appMobi Acquires Hosting Platform; Launches Tech To Speed Up HTML5 In Mobile Gaming

Rip Empson

Rip Empson is a writer and rabble-rouser at TechCrunch. He covers startups. Why? Because some of those startups are the next Googles, Facebooks and Twitters of the world, they just can’t afford the office space yet. Plus, entrepreneurs tend to be more insane (and interesting) than the average human. Within the Whacky World Of Startups, Rip focuses on music,... → Learn More

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

appMobi likes HTML5-based mobile games, and it wants you to like them, too, which is why appMobi is focused on giving developers the tools required to make HTML5 and JavaScript mobile applications that run smoothly across platforms and browsers.

Of course, many loudly pronounced HTML5 the new heir to the throne, as it would finally bring the native app experience to every mobile device, and take some of the iterative work in app creation out of the hands of developers. The problem is that this pronouncement jumped the gun by more than a few paces: HTML5, while an important step forward, is still a work in progress.

But, today, appMobi announced a new technology, called DirectCanvas, that it claims speeds up the often slow graphic rendering of HTML5 in mobile games by 500 percent. DirectCanvas was designed to accelerate the HTML5 canvas element, allowing graphics and animation in mobile games to be more fluid, in other words, to appear with greater speed and fewer glitches. appMobi hopes that its technology will allow game studios to build a more diverse range of mobile games, which many have resisted because of the questions over whether or not devices can support complex HTML5-based games.

appMobi also announced today at E3 that it acquired TapJS, a game hosting platform with community features that enables users to integrate games with player accounts, server-side data storage, leader boards, badges, Facebook, and more through a simple JavaScript API. appMobi said that acquiring TapJS will beef up its mobile development feature set by adding the startup’s engagement features, like player challenges and leader boards and allow developers to integrate social elements to their games using the platform.

For more on the comparison between appMobi’s new speedy updates to HTML5 in gaming, check out the video below. The technology looks impressive, but it will take DirectCanvas getting out into the wild in the hands of developers before we’ll know whether or not this can have a significant effect on HTML5 game development across the board.

Company: appMobi
Website: appmobi.com
Launch Date: January 2, 2006
Funding: $8.1M

appMobi is a leading vendor of HTML5 mobile development and deployment tools and services. The company has focused on products that advance the mobile market’s shift from proprietary native tools and services to industry standards HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript. While the emerging HTML5 standard offers the mobile industry ease of app development and freedom from fragmentation, it lacks a number of key features that drove Apple’s rapid ascent to market leader. appMobi’s mission is to provide the missing features...

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