We have appreciated Facebook a gazillion times for taking the strong mobile approach. No matter what mobile platform, they have a native app that works great and it’s a good add-on to their dominating web presence. On its part, Facebook also realizes that mobile is growing faster than ever before and the number of people keeping up with their FB updates on mobile would undoubtedly more than desktop someday (if not already). So when we hear of a HTML 5 based apps and micro payments strategy from Facebook, it’s no surprise.
However MG Seigler of TC has reported about Project Spartan (Facebook’s code for HTML 5 initiative) which is a mobile initiative that beings with making good use of Mobile Safari. Apple has a good hold on mobile internet and while Facebook has its own App for iOS, Spartan is taken as a initiative to break Apple’s control over app distribution.
Facebook has over 700 million users and it sure wants a good amount of Apple’s 200 million iOS users to use its service on their mobile. But why go beyond an official App on App Store? Well as it seems Facebook wants to launch apps that work on HTML5 and run inside Mobile Safari. Thus selling Facebook credits without using Apple’s in-app mechanism. In short not paying Apple a share of the revenues. The report stretches to even claim that a HTML 5 wrapper would be used inside the Facebook App to run games from companies like Zynga who have been encouraged to shift from Flash to HTML5. Net net, Facebook wants to use HTML5 against Apple’s ecosystem.
Facebook’s relation with Google is strained with both companies battling it out in the social space and its relation with Apple is not great either. Remember Apple chose Twitter integration for iOS 5 after dropping Facebook integration from iOS 4. Both these companies, Apple and Google hold the key to mobile with iOS and Android getting serious traction. Facebook has its reasons to be worried and Spartan looks like an attempt to attain freedom!