When Steve Jobs wrote his now famous “Thoughts on Flash” letter in April he set off a barrage on the blogosphere, but it’s a position that’s also had an impact on the ground.
Increasingly, developers, many of whom work in the Mission District, are showing an interest in the Jobs’ preferred HTML5, the language of web design that won’t even be fully released until 2012.
The HTML5, San Francisco meet-up group – a social networking claque of developers – has grown to more than 443 members since it began two months ago making it the largest such group in the country. Its organizer, Peter Lubbers said his HTML5 workshops here and in New York are selling out, and the San Francisco branch of Filter, an agency that connects companies with developers, said that since the Jobs letter, its getting more requests for people who know HTML5.
“I became interested as soon as Steve Jobs said he didn’t like Fash,” said software developer Paul Keister, at a recent HTML5 meet up in downtown San Francisco. “I don’t want to be left behind.”
Sherwin Techico, a web designer, from Alameda said he is interesting in seeing what HTML5 is capable of.
“I heard you can do a lot with it,” he said.
Flash is a third-party tool used to add video and animation to web pages, but requires a plug-in. HTML5 offers a broader range of open-source possibilities including video and animation.
Mindy Aronoff, the Director of Training and Resources at the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) in the Mission District, cautioned that HTML5 still has a long way to go.
“We’re very open to teaching HTML5 in the near future,” she said. “But right now Flash is still king, especially for animation.”
She added that the seven Flash classes BAVC teaches are still selling out and that there is still a large demand.
Lubbers argued, however, that it is only a matter of time before that’s no longer true.
“Is HTML5 a Flash killer?” Lubbers asked. “Sure, maybe in a year.”
Developers and instructors said that the large interest in HTML5 indicates that programmers want to use technology that is widely supported and gives them entree into developing for Apple products. So far Microsoft, Apple and Google are some of the companies supporting HTML5.
Lubbers, who co-founded the San Francisco meet-up group and co-authored an HTML5 book, said the iPad, which is now owned by 2 million people, is largely responsible for the “explosion” of interest in HTML5.
Jobs reaffirmed Apple’s support for the HTML5 technology at a Tuesday conference.
“Sometimes you have to pick the things that look like the right horses to ride going forward,” he said.
Although HTML5 will be used beyond producing video and games for mobile devices Apple’s preference means a lot because of the company’s dominance in mobile devices, Lubbers said.
HTML5 is the next major revision for the language used for web development. One of the new aspects of HTML5 would support video and in the words of Jobs’, “without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash).”
Hi, interesting post, thanks… appreciate the link to the SF user group.
One way to think of “HTML5” is as technology… HTML, as it advances, and as it is rendered by various browsers, various OS and devices. Another way to think of “HTML5” is as a brand, which is where conversation gets sort of crazy. HTML’s a good tool, and it helps us all if it improves.
If you’ve got an idea, you want it to reach people, whether that’s through web or print or video or whatever. Figuring ways to connect creators and audiences is one of the big things Adobe’s about.
jd/adobe
Funny thing is that in Steve’s demos on apple.com/html you need to download their browser with their Quicktime PLUGIN…
Yeah, “without relying on third party browser plug-ins”, right… Wait, I remember that I’ve another one called iTunes Application Detector… 😛
And yes, Flash is still King for 3D, Games, RIAs, animations and also Sound manipulation (nope, you can’t do that with HTML5)…
to put it simply, HTML5 = HTML + CSS3 + javaScript, technologies any designer worth their salt is already using. i wouldn’t call it a major revision so much as a new standard to develop more user interaction and fancy graphics without crashing your browser (AHEM, flash), and to develop a better method for the way websites use bandwidth/data. the problem currently is browser support, but lots of sites are already using what is being too broadly labeled HTML5 in the Apple vs. Adobe war.