Really, this is a debate about HTML5′s video tag and video delivered using Flash, and I use the term debate loosely. Why? Because HTML5 is years from being done and from what I can see, the people calling for Flash video’s head are Mac users and Mac amounts to about 5% of total computer users. It’s unfortunate that Flash doesn’t run as well on a Mac as it does on a PC and I think it’s frustrating that Apple’s attitude is to say “Flash sucks, so we don’t want it” and all the Apple apologists fall in line. And even then, they’re missing the point, Flash isn’t on the iPad, it’s on the Mac OS, the argument here is, “If Flash works on Android, why isn’t it on the iPhone?” It has nothing to do with performance, it’s about the App Store, if you think any different your fooling yourself.
But that’s not really my problem, it’s the attitude the anti-Flash people have, they remind me of Fox News reporters. They aren’t here to debate, they are here to ram their opinion through. I’m tired of reading intelligent blog posts and then in the comments reading about how Flash is horrible and anyone that uses it is an idiot. Here’s the facts, Flash is on 90% of computers, most clients want to reach that amount. From what I’ve seen the video tag works in Chrome and Safari on Mac, try convincing a client to go with that technology. Seriously, I can’t count how many times a client has been using IE6 when they test the site I built. Yes, I work at a place where our first response is, “Upgrade your browser” but at the same time, they upgrade to IE8.
I’ve said on here before, I’m excited for HTML5, but there are some things that have to happen before we can just type < video > and put in the file name. I have yet to see video controls for any of the HTML5 video examples I’ve seen that work even remotely well enough that I would consider putting it on a site that someone’s paying thousands of dollars for. I think the best solution to that is for the browser to have built in video controls, I don’t know if that can be done, but I’m pretty sure that they can figure it out.
But wait, am I sure this is just about video? What about the canvas tag? I’ve seen some cool stuff done with the canvas tag but I’ve yet to see anything practical made with it. It’s going to be a long time, if it ever happens, that HTML5 is capable of most of the stuff that you can find on The FWA. And Flash has something else, the Flash IDE. Sure, it’s doesn’t have the greatest code editor, but until someone creates a HTML5 canvas and JavaScript environment that’s similar, it’ll be the JavaScript geniuses that make the cool stuff. And I don’t know about you, but JavaScript isn’t something I want to be spending a lot of time with.
So what’s my point? If you don’t want to use Flash, then don’t. If you want to block Flash, then block it. Sure, you’ll miss some amazing stuff by some amazingly talented people, but that’s your problem. And if you want to do whatever your told by Steve Jobs, go ahead. I wish I could feel the emotional attachment to a computer that these Mac users seem to have. And from now on, I’m just going to stay out it, I’m not going to read articles comparing HTML5 and Flash performance, it’s amazing how fast the results get shot down. I’m not going to watch Adobe’s videos showing Flash running on every other mobile device. Nothing is going to change anytime soon. People with iPads won’t be able to watch Flash video and hopefully, we don’t end up with sites built for computers and others built for the iPad.