Apple's iPhone has always led the industry in mobile HTML5 support and a new study suggests they're even further ahead of Google and their Android operating system when it comes to HTML5 gaming in particular. Using their benchmark system called PerfMarks, spaceport.io put iOS and Android through a number of tests, with one of those tests being how well the operating systems could animate image movement. The ability to animate image movement is important to HTML5 testing as it gives a visual representation to users as to how fast or slow a game is working and ultimately, is a clear indication of performance.

According to the information, the iPhone 4S scored 252 PerfMarks and the iPad 2 scores 327, which is up from 2009 when the iPhone 3GS scored only 53. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone, by comparison, scored 147 and the Kindle Fire scored only 25. The iPad 2 beat all Android devices, even those with better specs such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 which came in with a score of 65.

“HTML5 is getting faster over time, as seen in the latest OS updates across Android and iOS. Although this is a welcome trend, there is still a long way to go,” said Spaceport.io founder Ben Savage. “We hope the spaceport.io PerfMarks report will act as a bellwether for mobile browser and operating system creators who hope to better serve the HTML5 game development community.”

Spaceport.io hasn't as of yet published the PerfMarks documentation but it is noted they will do so at the second annual HTML5 Game Developer Conference on May 21 in San Francisco. Overall, iOS and Android have shown great improvements as a whole with a 100 percent increase in HTML5 compatibility for gaming but when broken down, iOS leads the way.

Source: VentureBeat

TeleNav, one of the largest back-end providers of GPS navigation services for smartphones and other in-car turn-by-turn navigation systems, has announced the upcoming release of a free HTML5-based voice-guided GPS navigation service that works on your iPhone through the Safari Mobile Browser.

“This is an enormous amount of added value for any mobile, location-based website or app focused on travel, shopping, local search, deals and more,” said Sal Dhanani, co-founder and vice president of products for TeleNav. “With one line of code, you can give your customers one-click access to premium, voice-guided turn-by-turn directions to any location, including hotels, restaurants, merchants or deal locations. Customers never need to leave your app.”

As mentioned, the service will be completely browser-based allowing it to run on just about any smartphone, including the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. Developers will have the opportunity to add just a single line of code to their existing website or apps, which will allow users to jump directly into the browser for turn-by-turn navigation from within any app, or directly from Safari itself.

If all goes according to plan, we should start seeing it in apps come 2012.

Source: TeleNav

According to Mashable, Facebook will finally launch the official Facebook for iPad app next to an update to its iPhone counterpart at Apple's iPhone 5 event next week. Former Facebook developer Jeff Verkoeyen recently spoke out against Facebook yesterday for dragging their feet on releasing the long rumored iPad app. Apparently "a combination of timing and a strained relationship with Apple" was at the heart of the issue, but the two have finally come to an agreement. Why?

thanks to the shared goal of beating Google — and the simple fact that Facebook and Apple may need each other. The former doesn’t have a mobile platform while Apple doesn’t have a social platform. The culmination of this renewed friendship: the launch of Facebook for iPad at Apple’s iPhone 5 media event.

To be honest, at this point I'm not holding my breath and will believe it when I see it in the App Store. In the meantime, check out our Top 5 Facebook for iPad apps to help you with the wait.

Source: Mashable

Jeff Verkoeyen, an ex-Facebook developer who was the lead engineer on the Facebook for iPad project, wrote on his personal blog about the internal battle that took place between him and Facebook, and goes a long way to explaining why we still haven't seen the app.

It is now nearly 5 months since the app was feature complete and I haven’t seen it released except for when the project was leaked on Techcrunch. Needless to say this was a frustrating experience for me. The experience of working on this app was a large contribution to the reasons why I left Facebook, though that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a difficult decision.

MG Siegler at TechCrunch suspects the delay may be tied to negotiation issues between Apple and Facebook, even though Apple would do well in having an official Facebook for iPad app in the App Store. As you may recall, they were in talks for upwards of 18 months on the Ping deal that ultimately fell through at the last minute because Facebook demanded too much in terms of user information.

But Apple has always wanted Facebook to release an iPad app. The Facebook iPhone app is the most downloaded app of all time. And there are countless third-party Facebook iPad apps that are amongst the top downloads all time, even though most aren’t very good. At first, Facebook wasn’t going to focus on the iPad. Then they decided to, but they also realized the app could be used as leverage in their dealings with Apple. That’s what we believe has been going on over the past several months.

It's also possible that the delayed iPad app has something to do with Facebook's Project Spartan, an app store that will offer games and news apps that run inside Safari, or as Web Clips on the home screen. Facebook and Apple could be working together on the HTML5 project, prompting continuous delays for the iPad app as deals are hammered out.

Robert Scoble also chimed in last week (on Google+ of all places) noting that Facebook may be holding off until Apple's iPhone 5 announcement on October 4th.

By the way, I heard a rumor from a usually credible source that Facebook may not announce an iPad app tomorrow, but will save it for October 4th instead. Now THAT will be very interesting news, since I know Apple really hates Facebook.

Either way, our patience is wearing thin... In the meantime, check out our Top 5 Facebook Apps for iPad to hold you over until the official app is released.

Source: Jeff Verkoeyen via TechCrunch, Robert Scoble

Add Walmart's VUDU streaming video service to the growing list of content companies creating HTML5 web apps for iPad to neatly step around Apple's revenue sharing requirements.

