HTML5 is what user experience should have always been without plug-ins and the sometimes excruciating “loading…” times.

Imagine never having to be confronted with another “click here to download plugin” or “loading…and still loading…” message again. User experience utopia? Maybe not, but definitely user experience relief.

In the near future, using HTML5, we’ll be able to do all sorts of things that are hard or next to impossible to do with download-able plug-ins currently. HTML5 brings new flexibility of user experience, and promises of semantics, JavaScript APIs for drag and drop, offline storage, image generation, plugin-free video and that’s only to name a few.

It’s hard to find many examples of websites built in HTML5 today. To give you an idea of what’s possible, check out Mugtug.com’s sketchpad.

HTML5 proposes to replace the need for proprietary plug-in based rich media software. No need for the user to download Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight and the like to see and interact with rich media. Rich experiences can be created and displayed to the user in HTML5!

Once adopted by all the browser clients such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and the like, you’ll be able to have a Flash like experience without downloading Flash.  Wow! on very many different levels. Some believe HTML5 could kill off Flash and Silverlight.

In terms of MOBILE, currently Apple, BlackBerry Windows and Symbian don’t support plug-in based rich media software – and that includes Flash. [However, it is worth noting that many iPhone applications are mainly built in Flash.] So while Internet Explorer “won” the browser war on the PC, MOBILE browsing standards are up for grabs!

See for your self what HTML5 can do! See: Sketchpad in HTML5 http://mugtug.com/sketchpad/ and YouTube serves video in HTML5 http://youtube.com/html5/

What does Apple have to do with this? Apple has been a big supporter of HTML5 as a web standard and in so doing has banned Adobe’s Flash from all its devices.  Fewer than two months ago, Apple revealed the iPad to the world. And while the company’s highly anticipated device included a lot of features, Flash wasn’t one of them. A war of words soon erupted over the multimedia plug-in, with Flash responding to Apple and Steve Jobs ranting about Flash saying “the world is moving to HTML5.”

If you’re building your websites exclusively in Flash – stop.

While HTML5 updates a lot of things, its main focus is support for web applications. The idea is that no longer will you need to write long, horribly complex scripts or Flash plug-ins to animate your pages. Support for things like image processing, progress bars, canvases an even Ruby scripts are built in. The multimedia tags are the most compelling. No longer do you care about clients having the right plug-in installed. You use a video or audio tag and add to that a list of different formats – MP4/Theora/Flash/etc and the client will use the first one it supports. No more placeholders for “install Flashlight” and best of all, no more being held hostage to proprietary formats.

For more info on the HTML5 revolution, I recommend exploring these articles:

Behind the Adobe-Apple cold war http://bit.ly/98iHqK

Flash versus HTML5: Virgin America breaks up with Flash http://bit.ly/did8vJ

Adobe Opens Up About Apple, HTML5 and Flash [VIDEO] http://bit.ly/c339dO

Comments are open!

No Flash support, just like the iPhone. I can put up with blue boxes in the place of websites on the iPhone, but not on a tablet that I’d like to use for surfing! (Not to mention Jobs single highhandedly contributing to the demise of Flash – but that’s anther story.)

No multi-tasking. You can’t have two applications open at the same time! It feels like 1994 computing.

No camera for video conferencing. No camera for taking pictures. Nada.

No widescreen mode. Movies formatted for widescreen are squished into the 4:3 aspect ratio making it unusually painful to watch.

Apple only applications. The iPad will only run applications from the iTunes store, unlike any standard mini-laptop that runs all kinds of applications.

Side loading only. Think you can download whatever you want off the Internet onto your iPad? Think again! The only way to download anything to your iPad is by hooking yourself up to another device using a cable. (Come on Jobs!)

It’s not perfect, however there are a number of wonderful things about the iPad. For everything you need to know check out Gizmondo.com

Business Insider, Chart of the Day

Apple’s Market Cap Closing In On Microsoft’s (MSFT, AAPL)

Remember when Apple was on death’s door and needed an investment from Microsoft to survive? Well, a lot’s changed since then.  In May 2000, Apple’s market capitalization was $17 billion. Today it’s $182 billion. Meanwhile, Microsoft was around $356 billion in May 2000. Today it’s around $261 billion.

Jay Yarow and Kamelia Angelova

We’ve come a long way in mobile technology since Nokia introduced it’s first mobile phone in 1982. Today, we know every business needs a mobile application but not many marketers know how to make it work for them. Yes, Mobile will opened radical new business opportunities and transform our economy in a way unimaginable in an earlier age, but how? Marketing and technology consultant Marina Mann will demonstrate how companies are successfully leveraging mobile to their advantage and show you how these apps are influencing the mobile supply-chain of carriers, developers, advertisers, publishers and users in today’s mobile economy.

Presented by Marina Mann, Consultant, Digital Marketing, eCommerce & Mobile; in Partnership with nextMEDIA and the Mobile Entertainment Forum.

[slideshare id=1574813&doc=mobileappsthatwork-090612121800-phpapp01]

Well, ongoing research is demonstrating that brands that ignor iPhone application strategy for their products are, and will be,  leaving money on the table. In market research terms, iPhone users have now become their own “segment”.

Not only is the device a ‘game changer’ changing the way human beings percieve content, the iPhone is now its own marketplace. The App Store, controlled by Apple enables anyone to either distribute their own iPhone application for free, or collect fees for each download. Whilst Apple takes 30% of the sales revenues, the 70% revenue to the developer is appealing and previously unheard of in the mobile applications business.

If it’s time for your company to start thinking about your mobile application strategy, check this out. The Amazing iPhone is a free report developed by Kinsey Netmedia, a UK social media and mobile consultancy. It’s full of useful insight for iPhone developers and business owners. Most of the info is obvious for those living in the iPhone and mobile world for some time. Get it here.

“The reports starts off with an overview of the iPhone and the opportunities available on the App Store. A lot of it will be apparent to anyone who’s been in the iPhone world for a while, but it could make a great report to pass on to your bosses, clients, investors, or other people who need to get up to speed fast. It also goes into how mobile development was before the iPhone and contrasts it to the newer techniques.” As reviewed by TechCrunch

Here’s a great 5-minute video walk through of how Android compares to the iPhone experience. Don’t let the “for developers” label scare you. It’s a great look at the customer experience on the T-Mobile G1. A few cool features include bar code scanning (hello location based coupon-ing!) and how the touch screen and keypad work together. Although you don’t have the multi-touch features which is a big loss, I love how the pull down screens make it easy to switch between applications like email and maps.

A 5 Minute Walkthrough of Android For iPhone Developers