Standards for Web Applications on Mobile: current state and roadmap

Latest version: http://www.w3.org/Mobile/mobile-web-app-state/
This version: http://www.w3.org/2014/01/mobile-web-app-state/ (PDF version)
Previous version: http://www.w3.org/2013/09/mobile-web-app-state/

Web technologies have become powerful enough that they are used to build full-featured applications; this has been true for many years in the desktop and laptop computer realm, but is increasingly so on mobile devices as well.

This document summarizes the various technologies developed in W3C that increase the capabilities of Web applications, and how they apply more specifically to the mobile context. A good subset of these technologies are described and explained in the W3C on-line training on programming Web applications.

Graphics
Multimedia
Device Adaptation
Forms
User interactions
Data storage
Personal Information Management
Sensors and hardware integration
Network
Communication_and_Discovery
Packaging
Performance & Optimization

Status and changes

This document is the twelfth edition of this overview of mobile Web applications technologies. The previous edition was released in September 2013. A live version of this document accepts contributions on the W3C Web and Mobile Interest Group Github repository.

This document is published by the Web and Mobile Interest Group; feedback on every aspect of this document should be sent to public-web-mobile@w3.org, the publicly archived mailing list of the interest group, or raised as issues on the Github repository, or alternatively to the author (dom@w3.org). It will serve as input for the next iteration of the document.

It documents the following changes in the Web platform since September 2013:

CORS, the mechanism that facilitates the creation of mashups by enabling cross-origin requests, has been published as a W3C Recommendation;
Performance Timeline and User Timing, both APIs that enable developers to track and improve the performance of their apps, have been published as W3C Recommendations;
Touch Events, the API that let Web applications react to touch input, has been published as a W3C Recommendation; work on the more comprehensive Pointer Events specification is continuing;
Web Storage, a simple data storage mechanism for Web applications, has been published as a W3C Recommendation;
The Geolocation API, enabling location-aware Web applications, has been published as a W3C Recommendation;
Timing control for script-based animations, which enables to develop smoother Javascript-based animations, reached Candidate Recommendation status;
Media Source Extensions, the key to the Javascript-based generation of video content, reached Candidate Recommendation status;
Proximity Events and Ambient Light Events, enabling access respectively to proximity sensors and ambient light sensors, have reached Candidate Recommendation status;
The first public Working Draft of the Web NFC API has been published, paving the way to integrate Near-Field Communications in the Web platform;
The first public Working Draft of Beacon was published; that API offers to queue HTTP requests that are guaranteed to be triggered, even after the page has unloaded;
Manifest for web apps and bookmarks was released as a first public Working Draft; the document specifies how to describe the properties (e.g. icon and name) of a Web application;
Resource Priorities, a mechanism to indicate which network requests have high priority, was released as a first public Working Draft;
The Patent Advisory Group formed to assess the Push API situation with regard to patent exclusions it had received concluded that the disclosed patents did not read on the specification, opening the way to its further progress;
Convergence on responsive images (i.e. images that adapt to the resolution of the screen on which they are displayed) is progressing, with both <picture> and srcset gaining momentum as complementary approaches;
An editors draft of the proposed new FileSystem API, an alternative to the Directories and System File API, has been made available;
An editors draft for Service Workers is emerging; Service Workers enables off-line or low-network connectivity operations, and creates a framework for background operations for Web apps;
Built on top of Service Workers, an editors draft of the System Applications Working Group’s Application Lifecycle and Events specification was made available;
Work on WOFF 2 (downloadable fonts), promising smaller downloads, has started with an evaluation of possible improvements
The Device APIs Working Group formalized the abandon of a number of its APIs due to the lack of reasonable browser-based security models: Pick Media Intent, Pick Contacts Intent, Calendar API, Web Intents Addendum - Local Services

Document structure

The features that these technologies add to the Web platform are organized under the following categories: graphics, multimedia, device adaptation, forms, user interactions, data storage, personal information management, sensors and hardware integration, network, communication and discovery, packaging, performance & optimization.

The Web as an application development platform

In each category, a table summarizes for each feature:

which W3C specification defines the feature; specifications that have been identified as of particular importance in the Core Mobile Web Platform 2012 report are marked with a medal,
which W3C group is responsible of the said specification,
the stage of the specification in the W3C Recommendation track (see below),
the estimated stability of the feature, i.e. how little the author expects it to change, from an early draft that can still evolve a lot, to a finished document with only minor expected changes,
a link to the latest editors draft of the document, and a representation of the recent editing activity;
some qualitative indication on availability of implementations on mobile devices, based on data collected primarily from Can I Use… and mobile HTML5, completed with data from Mozilla developer network, QuirksMode, as well as the author’s understanding of the mobile devices market (see also the code used to generate the support icons)
When available, a link to a relevant tutorial on WebPlatform Docs, and to relevant on-line training courses on W3DevCampus
a link to the test suite for the said feature, and when relevant, a github ribbon to access the underlying git repository.