Beginning today, iPad users can go to VUDU.com and browse through VUDU's entertainment content library, which includes more than 20,000 blockbusters, Hollywood classics, independent films and TV episodes, then rent or purchase and watch them instantly. For one touch access to VUDU, customers can add a VUDU icon to their iPad desktops by clicking the "Add to Home Screen" button when on VUDU.com.

No word yet on whether or not it works with AirPlay, and as our commenters repeatedly -- and rightly -- point out, if you do "Add to Home Screen" you don't get multitasking background support, so it's not yet an ideal solution.

Still, Apple and Steve Jobs have repeatedly said that HTML5 is iOS' second great development platform. Nice to see more and more companies calling them on it.

Will you do the VUDU that you do over web app for iPad?

[VUDU.com]

Amazon just let us know that their Kindle Cloud Reader is now live, and lets you read any of their over 950,000 Kindle books right in Safari on iPad, Mac, or Windows, or Chrome on Windows, Mac, or Linux, without needing the Kindle app or hardware.

While there's no iPhone or iPod touch (it tells you your browser isn't supported and you should download Safari or Chrome, though hopefully a better intercept screen is in the works), it's a full HTML5 web app and includes offline storage. I've tried it out on iPad and it works quickly and cleanly. The Kindle Store is built in, so there's no jarring transition to the Amazon.com version of the store, and all the menus and options work really well. Likewise, the text is just a legible as it is in the app, and the WhisperSync works perfectly. Hopefully it keeps up that level of performance when personal libraries get really big.

With the controversy that arose in the wake of Apple's App Store subscription service, and the requirements to match pricing (since dropped) and remove links to external stores (still in effect), it felt like only a matter of time before Amazon would go this route. It will be interesting to see how many others follow.

Details and screen shots after the break. Anyone going to stop using the app and switch to the web app?

[www.amazon.com/cloudreader]

“We are excited to take this leap forward in our ‘Buy Once, Read Everywhere’ mission and help customers access their library instantly from anywhere,” said Dorothy Nicholls, Director, Amazon Kindle. “We have written the application from the ground up in HTML5, so that customers can also access their content offline directly from their browser. The flexibility of HTML5 allows us to build one application that automatically adapts to the platform you’re using – from Chrome to iOS. To make it easy and seamless to discover new books, we’ve added an integrated, touch optimized store directly into Cloud Reader, allowing customers one click access to a vast selection of books.”

Features of Kindle Cloud Reader include: - An immersive view of your entire Kindle library, with instant access to all of your books - Start reading over 950,000 Kindle books instantly within your browser - An embedded Kindle Store optimized for your web browser makes it seamless to discover new books and start reading them instantly - New Kindle Store for iPad is built from the ground up for iPad’s touch interface - Your current book is automatically made available for offline use, and you can choose to save a book for reading offline at any time - Receive automatic software updates without the need to download new software - Select any book to start reading, customize the page layout to your desired font size, text color, background color, and more - View all of the notes, highlights, and bookmarks that you’ve made on other Kindle apps or on Kindle - Sync your last page read across your Kindle and free Kindle apps so you can always pick up where you left off

Kindle Cloud Reader is available for Safari on iPad, Safari on desktop and Chrome starting today. Kindle Cloud Reader on the iPad is optimized for the size and unique touch interface of iPad. Without even leaving the app, customers can start shopping in the Kindle Store and will find a unique and immersive shopping experience built specifically for iPad’s Safari browser.

Kindle Cloud Reader will be available on additional web browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, the BlackBerry PlayBook browser, and other mobile browsers, in the coming months.

iPad users that use twitter.com in safari, instead of the downloadable iPad app, will be getting a new HTML5 web app in the next few weeks

Currently, iPad users who navigate to 'twitter.com' are greeted with the old iPhone layout, with an option to switch to the default desktop UI. However Twitter announced on the 'Twitter Mobile' twitter account that they have begun rolling out a new HTML5 based web UI specifically for the iPad, which should reach all users in the coming weeks.

We've launched our HTML5 version of twitter.com for iPad. It will be rolling out to device owners over the next week or so.

The screenshot above shows that the UI is similar to both the desktop design and the recently updated iPhone design.

I haven't had the updated web app yet, but I'm interested to know if any of you have had a chance to play with it yet.

[9to5mac] [@TwitterMobile]

Google has an interesting tool up called Swiffy, which converts Flash FLV files to "HTML5" formats which should be compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. (I put HTML5 in quotes because it represents not just the HTML5 standard itself, but typically and conveniently includes CSS3, JavaScript, H.264 video, and other technologies).

Swiffy converts Flash SWF files to HTML5, allowing you to reuse Flash content on devices without a Flash player (such as iPhones and iPads).

Swiffy currently supports a subset of SWF 8 and ActionScript 2.0, and the output works in all Webkit browsers such as Chrome and Mobile Safari. If possible, exporting your Flash animation as a SWF 5 file might give better results.

Flash is more than just video, however, and Flash games, interfaces, and other media types can't yet be replicated by HTML5. Still for content that Flash -- and its overhead -- aren't needed for, this sounds like a great tool. (It also sounds like something banner ad companies will jump on...)

I'm trying it out now on some simple Flash slideshow files but getting errors. If I get it working, I'll update with the results.

[Swiffy via Daring Fireball]

Now that AT&T isn't the exclusive US iPhone carrier anymore, CEO Randall Stephenson saw fit to express some frustration with the way Apple runs the iPhone App Store. Stephenson believes customers should be able to buy an app once and run it on any device they so choose, including iPhone, Android phones, Windows phones, etc.

