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HTML5 and bad example of “same markup”

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From the Apple website:

Every new Apple mobile device and every new Mac — along with the latest version of Apple’s Safari web browser — supports web standards including HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. These web standards are open, reliable, highly secure, and efficient. They allow web designers and developers to create advanced graphics, typography, animations, and transitions. Standards aren’t add-ons to the web. They are the web. And you can start using them today.

I’m not a marketing guy. My mind beats “developer, developer, developer”. And as a developer, I can’t stop thinking that this pop-up is very sad.

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Don’t get me wrong. It’s great for Apple to promote their browser. Everyone has a preference. At least, I do :-)

BUT – it’s sad to see that the demo that they are claiming are built on HTML5 web standards don’t run on any browser, but Safari.

What is a web standard?

Can a browser that render well a website with browser specific code and markup (for instance, using 177 vendor prefix extensions in just one CSS file) and prevent you from seeing it in other browsers (*) claim to support “web standards”?

I’m scared by this trend to call “open, reliable, secure and efficient” any new work in progress over the W3C Specifications. Browser vendors have a big responsibility, which is not demonstrating how quickly their developers can write code over night.

Web browsers should render the same markup – the same HTML, same CSS, and same script – the same way. That’s simply not the case today. Enabling the same markup to work the same across different browsers is crucial for HTML5’s success.

What do you think?

Update 11:29 – (*) As expected, playing with Fiddler and Developer tools to change the User Agent, the Apple HTML5 site (purified by Safari-specific markup and code) looks equally awful on Firefox, Chrome, Opera and IE. Not exactly the goal of W3C with HTML5…

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 04, 2010
    Agree - but it has always been the same story with the Redmondsters from Microsoft ;-)

  • Anonymous
    June 05, 2010
    From what I understand, HTML 5 is a proposed standard and it will be some time before it is finalized. The proposed nature of the standard probably has something to do with the vendor specific markup for using the proposed features.

  • Anonymous
    June 07, 2010
    This is a really poor effort from a company whose name is so synonymous with usability and innovation.  And yet it seems to be part of a larger trend from Apple to take a much more aggressive (bordering on arrogant) approach to their marketing and brand protection. You couldn't be more right that this sort of "My Software Only" territoriality is damaging, but I think this will ultimately do more damage to Apple's credibility than it will to the HTML5 effort.  All browsers have their limitations in what new HTML5 content they can render - even your favourite one, Giorgio.  But designing (and presumably testing) for only one browser is an amateurish mistake and just lazy; pure and simple.