4. Device Access

One of the biggest barriers of erasing the line between Web apps and native apps is the ability for browser-based applications to have access to some of the most fundamental aspects of mobile devices, like the camera, contacts lists, calendar, accelerometer etc. This is another area where appMobi is a leader in the HTML5 space, especially after it open-sourced all of its APIs the day after Thanksgiving. Mozilla has also been working hard on creating device access through the Fennec mobile browser project.

To mobile developers, device access is the most exciting innovation within the HTML5 set. It means that true Web apps can come to mobile, without the need of doing any PhoneGap-style wrapping. Game developers will be pleased because aspects previously locked to them, such as the accelerometer or the phone's read state, can be integrated into games. This opens a world of possibilities, such as better cloud integration (which can help with in-app purchases, push notifications etc.) and enhanced game play. Depending on the platform, apps are fundamentally built off Javascript, CSS3, HTML and other programming languages and given functionality through APIs, SDKs, cloud functionality and dozens of other moving parts. HTML5 did not allow for many of those functions but until recently. That is beginning to change and will be a development to watch in 2012.

5. Offline Caching

Hold, wait a minute here. You mean that my app can work even when I am not connected to the Internet? Well, I'll be a goat in a canoe on the River Thames. The concept of offline caching is fairly new and still one of the trickier aspects of HTML5 development for Web apps to master. This year, the prime example of offline caching to be deployed on a grand scale is the Kindle Cloud Reader, a Web app from Amazon that is supposed to give the Kindle sync functionality through the browser and remember everything in in a users Kindle library. It works in Firefox 6+, Chrome 11+, Safari 5+ and iOS 4+. There is so much that can be done with offline caching but the prime benefits, combined with device access, are to make Web apps work when not actually connected to the Web. That possibility is what many pundits think will eventually be the doom of native apps because overall deployment of Web apps will be frictionless, of every platform and no platform.

Mozilla is also working on offline caching with Fennec. Actually, name any particular trend in HTML5 development, and Mozilla has a hand in there somewhere. Check out Mozilla's mobile roadmap that we wrote about a few weeks ago to fully understand how the open-source organization plans on integrating HTML5 into its smart devices platform.

6. Maturation Of Developer Tools

In August we wrote that, "HTML5 Can Get the Job, But Can HTML5 Do the Job," a riff on a Pinch/Zoom blog post on the anatomy of an HTML5 Web app. In that post, Brian Fling said this about developers planning on HTML5:

• Allow for time. Assume it will take far longer than any other project you've previously done.
• Budget appropriately. This is not a website, and it will cost you a lot more.
• Make sure you have the right talent in-house. If these problems are hard for the most seasoned experts in the world that do it every day, assume they will be hard for your team, too.
• The "tools" are non-existent. More often than not, you will have to build your own tools.
• Consider all your options. A dogmatic approach to technology is a surefire way to spend money unnecessarily. There are no right or wrong answers in mobile. Keep an open mind and focus on what your customers need.

The fourth bullet point on tools is perhaps the most pertinent of all because it is the aspect that has changed the most from August until now. In addition to the tools that appMobi provides, framework and IDE providers Sencha and Appcelerator have gotten into the HTML5 development game, providing new ways for developers to create apps with the set of standards. At this point those tools are not yet as power or simple as some of the native Android and iOS developer frameworks and tools but in the next 12 months they will continue to evolve. Frameworks, IDEs, emulators, bug detectors and other basic functions that developers have come to rely on will roll out for HTML5 development and become more ingrained into the ecosystem. When developer lives' are easier, the more productive they can be and the more Web apps we will start seeing flood the market.

Conclusion

Other functions of HTML5, such as forms and new standards, continue to evolve. Fairly soon, HTML5 will probably be just HTML as the community and the W3C work to standardize the set. The leaders in HTML5 development will be companies like Sencha, Adobe, Appcelerator, appMobi along with the titans of the industry in Facebook, Amazon and Google.

It is an exciting time to be a developer whether you are working on new forms of video rendering such as Brightcove or trying to figure out the best implementations of HTML5 for audio the way SoundCloud is. From the desktop to the mobile Web, HTML5 is making the Web's one true killer app, the browser, the centerpiece of innovation.