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Apple, standards and plugins

By Robbie Clutton 21 Jun 2010.
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Some years ago developing web applications meant having to know the details about the browsers target audiences were using and we're still suffering from this today. An example of this is anyone who uses Exchange for email. They might know the pain of using the web client given how rich it is in Internet Explorer and how average it is in any other browser.

Cross browser JavaScript libraries helped reduce many of these pains and it's great to see that lessons learnt have been incorporated into the new HTML5 specs. However, whilst singing the praises of a few websites that are using the new HTML5 audio and video elements, Apple seem to be creating their own browser events (events are like notifications that something has happened, such as a mouse click) for touch that I can't see anywhere in the specs. It seems Mozilla are also playing the same game also and I'm worried that we're returning to a world where we will be tailoring code to target specific browsers.

You only have to go to Nike.com or log into Gmail to see iPad websites that have orientation and swipe support. It's great for the user, but this creates a lot more 'behind the scenes' work to get a website to work in different browsers and different devices. What happens when a new device comes out with different events, or even as with the new iPhone and it's different screen resolutions, how will that change the work already out there?

This raises further questions for me, especially after reports of JavaScript execution speed on the iPad. Some frameworks claim this isn't so much of a problem, such as Spoutcore Touch and others go further saying that no framework should be used at all to ensure performance

Although Apple provides information on building web content for their devices, it does beg the question why are there differences if we are supposed to live in a standards world? How long will it be before you hit a webpage and have it say "The website is best viewed with iPad", or any other device or browser for that matter?

How should we progress? Should we let our analytics decide? Should we take the standards route or device specific route? This will certainly be one to keep an eye on.