Surfing on The iPad: Flash Crisis? What Flash Crisis?

I just noticed something about surfing the web on an iPad. Here’s a hint: look at the red circle in the New York Times screenshot above.

It was hard to spot because it’s actually noticing something that’s not there: the blue Legos where the Flash plugin should be.

In January, when Steve Jobs introduced the iPad, he wasn’t able to load the NYT‘s front-page videos (remember the Lego bricks visible during his debut event?) The absence of Flash seemed like a major problem. Video, games, rich-media — none of these would work, pundits said, and the iPad would be a crippled device.

But that hasn’t proven to be the case. Not at all. During the past month I’ve been using the iPad, I’ve rarely encountered problems with the lack of Flash. All the sites I visit regularly - the BBC, NYT and Wall Street Journal – all of them have quickly made video and rich-media available in iPad-friendly formats.

YouTube is especially iPad-friendly. I’ve yet to encounter a YouTube video the iPad wouldn’t play. And because so many sites use YouTube to embed video, it seems like a lot of the web is iPad-friendly.

The only problems is streaming music from MixRiot (which I use a lot but isn’t exactly mainstream) and playing Farmville and thousands of other Flash games. But given how much time I waste fertilizing my kids’ crops and sending them gifts, that’s actually a blessing.

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Apple Source: Adobe’s Flash Is “Too Buggy” For the iPad

And it’s only going to get worse for Flash. Look at the chart below from Encoding.com, which does a lot of video encoding for sites like MTV and MySpace. In the last four quarters, Flash video (represented by FLV and Flash VP6) dropped from 69 percent to only 26 percent of all videos. Meanwhile, the H.264 format went from 31 percent to 66 percent, and is now the most popular format by a long shot.

28 comments »

About the author

Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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Posted in Apple, iPad, News, Top stories |

