HTML5 ARTICLE

August 01, 2012

The Hybrid App, Not HTML5, is the Future of Apps, Says Strategy Analytics


With all the hype about how HTML5 apps are going to become increasingly dominant, a new report released by Strategy Analytics (NewsAlert) says this might not be the case after all. According to the Strategy Analytics Ecosystem Opportunities report, “HTML5: No Threat to Native App Dominance,” the risk HTML5’s open standards create for existing revenue streams compared to the feature-rich superiority of native apps may confine this technology to niche status.

The report says that HTML5 is failing to present an alternative to native apps and will not be a threat to native app dominance from Apple, Google and Windows Phone (NewsAlert). The business, technical and revenue challenges that HTML5 apps will face as a result, will limit them to gaining mainstream popularity.

Only a third app might be able to bridge HTML5 and native apps to ensure the ecosystem continues to gain developer support across platforms.

According to the director of apps research at Strategy Analytics, “HTML5 is not the future of apps.” The fragmented support for and limited APIs within HTML5 has been cited as the major problem that will see the “write once run everywhere” dream fail to give birth to reality. The report predicts that hybrid apps are in fact the future since they protect existing business models, ensure consumption remains unabated and that differentiation among and within ecosystems remains intact.

Strategy Analytics predictions of the hybrid app exhibiting strong growth can be seen in services such as PhoneGap, Sencha, BrightCove and Marmalade that allow developers to leverage the best of native and open standards through a combination of HTML5 with native APIs. 

As far as apps popularity is concerned, ABI Research (NewsAlert) forecasts smartphone subscribers will download 36 billion apps in 2012, a 6-percent global increase from 2011 which saw, on average, 35 apps per smartphone subscriber download.


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Edited by Braden Becker





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