Our Research into Flash and HTML5: Which One is Right For Your Project?

Although it’s still early in the evolution of HTML5, we’ve started to receive many requests to develop data visualization projects in HTML5 instead of Flash.

In most cases, these requests have been related to a desire to reach a wider audience, and the belief that HTML5 will be more compatible than Flash. We’ve also heard a lot of people mention that they need to have their visualizations work on the iPad.

These are reasonable expectations and requests, so we did some research to find out exactly which audiences we could reach by deploying a large data visualization project in HTML5. We also took a look at how the iPad could influence the experience.

You can select any of the images in this post to see our entire collected research in infographic form. A breakdown of each section, with some additional thoughts about what we learned, is below.

Browser Market Share

The most obvious thing you notice when looking at the data about technology compatibility is that if you are interested in developing a visualization that can be used on the greatest number of web browsers, it’s pretty hard to compete with Flash.

As of May 2011, Flash was supported by 99% of the available web browsers, while 40% supported HTML5. Given that HTML5 is still new, this is understandable, but probably something to consider if your main goal is compatibility. What was more interesting is that only 1% of browsers are available for use on the iOS. Definitely something to keep in mind if your goal is to reach a lot of people.

Potential Audiences

After looking at how the technologies were supported on current browsers, we calculated how many people would be able to view the visualization, using each technology. The maximum audience that would be able to view an HTML5 project is about 800 million people. That’s a lot of visitors, but it’s actually only 2/5 of the more than 2 billion potential visitors that can see a site developed in Flash.

Interactive Features

The most important part of our research focused on the features that can be supported by each technology. A lot of people make the assumption that if their project will work on the iPad, it’ll work everywhere — and for the most part, this is true. However, in order to develop a piece that works on the iPad, you’ll have to sacrifice a bit of functionality.

We chose to look at the features that would be most commonly used to develop a large data visualization, but could also apply to any major online development effort: the ability to dynamically draw things on screen, support 3D objects, work with vector-based objects, integrate video & audio, apply filter effects, integrate with APIs, and make network socket connections.

You’ll notice how the features become less supported in HTML5, and then even less so on the iPad. What’s worse, there is a big performance difference between the iPad and the iPad2. This means that while some of these features are supported in the earlier versions of iOS Safari running on the original iPad, the performance is greatly compromised.

Select the image below to see a larger comparison:

Browsers by Market Share

The last thing we explored was the overall market share by browser types, and how HTML5-compatible each release version is. Most modern browsers can support HTML5, but keep in mind that a lot of large companies do not regularly update their web browsers, and can be one or two versions behind.

Considerations

So what does this mean for your next project?

Flash

Flash is an established and unified platform that reaches 99% of desktop and laptop browsers with a broad and consistent feature set matched with solid performance. Applications can be developed for Flash with fewer technical restrictions and greater speed than is currently possible in HTML5. Currently, 85% of the most-visited web sites use Flash, and 75% of web video is published for Flash Player.
Perhaps the most significant drawback to developing with Flash is that some mobile browsers, specifically iOS Safari, lack support for the technology. However, while the mobile iOS market is growing, it currently only accounts for approximately 1% of the total browser market.

HTML5

HTML5 is a synthesis of several new and existing technologies (primarily JavaScript, CSS3, Canvas, and SVG), and as such, has a broad potential developer base. It allows for the deployment of an immersive application in modern browsers that either do not, or cannot, have the Flash Plugin installed – most notably Safari for the iPad which has a screen size large enough to interact with an immersive application.
The HTML5 development landscape is still somewhat lawless, and there are known inconsistencies between browser implementations of core features. Being an aggregate of technologies, it lacks an established and unified methodology, which can increase the development needed for cross-browser compatibility.

Apple iOS

Among mobile devices and tablets, Apple’s iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad account for a large and growing market. The default web browser on these devices, iOS Safari, accounts for about 20% of the total mobile browser market. To date, Apple has sold over 100 million iPhones and nearly 20 million iPads.
Immersive content intended to target these devices must be developed in HTML5, or as a downloadable app. Unfortunately, the support of HTML5 on iOS Safari is incomplete, specifically in the realm of communication and animation protocols.

