The HTML5 space saw a fair amount of activity this week with topics ranging from mobile apps to animated GIFs and the Wii U. Let’s get started.
Kicking things off, a new report from BI Intelligence was released suggesting that more mobile developers have started to rely on HTML5 as their main development platform. Indeed, 17 percent now primarily develop mobile apps with the markup language — roughly half the number of those who develop for Android (News – Alert) (33 percent) and the same for those who develop mainly for iOS (34 percent). In other words, HTML5 continues to gain steam in mobile app development.
Moving on from mobile apps to mobile devices, images and specs of the first Firefox OS tablet hit the Web this week, courtesy of Mozilla’s (News – Alert) own Asa Dotzler. The device looks similar to any low-end Android tablet and offers similar specs — an Allwinner A31 ARM Cortex A7 quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM (News – Alert), a 10.1-inch IPS 1280 x 800 display — in turn. The device should reach consumers before the end of the year
As for less mobile devices, a new tool was released called Construct 2 from Scirra for helping developers get their HTML5 games onto the Wii U eShop. In particular, the Construct 2 2D engine is expected to having official support for the Wii U. This will allow Wii U developers to leverage the engine’s HTML5 base to create new games for Nintendo’s latest console as well as port old games to the system.
For something completely different, it appears HTML5 has a hand in the comeback of animated GIFs. After losing favor for the potential for annoyance as well as their relatively large sizes as compared to video formats, animated GIFs are now coming back strong. This is in part thanks to the fact that HTML5 makes it easier than ever to upload a GIF directly to a site or be converted to HTML5 with the help of Gfycat.
That’s all for this week, but there’s plenty more HTML5 news to be found back on the HTML5 Report’s front page.