Flash vs. HTML5 – taterboy
May 3rd, 2010 | Filed under: Flash, iPhone

Does It Have To Be One Or The Other?
I have never been a “use Flash because I like Flash”, kind-of guy. I do like Flash, but believe very strongly that we should only use Flash when there is a good reason to use Flash opposed to other available technologies. I’m very proficient in javascript and have always tried to see how far I can push other technologies into the realm of what I currently use Flash for. I have built HTML driven sites that have many of the same fancy roll-over effects, fading and non-reloading, immersive approaches that make them look like Flash sites. I have been building these type of sites as early as 2006, before many of the web standards we have today. I do not use Flash because I lack web skills, but where current non-Flash technologies fall short. These decisions are based on the needs of the each project, end-user, development time, SEO, etc. I will be an adopter of HTML5 and currently use many of the non-Flash technologies when needed. I can not see me adopting HTML5 as a one or the other sort of thing, it will be whatever the needs of the job require. I foresee, going forward, there will be many HTML5/Flash hybrid sites, just like there are now many HTML/Flash hybrid sites.

If HTML5 truly is a competitor of Flash, that is a good thing. It will only encourage better performing, feature-rich options in Flash going forward. This notion of HTML5 being a Flash killer, just is not true, at least for a long time.

Taking the Test:
There are some online HTML5 browser tests you can use to test compatibility. Until all of the major browsers (IE) fully adopt this standard, it is not a viable option for most web development needs. Even Safari is not fully complitent with the HTML5 standard according to this test. I got 115 out of 160 with Safari 4.0.5 and 113 out of 160 on my iPhone, with some of the most important UI support still not supported.

Here is a great video, sent by Greg Wilson, that puts the HTML5 vs. Flash in perspective for now.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , ,

Other Related Articles:

|

2 Comments »

  1. [...] The Flash Platform provides a runtime environment on the web, allowing developers to build software on top of it. We’ve been saying this for years. Finally, there has been some educated experimentation from the Flash community. The best examples illustrated here by Todd Williams who took the time to compare HTML5 to Flash in great detail [Source] [...]

    Pingback by We shall prevail. | Cool websites that do everything. — May 4, 2010 @ 5:42 am

  2. Awesome put up, can you guys please help me crack this new Google code they used for their logo? It’s in HTML5…

    Comment by Google Logo — September 7, 2010 @ 9:52 am

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment