In September 2012, after reading an interview of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, regarding Facebook’s mobile app strategy, I had doubt in my mind that "is HTML5 really not ready"? I personally love HTML5 for its amazing feature support.
Zuckerberg had mention in his interview that:
“The biggest mistake we made as a company was betting too much on HTML5 instead of native... We burnt two years.” He said that the company would also drop HTML5 in its Android app as well, and that a native version would be coming "soon."
Despite of Zuckerberg’s statement, a company named Sencha made a bet on the web. Sencha was determined to do better, and in seeking to build an improved HTML5 interface to Facebook. The company has created Fastbook, which is an interesting project made to basically prove that Facebook’s switch to Native applications on Android might have not been the right way to go.
Fastbook, an HTML5 application mimics Facebook’s native application and does real FB data access by using Facebook’s API and displays similar performance both on iOS and Android in an attempt to demonstrate that “HTML5 is ready.”
In a blog post Jamie Akins, engineering manager at Sencha, and Jacky Nguyen, one of the core engineers behind Sencha frameworks have written that
"So when Mark Zuckerberg said HTML5 wasn't ready, we took a little offense to the comment. We thought to ourselves: HTML5 can't really be the reason that Facebook's mobile application was slow."
In the same blog post they have mentioned that
“Today, we'd like to introduce you to Sencha Fastbook, a technology proof of concept that shows how fast HTML5 can be, and demonstrates how readily HTML5 can be used to handle the toughest app challenges.”
Further they have written
“Fastbook isn't a replacement for the Facebook application. It's a technology demo that shows what developers can do with HTML5 if they take the right approach, and use the right frameworks and tools. If you've been wondering if HTML5 is ready, try Fastbook for yourself on a modern smartphone (we recommend at least iOS 5 or Android 4.1). You'll see that when you treat the browser as an application platform and leverage the features of HTML5 that even the most sophisticated applications can be made with HTML5.”
Zuckerberg had mention in his interview that:
“The biggest mistake we made as a company was betting too much on HTML5 instead of native... We burnt two years.” He said that the company would also drop HTML5 in its Android app as well, and that a native version would be coming "soon."
Despite of Zuckerberg’s statement, a company named Sencha made a bet on the web. Sencha was determined to do better, and in seeking to build an improved HTML5 interface to Facebook. The company has created Fastbook, which is an interesting project made to basically prove that Facebook’s switch to Native applications on Android might have not been the right way to go.
Fastbook, an HTML5 application mimics Facebook’s native application and does real FB data access by using Facebook’s API and displays similar performance both on iOS and Android in an attempt to demonstrate that “HTML5 is ready.”
In a blog post Jamie Akins, engineering manager at Sencha, and Jacky Nguyen, one of the core engineers behind Sencha frameworks have written that
"So when Mark Zuckerberg said HTML5 wasn't ready, we took a little offense to the comment. We thought to ourselves: HTML5 can't really be the reason that Facebook's mobile application was slow."
In the same blog post they have mentioned that
“Today, we'd like to introduce you to Sencha Fastbook, a technology proof of concept that shows how fast HTML5 can be, and demonstrates how readily HTML5 can be used to handle the toughest app challenges.”
Further they have written
“Fastbook isn't a replacement for the Facebook application. It's a technology demo that shows what developers can do with HTML5 if they take the right approach, and use the right frameworks and tools. If you've been wondering if HTML5 is ready, try Fastbook for yourself on a modern smartphone (we recommend at least iOS 5 or Android 4.1). You'll see that when you treat the browser as an application platform and leverage the features of HTML5 that even the most sophisticated applications can be made with HTML5.”