Earlier this week, Apple launched a HTML5 Showcase page, displaying several uses for HTML5 and related technologies. However, it turns out that Apple is using trickery to block out browsers other than Safari, with the end result that browsers with better support for web standards than Safari can’t access the demos.

If you go to Apple’s HTML5 Showcase page and click on any of the demonstrations using, say, Google’s Chrome, you’ll be confronted with a pop-up stating you need Safari to see the demo at work. However, if you compare Safari’s and Chrome’s support for HTML5, you’ll see that Chrome has far better support.

According to Opera’s Haavard it’s because this supposed HTML5 Showcase doesn’t use much HTML5 at all, while at the same time, Apple employs several tricks to block out non-Safari browsers for no apparent reason. So, browsers that could run the demonstrations without problems are artificially blocked.

“Apple claim to promote HTML5 and an open Web, but the page uses browser sniffing to block other browsers, vendor prefixes for the CSS3 stuff they are using (even if other browsers support border-radius it won’t work because it’s coded using -webkit-border-radius), and the patent-encumbered H.264 for video,” Haavard writes, “In fact, it seems that the only things that are HTML5 on that page are HTML5 audio and video.”

It seems like Apple is using the same sneaky marketing tactics as Microsoft does with its HTML5 demos page – which doesn’t really use any HTML5 either. This similarity is hardly surprising considering both companies are pushing a non-Free patent-encumbered codec for HTML5 video.

Apple is clearly trying to make it seem as if only Safari can display HTML5 content, even though this is utter nonsense, obviously. While we educated nerds can see through the smoke, many less computer fancy folk may not.

After the H264 shenanigans, yet more proof that Microsoft and Apple really don’t care about a truly open web at all – they care about nothing but themselves, and will go to great lenghts to pull the wool over people’s eyes. While there’s nothing wrong with that (this is business), it is our job to keep fighting for a truly open web – no matter the browser, no matter the operating system, no matter your cash flow.