“Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML 5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash). HTML 5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member”
- Steve Jobs ‘Thoughts on Flash’ April 2010
Apple opts for HTML 5
So if the combined might of Google and Apple are behind HTML5, can we can presume that it will prevail in its struggle against Adobe Flash right? Yes, we can. But what exactly is HTML5?
A little more than a decade ago your web browser was used for viewing text and images. Then a number of new technologies, like Java and AJAX, enabled a new breed of website. Adobe’s Flash – another browser extension – enabled the animation and video rich sites we enjoy today. Most online video today, and most games too, use Flash. And Flash is so ubiquitous that most media companies don’t even need to worry about it – if you want video on your website, you build a flash player, embed it into your site’s web HTML and go back to making content.
However, Flash can be slow, buggy, hard to modify, and concentrates a lot of power into one company’s (Adobe) hands. It also means extra work for media companies because an increasing number of devices don’t support flash (the iPhone, iPad, Xbox 360 etc.). This means more effort is needed to deliver your media everywhere your audience wants it.
Why do we even have Flash? Because today’s HTML – the set of commands that allow a website to load and display a page inside a browser, doesn’t support audio or video. That’s right, they don’t understand how to find, grab, display and control streaming media – or even animation.
HTML5, does. When HTML5 has been approved, and becomes the defacto standard for the web, developers and content providers won’t need proprietary players to let their audience interact with their content. It will just be a standard part of any web page, like text and images are today. That’s a radical change, not unlike the analog to digital transition that terrestrial broadcasters are going through.
However, none of today’s popular browsers fully support this new standard. Even if every browser maker embraced HTML5 fully, it will still be years and years before most devices supported it as most web users are slow to update their browser.
Despite this, Google is big on HTML5. It will help their application division, enabling better support for Gmail, Google Apps and Wave. It will also help their core search business , as their googlebots (programs that crawl and index webpages) can’t currently understand everything inside a piece of Flash (Google is blinded by parts of Flash, including some anchor tags, images and other elements). So it’s in their best interests for everyone to move to HTML5 as soon as possible obviously.
Here is the kicker! Google owns YouTube which in turn rules video on the web. It delivers this video via Flash. But you can place a substantial bet with Paddy Power that a HTML5 (’flash free’) version of the site is currently in the pipeline. Once the standard is set, and Firefox , Chrome, iPad and iPhone support HTML5, we’ll see a new, much richer HTML5 version of YouTube debut rendering the primary Raison d’être for Flash obsolete.
To cut a long story short, get to know HTML5.
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