Why is anyone even bothering to debate this? HTML5 is the right path for the Web. Adobe is, well, just Adobe.
By now, having witnessed the torrent of verbiage that is the Apple versus Flash debate, you may feel one of three things:
1. Underwhelmed
2. Bored
3. Itching to pick up a machete and have a swing at someone
So, here is our editorial rant on the whole thing. BUT, before we go any further, there is no more awesome article than HTML5 Unleashed to get you religion on HTML5, and mad love for our biases. Why can’t we write like that. It’s a rhetorical question.
Firstly, Adobe has a monopoly of sorts with Flash, no one has one with HTML5. That is a good thing except for Web designers who like to have pretty pictures replace UI design, usability, and function. Okay, so Apple is no great lover of things open, but here they are pushing for standards.
Secondly, Flash is like catnip to hackers. Okay, maybe we can chalk some of that up to its ubiquity. The more it gets around, the bigger a target it becomes. However, we leave our fates in the hands of Adobe, and isn’t enough that we all have to open up at least one PDF file a day.
Thirdly, you can add waiting on Adobe to come up with platform innovations. I’ve been running IE 8 in 64-bit mode and there is no Flash in 64-bit mode and that sucks big time. There was no innovative push by Adobe on mobile. There is no innovative push by Adobe on mobile. Granted, they did make a run on getting hardware acceleration as soon as they saw themselves being dinged on its lack in Flash. But, what were they waiting for all this time?
Yet, Flash isn’t going to go away. It is everywhere. It will be pushed by ad agencies and it will continue to crap on any movie promo site that gets made. Adobe makes the argument that HTML5 has been half a decade in development and it is going to take the same length of time to find as widespread an adoption. They have to coexist, but when it comes to mobile, and cross-platform compatibility, and performance, you can’t argue against HTML5.
If you’re old enough to remember the CD-ROM craze of the 90s, you’ll remember bloated interfaces, and meaningless graphics that, yes, ended up as Web pages. But, they were basically window dressing. Billions of people on the web, and billions of devices accessing the web means we need some simplicity, some basic performance, and standards. I don’t miss Flash on my mobile. I don’t think I will ever miss Flash. So, what’s the problem here? Maybe we’re just spending too much time caring what happens to Adobe.
