Even though I’m slowly rationalizing how I can personally justify/afford an Apple iPad, I had to share this interesting counterpoint graphic above by TheFlashBlog.
It’s highly unlikely that the production version of the iPad will support Flash. There are a number of rumored reasons for this including security concerns, Apple-crash paranoia, App-store greed, flash being a processing hog, lack of functionality in touch-screen devices, etc… but whatever the reason/s, it’s going to leave some holes in what you can experience on the web.
The most compelling reason I’ve heard thus far is the fact that many Flash sites utilize functions that use inherent mouse+click functions which aren’t possible to replicate through a touch-screen. Many flash things use ‘hover’ to do certain things, and you can’t hover on a touchpad. It’s either click or no click. This would provide a poor-user experience, and I don’t know how the Flash experience would degrade. Is a “worse user experience, sometimes” better than having zero flash at all? That’s up for debate.
With millions of iPhone users, who are documented as frequent internet browsers, millions of other mobile users, and soon to be millions of iPad users, is it time for some Web developers to rethink how and when we use flash? Sites like vimeo and youtube are moving away from flash slowly with recent HTML5 player announcements. Is the line drawn in the sand for the demise of Flash? Time will tell on whether Steve Jobs just a stubborn CEO, or if he’s seeing into the future.
We had a mighty interesting discussion on Day 1 of iPad-gate… Does the absense of Flash make you think twice before considering an iPad purchase?
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As for your question – no. But lack of multitasking will. Because I can’t listen to music on my tablet while browsing the web with Twitter client opened somewhere in the background? Why?
9:12 am
I believe that to be able to incorporate flash and multi-tasking, there would have to be a whole lot more processing power. The A4 chip is only 1ghz. For a device this small with the power and capabilities it DOES have, i think the tech just isn’t there yet for the processing we WANT it to contain.
12:28 pm
@Mariusz — yes, multitasking needs to happen. I see this as a strong possibility though, considering iPhone 4.0 is due out in the next quarter. I think they have to address that issue, both on the iPhone and the iPad — and I’m highly optimistic that by launch, or shortly after, this will have multitasking… because you’re right… I plan to surf and iChat and Twitter on this.
@sam — Flash would probably overwhelm the chip. I dunno if multitasking would. Many other products have it, that are just as active as the iPhone. Palm did a great job at multitasking in their WebOS software… and there’s no way that thing is a running a 1GHz processor.
12:41 pm
I can’t get to watch Hulu. That’s more than enough.
10:23 pm
Well, enjoy Hulu while it lasts. The free Hulu days are numbered. If they think they’re losing viewership to mobile devices maybe they’ll investigate a mobile HTML5 site. One can hope!
12:35 am
Lol bang bros screenshot
6:36 pm
the Bang Bros site is a nice touch to the collection :)
6:58 am
It’s just one more unnecessary gadget consumers are hypnotized into believing they need. Apple already gave the masses a convergence device- and that one fits in your pocket. Anything you could do on this you can do better on a laptop, or more conveniently with the iPhone. It’s a neat idea, but no real substantial reason for owning one.
The absence of Flash is just another bullet point on the list of reasons not to buy the iPad. Put a real OS in this and it might be a different story.
11:28 am
Who cares about flash. Come HTML5, flash used for video will be a thing of the past. Amen!
5:07 am
I feel like there should be a difference between interactive flash and non-interactive flash.
Like.. if you have a movie or a banner or something that isn’t flash interactive, that should be a different type of file than something that would require hovers and the like.
Also, WIN for the Steve Jobs post.
11:27 am