It’s Premature to Drop Flash—or Swear by HTML 5
Of all of the software missing from Apple’s iPhone/iPad platform, the most controversial omission is Adobe’s Flash, thanks to its ubiquity as a video and casual game platform. As a website designer and developer, this has impacted me firsthand, as clients are now specifically requesting HTML 5-based, iPad-compatible websites—without an appreciation for the repercussions of such a move. Flash development makes up a large portion of my work, and while I look forward to HTML 5 replacing certain Flash elements on the Web, in many cases this new technology isn’t ready for professional websites, despite Apple’s insistence.

Browser Support and Performance
Make no mistake; Flash Player performance on mobile devices leaves much to be desired. One need only look at PocketNow.com’s comparison of mobile browsers to recognize the validity for some of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ thoughts on Flash. Apple isn’t alone in recognizing this, either, as earlier this year Mozilla pulled Flash support from its mobile browser, citing performance issues.

Performance issues aside, though, Google’s Android OS has proven that Flash is technically possible on mobile devices. HTML 5, on the other hand, has limited support on certain desktop browsers—particularly Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 6 through 8 (see Deep Blue Sky’s comparison).

Flash Player generally runs on 99 percent of PCs, and given that millions of users are still browsing with older versions of Internet Explorer, it will take years before HTML 5 support will be found on the majority of computers. This fact alone is perhaps the greatest reason why abandoning Flash is not a feasible option for mainstream consumption.

Apple Supporting Its Bottom Line
Apple is technically supporting open standards by advocating the use of HTML 5, but it’s more than a coincidence that the move reinforces their bottom line. For starters, take a look at Apple’s showcase of HTML 5. Unless you’re viewing it in Apple’s Safari browser, you won’t see the effects. While the showcase could be configured to view on Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, Apple chose to only support their own browser.

On the plug-in front, the omission of Flash Player and Java plug-ins eliminates a majority of the mobile gaming and music players available online. By blocking these third-party offerings, Apple can point to its own iTunes and App store as the sole provider of such content on their mobile devices.

Yet another example is exposed with the battle for a standardized video format for HTML 5. Apple supports the H.264 video format, which, while optimized for mobile devices, involves an expensive licensing fee (this fee stems from the fact that H.264 is not an open standard, but rather a proprietary format). Alternatively, there’s the open OGG Theora WebM format, as well as Google’s recently open-sourced , neither of which are currently supported on Apple’s mobile devices. Format wars aside; let’s not forget that both the iPad and iPhone support Apple’s proprietary QuickTime format, but not Microsoft’s Windows Media or Adobe’s Flash video format.

HTML 5′s Development Tools Still Evolving
I was recently contracted on a project in which we had to reformat Flash animations into animated GIFs in order to adhere to the client’s insistence that their site perform on an iPad. Fortunately, money was not an object for the client, but regardless, it still proved to be a costly exercise. The production time had to be lengthened in order to reformat the animations, and the average file size for each animation ballooned from a 40 KB Flash movie to up to 1.5 MB GIFs. This meant that site visitors would be penalized for the download and that larger files would devour the site hosting.

I share this anecdote because developing in HTML 5 involves a learning curve for many developers, not to mention the fact that the tools to build HTML 5 content are either not in existence or still evolving.

The most time-consuming aspect of this development process will be assuring consistency across browsers. While Flash benefits from consistent rendering, HTML 5 content will need to be tested thoroughly across a variety of browsers. Fortunately, I have no doubt that the tools and browsers will improve support over time, but in the meanwhile, requiring HTML 5 means that development time will increase and costs will be higher.

The Larger Community’s Support of Flash
While Wired, the New York Times, and ABC (Disney-owned, of which Jobs is the majority shareholder) have customized their content for Apple’s mobile offerings, Hulu.com, one of the top entertainment sites on the Web, announced they were sticking with Flash, and its contributors, Time Warner and NBC Universal, also dropped a bombshell by deciding to stick with Flash, citing desktop ubiquity and Flash’s inherent support of the H.264 video format.

Apple’s policy on Flash hasn’t been overlooked by the U.S. Department of Justice, as the DOJ is beginning to investigate. Even usability expert Jakob Nielsen, a harsh critic of Flash usability, questions why Apple hasn’t included the plug-in.

To Flash or Not to Flash
If I had to predict the future, I’d guess that Adobe would develop Flash or another tool to publish HTML 5 content (they’ve already started supporting HTML 5 with Dreamweaver CS5) and I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple produced a competitor to compete with Adobe.

I’d like to say Flash will be available on Apple’s products, but Jobs was right, as he stated at the D8 conference that “if the market tells us we’re making the wrong choices, we’ll listen to the market” (based on iPad sales, that’s not the case).

I honestly hope that Flash video is replaced with an open video format, and it’s not unrealistic to believe this will happen in the near future. Video aside, Flash’s mature development tools, its supporting developer community, and its ability to seamlessly integrate multimedia will help ensure Flash remains for a long time.

When implementing your vision on the Web, make sure your designer/developer builds your website to accommodate as many people as possible—and don’t compromise the site experience because of a niche product.

If Flash is a necessary solution, there are tools available now (such as SWFObject) that can detect the presence of Flash and replace it with HTML content when necessary. While the presentation may not be as nice, it’s still accessible. Also make sure your team implements SWFAddress, which provides friendly URLs for Flash content.

Ultimately, HTML 5 and Flash are simply tools, and it is your site designer’s responsibility to determine not only the right tool for the job, but also to ensure that content displays adequately across different hardware.

—Rich Hauck