February 2, 2010

ipad

If there was one major stumble at last week's iPad unveiling, it was the glaring hole on a webpage where a Flash animation should have been. Apple brushed it off for the rest of the event, but the lack of support has everyone wondering, is this really "The best way to experience the web?"
Adobe's Flash has been an integral part of the web experience for years. It's the platform for nearly every browser-based game, streaming video, and many an animated banner ad, and it takes a fair amount of processing power to run properly. This is all well and good for laptops and desktops - whose processing power is more than enough to run Flash without a hitch - but when it comes to smaller devices running on limited resources, like netbooks and smartphones, that load starts to become a burden.

Of course, Adobe would be happy to have Flash running on everything with a screen, regardless of how it performs. The more widespread their platform becomes, the more people will need to buy their tools in order to create content. They largely succeeded, even on OS X, but when it comes to more tightly regulated operating systems like the iPhone, Adobe has hit a brick wall.
The reason for that comes down to Apple's design philosophy, and their business model. Using an iPod, iPhone, or iPad is meant to be a carefully crafted experience. As Steve Jobs told Newsweek in 2007, "You don't want your phone to be an open platform. You need it to work when you need it to work." And apparently the same goes for your tablet.
The iPad launch served as a sore reminder that, yeah, if you buy one of these, you better be ready to say goodbye to a big chunk of the internet. But Apple isn't sad to see it go. According to Wired, Steve Jobs reportedly called Adobe "lazy" at an Apple employee event, and then went on to explain the company's position: "Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it's because of Flash. No one will be using Flash. The world is moving to HTML5."
Adobe fired back, saying, "iPad users will not be able to access the full range of web content, including over 70% of games and 75% of video on the web. If I want to use the iPad to connect to Disney, Hulu, Miniclip, Farmville, ESPN, Kongregate, or JibJab -- not to mention the millions of other sites on the web -- I'll be out of luck."
HTML5 is being embraced by both Apple and Google as an alternative to Flash, and the future of the internet, but full implementation is still years away. Can Apple, or more importantly Apple's customers, afford to be Flash-less until then, or is this an opportunity for Apple's competitors to move in.

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Written by Adam

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