Flash

The Rush to HTML5 Video

Anyone who ever questioned the market power of Apple and specifically, Steve Jobs, just has to have a look at large websites right now.  Most web-based video and audio used to be delivered with the use of Adobe's Flash player or some other Flash-based control.  However, Steve Jobs has never allowed Flash on the iPhone or the iPod Touch and, of course, it also doesn't appear on the iPad either.  In fact, Jobs recently confirmed that it will never appear on these devices.  What effect has this had?  The realization that they may be excluding this large and increasing market with their sites, has led most sites to implement alternatives.  The alternative is, in fact, to use the draft html5 standard.  What's interesting about this trend is that some sites that aren't quite there yet with their html5 implementation are essentially apologizing for it.  I just wanted to watch something on Ustream on my iPhone and was greeted with the message that "Currently this video is only viewable in Flash :(  We're working hard to make all content viewable on both the iPad and iPhone, please check back later!"  Now, that's market power.