A couple days ago, I was interviewing a programmer for a job, and he brought up an article I wrote four years ago and had pretty much forgotten. It was one of those articles that you (I) write quickly when the deadline is approaching and you (I) haven’t been able to think of a topic — somewhat like this newsletter.
The article was titled “An Internet Gullibility Quiz” and was simply a list of true/false questions about Internet myths and legends. Each one of these could be verified to be false at the time by doing a simple Google search, and that was the point of the article — don’t believe everything you read, and do your own research before believing something that appears in your email inbox.
The programmer I was interviewing pointed out that the first “myth” — that Facebook was created by the government so that it could pose as our uncle and spy on us — wasn’t actually far from the truth. Turns out, they don’t even need to pose as our uncle!
In HTML5, and especially in HTML5 Mobile Apps, the lines between myth and fact are often also blurred. HTML5 evangelists will tell you that all mobile apps should be built with HTML5. People who have experienced poorly written HTML5 apps or the headaches of developing an HTML5 app will tell you that HTML5 apps aren’t ready to be used yet. And, both are right.
In just the latest in a never-ending stream of “myth-busting” articles aboutHTML5, TechCrunch said that that the number of “hybrid” (HTML5 + Native) apps is booming. Hybrid apps are apps where HTML5 is used to write the app and then the HTML5 code is wrapped with a native shell for each smartphone operating system. I talk about hybrid apps in my book (WebKit for Dummies) as well as in my online class (Creating Mobile Apps withHTML5), if you want to know more!
While they aren’t the pure HTML5 solution that most web developers would love to see, and they don’t yet offer all of the features that native app developers want to see, hybrid apps do partially fulfill the promises ofHTML5 mobile apps. They’re probably the closest we’re going to get to true write-once, run-anywhere mobile apps — at least for a while. Want to know more? Don’t believe me? Google it and find out for yourself!