An HTML 5 Primer

Much has been written about HTML5, the next version of the language that tells your web browser about the content of the web pages you visit. Companies like Apple are using it to showcase the capabilities of their latest hardware. You're probably already using HTML5 in one form or another as part of your daily browsing habits. You can find HTML5 versions of YouTube and Vimeo. So what does it mean? What's different, and why should you care?

It's About Standards

When we talk about standards in the context of the web, we're talking about agreements that interested parties have made. In a nutshell, these agreements define how your web browser talks to websites, and how those websites send pages back to you. These agreements are what make it possible for you to use Firefox and for me to use Safari, and many others to use Internet Explorer, and all see the same web page. HTML5 is the next version of standard that defines web pages.

Apple's Problem With Flash

Over the past few years video has become ubiquitous on the web. When web developers first started trying to put video on the web, they ran into a problem of standards. There are many ways to put together video files, and not all computers are capable of understanding all those different ways. Developers needed a tool that made it possible to produce one video file that could be played anywhere. The solution was Flash. By putting video in Flash files, any web browser with a Flash player could play the video. Since most computers shipped with web browsers that could play Flash, this solved the original problem. This is how Flash video came to rule the web, and for a long time it worked well. It worked right up until Apple released the iPhone, and announced it wouldn't support Flash.

As the maker of Mac OS X, Apple's history with Macromedia (later purchased by Adobe) and its Flash product was difficult. Macromedia was shooting for marketshare and Microsoft's Windows was the unequivocal market leader. The company didn't invest the engineering resources to make sure Flash ran well on Macs, and over time Mac users simply got used to dealing with it. At the time Apple was originally developing the iPhone, Adobe didn't have a version of Flash that ran well on mobile devices. Rather than ship the iPhone with a poor implementation of Flash, they left it out entirely. Apple knew that it needed to support web video, and that Flash wouldn't work on its new iPhone. Their answer was HTML5.

The current (or old, depending on your viewpoint) version of HTML does not specify in a clear format how video should be put on web pages. This is because web video simply wasn't feasible when the current spec was being drafted in 1999. Developers found a way in Flash, but using Flash brings with it a number of problems. Apple pegged performance as the problem, but there are also issues of openness and competition. Using Flash video means using Flash, which means having a single vendor (Adobe) in control of an entire area of web publishing. This sort of monopoly doesn't breed innovation.

How Does HTML5 Solve The Problem?

In this example, it solves the problem of web video. The new language defines in a simple manner how to embed video files (of any type) on web pages such that any modern web browser will know what to do. Unfortunately, the specification does not make explicit a single file type for all web video, but the web has organized itself around a front-runner: h.264. This means developers can produce their video in this format, and put it on a web page using HTML5, all without requiring end-users to have a third-party plugin like Flash to handle the work.

This makes things better for everybody. It makes it easier for hardware (from PCs and Macs to iPhones and Droids) to play video, as manufacturers can build capabilities into their devices (laptops, iPhones, Droids, you name it) to make playing video use less battery than they would playing in Flash. It also makes it simpler to build powerful tools that can interact with the video, without having to use expensive software tools like Adobe's Flash Professional.

Is That It?

No.

Video is just one example of how HTML5 endeavors to improve the way developers build web applications. Another section is devoted to audio. Other components make it easier for web developers to build user interfaces that more closely match what you're used to in desktop applications. Still other areas make it easier to build "real time" web applications that can push information to web pages. HTML5 also includes components that make it easier to build applications that work well on mobile devices, which often have to deal with slower connections than their desktop counterparts.

If you're using a modern web browser like Safari, Chrome, or Firefox, you've already got everything you need to take advantage of these new capabilities. Microsoft's Internet Explorer will also be able to take advantage of HTML5 starting with its next version, 9. Even better, all iOS devices and most Android devices running the latest software also support HTML5.

Now is the time to get your content ready for the next evolution of the web. These tools make it easier than ever to get content online. Talk to your agency about what you can do to be ready.

About the Author: Joseph Jaramillo

Joseph Jaramillo is Off Madison Ave's Senior Technologist, and leads our app development team. He's been building applications for over a decade, and specializes in the Ruby on Rails web framework and iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) mobile platform.

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