Apple to Flash: Drop Dead

Everyone is talking about the iPad. Some people love it, some people are underwhelmed. Regardless of what you think, it’s a big deal.

But here’s my side story. Apple is trying to kill Flash.

It was one thing when you were talking about the iPhone. Not having Flash support was an annoyance but not a big deal. But now you are talking about a device that Apple says is “the best way to surf the web”.

The best way to surf the web does not support Flash.

Now there are a lot of issues with Flash. Search engines generally can’t handle them well, so Flash is discouraged for many web sites. Also HTML5 may ultimately push out proprietary solutions like Flash. But in many cases it works very well.

Imagine you have a Flash heavy site. Anyone who buys an iPad can’t use it. That is likely to be a decent sized audience. What do you do?

Hearing the pre-hype for the Apple tablet, I started thinking, “hmm, our family computer is ancient. This might do the trick”. But Danielle has been sick the last few days. She goes to the computer and goes straight to nickjr.com. Where she plays games. Flash games.

She also plays games on my wife’s iPhone, so despite losing nickjr.com, she would probably like the iPad. And I think that is exactly what Apple is counting on.

Bye Flash, nice knowing you…