Swedish grandmothers have a saying, "don't throw out the old kettle until you're sure the new kettle holds water." This proverb encapsulates a time-honored approach creative technology companies take regarding the adoption of new technologies particularly with respect to rich Internet application development.
iPad does not support Flash, which leaves content providers, and developers with several options. HTML5 is an extremely promising "new kettle" but there are implementation details to work out and forty-five percent of web surfers use browsers that don't currently support the new standard. A shorter term option is classic CSS, JS and XHTML which is a good cross-platform solution but doesn't have the production values Flash delivers. "Wait and see" is also an option particularly for companies facing the considerable expense of recoding lots of existing web content.
The Flash debate isn't new; for years, detractors said Flash wastes CPU power (a claim cast in doubt with recent benchmarking tests), and that it's too proprietary; proponents point to the fact Flash is currently unmatched for cross-platform ubiquity, animation, vector graphics and video. With emerging HTML5 related technologies like Canvas and VP8 these advantages may become less pronounced but for now they're critical factors for brands with specific timely marketing goals. Whatever side you're on, it's hard to ignore the fact Flash is an extremely pervasive software platform and going cold turkey isn't a comfortable option. As Vic Gondotra (formally with Microsoft now VP of Engineering at Google) stated in a recent keynote address, Google supports Flash because "It turns out that on the Internet, people use Flash."
We will never know all the thinking leading up to the current dustup but Apple's preeminent, subtractive design culture is probably a factor. Apple has a long history differentiating products, creating excitement and sparking debate not only...
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[Source: Technology on HuffingtonPost.com]
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