As a reminder, W3C creates Web standards by progressing documents through its Recommendation track, with the following stages:

“Editors drafts” represent the current view of the editors of the specification but have no standing in terms of standardization.
“Working Drafts” (WD) are early milestones of the Working Group progress.
“Last Call Working Drafts” signal that the Working Group has determined that the specification fulfills its requirements and all the known issues have been resolved, and thus requests feedback from the larger community.
“Candidate Recommendations” (CR) trigger a call for implementations where implementers are invited to implement the specification and send feedback; Working Groups are expected to show the specification gets implemented by running test suites they have developed.
“Proposed Recommendations” (PR) manifests that the group has gathered sufficient implementation experience, and triggers the final review by W3C Members
“W3C Recommendations” (Rec) are stable and completed Web standards; these documents only get updated rarely, through the “Edited Recommendation” process, as a results from errata collected by Working Groups.

Prior to starting standardization, a Working Group needs to be chartered, based on input from W3C Members, often through the organization of a workshop, or after the reception of a W3C Member Submission.

W3C has set up Community Groups, a mechanism that allows anyone to do experimental work within the W3C infrastructure, under IPR rules that are compatible to transition the work to the W3C standardization process.

1. Graphics

SVG, Scalable Vector Graphics, provides an XML-based markup language to describe two-dimensions vector graphics. Since these graphics are described as a set of geometric shapes, they can be zoomed at the user request, which makes them well-suited to create graphics on mobile devices where screen space is limited. They can also be easily animated, enabling the creation of very advanced and slick user interfaces.

The integration of SVG in HTML5 opens up new possibilities, for instance applying advanced graphic filters (through SVG filters) to multimedia content, including videos. SVG 2.0 is set to facilitate that integration and complete the set of features in SVG.

In complement to the declarative approach provided by SVG, the <canvas> element added in HTML5 enables a 2D programmatic API that is well-suited for processing graphics in a less memory intensive way. That API not only allows rendering graphics, but can also be used to do image processing and analysis — HTML 5.1 adds the ability to do that processing in a separate Web Worker.

Both SVG and HTML can be styled using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets); in particular, CSS3 (the third level of the specification) is built as a collection of specifications set to offer a large number of new features that make it simple to create graphical effects, such as rounded corners, complex background images, shadow effects (CSS Backgrounds and Borders), rotated content (CSS Transforms, including with 3D effects).

Animations can be described declaratively vi(CSS Animations, and CSS Transitions).

Animations can also be managed via scripting through the API exposed in Web Animations; as they can be resource intensive, the possibility offered by the Timing control for script-based animations API to manage the rate of updates to animations can help keep them under control.

CSS Flexbox allows to build complex layouts as required for interactive applications on small screens.

Fonts play also an important role in building appealing graphical interfaces, but mobile devices are in general distributed with only a limited set of fonts. WOFF 1.0 (Web Open Font Format) addresses that limitation by making it easy to use fonts that are automatically downloaded through style sheets, while keeping the size of the downloaded fonts limited to what is actually needed to render the interface. The upcoming WOFF 2.0 update to that format promises 25%-smaller download sizes, reducing the time needed to download and display these fonts.

Another important aspect in graphics-intensive applications (e.g. games) is the possibility to use the entire screen to display the said graphics; the Fullscreen API lets a Web application requests and detects full screen display.

Likewise, in these scenarios, it is often useful to be able to lock the orientation of the screen; the Screen Orientation API allows not only to detect orientation change, but also to lock the orientation in a specific state.

NB: a 3D graphic API for HTML5 canvas, called WebGL, has been developed outside of W3C, as part of the Khronos Group; this API has been built to be compatible with OpenGL ES, i.e. for embedded systems, and is intended to work on mobile devices.