"You purchase an app for one operating system, and if you want it on another device or platform, you have to buy it again," Stephenson said in a keynote speech at the world's largest mobile-phone trade show in Barcelona, Spain. "That's not how our customers expect to experience this environment."

And the way to do this of course is by building them as HTML5 apps and selling them through the AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile run Wholesale Applications Community (WAC). Now I don't know about you but I always get suspicious when a big company talks about what's better for customers (yes even Apple). Right now Apple and developers make all the money on apps but if carriers ran the store they would get a cut of the revenue, right?

I do think it would be nice to be able to take my apps with me if I ever change platforms but even the sweetest HTML5 apps are still very limited compared to native iPhone apps. There's no Infinity Blade in HTML5 yet and even if there were trying to make one app work on multiple platforms often leads to a lowest common denominator approach. Is saving a few dollars with a truly universal app worth losing features that are unique to each platform or device?

What would you prefer, a carrier-run HTML5 app store or Apple's current App Store?

[USA Today]

The Apple Online Store went down briefly last night but sorry everyone, no white iPhone 4 -- just an slightly animated revamp of the Apple.com website.

Both the Mac and iPod pages get products that fly in and bounce into place and the menu on all pages now drops down into place and in general looks just a touch darker.

Since HTML5 has been renamed simply HTML there's no super cool technology term for what Apple's done other than adding eye candy. They do have a long history on the iPhone of using animation to help mask transition times and provide extra orientation information. I'm not sure the new Apple.com counts as a functionality improvement though. What do you think?

[Apple.com]

Apple has released and HTML 5 authoring tool called iAd producer aimed at developers and creative houses that wish to build interactive advertisements for Apple's iOS based iPhone and iPad platform.

iAd Producer makes it easy for you to design and assemble high-impact, interactive content for iAd. iAd Producer automatically manages the HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript behind your iAd to make creating beautiful, motion-rich iAd content as easy as point and click.

For advanced developers, iAd Producer offers sophisticated JavaScript editing and debugging, along with a powerful extension mechanism that enables them to create and re-use their own page templates and components.

Rumors have persisted that Apple would release some type of HTML 5 authoring tool for a while now, perhaps a replacement for iDVD as part of iLife or an extension to iWork's pages. While this tool doesn't address things like iTunes Extras or iTunes LP creation, it at least shows Apple is rolling out next generation web and standards-based production tools. Hopefully more will follow.

[developer.apple.com]

Skyfire for iPhone is a web browsing application that converts Adobe Flash to HTML5/H.264 so you can view it on iPhone or iPad touch. Seeing as Apple chose not to implement Flash into iOS, a lot of videos on the web still can't be watched on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. Skyfire steps in to try and bridge this gap and while it's a nice feature to have, but not always the best experience.

iTunes Link

While having access to Flash content may be useful to some, the overall process can be daunting. A lot of times, I found that the app would take a while to convert the content. If you are on wifi, the process seems to be a bit smoother, but on 3G it was definitely noticeable. I will give them a little bit of a break here seeing as they sold a ridiculous amount of copies and had to pull it due to their servers being overwhelmed. This may be part of the reason streaming is taking a while.

Either way - in my experience, once the content did stream, it seemed to be quite choppy and broken up. I'm hoping this is something that will get better as Skyfire adds more server bandwidth. A lot of the times I noticed the audio streamed pretty quickly but the video portion would struggle to keep up with the audio or fall behind. Seeing as viewing Flash content is the main feature of the app, I'm really hoping we see major improvements in the near future.

As for the rest of the app, I actually quite enjoyed using it as a browser. Settings will give you an option to browse privately, which is nice. It also gives you the option of desktop or iPhone mode. To me, this is much easier than having to toggle individual sites from mobile to desktop view. It will save you a bit of time and you can just switch with two clicks instead of searching a site to figure out how to toggle mobile views on or off.

Sharing is also easy within Skyfire - you simply click the little plus symbol in the bottom right corner of the screen and you can share directly through Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail. There is also a feature called Facebook Quickview which allows you to view your Facebook profile and stream from within Skyfire. It's a nice feature but not something I really see a need for. I've never been a fan of the Facebook for iPhone app so I suppose having access to the mobile or desktop site in one click may come in handy here and there. It's still not something I see myself personally using very often.

Skyfire also has a feature that allows you to search for video and content on any term you choose. When you click the search icon, it brings up suggestions of what you may search for based on the page you're currently viewing as well. This is an extremely neat feature but sometimes it would throw out weird suggestions that had nothing to do with the site you're browsing. If this feature is refined a bit more, I could see it becoming something I'd use frequently.

Bookmarks can also be added just like they can in Safari, so you should feel right at home if you've become accustomed to using bookmarks in Safari. It would be nice if your already existing bookmarks from Safari could be imported into Skyfire. Other than that, the overall browsing experience is great. I'm just not sure the main selling feature of the app is quite up to par yet.

Pros

• Great overall browsing experience
• Adds a bit more functionality than Safari currently offers
• Toggling between desktop and mobile mode is easy and more convenient than switching on individual sites

Cons

• Flash to HTML5 converting to streaming process can be quite daunting and slow at times
• Audio and video do not always sync up after streaming to HTML5
• Experienced a few crashes on 3G while trying to convert and stream video
• Search suggestions can be a bit off at times

In an effort to slow the already glacial pace of the iOS-friendly HTML5 standard, the W3C is telling developers to hold off on deploying the technology in their web sites due to lack of interoperability in certain areas.

