Mobile users' app love-affair has outstripped their interest in browsers

That is a profound change. Only a few years ago, most video players (Hulu, Veoh, Joost) had to change from an app-based to browser-based model in order to gain market traction. The Mobile App phenomenon is changing that trend, and smartTV and tablet devices may extend that trend to the desktop. “There’s an App for that” - one Billion smartphone users are being trained that Apps are faster and easier than the slow mobile browser experience.

Mobile users lean toward apps over browsers

Is HTML5 going the way of RIM?

What is:

• Always a year away
• Too little too late
• Largely irrelevant as a business tool by the time it is released
• Can’t win against the million-strong Apple & Android App library

You might guess Blackberry’s new OS, but it could be HTML5!   [OK, give me a little poetic license here, I’m just trying to make a point…]

Yes, HTML5 will be a great next-gen browser standard, but did they set their design goals too low?  Is HTML5 just another browser, and not a true business tool designed for monetization?  HTML5 should have (but doesn’t):

• Built-in DRM, or at least native hooks to establish a foundation of trust for true content security between the server and client
• Built-in analytics and reporting, to be able to determine exactly what content was watched.  How can you bill for it if you can’t account for it?
• Focus on content monetization hooks
• Built-in ad insertion hooks
• Hooks for session-shifting between devices

Yes, some of that can be programmed in, but then HTML5 is relegated to being more of a programming language and not a true business tool.  Perhaps the future of HTML5 is to just be a UI framework, that will be used to launch proxy Apps whenever real work or business needs to be done.

Before we get too excited about HTML5, remember what Sigmund Freud said - “Sometimes a browser is just a browser.”