You’ve probably already heard about what Apple’s Steve Jobs has to say about Flash already. As explained in numerous blog posts, one linked here to give you the gist of the situation, the Apple guru himself indicated that he felt Flash was dead, and HTML5 was the future, at least for Apple products. He cited that Flash is a “CPU Hog”, and several other unflattering things about the program.
So, no Flash for the iPad. Or the iPhone apparently. Now, what does that mean to the rest of us? While HTML5 is an interesting prospect and an emerging technology for sure, could it actually kill Flash? Not if Adobe, the company that created and continues to develop Flash, has anything to say about it. They’ve already rallied with claims that there aren’t any problems with Flash they are aware of, and that if Apple wants improvements, they need only ask. On top of that, Flash is used so widely throughout the internet, once hailed as the new avant-garde way to design interactive web pages, a gradual phase out could take years.
That said, we have to realize that Flash is indeed an older, matured program. Users have had a chance to give the program limits, and have found what it can and can’t do. HTML5 is new, shiny and can appear limitless. This is what I think Jobs was getting at. It’s not so much Flash not performing the way he wants, but it hasn’t done anything to absolutely wow him lately. HTML5 could be the cutting new wave of the internet, and he doesn’t want Apple to miss out. So far, they’ve managed to squash competition by staying ahead of the game by bringing completed products to market that grab an almost captive fanbase. It could be a legitimate fear that Flash will hold them back while other developers run with HTML5 and create the new internet. Steve Jobs wouldn’t want to miss out on that, and neither should you in the long run. Yet, the big question is: why does this matter to those of us that don’t build websites?
The first is that if you have a website, there is a good chance you have Flash somewhere on it. Remember that slick image that changes the picture when you put your mouse cursor over it, or how your site is more one seamless image than blocks of text with images? Surprise, your site has Flash on it, or another of the interactive animation programs out there, such as Silverlight, offered by Microsoft. If Flash were to suddenly fall out of favor with developers and companies that build products that use the internet, it would mean support for that program would slowly start to drop from browsers and cause customers coming to your site to not see it properly or even at all if your site is more Flash than traditional content such as text. It would cost you money to upgrade your website, and more than likely cause a headache as your web designer tries to recreate the feel you loved with new technology.
Flash isn’t evil, or a dinosaur quite yet. It has its uses, and Adobe could shock and wow us in the near future as they develop the program further. What it means to all of us that use Flash on our websites is that we should be mindful of how dependent your site is on Flash, or really any technology beyond HTML and CSS coding, which should always be supported. If that sentence just now didn’t make any sense to you, talk with your site designer! While you don’t need to know everything there is to know about web design, you should know what it uses to work. It’s the same as knowing how fast your internet connection is, while not going into the details of WHY it’s fast.
All of this falls back on what I would like to accomplish through this blog. Everyone should know the “whys” of owning and maintaining a website, even if they don’t have to time to focus on the “hows”. Just as knowing your network is important, knowing at least vaguely how your site operates can help save you a lot of trouble in the end. Especially if, for instance, Flash is suddenly gone one of these days.
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