"The problem we're facing right now is there is already a lot of excitement for HTML5, but it's a little too early to deploy it because we're running into interoperability issues," including differences between video on devices, said the official, Philippe Le Hegaret, W3C interaction domain leader. He is responsible for specifications like HTML and SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics).

For example, Apple's Safari supports only H.264, Firefox only OGG Theora and Google's V8, and Google supports everything. (Internet Explorer 9, currently in beta, will bring its own unique set of support as well).

Typically the way things have moved at all in the browser space is innovation and implementation by each individual bowser maker, then standards have followed as web developers have built sites and usage has demanded it.

Apple, Google, probably Microsoft won't slow down with HTML5, so no worries there, but it's possible they'll have to drag the W3C forward with them, kicking and screaming as they do.

iPhone, iPad, and other mobile devices won't be waiting for them.

[Infoworld, Thanks Antony for sending this in]

Adobe Illustrator CS5 HTML5 Pack adds several HTML5 authoring features to the venerable vector-based design program including:

• Efficiently design for web and devices by exporting Illustrator Artboards for unique screen sizes using SVG and CSS3 media queries.

• Create web widgets with Illustrator by generating dynamic vector art for data driven web work-flows.

• Take advantage of the latest enhancements to SVG and Canvas to generate interactive web content.

• Map artwork appearance attributes from designer to developer tools—export from the Illustrator Appearance Panel to CSS3 for streamlined styling of web pages.

Whether or not Adobe is finding themselves in a Kevin Smith catch -- hate the idea of biting into Flash, still want to make money from anything that does -- it's great to see them adding support for HTML5 to one of the most popular design packages on the market. It's relagated to an Adobe Labs add-on right now, but HTML5 needs a killer IDE and that's something Adobe could deliver. (Then, of course, devs could more easily make us even more killer HTML5 apps for our iPhones and iPads.)

[Adobe Labs via Technologizer]

Vimeo has announced a new HTML5 universal player to finally bring Flash-free embedded videos to iPad and iPhone. How do you use it?

Starting today it is the new default embed code and is available via the embed button on any Vimeo video. Just copy and paste like any other embed code. This new embed code is available for any video, new or old.

They've also created a small javascript snippet you can add to your site to enable older, legacy embeds to work with the new player.

Mobile versions of all videos, however, is still a Plus feature.

For much, much more on the new feature, check out the link below.

[Vimeo]

Yahoo! has released an HTML5 iPad friendly version of its mobile webmail.

• Faster and more reliable: If you’re offline, Yahoo! Mail uses local caching capabilities to help you access and search your messages even without an internet connection.
• Smart: You can find and organize your messages using Full Search, personal folders and Smart Folders with messages from your most important contacts and optimized views for photos and file attachments.
• Feature Rich: View rich photo attachments in their full form, or as previews directly in the inbox view. Also includes a dual-pane view to make reading and organizing a breeze.

You don't have to do anything special to begin using the new Yahoo! mail webmail experience on your iPad. Just visit http://mail.yahoo.com in Safari and you should see the change. Yahoo! promises to bring more features, improve performance, and Yahoo! Mail for iPad the "best it can possibly be."

If you use Yahoo! mail on your iPad, let us know what you think!

[Yahoo! Mobile Blog]

OpenAppMkt aims to be an App Store for HTML5 web apps. Apple considers HTML5 web apps to be the second major iOS platform, and the unregulated one where you can find everything from Google Voice to porn. OpenAppMkt lists them, features them, and includes ratings. Well, except for porn; they don't include that. Google's Voice web app currently has 4 stars though.

HTML5 apps can apps initially open in Safari but with a tap of the + button and a Add to Home Screen, they can cache locally and work, more or less, like native apps. They don't perform quite as well and can't do quite as much -- yet -- but they work surprisingly well for an ever increasing ranges of things.

Unlike Apple's web app gallery, there's even an iPhone version of OpenAppMkt you can add to your home screen. If you give it a try, let us know what you think.

[OpenAppMkt via Daring Fireball]

Apple has just announced an update for Safari 5 that enables extensions (plugins), something Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome have had for a while now. We're happy for our big desktop brothers, of course. Really. Truly. But in our minds a lot of the stuff you'll read about after the break would be even better suited on mobile devices like iPhone and iPad. That's where convenient extensions like password managers would shine.

Maybe iOS 5?

Read on for the good bits from the presser.

[Apple PR, Apple Safari Extensions Gallery]

“Safari 5 has been a big hit, and user response to the innovative new Safari Reader has been fantastic,” said Brian Croll, Apple’s vice president of OS X Product Marketing. “We’re thrilled to see so many leading developers creating great extensions and think our users are going to love being able to customize Safari.”

“Millions of our customers already use Amazon Wish Lists to store items they want to buy for themselves or receive as gifts,” said Gianna Puerini, vice president of Worldwide Design and Community at Amazon.com. “With Safari 5, we were able to quickly build the Add to Amazon Wish List extension that lets customers add items from any website to their Amazon Wish List with the click of a button.”

“We’re excited to continue working closely with Apple to bring visually compelling Bing experiences to Safari,” said Jeff Henshaw, general manager of Bing User Experience. “The Bing Extension for Safari brings Bing search intelligence to everyday browsing with Safari. When a user selects text in Safari, Bing instantly recognizes what they might need and pops up helpful, informative tips, from real time maps and driving directions to real time translations to direct web search results.”