Conclusions

We’re excited to see how HTML5 evolves. It’s a good new synthesis of technologies and has a lot of potential for growth. The fact that its core technologies are open source should indicate that it will be well supported and accessible, and it’s likely that its feature set will only increase. At the moment however, it’s hard to say that it is a better choice than Flash for reaching the widest audience with the largest amount of features.

If your goal is to develop content in HTML5 so that it can be viewed through both a web browser and the iPad, (to reach the largest amount of people), you might be a little disappointed. Content developed in HTML5 for the iPad has the least available features and performs the worst out of all HTML5-compatible scenarios.

This is not to say that HTML5 development shouldn’t be done. We’re developing a collection of visualizations for HTML5 and feel confident that they will still be engaging and interesting; and for smaller pieces it could be a great choice.

However, from a purely analytical point of view, the best option for developing a feature-rich dynamic data visualization right now still seems to be Flash.

What do you think? Do you have experience with HTML5? Leave a comment below, and let’s start a discussion.

Jan Willem Tulp

Thanks, this is a research that has been missing thus far! Thanks, very useful!

May 3, 2011

Bob Balfe

I wrote a similar blog entry, not as fancy as this and it was more of a question. What I did conclude in the end was that HTML5 was the way to go for my project. By the time I finish with the project more browsers will support the different elements of HTML5. And really, most new browsers support the needs that I have today.

Dale Cruse

Concluding that 40% of browsers support HTML5 is 100% misleading. The truth is that aspects of HTML5 currently work in 100% or desktop browsers (IE6 or better) & iOS browsers.

Dino Citraro

@Dale Can you elaborate on what you mean by “aspects of HTML5 currently work in 100% of desktop browsers”?

I don’t want to speak for Dale but for instance, a large part of each API like Canvas is supported in most major browsers. The problem is HTML5 is so large the 40% is probably accurate but I would imagine most people don’t care about many of the features.

Happy to, Dino. The “desktop browsers” I’m referring to includes anything released after IE6. It’s possible some HTML5 aspects work prior to IE6, but I have no way of verifying that.

The HTML5 doctype works in those browsers, as does the Canvas API, as Bob mentioned.

A small bit of JavaScript like the “HTML5 Shiv” enables further semantic tags like header, article, aside, nav, footer, & many more in browsers back to IE6 as well.

We must remember that HTML5 is not “one thing”. It’s actually a collection of things like the doctype, semantic tags, & more. Many have lumped Canvas, GeoLocation & CSS3 into the “HTML5″ category as well, further muddying the waters.

Saying “What was more interesting is that only 1% of browsers are available for use on the iOS.” is also very misleading. Here’s a better statistic, in my opinion: Is HTML5 supported on iOS? Yes. Is Flash supported on iOS? No. 100% vs 0%. There’s a statistic.

@Dale Thanks for your feedback. We tried to look at the technology from a perspective of developing a large interactive project, specifically data visualizations. With that in mind, I’m not sure it’s fair to say that because a few aspects of HTML5 work on browsers released after IE6, the entire HTML5 experience does.

Related to this is our observation about iOS. It’s true that HTML5 does work on the iPad, but the performance is noticeably different, and all features are not supported.

It’s important for us to know what the overall experience will be, as that impacts how easily the information can be conveyed. What we’re finding is that you can develop large projects in HTML5, but if you want the piece to work across multiple browsers, the number of features you can use is quite small.

We know this will get better, and are looking forward to that.

Have you considered using something like Dojo for an abstraction above the browser support?

@Dino, I didn’t ay the entire HTML5 experience works on browsers after IE6. From my first comment, I have maintained that aspects of HTML5 are supported back to at least IE6.

It’s true that no browser supports 100% of every HTML5 aspect. However, it is also true that no browser supports 100% of every HTML4 aspect & we’ve been using that for more than 10 years.

HTML5 performance & features are an issue on iOS devices, but at least it works AT ALL. Flash is a non-starter there. ANY experience is better than NO experience, in my opinion.

Brett Johnson

@Bob We haven’t looked specifically at Dojo. As far as frameworks that offer abstraction of HTML5 features, we’ve focused primarily on JQuery, ProcessingJS, RaphaelJS, and EaselJS. While RaphaelJS has the advantage of bringing HTML5 like drawing support to IE6-IE8 via VML, it isn’t particularly good for our purposes primarily because 1) large numbers of DOM elements (SVG in this case) cause performance issues and 2) it tends to impose a serial display list onto the application view.

