Apple Applauds Flash-Abandoning, 'iPad Ready' Sites
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Apple iPad users should have a super Web-surfing experience on sites such as those from the New York Times, CNN, Time magazine and TED. These "iPad ready" sites abandon Flash in favor of HTML5 video, CSS3 and JavaScript.
In advance of the iPad's April 3 debut, Apple is showing off a
number of Websites that are "iPad ready"-which is to say, instead of Flash
technology, they're built with W3C standard Web technology and use HTML5 video,
CSS3 and JavaScript.
To play with Apple is to play by Apple's rules, and several big brands have
shown they're happy to do just that-and enjoy the massive app-buying crowds
likely to follow.
Among these iPad-ready sites are those for CNN, The New York Times, the White
House's official page and the TED talks. If your site has also eschewed Flash
for "the latest Web standards," writes Apple, you're encouraged to let Apple
know about it, along with details about your site, and it, too, may be
featured.
While Flash is a widely accepted technology for videos and ads-Google plans to
include it in its Chrome browser-Apple CEO
Steve Jobs has made no secret of his disdain for it, calling it buggy and a CPU
hog.
"We don't spend a lot of energy on old technology," Jobs
reportedly told Wall Street Journal executives in February, during a
meeting to try to make them repent of their Flash-supporting ways. Jobs is said
to have compared Flash to floppy drives and compact discs-technologies past
their glory days.
Countless Websites are still relying on Flash, and once the iPad finds its way
into Web-surfing consumer hands on April 3, they'll know a Flash-supporting
Website when they see one.
"Apple has this thing against Flash, the Web's most popular video format; says
it's buggy, it's not secure and depletes the battery," The New York Times'
David Pogue wrote in his March
31 hands-on review of the iPad. "Well, fine, but meanwhile, thousands of
Websites show up with empty white shares on the iPad-places where videos or
animations are supposed to play."
The iPad will officially go on sale April 3, though supply levels have been
recently questioned. On the Apple site, WiFi-only models are said to not start
shipping until April 12. On March 29, however, Twitter was aflutter with the
announcements of happy consumers-who'd put in early preorders for the device-writing
that Apple
had alerted them that their iPads were on their way.