“Using web standard technologies and Safari’s extension builder, we developed an MLB.com extension to give fans another way to consume up-to-the-moment baseball content, including live look-ins to games, right from the Safari toolbar,” said Noah Garden, executive vice president, Commerce and Sponsorship at MLB.com.

The Safari Extensions Gallery is accessible from the Safari menu or at extensions.apple.com. Users can download and install extensions from the gallery with a single click, and there’s no need to restart the browser. Extensions can be automatically updated and are easily managed within Safari. Users can enable or disable individual extensions, or turn off all extensions with one click.

Safari Extensions are built with HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript web standards, and can have all the power and functionality of advanced web applications. Every Safari Extension is signed with a digital certificate from Apple to prevent tampering and to verify that updates to the extension are from the original developer. Safari Extensions are sandboxed, so they can’t access information on a user’s system or communicate with websites aside from those specified by the developer. For increased stability, Safari Extensions run solely in the browser. “Our extension for Safari is a great way for readers to get all of the latest breaking news and all the important stories, blogs and columns they want to see,” said Denise Warren, general manager, NYTimes.com at The New York Times Company. “While you browse other sites in Safari, our extension checks for updates and slides in new headlines and thumbnails, so you won't miss a thing.”

“Creating our Twitter extension in Safari couldn't have been easier,” said Jason Goldman, vice president of Product at Twitter. “By providing features like the ability to tweet about a page and view trending topics, we've created a simple way to deliver relevant, interesting content to people regardless of where they are on the web.”

The Safari Extensions Gallery is accessible from the Safari menu or at extensions.apple.com. Users can download and install extensions from the gallery with a single click, and there’s no need to restart the browser. Extensions can be automatically updated and are easily managed within Safari. Users can enable or disable individual extensions, or turn off all extensions with one click.

Safari Extensions are built with HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript web standards, and can have all the power and functionality of advanced web applications. Every Safari Extension is signed with a digital certificate from Apple to prevent tampering and to verify that updates to the extension are from the original developer. Safari Extensions are sandboxed, so they can’t access information on a user’s system or communicate with websites aside from those specified by the developer. For increased stability, Safari Extensions run solely in the browser.

Apple last updated iLife during the Phil Schiller-led Macworld 2009 keynote but since then, even as iOS, WebKit, and HTML5 have been on the rise, there's been no sign of another update. Enter Mac4ever, which is rumoring:

• iLife '11 will be sold for $79
• Release Date of 08/07/2010
• All applications will be 64-bit
• Improvements in iPhoto faces & places
• Improving the integration of social networks
• IWeb will be totally renewed
• New application (mystery!)
• Disappearance of iDVD
• MobileMe gallery in beta (with faces & places)

If any of this pans out, the social media integration will be cool but it's that mystery app that has us interested. There have long been rumors that Apple would replace iDVD with a WebKit/TuneKit development tool to let users more easily make iTunes LP and iTunes Extras. While those two formats haven't exactly set the digital world on fire, HTML5 is ramping up significantly thanks in some part to iOS devices like iPhone and now iPad.

Adobe is slowly hedging their Flash bet with some HTML5 tools in DreamWeaver, but an uber-easy iLife app to let us create everything from the above-mentioned audio-video experiences to eBooks and digital magazines? Adobe's been doing that with Wired and inDesign, but something that didn't produced huge, static PNG piles but real next generation dynamic content for these next generation devices?

Yes please.

[Mac4ever via Macworld.co.uk via MacRumors]

YouTube is experimenting with a new i-frame based embed style that would server up good ole' Flash video for machines that support it and new fangled HTML5 video for Apple's iOS devices, iPhone and iPad:

An enhancement to our video embed capability is now available through a new embed code style. This new style uses <i-frame> and looks like this:

<iframe type="text/html" width="640" height="385" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID" frameborder="0"></iframe>

So, somewhere down the road, you'll be able to play the YouTube video you want, in-line on the website you want, on the device you want, Apple and Adobe be damned.

Example after the break.

[YouTube via 9to5Mac]

Whether or not you agree with Apple going all-in on HTML5, they're certainly putting their clout where their mouth is, launching a new showcase on Apple.com, complete with some terrific demos and a link to developer.apple.com for those who want to roll their own interactive, standards based solutions.

Every new Apple mobile device and every new Mac — along with the latest version of Apple’s Safari web browser — supports web standards including HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. These web standards are open, reliable, highly secure, and efficient. They allow web designers and developers to create advanced graphics, typography, animations, and transitions. Standards aren’t add-ons to the web. They are the web. And you can start using them today.

Interestingly, Apple's previous iPad ready HTML5 site listing, and Steve Jobs' Thoughts on Flash article are both featured at the bottom of the page.

If there was any remaining, lingering doubt, HTML5 and Safari are Apple's open app platform and they're going all in. How far are we from a future where HTML5 and web apps are legitimate peers to native apps in terms of delivering the functionality and features users need?

UPDATE: 9to5Mac points out you can get these to open in other HTML5 browsers like Chrome or Firefox by going to the developer.apple.com page. Weird.