Feature	Specification	Working Group	Maturity	Stability	Latest editors draft	Current implementations	Test suite
2D Vector Graphics	Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 Specification	SVG		Finished	New version of SVG (SVG 2.0) in preparation	Widely deployed	High coverage
2D Vector Graphics	Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2	SVG		Early draft	Last updated January 2014	N/A	N/A
2D Programmatic API	HTML Canvas 2D Context	HTML		Stable	Last updated January 2014	Widely deployed	Fork me on GitHub Good coverage
2D Programmatic API	HTML 5.1	HTML		Early draft	Last updated January 2014	None	None
Rounded Corners	CSS Backgrounds and Borders Module Level 3	CSS		Mostly finished	Last updated January 2014	Well deployed	Good coverage
Complex background images	CSS Backgrounds and Borders Module Level 3	CSS		Mostly finished	Last updated January 2014	Well deployed	Good coverage
Box shadow effects	CSS Backgrounds and Borders Module Level 3	CSS		Mostly finished	Last updated January 2014	Well deployed	Good coverage
2D Effects	CSS Transforms Module Level 1	SVG and CSS		Mostly stable	Last updated January 2014	Well deployed	Good coverage
3D Effects	CSS Transforms Module Level 1	SVG and CSS		Stabilizing	Last updated January 2014	Well deployed	Good coverage
Animations	CSS Animations	CSS		Early draft	Last updated January 2014	Well deployed	Fork me on GitHub None
	CSS Transitions	CSS		Early draft	Last updated January 2014	Well deployed	Fork me on GitHub None
	Web Animations 1.0	SVG and CSS		Early draft	Last updated January 2014	None	None
	Timing control for script-based animations	Web Performance		Stable	Last updated October 2013	Well deployed	Well started
Complex layouts	CSS Flexible Box Layout Module	CSS		Mostly finished	Last updated January 2014	Well deployed	Well started
Downloadable fonts	WOFF File Format 1.0	WebFonts		Finished	Finished	Good deployment	Good coverage
Downloadable fonts	WOFF 2	WebFonts	N/A	Not started	WOFF2 Requirements	None	N/A
Fullscreen display	Fullscreen	CSS and Web Applications		Early draft	Last updated October 2012	Limited	None
Orientation Lock	The Screen Orientation API	Web Applications		Early draft	Last updated November 2013	Very limited	None

2. Multimedia

HTML5 adds two tags that dramatically improve the integration of multimedia content on the Web: the <video> and <audio> tags. Respectively, these tags allow embedding video and audio content, and make it possible for Web developers to interact much more freely with that content than they would through plug-ins. They make multimedia content first-class citizens of the Web, the same way images have been for the past 20 years.

The playback content can be augmented and completed via Media Source Extensions that lets developers generate media content in JavaScript.

To cater for the needs of some content providers, a proposal to enable playback of protected content, Encrypted Media Extensions is an API that is under consideration in the HTML Working Group.

The Pick Media Intent offers a Web-intent based approach to search and retrieve locally or remotely stored media content, while the Network Service Discovery API opens the door for integrating DLNA-hosted content into Web applications.

While the new HTML5 tags allow to play multimedia content, the HTML Media Capture defines a markup-based mechanism to access captured multimedia content using attached camera and microphones, a very common feature on mobile devices. The Web Real-Time Communications Working Group and the Device APIs Working Group are building together an API (getUserMedia) to directly manipulate streams from camera and microphones, as well as an API to record these streams into files, and another API to use access to cameras to take photos programatically.

Beyond capturing and recording, two additional APIs add multimedia manipulation capabilities to the Web platform. We have already mentioned the Canvas 2D Context API: it enables modifying images, which in turn opens up the possibility of video editing.

In a similar vein, the Audio Working Group is working on an API that that makes it possible to modify audio content, as well as analyze, modify and synthesize sounds, the Web Audio API.

The combination of all these features marks the starting point of the Web as a comprehensive platform for multimedia, both for consuming and producing. The rising interest around bridging the Web and TV worlds (manifested through the W3C Web and TV Interest Group) should strengthen that trend in the coming months. Mobile devices are expected to take a growing role in many users TV experience, providing a “second screen” experience, where users can find more information on or interact with a TV program they're watching via their mobile devices.

Feature	Specification	Working Group	Maturity	Stability	Latest editors draft	Current implementations	Test suite
Video playback	HTML5	HTML		Stable	Last updated January 2014	Good deployment	Fork me on GitHub Well started
Audio playback	HTML5	HTML		Stable	Last updated January 2014	Good deployment	Fork me on GitHub Started
Generation of media content	Media Source Extensions	HTML		Stable	Last updated December 2013	Limited	None
Protected content playback	Encrypted Media Extensions	HTML		Early draft	Last updated January 2014	Very limited	None
Multimedia Gallery access	Pick Media Intent	Device APIs	Retired	Early Web-intents based approach; stalled due to lack of progress on Web Intents	Last updated May 2013	None	N/A
Multimedia Gallery access	Network Service Discovery	Device APIs		Early draft	Last updated October 2013	None	None
Capturing audio/video	HTML Media Capture	Device APIs		Stable	Last updated May 2013	Growing deployment	Fork me on GitHub started
	Media Capture and Streams	Device APIs and Web Real-Time Communications		Stabilizing	Last updated January 2014	Limited but growing	Fork me on GitHub well started
	MediaStream Recording	Device APIs and Web Real-Time Communications		Early draft	Last updated November 2013	None	None
	Mediastream Image Capture	Device APIs and Web Real-Time Communications		Early draft	Last updated July 2013	None	None
Image & Video analysis, modification	HTML Canvas 2D Context	HTML		Stable	Last updated January 2014	Widely deployed	Fork me on GitHub Good coverage
Audio analysis, modification	Web Audio API	Audio		Starting to stabilize	Last updated October 2013	Growing	Fork me on GitHub Started

3. Device Adaptation

Mobile devices not only differ widely from traditional computers, but they also have a lot of variations among themselves, in term of screen size, resolution, type of keyboard, media recording capabilities, etc.

