[Latest Edition!] Standards for Web apps on mobile – August 2015

A deliverable of the HTML5Apps project, the August 2015 edition of the W3C Standards for Web Applications on Mobile is out!

It includes a few changes and additions since May 2015, particularly emerging work such as the proposed charter for a Web Payments Working Group and the development of a draft charter for a Hardware Security Working Group.

Other changes are detailed below:

Emerging Work

• The early work on a generic sensor API is now emboddied in an editors draft
• A proposal to enable CSS transitions between Web pages was brought to the CSS Working Group
• A proposal to detect the input-capabilities of devices (in particular their ability to react to touch) was brought to the Web Applications Working Group
• The Web Performance Working Group is considering the definition of a callback mechanism for scheduling function calls and has a proposed editors draft for it;
• A charter for a Web Payments Working Group has been proposed; the group would work on a browser API that would vastly simpiflify payments on the Web
• A draft charter for a Hardware Security Working Group is being developed; it would bring interaction with secure hardware modules to the Web platform

Published as First Public Working Draft

• The Geofencing API, enabling developers to be notified when the user enters specific geographical areas, was published as a First Public Working Draft
• The Entry Point Regulation specification, which provides another layer of protection against common attack vectors such as cross-site-script or cross-site request forgery, was published as First Public Working Draft
• The Preload specification, which offers a way to load stylesheets and scripts immediately, but defer their application, was published as a First Public Working Draft

Returned to Working Draft

• The Proximity Events and Ambient Light Events APIs went back to Working Draft status (respectively from Candidate Recommendation and Last Call status) based on the expectation of their significant rework to match the emerging generic sensor API work

Reached Candidate Recommendation

• The Canvas API, a programmatic graphics API, re-entered Candidate Recommendation phase after it had gone back to Last Call following a substantive change
• The Tracking Preference Expression (DNT) specification, which defines a mechanism for expressing the user’s preference regarding tracking, reached Candidate Recommendation status

Specification merged, split or abandoned

• The System Applications Working Group closed, and work on the Contacts Manager API and the Task Scheduler API has stopped as for the other specifications from this group;

This document is the 18th edition of this overview of mobile Web applications technologies. The previous edition was released in May 2015. A live version of this document accepts contributions on the W3C Web and Mobile Interest Group Github repository.