iPhone, iPad popularity forces designers reconsider use of Flash

Web site designers may want to continue using Flash, but their clients ultimately have the final say in how a Web site looks and more of them are asking for iPhone and iPad ready sites.

With the popularity of the iPhone and iPad still rising, companies are insisting on Web properties that support the devices. Due to Apple’s stance on the technology, that means no Flash.

“Since the iPad came out we’ve had a lot of clients say that they just don’t want Flash on their sites,” said Chantelle Simoes, vice president at Ninth Degree in a recent WSJ article.

Not all companies are willing to cut Flash loose completely. Sports Illustrated has an HTML 5 Web app to complement its Flash-intensive Web site. This may be the short-term future for many designers, until a winner in the Apple/Adobe disagreement is crowned or Apple decides to support the technology.

The latter seems highly unlikely considering that Apple CEO Steve Jobs wrote an open letter detailing why he refuses to support Flash on Apple’s mobile devices. Of course, Adobe founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock responded with an open letter of their own, but I doubt that will change Jobs’ mind.

Perhaps the only thing that will change Apple’s mind is a federal antitrust probe, launched after Adobe filed a complaint against Apple.

http://cimota.com Matt Johnston

There's zero chance of a federal antitrust probe going any further than the probe itself. Reason being that Apple doesn't have a monopoly. Apple's market share in every segment other than MP3 players and music downloads is still pitifully small and there's heaps of competition.
Adobephile

Flash is about my only contention with Adobe. They simply need to eat some crow, count their losses, and move on, or at least prepare to move on by gracefully stepping in with new tools for HTML5 composition to hedge their bets.

This move by Steve Jobs prohibiting Flash is simply similar to others such as dropping floppy drives and making some batteries non-removable. It's high time.

Also Apple shouldn't have to kow tow to third party development tools which compromise Apple's control of its third-party software development. There's plenty of wiggle room with Xcode and within Apple's developer policy for freedom and creativity while yet preserving the integrity of the iPhone OS ecosystem.

Customers and developers have already and will continue to vote on this issue via their iPhone OS device purchases, and continuing app submissions.

None of this is anti-competition. Quite the contrary. It's simply defining the rules of the game. Others are not being prevented from competing via other product/development systems.
iphonerulez

Content is everything. How it gets delivered is only a small consequence. Whether it's delivered by Flash or HTML5, what difference does it make? Clients want their content delivered to as many consumers as possible so it makes sense that they'll need to make a few adjustments. In theory, HTML5 would be the best way to go because all mobile devices will be able to use it. I'm sure this is not good for the Flash game industry, though, if website owners decided to drop Flash completely. That won't happen, for sure. Right now there a minor transition going on and I doubt if Flash is being severely undermined as Adobe says it is. It's only the Flash mobile platform being put to the test and if Adobe does deliver a good mobile version of Flash then they should have little to worry about. It will then fall on the site clients to choose if they want to reach Apple mobile users.

Apple merely made a choice on its own platform as to what they wish to support. They never told anyone else not to use Flash. Consumers can choose a platform that supports Flash if they want it that badly. How is Apple hurting anyone except maybe its own users if a decent version of mobile Flash comes to pass? Apple is merely trying to protect their user base from a bad Flash experience. Eventually Apple could change its stance if mobile Flash becomes good enough. However, that would probably slow down the move forward to HTML5 which should be continued.