Tag: Flash

How the iPad is reshaping the Web

Posted on by Lab Team

iPad continues to create ripples through the mobile, eReader, and online applications worlds. Here are five ways the device is transforming the Web as we know it:

1) Where has all my flash gone?  Or Hello, HTML 5
This is playing out in the press with a great flourish as everyone scrambles to understand apple’s strategy and relationship with Adobe.   85% of the top websites use flash (according to Adobe Labs) so Flash isn’t going to go away but HTML 5 will be a new way to navigate the web and consume applications,  without relying on Java or other plugins.  The very nature of how pages are built and how you navigate the web will be an application metaphor.  And playing off the current popularity of location based services, with HTML5, the browser on any device can detect the user’s geographical location if approved by that user.  This makes it possible for web pages to explore location aware experiences.   And video consumption will also really benefit because you won’t be relying on proprietary plug-ins that are CPU intensive.  And as of this week, Revision 3, a popular broadband TV site, announced it now supports video playback on the Apple iPad, thanks to its foray into HTML5.  You’ll see other major video consumption sites follow suite as the game changes again for video on and offline.  (HTML 5 will also be a player in the set top box world) Continue reading “How the iPad is reshaping the Web”

App vs. WebApp: A philosophical difference

Posted on by Lab Team

App vs WebApp (Chrome/iTunes)Last week two items of note occurred. Apple released the iPad, and Google announced they would be building Flash into Chrome and Chrome OS. These two announcements highlight a growing difference between Apple and Google’s strategies for the future of computing. Both agree it’s mobile, but they have strong differing opinions on the issue of App vs WebApp.

Apple has had an interesting evolution. When the iPhone OS was first released, Apple staunchly positioned it as web apps only, with no native applications allowed. Eventually, after a small community of hackers got apps to work on the phones and even created a single app to find, download, and update their apps, Apple caved in. We then got a SDK for native applications, and finally arrived in the age of “There’s an App for that.” The iPad as a device is the epitome of this mentality. The iPad is about taking experiences that live elsewhere, whether Netflix or the New York Times, and creating an even better, completely customized experience for a single device. It’s all about the apps. Continue reading “App vs. WebApp: A philosophical difference”