The recent controversy surrounding Apple dropping Flash support from some of it’s product range has highlighted numerous shortcomings in the browser plugin, along the lines of performance, reliability and security.
Apple publicly criticised the plugin – recommending HTML5 to Joe Public instead, but were they right to drop support for Flash, possibly damaging their up to now close relationship with Adobe?
In my opinion no. Here’s why:
HTML5 is still a draft standard and will continue to be so for some time to come. Due to the fact that the HTML5 feature set has not been standardized yet – web browser developers are hampered deciding which HTML5 features to support in their new web browser releases. This means that it may not be possible to view some parts of a webpage coded in HTML5 depending on which web browser and OS you have installed.
Standards also give web developers the assurance that the code they use to design a web page should work across a range of web browsers – in an ideal world that’s the way it should happen. In reality this doesn’t happen – different browsers display webpages differently. OK – but do we need Apple adding another layer of complexity to web developers jobs by forcing them to decide which browser(s) they’ll concentrate their coding and testing efforts on?
Instead of the best all round browser gaining the biggest market share the end user will probably end up suffering – they’ll be forced to choose a browser that supports the most HTML5 features. All because Apple wanted to conserve battery life on their mobile devices…
HTML5 – It should be great – but I don’t think its ready for prime-time just yet.
