Tuesday, June 15, 2010

On Adobe Flash and HTML5: does anybody care?

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If you bury yourself in the tech world as I do on a regular basis, you will hear about this war between Apple and Adobe, between HTML5 and Flash, and how the iPad does not support Flash. The battles have been riveting, with Adobe executives writing biting comments to Apple on their blogs, and Apple writing a specific article on why they chose HTML5 over Flash when it is usual Apple practice to not comment so actively on major technological decisions.

My question is: does the regular consumer care? The Apple iPhone launched without Flash, and that device seems to have done well. The iPad came out, and has sold more than 2 million units since April (which is beyond my comprehension, but that’s besides the point). It seems to me that as long as the most important Flash websites write apps for the iPad (i.e. YouTube), the typical user will continue to use products like the iPad. I believe it is on Adobe to show Apple how much they have missed out on by omitting Flash. But as long as big Flash websites are willing to write an iPad/iPhone app based on their services, I don’t think Adobe has a chance in this war.

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