As many are aware, a war has been waging between Apple and Adobe over Apple’s decision to abandon Adobe Flash in their iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad product lines. Instead, the always forward-looking Steve Jobs, President and CEO of Apple, wants to accelerate the development and ultimate adoption of the integrated video capabilities planned for HTML5.
While Job’s vision is laudable, WireIE also believes there’s a pragmatic side to the debate. At this point, selection of the codec for HTML5 video has not been finalized. While many agree the ubiquitous H.264 codec would be a great asset in the HTML5 multimedia suite, there are potential complications with licensing. Others fear that alternatives such as open sourced Ogg Theora fall slightly short of H.264 in video quality and compression optimization. Regardless, these factors, along with spotty browser support, mean HTML5 and its integrated multimedia support is by no means finalized.
In the interest of being pragmatic, WireIE encourages the industry to give Adobe’s Flash Player 10.1 for mobile a fair hearing. In the video below, Adobe’s Adrian Ludwig demonstrates online gaming along with some beautiful multimedia interactivity with National Geographic’s web site on an HTC Nexus One running Android 2.1 and Flash 10.1