The Device Description Repository API is a unified server-side API that allows Web developers to retrieve data on the devices that are accessing their pages on a variety of device information database.

The Media Capture Streams API exposes some specific information on capabilities of camera and microphones to make it possible to take advantage of the large variety of media capturing devices provided on mobile phones.

CSS Media Queries offer a mechanism that allows adapting the layout and behavior of a Web page based on some of the characteristics of the device, including the screen resolution — to which Media Queries Level 4 proposes to add the availability and type of a pointing device, the ability to hover over elements, and the ambient luminosity. CSS Device Adaptation defines a set of CSS directives to define the size on which this layout should be based, relatively to the size of the underlying device — specifying what has been implemented using the <meta name="viewport"> element so far.

The Responsive Images Community Group (RICG) is currently working on an extension to HTML, known as the picture element, that allows authors define what image to load depending on device capabilities and/or other media features. The RICG publishes a use cases and requirements document that fully describes the problem.

As a complementary approach, the srcset attribute, specified by the WHATWG and also published as an extension to HTML, let Web developers define the various device pixel ratios of an image, letting the browser pick the best choice for the pixel density of the screen. As of January 2014, there is general agreement amongst browser vendors to implement both picture and srcset.

Some work was also undertaken into a new responsive images proposal called "srcN". However, that approach was rejected by the community and by browser vendors. It did, however, serve as a catalyst for unifying picture and srcset.

Feature	Specification	Working Group	Stability	Latest editors draft	Current implementations	Test suite
Device information	Device Description Repository Simple API	Device Description	finished	N/A	Limited	Good Coverage
Media Capture Capabilities	Media Capture and Streams	Device APIs and Web Real-Time Communications	Early draft	Last updated January 2014	None	None
CSS-based adaptation	Media Queries	CSS	Finished	Finished	Widely deployed	Good coverage
	Media Queries Level 4	CSS	Early draft	Last updated January 2014	None	None
	CSS Device Adaptation	CSS	Early draft	Last updated October 2013	Very limited	N/A
Responsive images	The picture element	HTML	First draft	Last updated January 2014	None	N/A
Responsive images	The srcset attribute	HTML	First draft	Last updated May 2013	None	None

4. Forms

The ability to build rich forms with HTML is the basis for user input in most Web-based applications. Due to their limited keyboards, text input on mobile devices remains a difficult task for most users; HTML5 address parts of this problem by offering new type of form controls that optimize the way users will enter data:

date and time entries can take advantage of a number of dedicated form controls (e.g. <input type="date">) where the user can use a native calendar control;
the <input type="email">, <input type="tel"> and <input type="url"> can be used to optimize the ways user enter these often-difficult to type data, e.g. through dedicated virtual keyboards, or by accessing on-device records for these data (from the address book, bookmarks, etc.);
the inputmode attribute (proposed in HTML 5.1) defines the type of textual input expected in a text entry;
the pattern attribute allows both to guide user input as well as to avoid server-side validation (which requires a network round-trip) or JavaScript-based validation (which takes up more resources);
the placeholder attribute allows to guide user input by inserting hints as to what type of content is expected in a text-entry control;
the <datalist> element allows creating free-text input controls coming with pre-defined values the user can select from; HTML 5.1 defines a mechanism for the autocomplete attribute to automatically fill input fields based on well-known data for the user.

Feature	Specification	Working Group	Stability	Latest editors draft	Current implementations	Test suite
Date and time entries	HTML5	HTML	Mostly stable, but feature marked at risk	Last updated January 2014	Growing	Fork me on GitHub Just started
Customized text entries (tel, email, url)	HTML5	HTML	Stable	Last updated January 2014	Well deployed	Fork me on GitHub Just started
Input modality	HTML 5.1	HTML	Early draft	Last updated January 2014	None	Fork me on GitHub None
Input pattern	HTML5	HTML	Stable	Last updated January 2014	Limited but growing	Fork me on GitHub Just started
Input hint	HTML5	HTML	Stable	Last updated January 2014	Well deployed	Fork me on GitHub Started
Autocomplete for text entries	HTML5	HTML	Stable	Last updated January 2014	Limited	Fork me on GitHub None
Autocomplete for text entries	HTML 5.1	HTML	Early draft	Last updated January 2014	None	None

5. User interactions

An increasing share of mobile devices relies on touch-based interactions. While the traditional interactions recognized in the Web platform (keyboard, mouse input) can still be applied in this context, a more specific handling of touch-based input is a critical aspect of creating well-adapted user experiences, which Touch Events in the DOM (Document Object Model) enable. The work on that specification is now nearly finished.

Meanwhile, the Pointer Events Working Group has made good progress on an alternative approach to handle user input, Pointer Events, that allows to handle mouse, touch and pen events under a single model. This new approach is expected to replace the currently more widely deployed Touch Events.

