It has been a pretty heated debate between people who have wanted to buy an iPad versus people who think the iPad is not worth it, just due to the lack of Flash. While I’m not against Flash, I find it absurd that people woke up many years late, after iPhone was released in 2007, to realize that Flash is actually missing. Life was going fine until Adobe started making noise.
Apple has been betting on HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript; all of which are open web standards and supported by most modern browsers (except Internet Explorer 8). To demonstrate the power and capabilities of these web standards vs. Flash, Apple has created an HTML5 Showcase, primarily aimed towards their own browser, Safari, to show how these standards aren’t add-ons to the web, but the web itself.
Here’s what Apple says:
Every new Apple mobile device and every new Mac — along with the latest version of Apple’s Safari web browser — supports web standards including HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. These web standards are open, reliable, highly secure, and efficient. They allow web designers and developers to create advanced graphics, typography, animations, and transitions. Standards aren’t add-ons to the web. They are the web. And you can start using them today.
A total of 14 demos are available which include Video Effects, Web Typography ( my favorite ), Transition effects, Audrio, Virtual Reality ( really cool to be able to see this without any add-on! ), games, sticky notes, offline Calendar, Front-Row style interface to watch movie trailers, a light table and more.
The demos will work on Chrome or Opera too, but for the best results and performance, Safari is recommended. They run great even on Mobile Safari on iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. You can check out the Technology Demos here ( all 14 of them are available here ).
