I have to admit, I’m a little ashamed at myself for not making this connection on my own. I’ve known about the work on HTML5 for a while now, and have been very excited about it, so I’m not sure why (besides being blinded by my overall disapproval of Apple Computer, Inc.) I didn’t see how their failure to include Flash compatibility in these hand-held iProducts wasn’t *as* debilitating as the knee-jerk reaction would lead one to believe.

Before I go into why I feel that way, let me first point out this doesn’t change the fact that these products fail to conform to *current* standards of expected functionality and web interoperability, and that this limitation was intentional on the part of the developers.

iPad Demonstration - Flash Snafoo

Does that prohibit the iPhone from being a great product? No, not at all. *I* have one, for goodness sake. It’s a great phone and app engine, sure. But to tout it as, “the most advanced web browser ever on a mobile phone” that lets you “the real web — not a stripped-down mobile version” (source) is just plain hogwash; removing all Flash content from the web is not what I would call “the real web.” Shoot, even in his unveiling presentation, Steve Jobs ran into  the “there’s flash here, but I’m not going to show it to you” box. Flash has it’s downsides, sure, but right now it’s everywhere. It’s the standard for video, advertising, and casual web-based gaming. Not supporting it is a shot in the foot.

Okay,now, having said all that… We come back to HTML5. The next version of the web authoring standard is going to have built in support for all kinds of media encoding – including video. Not only that, but Apple happens to be part of the group that holds the patients on this new, built in, encoding (source). Seems they might be holding out for that to become a new standard .. which it inevitably will, since it will become part of HTML itself, rather than a plugged-in extension.  YouTube and Vimeo have been testing out the new video tags for HTML5, hopefully in an effort to work out any bugs before the proposed standard receives final approval.  Once that happens, Apple’s hand-held iProducts will be in a much better position  than they are today. Seeing as Apple’s David Hyatt  is one of the editors of the HTML5 docs, I’m sure this has been a calculated move on Apple’s part.

The two biggest issues that are left then, with regards to Flash support, are online advertising, and browser games. These two are heavily dependent on Flash support, and so far there has been little to suggest any of the new HTML5 tags will be of use to them. If casual gaming sites, and online marketing companies want to cater to the hand-held iProduct market, they will have to come up with something, and quickly… “lack of Flash support” is a major sticking point for a number of tech-minded people, but once HTML5 rolls out, that will be less and less of an issue.