Making Business Applications available on Mobiles and Tablets have become an essential element for Organizations. Until recently, native mobile applications needed to be developed in order to give the rich functionality of a Web Application on a Mobile device. This meant multiple Apps for each Mobile platform or device.

Now, with advent of HTML 5, we can create fully functional Mobile-Web Apps that are user-friendly and can mimic the same, rich functionality of a native application—and businesses can realize the full potential of giving access to their mission critical Apps, literally, in the palm of their Employees, Staff and even Customers’ hands.

HTML5 is expected to have a significant impact on Mobile Application Development in the coming years by both simplifying the development process and allowing for a more dynamic user-experience. Additionally, developers who in the past have had to create separate applications in order to ensure that they will function properly on a wide range of mobile devices, now can save time and money, capitalizing on the cross-compatibility of HTML5.

A user would access the Mobile-Web App via a mobile browser, i.e. – in the case of an iPhone, the Safari browser. An App Icon can be created by tapping on the ‘Add to Home Screen’ button. From a development standpoint, we make use of HTML5 App Development Frameworks such as Sencha Touch or PhoneGap to quickly build rich Applications.

Some of the functionality that can be achieved through the combination of HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript technologies include –

• The familiar user experience of a native Mobile App within a web environment
• Cross platform compatibility enabling device agnostic App deployment
• Ability to cache data locally – making App performance faster
• User specific settings can be stored within the device giving users the ability to configure and customize an App to their needs
• Integration with Google Maps/GPS
• Offline capabilities – giving users the ability to view/edit information offline – data would be synced once online again
• Unlike native Apps, HTML5 Apps do not have to go through App Marketplace approvals. This means mobile Application deployment and updates are faster and gives the developers more control

HTML5 is modernizing the way mobile-friendly web applications are developed. To see how businesses are utilizing HTML5 technologies to build and deploy platform agnostic Mobile Applications, download our White Paper here.