As more and more content gets rendered as long scrollable lists, more and more logic is attached to scrolling events, and the quality of the user experience of these actions is highly dependent on their performances. The CSSOM View Module determines when scrolling events get fired, and let developers specify the type of scrolling behavior they want.

Many mobile devices use on-screen keyboards to let users type; the Input Method Editor (IME) API makes it possible to coordinate the interactions between that on-screen keyboard and Web applications.

Conversely, many mobile devices use haptic feedback (such as vibration) to create new form of interactions (e.g. in games); work on a vibration API in the Device APIs Working Group is making good progress.

But as the Web reaches new devices, and as devices gain new user interactions mechanisms, it also becomes important to allow Web developers to react to a more abstract set of user interactions: instead of having to work in terms of “click”, “key press”, or “touch event”, being able to react to an “undo” command, or a “next page” command independently of how the user instructed it to the device will prove beneficial to the development of device-independent Web applications. The IndieUI Events specification, developed by the Indie UI Working Group, aims at addressing this need.

Mobile devices follow their users everywhere, and many mobile users rely on them to remind them or notify them of events, such as messages: the Web Notifications specification proposes to add that feature to the Web environment.

Mobile devices, and mobile phones in particular, are also in many cases well-suited to be used through voice-interactions; the Speech API Community Group is exploring the opportunity of starting standardization work around a JavaScript API that would make it possible for users to interact with a Web page through spoken commands.

The hardware constraints of mobile devices, and their different usage context can make mobile users experience similar barriers to people with disabilities. These similarities in barriers mean that similar solutions can be used to cater for them, making a Web site accessible both for people with disabilities and mobile devices a natural goal (as detailed in Relationship between Mobile Web Best Practices and WCAG).

How Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) provide guidance on mobile accessibility — that is, making websites and applications more accessible to people with disabilities when they are using mobile phones and a broad range of other devices — is discussed in Mobile Accessibility.

WAI-ARIA provides semantic information on widgets, structures and behaviors hooks to make Web applications more accessible, including on mobile devices.

Feature	Specification	Working Group	Maturity	Stability	Latest editors draft	Current implementations	Test suite
Touch-based interactions	Touch Events	Web Events		Finished	Last updated October 2013	Largely deployed	Complete
Touch-based interactions	Pointer Events	Pointer Events		Stable	Last updated January 2014	Limited deployment	Fork me on GitHub Just started
Smooth scrolling	CSSOM View Module	CSS		Still changing	Last updated January 2014	None	N/A
On-screen keyboard interactions	Input Method Editor API	Web Applications		Still changing	Last updated December 2013	None	N/A
Vibration	Vibration API	Device APIs		Mostly stable	Last updated October 2013	Limited but growing	Fork me on GitHub Started
Intent-based events	IndieUI: Events 1.0	Independent User Interface (Indie UI)		Early draft	Last updated December 2013	None	None
Notification	Web Notifications	Web Notification		Stabilizing	Last updated August 2013	Growing deployment	Fork me on GitHub None
Speech-based interactions	Web Speech API	Speech API Community Group	N/A	N/A	Last updated January 2013	Limited but growing	N/A
Accessibility	Relationship between Mobile Web Best Practices (MWBP) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)	Education and Outreach and Mobile Web Best Practices	NOTE	Finished	N/A	N/A	N/A
Accessibility	Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0	Protocols and Formats		Stable	Last updated January 2014	Well deployed	Well started

6. Data storage

A critical component of many applications is the ability to save state, export content, as well as integrate data from other files and services on the system.

For simple data storage, the Web Storage specification offers two basic mechanisms, localStorage and sessionStorage, that can preserve data respectively indefinitely, or on a browser-session basis.

For richer interactions, the Web platform has a growing number of APIs to interact with a device filesystem: the File Reader API makes it possible to load the content of a file, the File Writer API allows saving or modifying a file, while the nascent FileSystems API give access to more general file operations, including directory management. Discussions have started on whether these two latter APIs would better be implemented on top of IndexedDB, and a proposal for a new sandboxed filesystem API has been brought forward.

On top of this file-based access, the Indexed Database API (IndexedDB) defines a database of values and hierarchical objects that integrates naturally with JavaScript, and can be queried and updated very efficiently. Note that the work around a client-side SQL-based database, which had been started in 2009, has been abandoned in favor of this new system.

As more and more data need to be stored by the browser (e.g. for offline usage), it becomes critical for developers to get reliable storage space, which the proposed Quota Management API will offer to Web applications.

Likewise, as some of this data need to be encrypted, the emerging Web Cryptography API from the Web Cryptography Working Group exposes strong cryptography primitives to Web applications, and can be bound to pre-provisioned keys via the WebCrypto Key Discovery API.

