So Apple announced the iPad, and it won’t support Flash.

That shouldn’t be a surprise. Neither the iPhone nor iPod Touch support Flash. Indeed most mobile platforms don’t (yet) support Flash. Even the smartest of smart phones have limited processing power and storage space compared to laptops and desktops.

According to Steve Jobs, Apple doesn’t support Flash on its mobile devices because “it’s buggy.” But I’d guess their decision has as much to do with Flash’s capabilities. Many of the products in that cash cow known as the Apple App Store could be developed using Flash instead.¹ Supporting Flash would undermine that billion-dollar revenue stream, piss off iPhone / iPad developers, and also put Apple at Adobe’s mercy.

Besides, everyone’s moving towards HTML5, right? Well yes they are, but not so quickly. I wouldn’t rule Flash out for another 3 to 5 years.

Why do I say this? Four reasons:

1. Flash has inertia on its side. Major content sites such as Disney and Hulu still use Flash to deliver video, animation, and interactive experiences. According to Adobe’s statistics, Flash has over 90% penetration in mature markets. Developers already know how to use Flash and ActionScript to create these experiences. In short: there are a lot of folks invested in Flash as a platform.

2. HTML 5 isn’t quite ready for prime time. It’s a shifting standard, a work-in-progress. Though even Internet Explorer 8 supports some significant HTML5 features, Internet Explorers 6 and 7 do not. And both browser versions are still used widely enough that dropping support is not an option for most developers.²

3. Flash is still the best cross-browser, cross-platform way to serve audio and video. Safari / WebKit, Firefox / Mozilla and Opera all support the HTML5 video element. They do not, however support the same codec.

   Apple is squarely in the H.264 camp. Google paid a licensing fee so that it could include an H.264 decoder in Chrome. H.264 is a patented codec. Any browser that wants to enable H.264 video will need to pay a licensing fee.

   Licensing fees and patent concerns are why Opera and Mozilla are backing Ogg Theora. Ogg Theora is an open sourced codec with no known patents. I should add here that Chrome also supports Ogg Theora. Google, perhaps wisely, chose to include both.

   The big monkey wrench in video element adoption, however, is Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer is waiting for them other fools to work out that default codec business before it implements support for the element.

   And all of this is before we get into the differences in how browser vendors will execute the specification. That’s a whole ‘nother headache.

   We will be using Flash until clients are willing to pay for separate Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer video integration or until the HTML5 working group agrees on a default codec.

4. Adobe is working to bring Flash to other mobile platforms. As Adobe’s Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch explained, We are now on the verge of delivering Flash Player 10.1 for smartphones with all but one of the top manufacturers. This includes Google’s Android, RIM’s Blackberry, Nokia, Palm Pre and many others across form factors including not only smartphones but also tablets, netbooks, and internet-connected TVs. Could the iPhone and iPad’s lack of Flash support be a deciding factor in consumers’ decisions not to buy an Apple device?

My Prediction for Flash

I suspect that as HTML5 gains prominence, Flash will — eff that, it should — shift from an authoring environment for its proprietary SWF format to one that generates HTML, CSS, JS and SVG code for the browser. I think the building blocks for such software are in place. Flash Builder (formerly Flex Builder) for example, eliminates (most of) the need for FLA files. Perhaps developers will one day use a mix of ActionScript and JavaScript in the Flash Builder authoring environment to create web-ready assets and animation that don’t require a browser plug-in.

Mobile-friendly Web Development Right Now

Despite the fact that Flash is supposed to come to every other mobile platform, Apple’s decision to keep Flash off of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch is not without impact. Apple still runs the smart phone market; in some ways they drive the mobile web. That means the prudent path is (still) progressive enhancement, and ensuring that your critical content and navigation are built using HTML.

So will I buy an iPad?

Nope. I have a laptop, a smart phone (a T-Mobile G1), a desktop and an iPod Touch. To me, the iPad is that weird spot between my smart phone or iPod Touch and a laptop with the convenience of neither. It doesn’t have the pocket-sized portability of my iPod Touch or my phone. And it doesn’t (yet) have the robust features of a laptop — USB ports, optical media drives, and the ability to install any app. I can’t justify the value for the price.

Besides, I still much prefer books to e-readers. I can sell books, trade books, leave books, loan books, and get books wet. I am not about to soak in the tub with a $300 device, but I would with an $11 book.

What do you think about the iPad, Apple’s decision, or the future of Flash and HTML5?

¹ Many of these apps could also be built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, but there’s no money in that either.

