Here is one really cool thing about Android: It is a proving ground for cutting edge technologies. Imagine being able to do include 3D special effects on your mobile site without Flash. Imagine being able to create user experience that goes way beyond what's possible today on your mobile browser. If you have Android, you can see what is possible now by trying out the latest Firefox browser on Android. Download the latest Firefox, then go to this page. What you see is a 3D program running completely within Firefox, and it is possible (although quite slowly), on Android today.
Sony Ericsson is working on a modified browser on the Xperia Play that will allow even more impressive, hardware accelerated, 3D graphics on a browser. You absolutely have to check out this video. It is amazing what could be coming to our phones in the future.
No. At this point, you are not going to see incredible OS X style animations in web apps. Nor are we close to being able to run even Wolfenstein 3D in the mobile browser. But one can easily imagine the potential for incredibly rich and wonderful apps once the technology has become common place. So what's holding us back from this magical, promising future? It's not technical limitations. As always, it's about who controls the technology.
Before we're going to see a 3D enabled web, users will need access to browsers that support WebGL. So what's holding them back? Well, WebGL 1.0 spec was only finalized in March 2011. So understandably it is not widely available yet. It is also not a very popular technology. The problem with WebGL is that it is so promising... yet so non-proprietary. Microsoft does not support the idea of WebGL, citing security concerns. However, Mike Shaver, VP of Technical Strategy for Mozilla, argues that MS's concerns are insincere, as MS's own Silverlight suffers from the same technical architecture. In my opinion, Microsoft's true concern is that the 3D enabled web will be built on an open standard, out of the control of its own technology group.
Apple is less hostile about WebGL, but it is not embracing WebGL either. On one hand, Apple is not enabling 3D support in mobile Safari browsers. On the other hand, Apple is enabling WebGL privately on its iAd platform. Apple arguably has a very different point of view than Microsoft; In my opinion, Apple is more worried about opening up a relatively unproven technology that can bring a bad user experience and making their otherwise "magical" products look bad. Therefore allowing WebGL only in iAd makes sense. This allows Apple to experiment with WebGL in a (tightly) controlled fashion.
So where does this leave developers and technology leaders? The answer comes back to my original thought: Android is leading us into the future. Because Android is such an open platform, it allows developers to experiment with new ideas much earlier than they can on Windows 7 Mobile or iOS. I think without a doubt we're going to see a 3D-enabled web down the road. And those developers who started on Android will be a step ahead.
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