PMFJI, I have been working on an app for mobile phones and tablets for a while. I have been using jquery mobile for the general framework. It uses html5 and CSS3 but mostly CSS3 and Java script. The framework loads the initial page and then all communication to the server uses Ajax unless you specify otherwise. A web app really looks and feels like an app. Also, there is an application called phonegap that can be used a a wrapper for a web app that makes it an app that can be downloaded from web stores. You can do most of your development testing using Chrome or Firefox (not IE) but it is important that testing is done on as many devices as possible. I have tested my current app with Iphone, Ipad, Android 2.1 or higher and then I tried an Eee Pad from Asus running Androd 3.2 and I have some very interesting problems. Emulators help but they are not the same as the devices. You see what it looks like at rcsfind.com. The app uses GPS to find properties so you will only be able to use the "Search by Area" button.

>Hi Hank,
>
>Thank you very much for a detailed input. Some of terms you mentioned are new to me; so I will have to Google/read/etc. to learn. But if I might ask you one more question, please. Must I have an iPad to create a test (something of a Hello World) application or I can simulate it on a PC?
>
>>Hi Dmitry,
>>
>>folks often talk about HTML5 as though it were a complete widget set. It is not. A complete widget set involves some aspects of HTML5 at times, but is more about CSS3 and Javascript than anything else. Check out Cappuccino, Google Web Toolkit, and ActiveWidgets for 3 examples. In each case you will see that there are complex objects, being rendered using various tricks (e.g., sticking an entire "form" as a DOM structure directly onto a parent DOM member, so that the browser's rendering engine renders everything at once -- this was introduced in GWT 2.x, and is the chief way of getting native control display speed on devices).
>>
>>IOW: Microsoft will need to supply this widgets, and they will need to be optimzed in the way that the 3 I have mentioned above (and there are many others, e.g., the Dojo Toolkit) have been optimized.
>>
>>If they tie that to XAML, with design in Blend, then they have become interesting. Support for HTML5 itself is not exciting, nor even interesting, really.
>>
>>Hank
>>
>>>PMFJI,
>>>
>>>When you are saying to go with web-based HTML 5 app, can you use ASP.NET (from VS.NET) and use HTML5 with it? Or do you mean to write "everything" in HTML 5? The reason I am asking is I have an ASP.NET application that works well. But I would like it to be "compatible" with iPad and I guess HTML 5 is the way to go. But I am not sure where to start. Thank you in advance for any suggestions.
>>>
>>>>Then you got the wrong vibe. A customer recently asked me about creating a new app in Silverlight. My advice was to go with a web-based HTML 5 app because it will work on the iPad. Silverlight will never run there.
>>>>
>>>>My point was that in the enterprise business world, Windows is still king and I don't see that changing in the near future.
>>>>