Microsoft has announced the next preview of its IE9 web browser, detailing new platform features available to users in the upcoming IE9.
IE9 includes a number of new HTML5 features like Canvas, the audio and video tags, and even WOFF support. As expected, support for the video tag includes the H.264 backend and not the WebM backend.
IE9 also improves JavaScript performance, bringing it inline with the leading browsers – Chrome and Safari – and well ahead of where Firefox 3.7 alpha 5 is.
A couple days ago, Google launched its response to Apple’s HTML5 Showcase, a website called “HTML5Rocks.” Naming aside, the website is an awesome mix of showcasing and experimentation.
Google’s site includes step-by-step tutorials as well as a “code playground” that allows full experimentation of the APIs available in HTML5.
Meanwhile, Mozilla continues to lag behind in resources and showcases for developers. Its Mozilla Developer Network, while up-to-date for most technologies, isn’t nearly as easy to use as Google’s new site.
Strangely, there was not a single mention of HTML5Rocks in the Mozilla blogosphere. After attacking Apple for its HTML Showcase, one wonders why Mozilla wouldn’t praise Google for its take on an HTML5 website.
Opera has announced the first beta of their new 10.60 desktop browser. The beta version includes a number of HTML5-branded technologies, like geolocation and WebM support.
Additionally, Opera has improved the speed of its JavaScript engine considerably, bringing it in line (and in some cases, way ahead) of competing browsers like Safari 5 and Google Chrome 5.
Just once, we’ll note how easy it is to pronounce “Opera 10.60 Beta” even if the trailing 0 is useless. A far cry from “Mozilla Developer Preview (1.9.3 Number 5).”
At their World Wide Developer’s Conference, Apple announced the release of Safari 5, with a number of enhancements.
Safari 5 includes extensions, built using HTML, CSS, and JS, exactly like Chrome extensions. It’ll be interesting to see how much they have in common. Also introduced was a “Reader” mode, similar to Instapaper, which allows users to clear away many page distractions and focus on the content.
Additionally, Apple has announced support for a number of HTML5 technologies, including:
Apple notes that Safari 5 performs twice as fast as Firefox 3.6.
In a blog post that’s gotten quite a bit of traction over the weekend, Christopher Blizzard – Director of Evangelism at the Mozilla Corporation (MoCo) – takes Apple to task for creating the HTML5 Showcase and limiting it to Safari only.
Blizzard spends over half of his blog post being “snarky,” burying his self described, most-important paragraph.
The most important aspect of HTML5 isn’t the new stuff like video and canvas (which Safari and Firefox have both been shipping for years) it’s actually the honest-to-god promise of interoperability. Even stodgy old Microsoft, who has been doing their best to hold back the web for nearly a decade, understands this and you’ll see it throughout their marketing for IE9. (Their marketing phrase is “same markup” – watch for it and you’ll see it everywhere in their messaging.) The idea that the same markup, even with mistakes, will be rendered exactly the same. HTML5 represents the chance for browsers to work together and find common ground.
As an evangelist, I’d hope Blizzard would be able to lead with his most important point, but regardless, his posts asks a lot of good questions.
Unfortunately, Mozilla isn’t understanding the goal of Apple’s website. Apple created their showcase not for the overall Web audience, but for developers who dislike the iPhone and iPad app store policies. While much of their verbiage centered around the open Web and Apple’s work in that field, their target audience wasn’t the same as Mozilla’s. More to the point, even if their target audience was web developers who believe in the open Web, showcasing new technologies that will soon be appearing across browsers isn’t a bad idea, even if they now only appear in Safari or if such demos require Safari.
Blizzard also included the following in a previous version of his post:
The tests show IE9 passing with 100% everything (surprise!) but a lot of the tests are just wrong.
This blurb, since removed, received a response in the comments from Tim Sneath, an evangelist at Microsoft.
We’d love to hear it if you find an incorrect test. We fixed a few minor errors between our first and second Platform Preview releases, and we’re committed to accuracy. These tests are engineering spec tests for us as we work on IE9, to ensure that we deliver on our commitment to implement the standards in a consistent and interoperable manner. The fact that we pass 100% of them shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone – of course, you’d expect us to fix errors that we uncover in our own testing process. Where Firefox and others don’t pass the tests, that’s an opportunity for those browsers to take advantage of our test cases to improve interoperability. Surely that’s something we should all be celebrating?
Given the removal of that part of Blizzard’s post, it’s fairly clear he didn’t think through all of his comments and has rescinded a few of them.
Before Mozilla can lead by example in the HTML5 evangelism department, it needs to think with a level head and not spout off facts that might not be true. Starting with a post titled “Intellectual Honesty and HTML5″ and including dishonest facts isn’t the way to go.
Today, Apple released a brand new website that showcases HTML5 features. This is very similar to the Chrome Experiments website which Google launched last year. Of course, in true Apple fashion, the various showcases require Safari to view.
I do wonder… why hasn’t Mozilla launched a similar site. The hacks.mozilla.org site was meant to be something similar, but is much more tech-oriented. It’d be incredibly beneficial for Mozilla to organize several HTML5 demos across multiple sites, instead of doing it the Chrome or Apple way and creating their own demos.
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