Feature	Specification	Working Group	Maturity	Stability	Latest editors draft	Current implementations	Test suite
Simple data storage	Web Storage	Web Applications		Finished	Last updated January 2014	Well deployed	Fork me on GitHub Complete
File operations	File API	Web Applications		Stabilizing	Last updated January 2014	Getting well deployed	Fork me on GitHub Started
	File API: Writer	Web Applications		Early draft, unsure future	Last updated January 2013	Limited but growing	None
	File API: Directories and System	Web Applications		Early draft, unsure future	Last updated January 2013	Limited but growing	None
	FileSystem API	Web Applications	N/A	Early proposal	Last updated September 2013	N/A	None
Database query/update	Indexed Database API	Web Applications		Stable	Last updated December 2013	Growing	Fork me on GitHub Good coverage
Database query/update	Web SQL Database	Web Applications	Retired	Abandoned	N/A	Somewhat deployed, but won’t be further deployed	N/A
Quota for storage	Quota Management API	Web Applications		Early work	Last updated November 2013	Very limited	None
Encrypted storage	Web Cryptography API	Web Cryptography		Early work	Last updated January 2014	Limited	Fork me on GitHub None
Encrypted storage	WebCrypto Key Discovery	Web Cryptography		Early work	Last updated August 2013	None	None

7. Personal Information Management

Applications can benefit from integrating with their users’ existing data records; on mobile devices, the address book and calendar are particularly useful source of information.

The Contacts API was developed on top of a Web-intents approach for accessing the addressbook from within the Web browser, but given the lack of progress behind Web Intents, has now been abandoned.

For Web apps outside of the browser, a purely programmatic approach is part of the System Applications Working Group, with work on a Contacts Manager API in progress.

A Web-Intent based Calendar API for in-browser apps was also under development, but has now been abandoned as well.

Feature	Specification	Working Group	Maturity	Stability	Latest editors draft	Current implementations	Test suite
Addressbook data	Pick Contacts Intent	Device APIs	Retired	Early Web-intents based approach; stalled due to lack of progress on Web Intents	Last updated August 2011	None	Early draft based on previous API
Addressbook data	Contacts Manager API	System Applications		Early draft	Last updated August 2013	None	None
Calendar data	Calendar API	Device APIs	Retired	Abandonned	Last updated October 2012	None	None

8. Sensors and hardware integration

Mobile devices are packed with sensors, making them a great bridge between the real and virtual worlds: GPS, accelerometer, ambient light detector, microphone, camera, thermometer, etc.

To take full advantage of these sensors in mobile Web applications, Web developers need to be provided with hooks to interact with them.

The Geolocation API provides a common interface for locating the device, independently of the underlying technology (GPS, WIFI networks identification, triangulation in cellular networks, etc.). Work towards a new version of the API that would include geofencing is under consideration.

Web applications can also now access orientation and acceleration data via the DeviceOrientation Event Specification.

A number of APIs for other sensors are under development: the Battery Status API, the Proximity Events API, the Ambient Light Events API or the proposed Ambient Humidity Events API.

As already mentioned in the section on multimedia, there is ongoing work on APIs to open up access to camera and microphone streams.

The opportunity for Web applications to use Near-Field Communications (NFC) mechanisms have led to the chartering of the NFC Working Group to develop a Web NFC API.

A more global access to sensors and hardware (including USB and bluetooth) is in scope for the System Applications Working Group.

Feature	Specification	Working Group	Maturity	Stability	Latest editors draft	Current implementations	Test suite
Geolocation	Geolocation API Specification	Geolocation		Mostly finished	Last updated September 2013	Widely deployed	Good coverage
Motion sensors	DeviceOrientation Event Specification	Geolocation		Stabilizing, but with planned updates	Last updated June 2012	Well deployed	Started
Battery Status	Battery Status API	Device APIs		Stable	Last updated April 2013	Very limited	Fork me on GitHub Good coverage
Proximity sensors	Proximity Events	Device APIs		Stable	Last updated September 2013	Very limited	Fork me on GitHub Started
Ambient Light sensor	Ambient Light Events	Device APIs		Stable	Last updated September 2013	Very limited	Fork me on GitHub Started
Humidity sensor	Ambient Humidity Events	Device APIs	N/A	Unofficial draft	Last updated October 2013	None	N/A
Camera & Microphone streams	Media Capture and Streams	Device APIs and Web Real-Time Communications		Stabilizing	Last updated January 2014	Limited but growing	Fork me on GitHub well started
NFC	Web NFC API	Near Field Communications		Very early draft	Last updated December 2013	None	None

9. Network

Network connectivity represents a major asset for mobile devices: the Web is an immense store of content, as well as an almost endless source of processing power, overcoming two of the limitations of mobile devices.

The Web platform is growing a number of APIs that facilitate establishing network connectivity in different contexts.

