Native Mobile or HTML5

HTML5 the new standard for HTML that allows developers for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web and a core technology of the Internet. Considered to be the “logical evaluation of HTML” HTML5 extends it’s support for the latest multimedia while keeping it easily readable by humans and consistently understood by computers and devices (web browsers, parsers, etc.)
Native Mobile Apps, on the other hand, are Typical Mobile Apps that are intended to work on a specific mobile operating system such as ANDROID and iOS. With the advent of Android in recent times, many companies are targeting their app development towards Android and other mobile operating systems.

Recently “LinkedIn” the most popular professional social networking site, raised the argument once more by releasing a Native App avoiding the web-based HTML5 for mobile. Stating the reason for the shift a Senior Director of LinkedIn says, “We have definitely shifted from HTML5 to native. The primary reason for that is, we’re seeing that more and more people are spending more time in the app, and the app is running out of memory. It’s not performance issues, like speed or rendering, but it’s still a big problem. ”Facebook CEO last year had done the same kind of comment last year by saying that they are “betting too much on HTML5”

Raising the heat of the competition between HTML5 and Native Apps, so what is the real target for the developers to aim for? Is it The “HTML5” or “Native Apps” or a combination of both (that can be termed as Hybrid)?  To understand and draw a conclusion we need to perform a comparison over the two

1. Whereas HTML5 stands for Open standards and there is no Proprietary control on the apps developed by HTML5, it’s counterpart the Native Apps for mobile are fully controlled by App stores and markets such as GOOGLE and APPLE (example: GOOGLE’s “APP STORE” for Android Apps and APPLE’s “PLAY STORE” for iOS). This may disturb the open-source philosophy of the many apps
2. Now, HTML5 apps are less in performance when compared with the native apps, as their performance may depend on several issues like the speed of the internet connection and other issues.
3. Compared to HTML5 executions Native apps are better in performance, as they can directly work on the function of the device itself, for example, Camera GPS can be directly invoked by the Native Apps.
4. Unlike Native Apps which are provided with one-time purchase options, HTML5 apps are mostly concerned with ADS for selling,(these apps are mostly free)
5. When compared to Native Apps, the User Interfaces(UI) build through HTML5 are weaker and less intuitive for some app deployments.
6. Unlike its counterpart HTML5 has been often criticized for not having the required level of DRM (Digital Rights Management), for supporting all the multimedia services that it needs to.

So from these points, we may observe that each of the apps built through HTML5 and Native Apps. few may say that Native Apps are more powerful when compared to HTML5 because of their performance. However, it’s too early to comment, as HTML5 is still in an evolving phase. So it is only one factor as of now, that only time can decide on it. So as a Developer what’s your take on the Apps? The Web-Based HTML5 or Mobile Based Native Apps or a combination of both approaches?