HTML5, the future of mobile applications: : A comparison between HTML5 application development platforms and native platforms

Kemi-Tornio University of Applied Sciences, Technology Degree Programme: Information Technology Name: Isaac O. Ogunlolu Title: HTML5, the future of mobile applications: A comparison between HTML5 application development platforms and native platforms Type of Study: Bachelor’s Thesis Date: 16 May 2012 Pages: 77 + 2 appendices Instructor: Thai Bui Quoc Company: IMSS Ltd. Oy Ab Contact Person/Supervisor from Company: Antti-Pekka Aaltonen, CTO, IMSS Ltd. Oy Ab HTML has been the most popular mark-up language for the past two decades but the introduction of HTML5 has even made it more popular and has created a buzz amongst IT enthusiasts. HTML5 comes with powerful tools that aim to revolutionize the web and the way web applications are viewed. These tools include advanced application programming interfaces which can be used to solve problems ranging from geolocation to online storage, thus making HTML5 a force to be reckoned with. A good question to be asked is why so much buzz around HTML5? What makes it different from HTML4 its predecessor? That is because it brings with it the “write one run many” solution mobile application developers have craved for. Mobile application development has largely been based on native development platforms like J2ME, Android, C++, C# etc. Developing applications with these platforms however come with limitations, the most important limitation being their cross-platform incapability. HTML5’s cross-platform capability has impeccably solved this issue and revealed a nagging problem which native application possess. To fulfil the main objective of this work, one would have to investigate HTML5, analyse the special features it comes with and compare HTML5 applications with native applications, thus drawing out a strictly neutral conclusion. Another objective was to implement a HTML5-based mobile application using RhoElements. Exploratory research and GUI programming methods were used for this work. Exploratory research was used to analyze HTML5 and to compare HTML5 with native applications. RhoElements and jQueryMobile was used to program the implemented application’s GUI. Satisfactory results were derived from this work process. Comparisons between HTML5 apps and native apps were made based on their development costs, cross platform capabilities, application performance and development cycle. Special HTML5 features were also analyzed and a lightweight mobile application was implemented