More reasons to avoid Flash
Over the years we’ve lamented the online popularity and over-reliance on Flash because of concerns relating to usability, navigability, indexability, measurability, portability, and so on. Now Steve Jobs has provided a litany of additional reasons that Flash is not supported by Apple products including the iPad, iPod, and iPhone. While some of our concerns make his list, he adds many more, and points out that many of the technical capabilities that were formerly unique to Flash are now available through modern web standards such as HTML 5.
If you have a website or are advertising online (yes, that means basically everyone), then you can ignore all of the other issues about Flash and consider just this one: for now and the foreseeable future your Flash content is not usable on any iPad, iPod, or iPhone.
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April 29th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
It’s something I point out to my clients all the time. So many of them have no idea.
Look, I LOVED flash work. It paid very well, was a lot of fun to use, and always got a “wow” from clients. That said, I couldn’t recommend it for most things in good conscience. It’s just not a good deal for companies anymore to focus on flash.
That said, I don’t know how supported HTML 5 is right now either.
Last I heard, implementation was a decade off. Think this apple move will spur that forward? I hope so…
May 12th, 2010 at 9:15 am
Flash is horrible for SEO too. Lots of whizz but no bang. Avoid flash at all cost.
September 4th, 2010 at 7:10 am
What about if I am a photographer and i have a flash galleries?
September 7th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Marius, that is one of the factors you have to consider when implementing a Flash gallery. From an SEO standpoint, you might be shooting yourself in the foot. On the other hand, if you won’t be providing and text information about your photos (title, subject, description, or caption) anyway, then it won’t really matter.