At this point we are using a combination of EaselJS, ExCanvas (to patch Canvas support for IE), and direct manipulation of the HTML5 APIs when necessary.

Do you use Dojo? What makes it particularly attractive to you compared to others that focus more specifically on HTML5?

Did you also consider SVG frameworks like Protovis and D3?

Andras Csizmadia

You can check compatibility on this website:
http://caniuse.com/

May 4, 2011

Matthias Wille

Interesting analysis.

What I like is that you tried staying with the facts and unbiased as possible keeping your circumstances in mind, rather then being religious.

The only thing I would like to add (as commented too on the cross-link I added to my blog) is that sometimes the 1% market could be more lucrative than the 99%. What I’m trying to say is that 99% possible audience doesn’t necessarily mean reaching them, let alone making business.

But then again, you can always compliment your Flash development with an Air client (cross-compiled for iOS). Perfectly possible with Flash Builder 4.5 to reach out to all the iPhone, iPods and iPads.

@Jan Thank you for pointing out Protovis and D3. They both certainly have their strong points – including some great underlying visualization logic. Though D3 appears to be moving away from it’s charting library roots, both frameworks feel a bit restrictive (note that I haven’t worked with either, just studied examples and documentation). We lean toward other solutions for the same reason we have not used FLARE within Flash, and generally avoid the Flex framework. They seem to target a specific type of project and impose aesthetic and code architecture philosophies.

Justification aside – they are all great tools, but just don’t feel quite right to me.

Fair enough

You’re right that they may feel somewhat restrictive if you want complete freedom. Protovis is indeed more geared towards charting and is the more restrictive one of the two. D3 is way more flexible and performs much better. In D3 you set SVG attributes directly instead of an indirect way like Protovis. So in my experience thus far, with Protovis it may be a bit harder (or impossible) if you want to do more than the framework offers. But with D3, it’s actually working with SVG directly, so no limitations. In fact, D3 is more or less an abstraction layer that does some of the plumbing for you; for example, creating a polygon could still be done manually in D3, but D3 also offers some functionality to generate the code for a polygon for you. And yes, this helper functionality is right now geared towards specific visualizations, but it does not limit you. You could extend D3, or still write attributes directly.

Anyway, thanks for doing the research!

Matthijs Rouw

Interesting read. Useful information. Not many projects aim for ‘anyone with internet access’ so the conclusion does of course not work when 80% of your target audience is an Ipad user.

May 5, 2011

rascalpants

@Dale – “HTML5 performance & features are an issue on iOS devices, but at least it works AT ALL. Flash is a non-starter there. ANY experience is better than NO experience, in my opinion.”

Think about it this way, if you only have a 1% chance of reaching a general market by developing your visualization for the iOS, then you are missing a chance to sell to 98% of the market. So unless you specifically know your market will be 100% iOS users, then you are wasting money. It is a better business decision to produce a visualization that 99% of the market can view. When you have almost 100 times more market penetration, you have 100 times more chance of conversion.

You don’t have to have an MBA to make the decision to go with Flash for the general public.

I’m throughout a Flash/Air evangelist, but I can’t concur with what is being said here (article and responses alike). Maybe because I have no MBA as the rascalpants posted.

The problem with statistics like the one above is that 99% Flash penetration doesn’t say much about user’s Flash consumption or willingness to spend money for Flash/Air based applications. And the analysis isn’t going deep enough into the differences being PC users and mobile device users.

The largest growing market today is that of mobile devices. Building (sort of) native apps on the basis of Air (not Flash) makes the most sense here. Mostly because it covers all platforms including iOS.

Apple has a very strong market for mobile devices and it has a very good sales platform. Provided you have a potentially successful application, you cannot ignore this “1%” market of iOS users. Because for once, Apple’s share is actually much higher in the context of smart devices, and the likely hood that an iPhone or iPad user purchases your product is by far higher then that of any other OS.

One of the reasons why probably 100% of all Flash evangelists support the idea of having Flash and Air running on iOS. We want Flash/Air AND WE WANT iOS devices and last but not least share the market place.

What technology is used best right now depends on the project at hand, but saying that the 1% market of iOS users can be ignored is absolute nonsense.

