14 DAY TRIAL // Several weeks ago, Adobe announced that it planned on putting an end to the development of Flash Player for mobile browsers
, which leaves many people with only one option when it comes to similar technologies, namely HTML5.
The standard can be used on a wide range of devices without too much of a fuss, which should spur its adoption, some of the latest analyst reports suggest.
According to a recent research from Strategy Analytics, the number of HTML5 phone sales will triple by 2013, growing from 336 million units in 2011 to no less than 1 billion units in 2013.
With Flash out of the way and no other technology to compete with (Microsoft promised Silverlight for at least Windows Phone, but they did not make the move yet), HTML5 will soon come to dominate the smartphone area.
After all, this is not a bad thing. The technology has already seen massive adoption on notebooks, desktop PCs, televisions and more, and will be present on feature phones and tablets as well.
Not to mention that it benefits from industry-wide support (Adobe and Microsoft too are involve in this), and that it can deliver a great experience to users.
“We forecast worldwide HTML5 phone sales to surge from 336 million units in 2011 to 1.0 billion in 2013,” Neil Shah, Analyst at Strategy Analytics, said.
“Growth for HTML5 phones is being driven by robust demand from multiple hardware vendors and software developers in North America, Europe and Asia who want to develop rich media services across multiple platforms, including companies like Adobe, Apple, Google and Microsoft.
“We define an HTML5 phone as a mobile handset with partial or full support for HTML5 technology in the browser, such as the Apple iPhone 4S.”
According to Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics, HTML5 is set to become an important factor in the growth of multi-screen, 4G LTE cloud, aggregating mobile operators, device makers, Web app developers and other categories as well.
“With its potential to transcend some of the barriers faced by native apps, such as cross-platform usability, HTML5 is a market that no mobile stakeholder can afford to ignore,” he added.
However, HTML5 is a young technology, and it still needs a series of enhancements before being able to fully takeover devices, Thomas Kang, director at Strategy Analytics, added.
“HTML5 currently has limited APIs and feature-sets to include compared with native apps on platforms such as Android or Apple iOS. It will require several years of further development and standards-setting before HTML5 can fully mature to reach its potential as a unified, multi-platform content-enabler.”