Animation: CSS3 or GIF?
I am working on a client-side web app designed to run on iPad 1.
Apart from the fact that the framework I use is slow as a snail (not my choice), the application makes a lot of calls to the server. I am currently working on the Loading ... screen. My question is:
Should I use CSS3 animations or simple GIF animations? Which one is faster?
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In my experience with iPhones and iPod Touch (not iPads, but I suppose they'll probably be about the same), GIFs are orders of magnitude slower in animation than CSS animations, transitions or whatever you have. I think their frame rates have slowed down on purpose, perhaps to save battery life.
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the application makes many calls to the server
Using GIF animations will require another server call to get the image. If implementation times are comparable, using CSS3 seems more appropriate; it will likely take fewer bytes and roll along with your existing CSS file.
The more pragmatic answer is that it doesn't matter, for simple animation the difference in speed is sloppy. And if your app already needs a loading screen, why bother about how long the loading screen takes?
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