using only HTML5 and Javascript.

Why is this so much better than Flash? Because it's not one vendors imposed death grip on all things cool in apps - whether those apps are web based or not. And when I say one vendor I don't just mean Adobe/Flash, I mean: Microsoft/C#, Apple/Objective-C, Oracle/Java, etc.. Adobe did a great job with Flash and it filled a need - but we'd all be doing ourselves a collective disservice if we adopted it on mobile. How many people reading this are expert in any of those technologies - let alone all of them? HTML5 is the savior from that tyranny - not Flash! We've been promised newer/better versions of Flash on mobile devices for many years - was FlashLite 3.1 so great that it was worth waiting 2 years to have it show-up on all of 3 devices no-one cares about?

Adobe's role is to scream out that Flash shouldn't be pulled off of life-support on mobile. We know better and should respectfully allow that once great product to go gently into the good night.