Recently I was invited for an in-company talk about a hotly debated subject: HTML5 vs. native apps. The company that invited me was struggling with the decision which path to take. What made it interesting is that the apps to be developed would all be used exclusively in-house and that this being a fully Microsoft-oriented company all employees would be given Lumia phones running Windows Mobile.
I wanted to give a balanced overview of the current state of HTML5, and although it may come as no surprise that I’m in the HTML5-camp I am not blind to the challenges that we are facing. So instead of only showing off all the glorious delights I also shared the sometimes harsh reality of things we as HTML5 developers have to deal with.
Presentation slides
Maybe my slides may come in handy for other people in the same situation, so I’ve decided to share them on SlideShare. All feedback and comments are welcome.
Final decision and conclusion
Eventually the company choose to pursue both strategies. Given the short timespan in which they had to deliver the mobile (and the cross-platform argument out of the window) they decided to start with native apps on the phone platform. However, on their intranet they are running with HTML5, which eventually may be extended to other areas as well.
In the end, it all comes down to choosing the right tool for the right job. Sometimes it will be HTML5, sometimes it will be native.Although I’m definitely betting my money on the web, I’m curious what the future will bring. These are interesting times indeed.