Html5 for iOS game development

I have been hearing of the advent of html5 for iOS development. I know nothing about web dev technologies and am wondering, can this really be used for iOS game developm开发者_开发问答ent? Just hearing html makes me think this will be used for web related apps, not things like graphically dynamic 2d games, but being unfamiliar, I'm hoping to get some insight from the experts here. Is html5 going to be useful at all for games, or should I basically expect to be sticking with the likes of cocos2d for iphone?

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The short answer is "Yes, you can develop full speed, interactive games with HTML5". Check out "Private Joe", "Biolab Disaster" and "FUBAR" in the Apple app store. All were created with HTML5, Javascript, and a few javascript libraries (ImpactJS and Box2D).

One thing you'll see as you explore this is the repeated caveat that "web games aren't fast enough", also "Web games can't use the device's goodies - like GPS, vibration, etc."

These statements represent "common thought" and are not really true anymore. Companies like PhoneGap and appMobi have tools that make it possible to do anything in HTML/JS that can be done in native apps. Browsers keep getting faster, and smartphone processors also keep getting faster. Qualcomm's new chipset even has GPU acceleration for future smartphones.

As an added bonus from coding your app in HTML5, you will have the choice of whether to compile it app into a native app and post to one of the app stores (using appmobi or phonegap), or to offer it yourself as a web app (saving the Apple censorship and 30% tax).

Viva HTML5!

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The real benefit to using HTML 5 for game development is that it's a write once, deploy everywhere strategy, meaning you can write the same code and have it work on iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS, Linux, etc, as long as it has a browser.

The HTML5 canvas element supports both 2d and 3d (on some platforms), so you can use it for complex games as well.

This will, however, run in a browser, so the only way to sell it in an app store is to wrap it in a UIWebView container or the like.

Also, there are games written in Canvas (just google it, also google 'chrome experiments' to find cool 3d stuff in HTML5).

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I wrote this HTML5 Tetris implementation: http://htmltetris.com

It is designed to be equally playable on a PC and on touch devices supporting Javascript touch events.

One of the important things to get right in a mobile game is the control scheme and it took some thinking to come up with the swipe/tap control scheme used for Tetris here. But it turns out quite playable (in fact, just as playable if not more so than all of the tetris like iOS apps I have tried, and there are... quite a few of them) and is proof that it is possible to build a perfectly playable game with HTML5 technology.

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Check out HTML5 Canvas. Lots of Web games are based on this tag. Here are some samples :- http://www.canvasdemos.com/type/games/

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There are two great things about investing your time in learning HTML5 and its counterparts: For one, every application that you write will theoretically be able to run on many platforms. iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, etc, all have HTML5 capabilities. You'll also be investing your time in a language that is still being developed, so you'll already know the ins-and-outs of it as more features are added, and you'll have mastered it when the final product finally goes mainstream.

The capabilities and power of HTML5 are only expanding, so the experience with the language should only improve with time ;)