Create HTML5 App

Appsbar, the free, easy-to-use app builder, burst out of its beta phase with a new drag-and-drop tool that allows anyone to utilize HTML5 to create mobile apps. With “agnostic” being the new technology buzzword, appsbar’s new tool allows even those without coding knowledge develop a web app that acts like a native app on Android, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, and Windows phone devices.

It has turned into almost a “must have” feature for application tools vendors to use the emerging HTML5 standards in building and deploying mobile applications. These applications will operate inside a HTML5 browser or be bundled as part of a native application, to display Web content.

What is HTML5? It is not a single product in the manner of, say, the 11g release of Oracle's database management system. Instead, HTML5 is a collection of definitions, which, even in the narrowest sense, no existing Web browser fully supports, but all major Web browsers partially support.

Companies are now just starting to integrate HTML5 into their systems to improve  search rankings, better support mobile readers, and transform their development process. HTML5 will offer faster image downloads (especially for mobile users), and vastly improved search engine optimization.

Appsbar, however, has been on the leading edge of this trend since its beta release in April of 2011. The company initially developed platforms for Android and iOS users separately before adapting to cross-platform and eventually agnostic HTML5 options.

“Being cross platform and device agnostic finally allows mobile apps that everyone can share,” says appsbar founder Scott Hirsch. “ Appsbar is bridging the gap between micro sites and native apps by creating fully functional HTML5 apps that are more than a mobile version of your website.”

Taking a cue from companies like appsbar, some of the major players in the web browser space have moved to HTML5-ready systems.

Mozilla.org, creator of the Firefox Web browser, has even greater ambitions for HTML5; specifically, making it the basis for eliminating conventional mobile operating systems, and instead replacing them with a very small Linux kernel and drivers, to support Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine. Coupled with a growing array of new APIs, and a user interface dubbed Gaia, the platform can fully control the phone and its features without the complexity of a conventional OS.

The appsbar HTML5 apps have specific advantages, namely the ability to work offline because they are cached on the phone, just as it would be if it was a downloaded native app. These apps can also use video and audio without plug in or third party support. The apps offer Geo-location notification through GPS, app support through thread-like operations that speed up app processing, and fully structured client side database storage.

While many of the browser and app development firms are scurrying to complete to expand integration between HTML5 and native components, appsbar sits comfortably at the head of the class in this space.

Among appsbar's HTML5 already functional modules include discography, unlimited smart forms and menus offering better control for validating data, focusing, and interaction with other page elements.

“The app development community, including everyday app builders and the most influential app platforms, has embraced appsbar as the next step in a very short evolution of app development," said Hirsch. “HTML5, cross platform, operating system agnostic app development, and appsbar, are here to stay.”