New HTML5 and web standards support in iOS 4.2

Mobile Web Programming has a detailed writeup of the new HTML5 and W3C future standards support included in yesterday's iOS 4.2 release. These new APIs haven't been fully documented yet by Apple, but these changes have been uncovered as part of Mobile Web Programming's own independent research. They include new standards like Accelerometer and Gyroscope support in the DeviceOrientation API, the WebSockets API that's part of HTML5, and information on how to invoke printing dialog in mobile Safari.

Some of the new functionality includes expansion of the DeviceOrientation API to include the accelerometer and gyroscope on devices that have them, so web apps can react to the device being moved around. WebSockets is a new HTML5 standard that allows developers to build even more responsive web apps (by allowing JavaScript to create raw TCP socket connections to HTTP servers), and now comes to mobile Safari for the first time.

Not only is Mobile Web Programming's information detailed and informative, the comments to the post are also fairly illuminating. There's a lot more going on in yesterday's iOS 4.2 release than a casual user might suspect, and there's a lot of great news in this release for web developers. If you have any interest in the spinning cogs and gears that make the mobile web work, it's definitely worth your time to check out this writeup. These additions help buttress the idea that Apple is committed to supporting the ongoing growth of HTML5 web standards and the importance of those open standards.

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Source: http://www.mobilexweb.com/blog/safari-ios-accelerometer-webs…

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Mobile Web Programming has a detailed writeup of the new HTML5 and W3C future standards support included in yesterday's iOS 4.2 release....

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Omiod

Go to http://www.omiod.com/i.htm with your iPhone/iPad for an improved example of the accelerometer running on a web page.

November 23 2010 at 6:49 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

waiphyo

The best part is the complete support towards CSS3 font embedding. In the past, custom TTF/OpenType font embedding were not working at all while SVG embedding was working partially. Such limitation mostly affected Asian fonts.

Finally with iOS4.2 we can enjoy CSS3 custom fonts to the fullest, it really helps for those of us who want to read non-English websites. This has been long overdue, but heck, better late than never.

November 23 2010 at 12:08 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

jacksodj

They went backwards on their support for the HTML5 video tag however.
Int he previous versions esp on the ipad, they supported most of the tag except the "autoplay" attribute.

that is still not supported, and now neither is the "loop" attribute, which had been supported in ipad iOS 3.2

I can understand wanting to prevent bandwidth charges.. but I have a wifi only ipad, and many others do as well. While this might be useful for 3G customers, I don't support the arbitrary support of only parts of the spec.

November 23 2010 at 10:48 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to jacksodj's comment

dennis

It's not just the bandwidth charges. I really want to be able to stop autoplay and other controls from playing video/audio content on web pages automatically. It frustrates the hell out of me when I go to a news article that happens to have one of these feeds that begin playing just because I went to "read" the article.

Here's an example of this kind of action. The link from the RSS news feed does not mention I'll be forced to watch or listen to video: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=12218687 - Why bother with text at all if you build pages that force downloading video commercials. I've already got a DVR to dodge this crap on the TV. I'll probably just end up blocking flash content on abc.go.com with Adblock so that I can "read" the news. Unfortunately, this also blocks the video on the pages that are set up for Video viewing (the ones I would go to if I wanted to get their TV style video articles).

Luckily, my iPhones, and iPads are already dodging this flash crap on these sites. I want choices when they convert their content to HTML 5.

November 23 2010 at 12:40 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

wosuh

don't be fooled - remember how they dissed Flash? in the place they have non-standard WebKit proprietary function calls and APIs. iAd and HTML5 based iOS app development is basically and practically impossible without their proprietary function calls. so much for web standards.

November 23 2010 at 10:27 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to wosuh's comment

ryan

And you back these claims up with what examples?

November 23 2010 at 3:16 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

macserv

As long as Apple is supporting (and working to grow) the open HTML5 standard, then who cares what else they throw in? DeviceOrientation, WebSockets, Custom Font Embedding... these are all part of the open HTML5 specification, written and influenced by brilliant people working at a dozen different tech companies.

Every web browser has its own additions to make certain UI magic work. Using proprietary extensions for iAds is a far cry from advocating such things on the open web. It's not like Apple is telling developers to use them on the open web.

November 24 2010 at 2:16 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply