What will change with HTML 5 ?

HTML5 is the next standard for HTML 4. Probably most of you came across an article about HTML5. Nowadays there is a lot of buzz about it, especially after the Ipad announcement. Steve Jobs gave a speech ignoring the flash and favoring the HTML5 standard. Google announced YouTube will start supporting HTML 5 standard. Firefox argued about the licensing issues after YouTube’s move. And even Adobe CEO admitted that with time HTML5 standard will take over and reduce the need for the flash plug-in.

So what does HTML 5 bring?

Video: Currently when we want to get video content on our browsers we have to install couple of plug-ins and have to deal with the updates each time the web site makes a change. With HTML5 inserting a video on a web page will be just like inserting a picture. Browsers will be able to understand video content and be able to render them by themselves.

An Example (Firefox users) http://www.dailymotion.com/openvideodemo

Offline storage: This will open the way for web applications. Google was using its own application called gears which you had to install it for every new browser. With HTML5 websites will be able to recognize you and the offline data you had worked on and synchronization will be much easy. This is one of the first steps going through web applications and cloud computing.

An Example (Firefox users) http://weareallrobots.com/demos/cache.html

Drag-and-Drop Elements and Document Editing: HTML5 will provide drag and drop support for the websites to have the same experience with the desktop applications.

An example http://demos.hacks.mozilla.org/openweb/DnD/

Locations services: Probably Iphone users are already aware of this feature such as Google Latitude mobile web site asking permission to update your location. Iphone webkit browser already supports this feature. And with HTML5 it will be a standard for every browser.

An Example (Firefox users) http://merged.ca/iphone/html5-geolocation

Probably on the user side, the transition will be largely seamless but users will realize that it will make switching browsers easier, websites will be less resource intensive, more content will be easily accessible from mobile devices, tablets and netbooks.

Ugur BOZKURT