HTML5 App Development: Insight into Choices for Mobile Developers to Bring Web Apps to Market

How HTML5 mobile app developers decide between four fundamental choices to bring web apps to market is the basis of a recent report by Vision Mobile.

The report is taken from data derived from four different sources: raw data from Vision Mobile’s Q2 Developer Economics survey (6,000 respondents, April-May 2013); analytics from 30,000 plus Android apps available in Google Play; one-on-one, qualitative interviews by Vision Mobile with 32 developers, industry experts and tool vendors; and analysis and taxonomy of 42 HTML5 tools, mapped into categories across architectural frameworks including UI frameworks, web wrappers, web-to-native converters and native Javascript APIs (e.g. Firefox OS, Tizen, and Blackberry Webworks).
 
The report reveals insight into the four fundamental routes to the mobile market chosen by HTML5 mobile developers: direct to mobile browser, via a web wrapper or “the hybrid approach,” via a web-to-native converter, and through a Native JavaScript API platform. The numbers show that 61% of developers go direct to the mobile browser, 27% use a web wrapper like Phonegap, 7% use a native JavaScript API platform like Blackberry Webworks and 5% use a Web-to-native converter such as Appcelerator.
 
These four routes to market differ in terms of API depth. Among more than 30,000 US Google Play apps, 37% can be implemented using HTML5 via mobile browser, 49% via Phonegap, 63% via Appcelerator and 98% via Firefox OS.
 
The report reveals the most important APIs currently missing from HTML5 are WiFi and power management. If implemented, there availability would result in a more than a 20% rise in the number of Android apps that can be created with HTML5. The report also indicated that JavaScript performance is mostly a matter of tools and the ability to measure and improve. Finally, browser politics play a key role in HTML5 development where, besides Opera, all major browser vendors are also mobile OS vendors.
 
Vision Mobile is now in the process of conducting its sixth annual Mobile Developer Economics Survey. The survey takes less than ten minutes. To participate in the survey click here.
 
To see the full report visit the link below.