XMLHttpRequest (the basis for Ajax development) is a widely deployed API to load content from Web servers using the HTTP and HTTPs protocol: the W3C specification (formerly known as XMLHttpRequest Level 2) completes the existing deployed API with the ability to make requests on servers in a different domain, programmatic feedback on the progress of the network operations, and more efficient handling of binary content.

The recently started Beacon API would let developers queue unsupervised HTTP requests, leaving it to the browser to execute them when appropriate, opening the door for better network optimizations.

By default, browsers do not allow to make request across different domains (or more specifically, across different origins, a combination of the protocol, domain and port) from a single Web page; this rule protects the user from having a Web site abusing their credentials and stealing their data on another Web site. Sites can opt-out of that rule by making use of the Cross-Origin Resource Sharing mechanism, opening up much wider cooperation across Web applications and services.

XMLHttpRequest is useful for client-initiated network requests, but mobile devices with their limited network capabilities and the cost that network requests induce on their battery (and sometimes on their users bill) can often make better use of server-initiated requests. The Server-Sent Events API allows triggering DOM events based on push notifications (via HTTP and other protocols.)

Early work on a Push API would allow Web applications to receive server-sent messages whether or not the said Web app is active in a browser window. As patents had been disclosed on that API, a Patent Advisory Group was formed to assess the situation and concluded that the disclosed patents did not read on the specification.

The WebSocket API, built on top of the IETF WebSocket protocol, offers a bidirectional, more flexible, and less resource intensive network connectivity than XMLHttpRequest.

The work on Web Real-Time Communications will also provide direct peer-to-peer data connections between browsers with real-time characteristics, opening the way to collaborative multi-devices Web applications.

Of course, an important part of using network connectivity relies on being able to determine if such connectivity exists, and the type of network available. The HTML5 onLine DOM flag (and its associated change event, ononline) signals when network connectivity is available to the Web environment.

The network-information API addresses discovery of the network characteristics — the granularity of these characteristics (type of connectivity, or estimated bandwidth, or …) is under intense discussion. The Resource Timing API offers to measure precisely the impact of the network on the time needed to load various resources, offering another approach to adapt a Web app to its network environment.

Feature	Specification	Working Group	Stability	Latest editors draft	Current implementations	Test suite
HTTP(s) network API	XMLHttpRequest Level 1	Web Applications	stabilizing	Last updated November 2013	Very broad for basic features, growing for most recent ones	Fork me on GitHub Well started
HTTP(s) network API	Beacon	Web Performance	Early draft	Last updated January 2014	None	N/A
Cross-domain requests	Cross-Origin Resource Sharing	Web Applications and Web Application Security	Stable	Last updated June 2012	Getting well-deployed	Fork me on GitHub Well started
Server-pushed requests	Server-Sent Events	Web Applications	Stable	Last updated January 2014	Getting well-deployed	Fork me on GitHub Good coverage
Server-pushed requests	Push API	Web Applications	Early draft; will likely evolve to integrate with Service Workers	Last updated July 2013	None	N/A
Bidirectional connections	The WebSocket API	Web Applications	Stable	Last updated January 2014	Good deployment	Fork me on GitHub Well started
P2P data connections	WebRTC 1.0: Real-time Communication Between Browsers	Web Real-Time Communications	Early draft	Last updated January 2014	Limited but growing	None
Network characteristics	The Network Information API	Device APIs	Early draft, under active revision	Last updated November 2012	Very limited	None
Network characteristics	Resource Timing	Web Performance	Stable	Last updated December 2013	Very limited	Early start

10. Communication and Discovery

Beyond connection to on-line services, allowing communications between users, but also between devices and between applications is an important aspect of a good mobile development platform. To communicate with unknown devices or pre-existing services, a discovery component is critical.

For Web apps not in a browser, the System Applications Working Group is working on a complete Messaging API.

The postMessage API of HTML5 Web Messaging allows for Web Applications to communicate between each other.

A joint task force of the Device APIs and Web Apps Working Groups had been looking at a mechanism called Web Intents: it aimed at closer integration of Web applications, as well as of Web applications with native applications. Some of the initial use cases for Web Intents have proved hard to expose through the regular Web browser UI, and thus the work has now been abandoned.

The Network Service Discovery API offers to discover services on the local network (such as the ones offered via DLNA), enabling mobile Web applications to integrate seamlessly with these services.

The Web Real-Time Communications Working Group is the host of specifications for a wider set of communication opportunities:

Peer-to-peer connection across devices,
P2P Audio and video streams allowing for real-time communications between users.