May 6, 2011

@rascalpants You seem to be conveniently ignoring the fact that data visualizations can be developed using HTML5, CSS3, & JavaScript. Using that approach allows your visualization to be potentially seen by 100% of those using desktop computers, 100% of those using tablets, & 100% of those using smaller mobile devices like phones. Instead, you seem content to spin numbers as futilely as a Red Sox fan explaining why his team is better to a Yankee fan. No matter how you spin it, those numbers just don’t add up.

@Matthias Thank you for your even, measured response.

@Matthias – the article is being very generic when it is talking about visualizations. This could be any number of applications, animations, graphs, video mashups, etc etc etc. I am thinking visualizations that are processor & RAM heavy, rich media, fully immersive “visualizations”. Or at least that is what I am “assuming” we are talking about. And I happen to completely agree with you about using the right technology for the project. So with the assumption of the above, we need to think about the technology that fits the business requirement of largest market that can view the above types of visualizations.

* Side Note * – “…willingness to spend money for Flash/Air based applications”. I don’t recall anyone speaking about a “purchase” of media… just the consumption of media… I could again be wrong in my assumption, but I believe the intent of the above infographic is about consumption, not purchase. Obviously if your intent is to have a user “buy” your visualization, then by all means get it into the various app stores/markets in the appropriate format.

“The largest growing market today is that of mobile devices.” That is a very slippery slope marketing phrase… saying the fastest or largest growing market doesn’t say anything about market penetration. Google could come out with a new Invisible Time Machine and have 10K units sold in a minute, and say it is the largest growing market. We shouldn’t be fooled by projections and marketing hype.

I also believe the conversation is geared more towards Flash in the browser VS HTML5, and what platform can view it. If you start adding in AIR, then me personally, would most definitely go with Flash for visualizations like the above, because I not only can utilize a technology that is made specifically for these types of projects, but I also have a second delivery device that helps to spread the project to other platforms. Again, we are talking about processor heavy rich media projects. We can now get into a debate about which technology handles these types of visualizations the best, but then we have to break it down into the specific project, which can go on for days. So for the sake of this discussion, I will concede that HTML5 “can” do some of the things Flash can do, but as the author of this article states, you are more limited.

@Dale – I don’t believe I am ignoring that HTML5 et al “can” do a lot of the things Flash can do, I am just saying that based on my assumed project requirements, Flash in most cases is the better technology based my personal knowledge of the technologies and the above stats in the infographics. Your assumption is that HTML5 is capable and also the better option from a technology standpoint.

“Using that approach allows your visualization to be potentially seen by 100% of those using desktop computers, 100% of those using tablets, & 100% of those using smaller mobile devices like phones.”

According to the above infographics, the above statement cannot be true. There is no potential to have 100% of the market view any of these single “technology stacks”. If you go with an HTML5 implementation, then only 40% of the market, will see your visualization. So the better business decision is to go with the one with the highest market penetration… Flash at 99%. (even though I think it is a bit lower)

I don’t know how you could say I am spinning numbers. Please explain how I have done that.

I also don’t believe I am saying to ignore the market that owns a iOS device. I am actually using the information that I know about the iOS user, and the fact that they are also the same segment that is a heavy internet user on other devices like a Mac or PC. So even though they might miss the experience on their iOS device, they could catch it on the other devices they use as well.

My argument is not that Flash is always the answer in every situation, but I do believe from a market penetration perspective, Flash is the way to go.

@rascalpants The problem is that if you’re using the above infographics as fact, you’re being mislead. Read all the comments in this thread & you’ll see how misleading the numbers cited are.

The fact is that saying 40% of browsers support HTML5 is simply false.

I agree that a “better business decision is to go with the one with the highest market penetration”. If that’s our criteria, HTML5 easily beats Flash. Look:

HTML5: 100% desktop, 100% mobile
Flash: 99% desktop, 0% mobile

“My argument is not that Flash is always the answer in every situation, but I do believe from a market penetration perspective, Flash is the way to go.”

While Flash is very good for the web, not everyone downloads it or uses it. And many corporations block it.

Your statement about the Flash market is also a point in time statement – HTML5 is essentially a Flash killer by design. If I was starting out fresh today to learn a new technology I would be picking HTML5 over Flash. All browsers support the most important elements of HTML5, by year end even more of the spec will be supported. Next, you will see some amazing tooling around it, which I have been blogging about for around a month.

