Snowcrashing

The March Of The Droids: HTML5 and Android 2.0

Posted on 28. Oct, 2009 by Antonella Stellacci in Mobile, Trends

The end of the Iphone monopoly is not going to happen in one day and with one single device. Don’t expect the masses to suddenly drop their I-cult and let them rant about the misses of the Droid, as Motorola and Verizon Wireless unveil their new creation to the world. Because they will.

Why I don’t care of what they’ll have to say?

It’s no secret that the iPhone App Store has been a walled garden. Mobile platform developers like Apple can and do control what runs on their devices in various ways: prohibit plug-ins (Flash),  keep their live video SDK secret, or simply forbid the app (Google Voice).

HTML 5, the next big standard for the web, can undermine this control by creating a new generation of web sites that look and feel like they’re iPhone apps. Ubiquitous, device-indipendent, HTML5 apps will deliver a richer and free user experience than the crippled one, we’re seeing with the first 100,000 Apple apps.

That’s where Android 2.0 comes into play.  The Android 2.0 platform was officially unveiled yesterday, There are many new remarkable features:

• Enhanced contact synchronization including a “Quick Contact” widget to allow integration of contact into applications
• Combined inbox to allow viewing of messages from multiple e-mail accounts
• Support for Microsoft Exchange (RIM fans take note!!)
• An increased support for camera features, including flash
• Improved virtual keyboard layout and performance

But what’s more important are the enhanced browser capabilities. Some eye-candies ones like the ability to tap the address bar for instant searches, double-tap it to zoom in on content wells — and better bookmarks that incorporate thumbnail images of the pages.

But the real deal is the support of several HTML5’s APIs next-gen web apps: the Geolocation API, the Database API for managing client-side SQL databases and data caching support for offline application access and the ability to play videos in fullscreen mode without plug-ins.

It will take time to create a HTML5 new ecosystem. But the march of the Droids has started.

A video preview of Android 2.0.