[Apple.com]

Steve Jobs likens not supporting Flash to getting rid of the 3.5 floppy disk or HyperCard on the Mac. Adobe never showed them Flash running Fast. Apple didn't think they'd use it. They have limited resources and choose to back horses they think are on the rise and not on their way to the graveyard. Apple didn't use Flash on the iPhone but after they didn't use it on the iPad Adobe rose a stink. Apple didn't talk to press but enough was enough, and so Steve Jobs wrote his open letter, "thoughts on Flash".

(Note: it was probably the ban on cross-compilers, not the lack of Flash on iPad that got Adobe steamed considering how much they'd invested in Flash CS5 packager for iPhone.)

Video after the break!

Google seems set to announce the next version of their Android operating system, deliciously dubbed Froyo (frozen yogurt) at the Google I/O conference today. Android Central's Phil Nickinson is at the conference and will be bringing us the action live and as it happens.

The exciting and terrifying thing about Google is that you never know what they're going to do (and give away free) next. Last time it was Navigation, and TomTom is likely still reeling. This time it could be free cell service for everyone in Rhode Island. Who knows?! My official prediction is up as part of the Android Central Round Table. They've also got a ton of coverage from yesterday, which included the announcement of the VP8 video codec being released open source and freely licensed as part of their WebM initiative (which includes the MKV container and Ogg Vorbis audio codec), a Chrome Web Store, Adobe's HTML5 exporter for Dreamweaver, Google's foray into the 10" TV "experience" with Clicker.tv, and more. Here are some more highlights, but join Phil and crew for all the live fun and we'll be back with our thoughts later:

• The Great Wall of Android
• Hands-on with the Android Kindle app
• Google IO keynote liveblog - day 1

We've seen much of iPhone OS 4 (iPhone HD/iPhone 4G special features not withstanding), we've seen BlackBerry OS 6, we're not sure what's up with the next version of webOS yet (are we?), but after today we should see what Apple has to compete with when it comes to Google for the next half a year or so...

CBS has confirmed that they plan to bring all CBS.com video content to iPad via HTML5 format by the fall television season.

ABC has had an iPad app available to stream video content since the device launched, but CBS has chosen to deliver their content via CBS.com instead. In regards to this choice, Interactive executive Anthony Soohoo said

When we were looking at the iPad as a separate device, it had a lot more similarities to a PC in our mind…So for us, we wanted to make sure that video was available through HTML5 on the iPad first.

Although the PC and iPad versions of their websites will have identical content, CBS does plan to take advantage of multitouch on the iPad, particularly with advertising.

There are some interesting elements to the iPad, such as the idea of a user navigating the site with their fingers versus doing a mouse click, so that might lend itself to doing some interesting advertising programs, and that’s something that we’re learning about and looking into right now.

So who's counting down the days until CBS' fall television season?

Watch the full interview with Anthony Soohoo after the break!

[NewTeeVee]

Speaking of Facebook, it looks like they've joined the growing list of sites that are now providing HTML5 video for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad compatible playback. UPDATE: As noted in the comments, Facebook isn't using HTML5, they're pushing the video straight to the iPhone and iPad's native H.264-compatible QuickTime player.

That list of compatible sites now includes YouTube and Vimeo, TED, Brightcove-powered sites such as New York Times and Time Magazine, CBS.com (in trial form),

Good news for us and for Apple, not great news for Adobe on the video front, as yet another reason for needing Flash bites the dust.

And boy does Hulu look like last-mover these days...

[MacStories via Redmond Pie]

If you were wondering exactly what sites out there are geared specifically for iPad without Adobe's Flash, be sure to visit the new page that Apple has created which displays all of the current "iPad ready" websites.

The current crop of sites are as follows:

• TIME
• Sports Illustrated
• New York Times
• Vimeo
• Major League Baseball
• The White House
• Virgin
• Flickr
• People
• TED
• CNN
• Reuters

That's quite an impressive list that Apple has come up with there but we want our readers opinions here, does Apple have enough pull to topple Flash or are they simply fighting a battle they can not win? Sound off in the comments below!

[Via 9to5mac]

In that stream of 700 iPad apps revealed last night, Engadget noticed a few gems including Netflix and ABC, and with CBS doing the HTML5-video thing and Hulu once again being rumored, could content consumption nirvana finally be near?

Netflix is said to be a free app that will be ready by the April 3 iPad launch. You'll be able to browse and manage your queue and stream movies and TV shows right to your iPad. No word on weather its Wi-Fi-only or 3G as well, and no word on whether an iPhone and iPod touch version is coming (ahem!)

ABC's player is also said to be free but Wi-Fi bound. You'll still get your Lost and Grey's Anatomy fix direct from the network, however. Whether it will make into the iPad App Store by launch day is unknown, as is their monetization method (i.e. will there be commercials?)

CBS, according to the Wall Street Journal, is sticking with their web-based strategy of streaming HTML5 video through Mobile Safari and not making a dedicated app. Hey, maybe that at least will give iPhone and iPod touch owners equal access?

Hulu, which carries the last two remaining networks, NBC and FOX is still unclear but the New York Times once again gets our hopes up. It's not all rosy, however, as the network nuts behind the scenes reportedly aren't happy with revenue and want something like subscriptions bolted one. They better get their act together and quickly or their old world thinking will condemn the bright boys and girls at Hulu to last place in the brave new mobile media world...

Brightcove is the latest in an increasingly long line of major video outlets now offering HTML5 video for playback, in this case in-browser HTML5 for the iPad (they already support QuickTime player video for the iPhone and iPod touch). They're going a step further, however, announcing that the Brightcove Online Video Platform is ready for HTML5 and the iPad as well.