@rascalpants, we seem to be in violent agreement with regards to Flash and Air, but for the rest, I can’t follow your arguments:

If you are in the game for providing whatever content for free consumption, then of course hit the 99% market and ignore the iOS users. You could use the same sort of argument I often hear when I request Flash on iOS…”just buy a different device if you want it so badly”.

But frankly speaking, I believe the majority of us is in for the money one way or another. No negative thought to this from my end, we all need to live from something. So as soon you put earnings into the equation, my argument holds.

With regards to the fastest and largest growing market, please just do some research and you will find my point more than correct. Have a look at just one link…

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-trillion-dollar-gadget-sales.html

I believe it says it all.

Oh Gee, here we go again…HTML5 the Flash killer, now “by design”. My guess is, that I will not see this in my lifetime! Why? That’s why:

http://www.openscreenproject.org/about/

…and once you’re ready with this page look at the list of partners.

In essence, this project has support by most leading technology firms (except for Apple that is – until now) and it is all about getting Flash on every single multimedia device there is to come.

HTML5 will come and that is a good thing. Is it Flash killer? Continue dreaming!

Okay, let me see if I can respond to all three of you at once, and to make sure we are talking about the same thing the author of this article is talking about. We can do this by process of elimination.

- we are not having a general Flash VS HTML5 debate for all projects. That would be like having a Democrat VS Republican debate on economics… it is way too broad and makes everyone look stupid.

- There has never and will never be a single one size fits all solutions that works for 100% of desktop and 100% of mobile.

- There is no such thing as a Flash Killer, iPad Killer, Android Killer, or any other “killer”, and that type of phrase should never be used, unless you are talking about Typewriters.

With that out of the way, we can discuss this topic based on the argument that was originally presented by the author. Market Penetration of Flash VS HTML5 VS iOS for “visualizations”.

@Dale – “HTML5: 100% desktop, 100% mobile” The key flaw in your argument is that you cannot say 100%. HTML5 and 100% of all of the specifications, including those that pertain to the discussed visualizations, are not 100% supported in all browsers and mobile devices, so this line of text in your comments is moot. If you disagree, then show me a study the disproves that above sources. And again, I stress… make sure we are having the same conversation.

But lets assume the above statistics are correct… if so, then for a general public visualization, the better business decision is Flash. If your market is specialized, then by all means use the right technology for that segment.

forgot to add… the CES article really doesn’t say anything, because it doesn’t take the entire market into consideration, and the shear size of the already existing and established desktop/laptop market.

I think we as New Media Professionals only think in terms of our own devices and our own US market. We are a drop in the bucket when it comes to markets like China and India. And if something is being marketed as the largest growing blah blah blah, then think about the sapling in the forest to gain some perspective.

rascalpants I agree with you 100% on your 3 points, I simply reacted on Bob’s posting. I admit that these type of comments are slowly going on my nerves and hence my strong reaction (unlike my other responses). I will leave at that and focus on the subject of this discussion.

Re the CEA (not CES) article, it was merely one example. The net is full of similar observations. To make this clear, I’m not suggesting to dismiss the 99% market and focus on the 1% market. I’m merely saying not to dismiss the latter because of its size, but consider its value and focus on the entire market. I find the analysis and conclusion of this article to simplistic.

With this I will close my argument as I feel I have explained my standpoint in every way I could. I’m not here to convince anyone of my opinion, but to highlight some misconceptions.

my bad about the confusion of CEA vs CES… the CES was mentioned in the article and it stuck.

Misconceptions… I don’t think the issue here is misconceptions, but everyone having different conversations that are not directly related… which tends to happen in forums and comments.

Everyone has a unique point of view, and everyone approaches the discussion differently, which sometimes means we are all arguing with ourselves, because no one is “listening”.

@Bob I agree that HTML5 can do many of the things Flash can, but disagree that “HTML5 is essentially a Flash killer by design”. That’s not an accurate portrayal of the purpose of HTML5.

@rascalpants HTML5 vs. Flash is not the same as Democrats vs. Republicans. That would only be a valid analogy if one of the political parties required a plugin to work. The fact is these two technologies work on two different levels.

@rascalpants You also keep insisting the statistics mentioned in the article above are correct. They aren’t. Simple as that.

