Via TFTS
Whilst few (and especially Apple) would refute that HTML5 is the future of the web (Apple, you may recall, see HTML5 as an outright replacement for Abobe’s Flash – not that Adobe are not opening embracing the HTML5 standard themselves) it seems HTML5 is still not ready for full web deployment as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) have confirmed that they are running into interoperability issues meaning its not yet ‘ready for production’.
“The problem we’re facing right now is there is already a lot of excitement for HTML5, but it’s a little too early to deploy it because we’re running into interoperability issues,” says W3C’s Philippe Le Hegaret. “The real problem is can we make [HTML5] work across browsers and at the moment, that is not the case.”
This standpoint has been further backed up by industry analyst Al Hilwa (IDC) who highlights that, to date, mainstream browsers (not withstanding betas) are still not yet where they need to be for when the new standard hits. “HTML 5 is at various stages of implementation right now through the Web browsers. If you look at the various browsers, most of the aggressive implementations are in the beta versions,” Hilwa observes. “IE9 (Internet Explorer 9), for example, is not expected to go production until close to mid-next year. That is the point when most enterprises will begin to consider adopting this new generation of browsers.”
Interestingly, as an aside, whilst Hegaret sees HTLM5 as a ‘game changer’ and doesn’t doubt that HTLM5 will impact on the use of Abobe’s Flash on websites once the new standard is wholly adopted (HTML5 features integrated support for video and Canvas 2D) he still sees a place for both Flash and other comparable technologies (Microsoft’s Silverlight, for example) whilst Apple’s stance is, as alluded to previously, somewhat more hardline on this issue – if you need insight into Apple’s (in particular Jobs’) stance on the matter you can read more here or you can scroll down to the related posts section for yet more reading on the subject.
“We’re not going to retire Flash anytime soon,” says Hegaret who adds that “”You will see less and less websites using Flash” as HTML5 becomes the standard for website development.
So, quite when can we expect to see HTML5, which initially began development in 2004, hit the open web and become the de facto standard for web development? It seems that we are still looking at the 2 to 3 year timeframe though Hegaret has confirmed that the standard should be ‘feature-complete’ by the middle of next year.