Their platform will allow for automatic device detection, native HTML5 playback of H.264 video, and of course, specific mention that it's ready for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. That means the New York Times, Time Magazine, and other major media outlets who already use Brightcove to render and monetize interactive video are now open to Apple's mobile devices.

According to MacRumors]:

The new HTML5 support comes at no additional cost to existing Brightcove customers. A list of existing customers is available on Brightcove's website and includes a large number of magazine publishers, newspaper publishers and broadcasters. It seems HTML5 has to be purposefully implemented by the customer sites as not all the same features have been deployed to Brightcove's HTML5 implementation. However, the company has a roadmap to deploy all the same features over time.

So yeah, those bright blue lego blocks of Flash fail we saw on the New York Times site during the iPad introduction might just be a thing of the past. And as more and more sites offer HTML5 alternatives (and Adobe offers a way to compile Flash apps for iPhone), will the complaints shift from "no Flash on iPhone!", to "where's my HTML5 Hulu?"

As announced by Chris Anderson:

Excited about this. Non-flash version of http://ted.com is now live for iphone. Videos, comments, ratings. Hurrah!

For those maintaining score at home, that YouTube and Vimeo, countless porn sites, and an experiment by CBS.com. Still waiting on Hulu...

[@TEDChris via @Gartenberg]

The Other Mac Blog and MacRumors have discovered and confirmed that CBS.com is at least testing iPad-compatible playback ahead of Apple's magical new device launch on April 3.

This new version of the video does not yet work but appears to be based on HTML5. The css files reference HTML5 and have a number of "webkit" specific calls. Webkit is the browser engine used in the iPad's mobile safari. While the videos don't currently play, the "fullscreen mode" reportedly already works in the iPad simulator.

UPDATE: 9to5Mac has several examples up of the site in the iPad simulator.

The iPad, like the iPhone and iPod touch, doesn't support the Flash plugin that CBS.com uses for computer-based browsers. More and more sites, including YouTube are testing HTML5 as an alternative, however, so It will be interesting to see if CBS.com pulls the trigger on it, and how many other big media properties follow suit. Hulu anyone?

9to5mac continues to dive into the iPhone 3.2 Beta 2 SDK and its iPad simulator, this time showing off HTML5 YouTube, file sharing, lock screen media controls, and more.

HTML5 H.264 YouTube video is shown playing right in the iPad Safari browser, just as it does on Mac or Windows. It looks good enough for 9to5mac to wonder if the YouTube app is still needed!

File sharing has an on/off toggle, and TiPb's really excited about this one. The text reads "File sharing allows you to transfer application files to and from your iPad and computer", and there's a (currently empty) header that reads "Applications".

We've already asked for a file repository, sort of like the Camera Roll does now for images, and some apps have gotten in trouble for using the DCIM folder to do just that. And official place to load, share, and save documents and other files would fill a huge functionality gap for iPad and iPhone both.

Lock Screen media controls are interesting, as we saw Apple demonstrate the iPad lock screen woking as a digital photo frame, but it does make sense for watching movies as well.

There are a few more finds, including some new things like built-in Google suggestions in iPad Safari, and some things we've already seen in the iPhone like percentage battery readout and Chinese character handwriting input.

If anyone else is digging around in the simulator and comes across anything more, let us know!

We all know by now there's no Flash on the iPhone or iPod touch, and it doesn't look like there'll be Flash on the iPad, which is probably why Adobe's Chief Technology Officer fired off an impassioned defense of the plugin, while a software engineer shows how a still-unfixed bug crashes it, and the first full on HTML5 video player concept makes its debut.

First up, Adobe CTO, Kevin Lynch has posted a full throated defense of Flash on his Adobe Blog and in a follow up comment notes:

Regarding crashing, I can tell you that we don't ship Flash with any known crash bugs, and if there was such a widespread problem historically Flash could not have achieved its wide use today.

How does this reconcile with Apple CEO, Steve Jobs saying something along the lines of "Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash"? TUAW draws our attention to Matthew Dempsky who found a bug that causes Flash to crash in Safari and Chrome, and Firefox to crash completely. And Adobe hasn't fixed it some 16 months later... Dempsky has created http://flashcrash.dempsky.org/ to demonstrate (remember, it will crash Firefox completely!), and says:

This page exploits a bug that I reported to Adobe in September 2008, and has affected every release of Flash on every platform since then. Despite numerous email exchanges with the Flash product manager about the bug, the bug report being hidden from the public for "security" reasons, and [although] Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch's claims otherwise, it continues to be an issue. [...] I'm just a software engineer who at one time had to deal with Adobe's sorry excuse for a development platform and made an earnest effort on several occasions at helping them improve it for everyone. (This issue is merely the tip of the iceberg of ridiculous bugs and random backwards and forwards incompatibilities known as Adobe's Flash Player plug-in.)

TUAW makes the case that Adobe's been resting on their de facto-standard laurels.

Daring Fireball, meanwhile links to SublimeVideo, the first (to our knowledge) full on HTML5 and JavaScript alternative video player. It's still early days, of course, but it works without a plugin, doesn't buffer until you tell it to, and lets you jump to any point in the video with fairly robust controls -- and more to come.

(And Gruber also notes that MPEG LA, owners of H.264, the proprietary codec used by Apple's gear and online in Safari, Chrome, and Flash -- but not in Firefox -- have announced it will remain without charge for free-to-end-user video through 2016)

Lynch, and former Macromedia Flash MX co-creator, Jeremy Allaire on TechCrunch, make valid points that HTML5 can't replace Flash and that Adobe works really hard on both.