Lastly, I would like to offer a friendly challenge: Show me a Flash &/or Flex visualization that absolutely, positively cannot be accomplished via a combination of HTML5/CSS3/JavaScript. I’m not saying that’s impossible to find – I’m just respectfully asking to see it.

May 9, 2011

Dale, taking your challenge further, show me any of what you have mentioned that cannot be achieved in ‘C’ (the original Kernighan & Richie).

I’m sure you see what I want to say. It is not about the possible, it is about what makes sense (economically).

@Dale – The analogy works, because there are two(at least) different sides/opinions on the issue of economics, and in this case, there are two different sides/opinions on the issue of which technology to use. Needing a plugin to run, is a moot point with 99% market penetration of that plugin. A plugin allows for many different browsers to display one developed app the same way. There is no hacking together of JS libraries required to build one and deploy everywhere. Flash is the most ubiquitous fully implemented technology out there. 99.6% of the market has the player 9 version installed, so ALL of the features we are talking about work the same way. Now, I will conceded that Macs don’t perform as well as PCs when it comes to very complex algorithms, and I have seen recursion errors popup on a Mac, where the PC runs them fine. But for the most part, the technology is ubiquitous. But again, I am trying to argue my point from the perspective of business ROI, not fanboy rantings, so I digress.

“You also keep insisting the statistics mentioned in the article above are correct. They aren’t. Simple as that.” I am assuming that 4 or so sources that the author has cited have not falsified the information, so unless YOU can prove, with your own cited sources (2 or 3 would suffice) that the above information is a lie, then please post them here. It is up to the prosecution to bring the burden of proof, and determine in a person is guilty.

Lastly, I think Matthias has shared the same point of view that I have been inferring all along. There are obviously many ways in New Media to build out a web site, but why use a skateboard to ski down a snowy mountain?

I appreciate your viewpoint Dale, and believe that there is a time and place for most technologies, but in my opinion, and again… this is only an opinion, I believe Flash is the better choice from a business ROI perspective.

admin

@Dale, regarding your challenge to “..show me a Flash &/or Flex visualization that absolutely, positively cannot be accomplished via a combination of HTML5/CSS3/JavaScript…” It seems this gets back to the original point of the blog post. This wasn’t an attempt to say that HTML5 does not work. There are things that you can do in Flash that you can also do with HTML5, however you just won’t be able to reach as wide of an audience. Additionally, as noted, you will have performance issues in certain browsers.

Two examples of data visualizations that would likely not perform well in HTML5 are:
1) State of the Sockey: http://works.periscopic.com/iucn
2) VoteEasy: http://works.periscopic.com/voteeasy

@rascalpants @admin etc., I was all set to write this long comment where I refuted what each of you are saying line by line. But now I realize I was so focused on winning short term that I lost sight of the long term. In reality, I don’t have to do a thing. Instead, I’ll sit back & wait. Over time, each of your clients will ask you, “What about that HTML5 thing? What’s so special about that?” And you’ll lie to them & spin your numbers & try to convince them that Flash is the way to go. Truth is, in the back of their minds, they’ll doubt you because of all the things they’ve already heard in the media. “We’d like our visualization on mobile devices,” they’ll say. You’ll shuffle your feet & mutter that Flash can’t do that. And without another word from me, over time, my point will be proven.

So stick to your Flash. I’ll be waiting on the other side.

Dale, any Flash development can be done in such a way that it can be recompiled for Air in an instance and hence can be made available to the majority of the mobile (smart device) market. That is of course in addition to the 99% browser market. THAT INCLUDES iOS ! Right now the mobile classes of the Air SDK 2.6 are a bit limited and don’t support all feature of the Flash SDK – this as performance was staying top of the agenda, rather then completeness -, but in time (maybe a year from today) there will be virtually no difference.

And besides this point I believe that Apple – the only company refusing Flash on its devices – cannot stick to its “No Flash on iOS” policy much longer, as in the long run they will loose market share. Android is already taking the lead. And in turn iOS users will wonder why every other device can run Flash, but just not iOS devices.

I wouldn’t be too sure that waiting will help to proof your point. You might be surprised that it all turns out differently. Please don’t get wrong, HTML5 will come…to replace HTML (but that’s about it).