sooks
thats because they are already html 5………
Saul Tannenbaum
Cspan.org still uses Flash, though I admit that CSPAN junkies are a small cult.
Barry Wood
I’ve recently updated a couple of client sites to provide HTML5 video support when Flash is not available.
BTW, I heard nice little interview of Leander on NPR today where they were talking about Flash and Apple.
Apple …..Dumm….Dummm.Dummmmm
flash+apple= :(
charli
hey Leander, don’t look now but Farmville is making an ipad app. the other games will likely follow fast. My best is that Mafia Wars will be next.
Chapps
If only Cult of Mac’s on site was iPad friendly. So many of the YouTube videos show up in articles with the ‘no play’ placeholder. Why is that?
http://www.chirho.co.uk ChiRho
@ Chapps – Ditto!! Cult of Mac is one of the blogs I read throughout the day on my iPhone. It’s REALLY annoying seeing the “no play” placeholder.
Barton Lynch
can’t someone just make a browser app that supports flash?
http://deoclicianocgiportfolio.wordpress.com Deocliciano Okssipin Vieira
@Barton Lynch
Wy cant Adobe make flash phone friendly ?
Until now which phone runs flash?
True is, flash is irrelevant (people have sites so to sell products, flash actually gets in between), but flash developers say otherwise because it puts food on their table.
Why cant Adobe use Flash as an HTML IDE which will HELP easy HTML5 learning curve for designers or anyone without any programing knowledge?
http://www.snubcommunications.com Craig Grannell
@Chapps, @ChiRho: I’ll take a look at CoM video and see what’s going on. We use a plug-in the pull video into the site, so perhaps it pulls across a version that isn’t compatible with the iPad.
Barton Lynch
@Deocliciano Okssipin Vieira
I’m not THAT pro-flash, i’m happy that it’s dying because it is a bad piece of software, but people use flash as the major downfall of the iphone (where it really isn’t).
what I was saying is wouldn’t it just be a matter of developing another flash friendly app?
Ryan
@ Barton Lynch
Not possible. Apple’s AppStore rules prevent apps that run other code interpreters within an app (I can’t remember how they word it). But I’m sure it’s not as easy as it sounds. Even all the jailbroken apps that claim to play flash really don’t work at all for more than videos in swf that you download and put on the device.
Anthony
What browser are you using here? This isn’t safari. I would love to have tabbed browsing! Is this on a jailbroken iPad?
Maxx
For anyone who doesn’t believe this and doesn’t own an iPad switch your browser user-agent to iPad for a few hours. You’ll be surprised how many sites are supporting HTML5 video already.
O E B
Yep, I have yet to encounter a problem on any of the sites i regularly visit. Even CNN is fully functional. I just got back from a 9 hour road trip with my girlfriend and we spent the whole time switching between driving and using the ipad. The lack of flash did not impede me at all. The battery life is incredible. The only thing I think it needs is multitasking ( i.e. so I can type my document or browse while on a skype call). The only place where it feels limited is when you try to do something that is not within a controlled environment (i.e. u can’t go to download that super rare mp3 from another site and add it to your itunes library). Other than that, its the most incredible piece of kit I have ever caressed. This thing is not going to harm the netbook market though.. It’s going to crush it completely out of existence. My hakintoshed little Dell Mini 9 is such a piece of garbage compared to this.
http://www.cyclelogicpress.com Neil Anderson
What Flash crisis? Just call Adobe and you’ll find out where the Flash crisis is. :)
poppa
Some interesting facts on HTML5 on wiki,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5
Apple seem to always be ahead of the rest with design and tech,I don’t think the lack of Flash is a problem for Apple users,you know your not going to get the Flash plug in, but the web moves on and we need a better browsing experience, it seems HTML5 is the modern way ahead even M$ is backing it, Flash is so yesterday and will be left behind.
matt
H.264 is on the rising because Flv an VP6 are old codecs not suitable for HD video. Flash Player supports H.264, that’s why over 60 percent is encoded in H.264 now and that’s also why making a switch is relatively easy. Flv and VP6 would have even dropped without the iPad.
lubetube
The crisis is in Adobe headquarters.
jr
@ O E B,
Thanks for your post, the iPad 3G seems perfect for road trips as you mentioned. If you are able to respond here, my question would be how was your AT&T service over the 9 hour trip? Any break in service?
http://ipadjailbreak.com Jailbreak
The problem basically went away…the power of Apple/Jobs!
O E B
@jr
I drove from Roanoke, VA to Charlotte, NC and back. I had full bars of 3G nearly the entire time. There was a short period when going through a valley that it switched to the ‘edge’ network for about 15 minutes. Even with edge it was fully usable in that area since the edge data network in that area must have been near ‘nil’.
The 3G here in Roanoke is very fast. The 3G in Charlotte was also very fast. Both cities had a faster 3G connection then when I was living in San Francisco the last few years.
O E B
Edit Above: I mean the ‘edge data network congestion in that are must have been near ‘nil’
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Bob
Leander, who cares what sites YOU go to – you don’t speak for the world, Jobbs is a Ass Hat, freedom of choice! Flash is not that bad – I’m not a huge fan of it but not a hater either. The reason they REALLY don’t want it is the IPAD is WEAK as far as hardware. Make a better product APPLE and dont try to RAPE people of $$ for and overgrown Itouch. Android is kickin ur ass … hehehehe!!!
Martin Old
Bob, Ipad hardware isn’t that bad, it is optimized for battery life though. It is rumored that IOS does not support flash to boost sales in the app store. You cannot play flash games, or use any application of flash. So you download the equivalent in the app store. Would you drop down 99 cents or more for a game you could play for free in safari using flash?
P4INKiller
Good job, you missed the part where Flash developers can’t create any applications for the ipad because Jobs wants to have monopoly over every single thing the user does.
Not to mention that HTML5 can’t replace flash for all purposes.
I won an ipad.
Guess what, I’m selling it.
P4INKiller
Oh, and this article is a prime example of the “get, but don’t give” mentality of Mac users.
You’re only looking at this from a web surfers viewpoint, not the people who develop stuff and could’ve used the hardware for important things.
Instead I must learn a new programming language and share my applications through some store where people open their wallets like sheep.