HTML5 is the future. Developers using HTML5 today are pioneers.
Ten days ago I posted an article (and so did John Gruber) about SublimeVideo, a promising HTML5 video player which already has features other HTML5 based videoplayers (Youtube, Vimeo) don’t have. Today it’s time for another HTML5 online “demo”, it’s called Sketchpad and it’s a painting / drawing application. Go check it out here.
You see? It’s got a beautiful Pixelmator-like interface made of floating panels. Sketchpad has all the basic features like the bucket tool, eraser, gradients and text - and it even lets you save your creations. (when you hit the save button the browser displays the image you’ve designed and returns a URL like this: data:image/png;base64. Interesting.)
Sure it’s rough and nothing more than a techical demo of what HTML5 is really capable of, but it’s the concept behind it that matters. Applications are moving to the cloud, because technology allows that. I think that during 2010 we’ll see hundreds of projects like this, projects that will anticipate what’s coming in 2 / years.
We’d better get ready.