² There are scripts available to make IE act right, of course. ExCanvas, for example, mimics support for the canvas element in IE. Simple HTML5 isn’t much different from HTML 4.01. You can actually forge ahead with HTML5 now if you don’t need advanced features like DOM Storage.

Internet Explorer will retain the version 7 rendering engine. But rather than opt-in to version 8 rendering, developers will have to opt-out of it. Developers and / or server administrators can do so with a <meta> tag or with an HTTP header.

Also see: Microsoft’s Interoperability Principles

Previously

• Web Standards Project releases Acid3
• On IE8: Pragmatic and practical, but I still don’t like it
• Internet Explorer 8 round-up

UPDATES:

Microsoft versioning: accessibility implications

What Internet Explorer’s change means for accessibility.

Best Standards Support

Sam Ruby offers a server-side suggestion for handling IE8 content requests.

Mike Davies argues that this should and perhaps could be the end of the line for Internet Explorer.

Microsoft᾿s “Super Standards” Mode: Important Facts

Jeff Schiller offers the clearest explanation I’ve seen about the changes coming with IE8.

Mistakes, Sadness, Regret

Ian Hickson on IE8, HTML5 and Microsoft.

Big Questions On IE8′s Big Progress

Alex Russell has some questions about how Microsoft will implement conflicts between meta tags.

Wisdom and folly: IE8′s super standards mode cuts both ways

Peter Bright over at Ars Technica gives a rundown of how this new ‘super-standards’ mode will work in IE8

Meta Madness

What seems to have slipped past the Microsoft Task Force of WaSP (or maybe it didn’t and they’re just playing coy) is that by implementing this specific feature in any other browser immediately either: A) Reduces its market size of viable web pages that will upgrade to new versions of the browser or B) Forces new versions of the browser to bloat, including backwards support for old-style rendering. – John Ressig

Bobbing Heads and the IE8 Meta Tag

Shelley Powers blasts this IE announcement.

In defense of version targeting

Jeffrey Zeldman says: When I look at the scenarios of who is likely to do what where web standards and version targeting are concerned, the IE7 default for those who don’t opt in appears to be the correct design decision.

Versioning, Compatibility and Standards

The WebKit team says it won’t be joining this <meta> tag march.

Opt-out version targeting is spam

If they’ve included a DOCTYPE, they’ve declared they want to render to standards. If they did that in ignorance, it’s time they started earning their money instead of letting Dreamweaver do their jobs. — Ben Buchanan

It started this morning with Aaron Gustafson’s article on A List Apart announcing a new method of versioning HTML documents in the forthcoming Internet Explorer 8. Reaction is coming in from around the web. A few notable posts are below. I’ll keep updating this post as I come across stuff.

Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8

Aaron Gustafson discusses Microsoft̵s latest effort to maintain web standards and also maintain backward compatibility.

Compatibility and IE8

Some background information relating to Microsoft’s decision.

Broken

Unless you explicitly declare that you want IE8 to behave as IE8, it will behave as IE7.Jeremy Keith

<META HTTP-EQUIV=”X-BALL-CHAIN”>

Mozilla hacker Robert O’Callahan weighs in on why this is (almost certainly) a bad idea.

IE8 to include version targeting

Jonathan Snook likes the approach.

From Switches to Targets: A Standardista’s Journey

Eric Meyer argues that maybe version isn̵t such a bad thing.

Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8

Aaron Gustafson discusses Microsoft̵s latest effort to maintain web standards and also maintain backward compatibility.

The Internet Explorer lock-in

Anne van Kesteren is not a fan of this Microsoft initiative.

Two points to think about:

Theory of mind is the awareness that others are aware, and its absence is the weakness that Google doesn’t know it has. This shortcoming exists at a deep cultural level within the organization, and it keeps manifesting itself in the decisions that the company makes about its products and services. The flaw is one that is perpetuated by insularity, and will only be remedied by becoming more open to outside ideas and more aware of how people outside the company think, work and live.

And:

An awareness of how a transformation in the fundamental value of links from informational to economic could have led Google to develop a system that separated editorial and aesthetic choices from economic ones, preventing the eventual link-spam arms race.

Also of note today (with some stuff from yesterday):

• The Blogosphere Gets a Newspaper in The Issue
• Amazon launches SimpleDB (in a limited beta) (Related: What You Need To Know About Amazon SimpleDB via Read/Write Web)
• Opera files antitrust complaint with the EU (Analysis: CSS Unworking Group by Andy Clarke)

Well, first Mike Kronenberg cut out a few steps and released ies4osx. Then Sérgio Luís Lopes Júnior added those changes into the latest version of ies4linux.

This isn’t yet a one-step operation. You will still need to install Darwine first.