Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

Grooveshark outsmarts app stores thanks to HTML5

By | January 13, 2012, 12:33pm PST

Summary: Once again, HTML5 proves to be the most obvious yet reliable option for companies looking to get on mobile devices and not deal with app store entanglements.

Grooveshark looks to have the last laugh when it comes to being banned from both the iTunes App Store and the Android Market.

The digital music service is getting back on smartphones and tablets and into the mobile app game once again as it has developed an HTML5-based app for mobile browsers.

All one has to do is point the mobile browser (even Safari) to Grooveshark’s new mobile page, and the platform is currently fashioned in a very simple, but easy to navigate layout.

For reference, the desktop version of Grooveshark runs on Flash — and we all know that simply wasn’t going to work on iOS devices without help from other apps.

Thus, HTML5 was really the only option left for Grooveshark, and even other businesses that want to optimize their content for mobile devices but don’t meet the requirements of an app store. Grooveshark was removed from iTunes and the Android Market for failing to police itself for content infringement.

Nevertheless, although there is still plenty of demand for iOS and Android-optimized apps, Grooveshark is just yet another example of a major media company refusing to give into app store regulations or just avoiding them all together.

Recent examples of companies favoring HTML5, for various reasons, include Foursquare, The Financial Times, and Salesforce.com.

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Rachel King is a staff writer for ZDNet based in San Francisco.

Disclosure

Rachel King

Rachel King has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted in this blog.

Biography

Rachel King

Rachel King is a staff writer for CBS Interactive in San Francisco. Before serving as a contributing editor at ZDNet in New York City for two years, she previously worked for The Business Insider, FastCompany.com, CNN's San Francisco bureau and the U.S. Department of State. Rachel has also written for MainStreet.com, Irish America Magazine and the New York Daily News, among others. Rachel has a B.A. in Mass Communications and History from the University of California, Berkeley and a M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University, where she served as art director for the student magazine, Plated.

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Some people are just schmart! Rachel happens to be one of them.
Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate 13th Jan
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Until Apple removes its restrictions on the use of autoplay in HTML 5 video and audio, the only way to publish interactive HTML 5 apps with synched voice-over and embedded video is to become an Apple developer, wrap the HTML 5 app in a Webview and publish in iTunes. I develop eLearning apps in HTML 5 that run on any platform that has either HTML 5 or Flash but not, unfortunately iOS. A deliberate choice? - I think so.
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Some people are just schmart! Rachel happens to be one of them.
Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate 13th Jan
nt

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