Go to HTML-5 ASAP, it will save money on app purchases and drive traffic to your business. If the FT and Kobo can do it, so can you.
HTML-5 enables developers and publishers to avoid Apple's 30% tax.
The App Store is serious business. Since it opened in July 2008, we estimate that Apple has generated about $1.0 B of revenue, with costs in the tens of millions. Apple has done a magnificent, if not unpopular, job of insuring it gets every penny. HTML-5 is a real work around.
The rise of HTML5 browsers on mobile devices will radically shift the balance of power in digital commerce. They will make it easier for developers to create a user-friendly purchasing experience in the browser, rather than requiring a dedicated app, which has to work within the processes of an app store, and deliver a fee to the owner of that store.
The following comes from my friend Caroline Gabriel at Rethink Research.
"The impact of HTML5 is already being seen on iOS since Apple barred content providers from providing a direct link from an app to an external ebookstore. That was designed to stop vendors bypassing the 30% fee, but companies like Kobo and the UK Financial Times are, instead, removing the purchasing buttons, and creating HTML5 services instead. Kobo said its forthcoming web app will have even more functionality than its native app. In HTML5, users go to a dedicated Web address and can then place a direct link to the service on their home screens."
Distributing iOS applications away from Apple's store will still be a challenge. Do you really think most people would have ever have played "Angry Birds" without the store? Doubtful. If you are a large publisher though, this HTML5 could help avoid, or reduce, the 30% tax.
Caroline's squibb mentioned the FT and Kobo, escaping. It is probably safe to say there will be others, and Apple's hedgemony from the App and Book stores will not stand.