Feature	Specification	Working Group	Maturity	Stability	Latest editors draft	Current implementations	Test suite
Emails, SMS and MMS	Messaging API	System Applications		First draft	Last updated November 2013	None	None
Inter-app communications	HTML5 Web Messaging	Web Applications		Stable	Last updated January 2014	Well deployed	Fork me on GitHub Good coverage
Inter-app communications	Web Intents	Web Applications and Device APIs	Retired	Early draft; abandoned	Last updated May 2013	Experimental	None
Network services discovery	Network Service Discovery	Device APIs		Early draft	Last updated October 2013	None	None
P2P connections and audio/video streams	WebRTC 1.0: Real-time Communication Between Browsers	Web Real-Time Communications		Early draft	Last updated January 2014	Limited but growing	None

11. Packaging

An important aspect of the user experience of applications is linked to how the user perceives the said application is available permanently (even when off-line, which is particularly important on mobile devices), as well as how it can be shared and distributed, typically through purchases via applications stores — this is adequately addressed by packaging the application.

The Web platform offers two complementary approaches to packaging Web applications:

HTML5’s ApplicationCache enables access to Web applications off-line through the definition of a manifest of files that the browser is expected to keep in its cache; while relatively well deployed, the current approach has shown some strong limitations and the HTML and Web Applications Working Groups are considering a potentially major overhaul of the technology, likely based on ServiceWorker
a JSON-based manifest format in development by the the Web Apps Working Group. The System Applications Working Group was building a runtime and security model on top of that packaging, but is now instead defining an application lifecycle specification based on top of Service Workers.

Feature	Specification	Working Group	Maturity	Stability	Latest editors draft	Current implementations	Test suite
Offline Web apps	HTML5	HTML		Feature at risk (Possibly major overhaul under consideration)	Last updated January 2014	Well deployed	Fork me on GitHub None
Offline Web apps	Service Workers	Web Applications	N/A	Early draft	Last updated January 2014	None	None
Packaged Web App	Manifest for web apps and bookmarks	Web Applications		Early draft	Last updated January 2014	N/A	N/A
	Runtime and Security Model for Web Applications	System Applications		Early draft, will likely be replaced by a different approach	Last updated September 2013	N/A	N/A
	Application Lifecycle and Events	System Applications	N/A	Early draft	Last updated January 2014	N/A	N/A

12. Performance & Optimization

Due to their limited CPU, and more importantly to their limited battery, mobile devices require a lot of attention in terms of performance.

The work started by the Web Performance Working Group on Navigation Timing, Resource Timing, Performance Timeline and User Timing, gives tools to Web developers for optimizing their Web applications.

Early work on a Resource Priorities specification, part of the Web Performance Working Group new charter, would let developers indicate which network requests should be prioritized.

The proposed work on Efficient Script Yielding offers the opportunity to Web developers to use more efficiently asynchronous programming, but has so far gained very limited traction.

The API to determine whether a Web page is being displayed (Page Visibility API) can also be used to adapt the usage of resources to the need of the Web application, for instance by reducing network activity when the page is minimized. Likewise, the Timing control for script-based animations API can help reduce the usage of resources needed for playing animations.

Beyond optimization of resources, the perceived reactivity of an application is also a critical aspect of the mobile user experience. The thread-like mechanism made possible via Web Workers allows keeping the user interface responsive by offloading the most resource-intensive operations into a background process.

The battery API allows adjusting the use of resources to the current level of power available in the battery of a mobile device.

The Mobile Web Application Best Practices provide general advice on how to build Web applications that work well on mobile devices, taking into account in particular the needs for optimization. The opportunity to update these best practices is under discussion in the Web and Mobile Interest Group.

Feature	Specification	Working Group	Stability	Latest editors draft	Current implementations	Test suite
Timing hooks	Navigation Timing	Web Performance	Finished	Finished	Growing deployment	Fork me on GitHub Good coverage
	Resource Timing	Web Performance	Stable	Last updated December 2013	Very limited	Early start
	Performance Timeline	Web Performance	Finished	Finished	Limited	Fork me on GitHub Started
	User Timing	Web Performance	Finished	Finished	Limited	Fork me on GitHub Well started
Network prioritization	Resource Priorities	Web Performance	Early draft	Last updated October 2013	Experimental	None
Priority handling	Efficient Script Yielding	Web Performance	Early draft	Last updated April 2013	Very limited	None
Page Visibility detection	Page Visibility	Web Performance	Finished	Finished	Well deployed	Fork me on GitHub Good coverage
Animation optimization	Timing control for script-based animations	Web Performance	Stable	Last updated October 2013	Well deployed	Well started
Threading	Web Workers	Web Applications	Stable	Last updated January 2014	Well deployed	Fork me on GitHub Well started
Battery Status	Battery Status API	Device APIs	Stable	Last updated April 2013	Very limited	Fork me on GitHub Good coverage
Optimization Best Practices	Mobile Web Application Best Practices	Mobile Web Best Practices	Finished	N/A	N/A	N/A

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Art Barstow, Anssi Kostiainen, Jo Rabin, Mounir Lamouri and Marcos Caceres for their contributions to this document.

This document is produced through the HTML5Apps project, funded by the European Union through the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2013-2015) under grant agreement n°611327 - HTML5 Apps.