In an ideal world, however, perhaps HTML5 can relieve Flash of some of the duties for which it's unsuited, give us back a lighter, cleaner, faster web overall, and let Flash and Adobe concentrate on those tasks for which there is no Flash alternative -- complex data visualizations, for example.

(And we'd also appreciate it if Flash stopped allowing websites to abuse local settings by storing "cookies" on our system -- okay Adobe?)

[Via TUAW, Daring Fireball]

Speaking of Daring Fireball links and HTML5, Guillermo Esteves has re-created the opening crawl from the original Star Wars using only web-based technologies. It currently runs exclusively on the bleeding-edge WebKit nightly builds, Safari for OS X Snow Leopard... and on the built-in iPhone Safari (though it doesn't look as polished).

That's right. No Chrome anything, including Android 2.1. No Palm webOS browser. That it works on the iPhone's and iPod touch's MobileSafari... is kind of crazy considering it hasn't been updated since iPhone 3.1.2 back on Oct. 8. Just goes to show how seriously Apple is pushing the web on the iPhone.

So, yeah, words moving away into perspective in your browser, but this is without QuickTime or Flash or anything to strain your bandwidth or burn your battery. Very nice.

YouTube video of the WebKit/Safari version after the break!

UPDATE: Yup, Vimeo has gone and pulled the HTML5 trigger as well. Good for them. Good for us. Good for the web.

Last night, Daring Fireball linked to YouTube's new opt-in beta that allows you to get HTML5 video instead of the traditional Flash-wrapped kind.

Why is this important? HTML5 is an open standard, not owned by any company (including Apple), it's much lighter on CPU and battery life than Flash, and doesn't suffer from increasing malware attacks or onerous "cookie"/privacy issues the way Flash does.

And while it may be purely coincidental that this beta comes on the eve of an expected Apple tablet announcement (a device that will surely benefit from better CPU and battery, not to mention security and privacy), it's interesting to remember that the last big change in YouTube -- the move to H.264 -- occurred back with the launch of the original iPhone and its YouTube app.

Now, it should be pointed out that the HTML5 beta is only available for YouTube.com proper right now, and not for videos embedded elsewhere. But here's hoping that's the next step. (And that Firefox decides to spend some of their Google Search revenue on licensing MP4 so we get a, you know, standard standard).

If that happens, if automatic buffering is fixed, and if other companies follow suit (the way Vimeo and even Microsoft SilverLight are already doing specifically for the iPhone), we could be seeing the beginning of a huge shift in online video, one that will crash headlong into Adobe's plans for Flash 10.1.

If, if, if. Fair enough. But most of the time when people complain about the lack of Flash on the iPhone, it's not actually the lack of Flash that bothers them but the fact that a lot of the video they want to see is wrapped up in Flash. If YouTube is an early bellwether that things are changing on that score, and people start getting their videos without Flash, we're guessing the complaints will in large part evaporate.

UPDATE: As The Reptile points out in the comments below, Google owns YouTube and Google is all-in on WebKit as the foundation for the Chrome browser, Chrome OS, and Android browser. They've shown repeatedly they'll push for standards and for the faster adoption of web technologies because it benefits them. Since Apple's Safari is WebKit, it benefits iPhone users as well. That makes this interesting.

Daring Fireball has been looking into Google's new Gmail WebApp for the iPhone and the technologies behind it. We already know the iPhone packs a version of Apple's Safari Web Browser which is, in some ways, even more advanced than desktop Safari on the Mac. SQLite database caching, for example, for example users continue to archive or star messages even when there's no internet connection. What's more interesting to him, us -- and likely users -- is how that technology improves functionality.

Says Gruber:

I use the native iPhone Mail app to read email on my iPhone, but I’m tempted to start using the Gmail web app for one reason: I waste a lot of time switching back and forth between Mail and Safari after tapping a URL in an email. When using the Gmail web app, tapped links simply open in a new Safari tab. The iPhone Mail app needs a built-in web view, like what most popular iPhone Twitter clients offer.

Google's Alex Nicolaou has blogged about the process.

We once wondered what the future of WebApps would be in a post-native apps world. Looks like Google expects -- and is out to prove -- things still look very bright.

Anyone else considering ditching the built-in mobile Mail app for some web-based Gmail?

We asked what else Google could possibly give iPhone users this month to add to the incredible list of Gmail Tasks, Latitude, Google Books, and Google (Active)Sync, and Google Docs spreadsheet editing, and pretty much everyone said: push Gmail.

Turns out we zigged and Google zagged, because they've whipped up offline Gmail instead.

What's that and what does it mean? Offline WebApps use HTML5 standards and SQLite to keep your data open and available when you have no internet connection (like on most airplanes still). When your connection goes off, the data is kept live on the local machine, and when your connection comes back, it's re-synced back to the cloud.

Okay, so IMAP already does this in MobileMail and other mail clients, fair enough. But Google's IMAP is notoriously strange (and I'll say it -- shoddy), and many people prefer using the web interfaces anyway as it allows for a more consistent experience from device to device (a browser is a browser).

iPhoneBuzz thought offline Gmail looked ready for prime time, but says it's still a proof-of-concept at this stage, and there's no info yet one when Google might release it to the masses.

So, something you need? Something you want? Or should Google devote their Gmail time to push already?