I got into an argument with my colleagues about how much it sucks that the iPad doesn’t have flash. The argument was that most of the web – or at least 50% of the web already relies on Flash. The point being: who would buy that iPad thing if it doesn’t provide a good web browsing experience?
I say, the iPad doesn’t need Flash! And neither does any other mobile device! Only very rarely do i come across a webpage that doesn’t render on my iPhone and yes, typically in these cases it’s because of Flash content. But for some people, especially developers themselves, Flash has become something like ubiquitous for web browsing – but only in their mind aka their limited view of the web and because they know the technology when they see it. So they see, expect and even demand Flash everywhere even though it is far from everywhere on the web and not everything that looks like Flash, is actually Flash (say hello to good old animated GIFs). Besides, what purpose does Flash really serve on webpages anyway?
From my point of view: games, humorous and playful entertainment art, graphic designer homepages, marketing firm websites and flashy (pun intended) advertising product pages cover almost all Flash use. Rarely if ever is one of these sites of daily use, most don’t even encourage nor expect recurring visits. They’re novelties. About the only useful application of Flash on a popular website i can think of is its use on Youtube to play videos, or any streaming video service for that matter. Some websites use it to create polls or an image slideshow, so not the kind of content you can’t go without, it’s barely a nice to have item. I agree that missing out on Youtube’s content would be a major pain in the rear and not something i’d like to do without. But hey, as coincidence (really? not!) would have it there’s the “Youtube” app for the iPhone! Great. And easier to use than the website, too! And if you think about the games, even though at first sight it might be cool to have these on the iPad, most just wouldn’t work. They expect and rely on keyboard and mouse, so with the exception of simple point & click games most games would be useless and it would be a very frustrating experience for an iPad user to find the games that actually work on his device. In contrast, over time specific iPad Flash games would surely be developed but in a similar manner their experience would then be less compelling for a user with mouse and keyboard.
Keep in mind, it’s the website creators who provide the web browsing experience – not the technology used on the web to accomplish that. Which is why i appeal to all website creators (they blatantly refer to themselves as “designers”): it’s your effing business to provide a great web browsing experience! And that goes for mobile devices as well – if you do care for them. If your target audience doesn’t use these devices, then be all flashy and what not, i won’t care. But i suppose even your target audience might sometimes prefer a standard HTML version of your webpage rather than the slow, awkward flash site your designers came up with, right? And since that one already exists, why not make that the default for mobile devices. Oh, it is, already? How neat!
Anyhow: it’s not the device’s fault that it doesn’t do Flash, nor does it matter – it’s the website creator’s fault if they don’t provide a Flash-free website version of whatever content they offer. In the long run it’s them who will lose out, not the iPad user. And let’s be honest: since the dawn of the iPhone, how many websites that you frequently visit on your iDevice has at some point in time started showing you an iPhone optimized or even dedicated version over the last two years? Many. And many more are to come. And i rejoice because it’s time Flash gets that significant counterweight so that web designers use Flash only where it makes absolute sense instead of being an abomination of web designer’s power over web browsing standards (and privacy, for that matter).
To experience what a web without Flash would be like, i’ve installed FlashBlock for the browser of my choice, which is Opera. I’m curious to know how many websites that i use really make use of Flash. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’ll be much less than 5%. In addition, check out the web’s 500 most popular websites, and tell me which of those make use of Flash that you can not go without. You’d be hard pressed to find any besides the occassional streaming video. Why? Simply because they know how to create websites that perform well, meet user’s expectations and needs, provide the content in digestible pieces and in a way that supports all platforms. And that way is still plain, good old HTML. So if Flash were to suddenly disappear from the world, once the initial shock has passed we could all live without it remarkably well.
To partially prove my point, i googled for the “most popular flash sites”. Surprisingly there was just one article in the google search what i was looking for, it is listing the Top 10 Best Flash Websites of 2010 – none of which i’ve ever heard of. And after having looked at each of them, i can proclaim: i don’t need any nor do i wanted to see most of these. Not even on my computer. Don’t get me wrong: they’re all excellent quality and have pretty amazing visuals but they’re just not the kind of experience i typically look for on the web. They’re worth the occassional distraction but unless a Flash site captivates me at first sight, i’m out. Probably just two of these Top 10 Websites would have caught my (short) attention. And the functional websites of these are all but that – at one site i didn’t know what to do or what i was able to do, at two sites what i wanted to do didn’t work (content not loading or no user feedback that content is loading), and one site even got stuck in the loading screen the first two attempts leaving me to guess whether it’ll ever finish loading. Those are just some of the problems of Flash as a web design tool – on an iDevice it would even be worse. If the performance of Flash sites on my Mac Mini is any indication, the iPad let alone the iPhone/iPod wouldn’t handle Flash very well – i suspect many Flash sites would simply be unusable on an iDevice simply due to performance issues.
And so, we should view the iPad in a different light and try to understand it better instead of pointing out irrelevant flaws. Like, for example, Noel Llopis speculating about who the users will be and how they are likely to use the iPad. That is so inspiring! And without even mentioning Flash Ben Patterson expects the iPad will be a killer Web browsing device. From this post it becomes apparent that Apple understands its users better than the users themselves. And once the skeptical but rationalizing gadget geeks (aka early adopters) like him are on board, the rest will follow suit over time.
Btw, i would like to ask the readers to point out Flash websites that are visited regularly, or which are very popular, and use Flash to render significant portions of their content. Between my searches and the people i asked, only the Disney website was a “pure” Flash website. Apparently a 37+ billion $ company doesn’t need mobile users visiting their website, nor do they care enough to at least build a stub site, as you can see from the screenshot. All other websites i visited are using Flash content mostly for ads, streaming movies (again: mostly ads), slideshows (ads), polls (with embedded ads) and a little bit of interactive content (including ads). Ads being so prevalent that complaining about the lack of Flash support for the iPad is almost as if people were complaining that the iPad won’t show all those beautiful ads.
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[...] The iPad doesn’t need Flash! Period. End of discussion. [...]