HTML5

Nov 1, 2010

Microsoft’s strategy for Silverlight has shifted

Phil Powell , , Applications, HTML5, Mobile, Web 0 Comment

Unlike Adobe, Microsoft seem to be understanding that HTML5 is the only true cross-platform solution:

When Microsoft first showed off Internet Explorer 9, its most HTML 5 compliant version of IE to date, in March of this year, questions began to arise about the company’s commitment to Silverlight. Officials insisted that the two would coexist and that Silverlight would be Microsoft’s cross-platform development platform for mobile, Web and PC platforms for a number of years to come, as HTML 5 was far from becoming an accepted standard.

But in the past few months, Microsoft’s backing of HTML 5 has gotten more aggressive. Microsoft is pushing HTML 5 as the way developers can make their Web sites look more like apps.

This is a smart move by Microsoft: they can continue to develop Silverlight as a development platform for Windows Phone, whilst encouraging developers to create cross-platform applications with HTMl5 – best of both worlds, and it won’t cost them anything.

Nov 1, 2010

Adobe shows off Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tool

Phil Powell , , , , , HTML5, Web 0 Comment

Ars Technica report about the recent demo of an Adobe tool for converting Flash to HTML5:

Even though its Flash technology is used as a punching bag by Web standards fans, Adobe has been building tools that embrace HTML5. The company recently released its own HTML5 video player, and Adobe Illustrator and Dreamweaver CS5 now contain a number of new HTML5 export tools.

Now it seems Flash might be joining the party. At Adobe’s MAX conference this week, Adobe engineer Rik Cabanier showed of a demo of tool that converts Flash animations to HTML5 (well, technically it looks like a combination of HTML5, CSS and images).

Yes, it’s great that Adobe are slowly shifting towards the HTML5 camp, but they’re really late to the party. The demo of this tool, although technically quite clever, really is a horrible semantic butchery job. And again, this is Adobe pitching HTML5 as an umbrella term for a mish-mash of modern technologies – even John Nack, the Adobe employee who originally posted the video of this demo, is flagrantly open about this mis-appropriation:

Someone will probably start quibbling with the use of “HTML5″ as a stand-in for SVG, CSS3, Canvas, etc. I know, I know. I use the umbrella term in the loose, commonly understood sense: “Flash stuff without Flash.

Sigh. Is that really how they think about next-generation standards at Adobe? “Flash stuff without Flash”?

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