Developers will have a choice (which is good) depending on the project at hand. So wait on the HTML5 side of the fence and live happily ever after. Just down’t get sad if on the Flash side of the fence also everyone lives happily ever after.

Live is all about choices and in this case there is no right or wrong.

May 10, 2011

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[...] firm Periscopic takes a look at the Flash versus HTML5 debate and some considerations you should make if you're deciding which one to use in your projects. The [...]

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[...] firm Periscopic takes a look at the Flash versus HTML5 debate and some considerations you should make if you’re deciding which one to use in your projects. [...]

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[...] The link to the full article is here: http://now.periscopic.com/2011/05/our-research-into-flash-and-html5-which-one-is-right-for-your-proj…  [...]

@Dale – “And without another word from me, over time, my point will be proven.”

See this is the problem… clients need solutions that work for a massive scale audience today… not X number of months or maybe years down the road. They need delivery NOW… to the largest percentage of available market, in the least amount of hours, and on the smallest possible budget. Oh yeah… and they also want their new project to work on their 7 year old Compaq in their basement with God knows what browser.

And the fact that you still have not proven any of the above statistics wrong, or even misleading brings the burden back on you. This article is presenting information to educate the New Media community, and for someone to say that it is a “lie” without providing their own statistics to back up their own claims, goes against the goal of education and sharing. I came here to learn, and am very willing to learn from you, which is why I asked for sources that proven the above information wrong.

“We’d like our visualization on mobile devices,”

Here again, is an opportunity to learn about the best technologies for the project, and instead of just saying Flash is the only way to go, or HTML5 is the only way, I would have an open dialogue about the customers needs. Maybe they really just want to distribute their project in the various app stores, because it is an already existing distribution channel. Then I would have a number of options to consider.

“So stick to your Flash. I’ll be waiting on the other side.”

I really don’t think “waiting” is a good idea either… I think learning the facts about all of the technologies possible is a better option, and then developing with the right technology to achieve a business goal.

happy coding… hope your book does well Dale.

Chrome consigue las mismas prestaciones en HTML 5 que en Flash | ddg

[...] Our Research into Flash and HTML5: Which One is Right For Your Project? [...]

Andrew Begin

I’d like to offer up some first-hand research/knowledge that may be of interest re: HTML5 vs Flash. Being involved in Biz Dev for a JavaScript charting library that renders in Flash, HTML5 Canvas and SVG, my inbox provides an interesting viewpoint. Especially when compared with reality.

What the market wants:
We’ve seen significantly more interest in HTML5 technology in recent months than for that of Flash, both for startups and larger organizations. While all like the ‘option’ of serving Flash charts, most are developing their apps with HTML5 taking the lead.

Obviously (Apple) mobile created a considerable share of the anti-Flash sentiment. But now that the ball is rolling, many developers are focusing on the ‘open web’ and HTML5 technologies to do what they used to do with Flash. See some examples we curated over the winter at http://html5advent.com.

I must clarify ‘what the market wants.’ For me, it’s developers. But the real market is the end user of a phone, website or application. And I’d argue very few if any of them care about Flash vs. HTML5 so long as whatever they want to view works, is fast, and looks good wherever they’re accessing it.

The truth of the matter (as we’ve experienced):
Each technology has ups and downs, depending on project. In fact, even within charting, no technology rules all. For instance, SVG consistently beats Canvas when drawing simpler charts (small amount of nodes or basic line charts). But complex charts such as a bar chart with 3 series x 1000 nodes results in Canvas winning in a landslide (4 seconds). You can run your own tests at http://zingchart.com (Speed Test tab).

Further, the startup costs of Flash make it not as preferable in many cases, but a clear winner in charting and interacting with much larger datasets and complex dashboards.

“Which One is Right?”
Back to the original question at hand… none of them are, or, a better answer would be that all of them are. Let’s not get cornered into our own preferences that paint a broad stroke across the technologies. And instead, decide on a per-project basis keeping the audience and their browsing habits in mind.

Flash vs HTML5 | The Mobile Revolution

[...] Al die bevindingen hebben ze mooi in een infographic gestoken. Een analyse van elke sectie met extra gedachten over wat Periscopic leerde kan je terugvinden op hun site via deze link. [...]

