Hi,
if i want to develop some web application with needs to work in all Browsers
and Tablets, then which Technologie should i pick?
Flash html or silverlight?
Thanks!
Flash and Silverlight won't work on hundreds of millions of phones and tablets. HTML5 is the fastest growing platform for interactive websites, and is probably the popular pick.
But there's nothing very capable (in the modern interactive sense) that will work on all browsers, the trick is to pick the technology that can reach as much of your target audience as possible.
Last edited by handcraftedweb; 05-04-2012 at 11:32 AM.
Hi,
if i want to develop some web application with needs to work in all Browsers
and Tablets, then which Technologie should i pick?
Flash html or silverlight?
Thanks!
I may be wrong, but as I understand it:
1. Flash is the dominant animation technology with over 90% penetration.
2. Silverlight does not work on Android, Apple or BlackBerry (i.e. the majority of) current smartphones and tablets.
3. Is HTML5 animation currently supported at all?
So currently, Flash looks like the front runner. However, Adobe have abandoned further development of it for mobile platforms in favour of HTML5. So, if smartphone and tablet sales turn into web usage then choosing Flash now might be short-sighted. That leaves, hmm, what?
Personally, I use (antiquated) animated GIFs, built with Fireworks. The file sizes (and hence download time) can be horrendous if you crank up the size and smoothness of the animation, hence I only auto-run tiny animations. Oh, and the animations don't run until the whole file is downloaded, and it only supports 256 colours. Though they can be any 256 from the true-colour palette (including a full 256 tone grey-scale). It is low-tech, but suits the sort of web sites I develop.
So currently, Flash looks like the front runner. However, Adobe have abandoned further development of it for mobile platforms in favour of HTML5. So, if smartphone and tablet sales turn into web usage then choosing Flash now might be short-sighted. That leaves, hmm, what?
Thanks for the link, which is very informative. However, your interpretation of the stats seems a little off. My reading of it is:
a) IE8 has no support for it. IE8 accounts for 11.6 % of browsers by internet usage. That may not sound much, but it is more users than the TOTAL online usage of Apple iOS, Android, Linux, BlackBerry and Symbian OS COMBINED. These figures come from W3counter. Also, as XP users cannot upgrade to IE9, this percentage is likely to persist.
b) It is not that 73% of browsers support canvas, No browsers support the canvas command 100%. What they do have is support for 73% of the canvas functionality. So you need to know which bits of it are supported by which browser. Not very good.
Originally Posted by handcraftedweb
Youtube has been streaming videos to the iPhone and iPad without Flash for a couple of years.
Apple iOS accounts for 5.7% of online usage.
Originally Posted by handcraftedweb
Flash seems to be the preferred web video player on the desktop but if you want to reach phone/tablets you need to use something else.
Agreed. But Windows based devices account for 76% of online usage. So, you either:
a) Support the overriding majority of users and forget the rest.
b) Support the 24% of minority devices and ignore the majority.
c) Have separate versions of your site, or...
d) Use GIF animations, despite their limitations.
I'm presuming that pretty well all major browsers on all platforms support GIF animations?
The claim is "73% of browsers support canvas". I don't know how accurate the claim is, but it's the best estimate I know of.
But Windows based devices account for 76% of online usage.
But most Windows users use modern browsers like Firefox, Chrome or IE9.
And we all know mobile internet access is rapidly increasing and IE8 isn't. Most predictions have mobile surpassing desktop access in the next 2 or 3 years.
But you're right in that an animated GIF is the most widely supported form of animation, and if it can do what you need it to do it's a fine solution.
HTML 5 is a nice dream, but the practical realities of web development mean that the dream faces a serious struggle becoming a reality. And, even if it does end up winning, it isn't likely to happen any time soon.
HTML 5 is a nice dream, but the practical realities of web development mean that the dream faces a serious struggle becoming a reality. And, even if it does end up winning, it isn't likely to happen any time soon.
It's already happened, all the major players (Google, Apple, Amazon, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) are using (delivering) some form of HTML5 right now. 55,000 websites with HTML5 specific tags (including 8.5% of the top 10,000 websites) have been found by Builtwith.com, as have had 444,546 websites using the HTML5 doctype.
Last edited by handcraftedweb; 05-10-2012 at 01:57 PM.
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Originally Posted by arik2278
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