5 Reasons to Create an HTML5 Mobile Web Site
These days it seems like everyone is at the mobile app party, hanging out in the iOS and Android rooms. (The Blackberry room is more of a walk-in closet.) Yet there are solid reasons why you should also wander over to visit the HTML5 mobile website suite:
5. Mobile Websites Avoid the App Store
Why release an app on iTunes, competing with thousands and thousands of other apps for the honor of Apple taking a slice of your revenue? This makes sense if you want to sell copies of a ninja zombie bird game to the mass market, but not if your goal is to distribute a business-oriented, database-backed product to your target audience.
4. Mobile Websites Use the Power of Tablets
Tablets have healthy-sized screens that can show more than just puny mobile-app interfaces. They’re also able to handle JavaScript and other useful Web 2.0 functions, like pop-up alerts. (New tablets even support Adobe Flash.) And as tablets’ market share grows, so will powerful, emerging HTML5 technologies—spurring more tablet purchases, and so on.
3. Wi-Fi Is Everywhere
One of the big selling points of mobile apps is that they can work without access to the Web. But as online access becomes ever more prolific, through both Wi-Fi and cellular access, this becomes less and less of an advantage.
2. One Mobile Website Covers Three Platforms
If you want to reach an iPad user, an Android user, and a Blackberry user with mobile apps—well, that’s three mobile apps. While there are products that make cross-platform app development possible, they leave a lot to be desired in the consistency and speed of the results. In contrast, one HTML5 site lets you give all three users a fast, elegant product.
1. Mobile Websites are Faster and Less Expensive to Create
Mobile apps have their place. There are many advanced functions for which they are superior to anything HTML5 can do. But for the many tasks that play to HTML5’s strengths, HTML5 saves a considerable amount of time and development cost. Faster, less expensive development means that you can add more features, spend more time on user testing, and still beat your competitors to the punch.
By giving HTML5 due consideration, you can make the best, most economical choice for your project—whether that turns out to be a HTML5 mobile website or a mobile app.