May 11, 2011

Mike Brittain

I’m particularly interested in the mobile arguments, and was surprised by the “1%” stat that you used for iOS. Can you specify where this figure came from, and is it considered to be world-wide, or specific to North America?

Flash Users Doubles HTML5 Users | WebProNews

[...] that may be, the infographic in question, provided by Periscope.com, reveals this upcoming changeover has a ways to go before Flash is rendered obsolete. First, the [...]

OPISO » Flash Users Double HTML5 Users

Flash Users Double HTML5 Users | Programming Blog

Jacob O'Brien

@Mike, these are the sources we used for this infographic. All browser stats used are global, you’ll have to do a little math to get to the 1% iOS number. Approximately 5-6% of the browser market share is mobile, iOS accounts for somewhere between 18-20% of that market depending on the source.

W3Counter : http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php
Net Applications : http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=0
StatCounter : http://gs.statcounter.com/
StatOwl : http://www.statowl.com/
Clicky : http://www.getclicky.com/marketshare/global/web-browsers/

Microsoft Buys Skype, Facebook Starts A Fight With Google, Google Set To Dole Out $500 Million, & More | Rocket Clicks Blog

[...] Analysis By: Dino Citraro, Periscopic [...]

May 13, 2011

Since you asked for it…

http://www.lucasarts.com/games/legostarwarsiii/index.jsp

Can HTML5 do that without blowing a fuse… probably not.

Major brands expect their agencies to develop a fully immersive experience, most of which cannot be done in HTML5.

I DID see some impressive work done with it recently though that reminded me of the WildTangent Web Driver, which is a 3D ActiveX plugin for the browser. WildTangent could use native JavaScript (or compiled Java) to build 3D environments/games. WebGL promises this, but seems to crash a lot more browsers than it doesn’t.

François

Another aspect that has not been considered when it comes to choose between Flash and HTML5/JS is perhaps productivity.
I do believe that actually the set of tools usable with flash technology is far superior to what can be found on the other side.
Perhaps because html5 is still not mature, however development and maintenance costs are greatly impacted by this fact.

Flash or HTML 5 // ALL ABOUT DESIGN

[...] Flash versus HTML: For large web data visualization project, which one reaches more audience on current market: [...]

Great research, very helpful.

However, comparing both technology might not be good idea, obviously each has own capabilities. Flash, for in stance, could be stepping up much way beyond stages, such as gaming industry and OOH etc, rather than sticking on web environment. plus, HTML5 is recent trend as all might know already won’t kill flash basically. It could be remaining and stable as web standard with multiple browser support, but visualization is just lack of shinning. All I have to say is up to the project. Incomparable.

May 14, 2011

[...] firm Periscopic takes a look at the Flash versus HTML5 debate and some considerations you should make if you’re deciding which one to use in your [...]

May 15, 2011

Infographic. Flash vs. HTML5. Which One is Right for your Project? | rasdroid

[...] periscopic Check these out too! Infographic. Sitting is killing You. The truth about Infographic. Five [...]

May 16, 2011

Dusan Mijatovic

Great post and the discussion!

I believe this is the question every data visualization developer asks itself since the introduction of iPhone and iPad. At least I was asking myself this question number of times during 2010.

And it is definitely not easy to make right choice. We learned that begin this year during the introduction of our political polls dashboard. In our case the optimal approach was to offer most important parts of the solution in both technologies Flash and HTML5.

I created blog as a reply to this article because I want to emphasize additional aspects we faced in the practice, beside which technology is supported by majority of the internet users. And I want to share what we learned. This is just one example but I hope it will help you make better choice for your data visualization project.

You can read it here http://www.tumblr.com/tumblelog/html5-flash

Regards,
Dusan Mijatovic

I just notices I poseted incorrect link to my blog .

Here is correct link http://html5-flash.tumblr.com/

Scott @ Screenflex Room Dividers

I’m curious where you are getting the source of the 99% install base for Flash?

Here’s some statistics from some different sites I manage:

1) medium website has the following statistics:

May 2009 – 98% Flash install base
May 2011 – 93% Flash install base

2) small website has the following statistics:

May 2009 – 96% Flash install base
May 2011 – 89% Flash install base

3) small/medium website has the following statistics:

May 2009 – 96% Flash install base
May 2011 – 86% Flash install base

In all three cases, the Flash install base is dropping. The question we have to ask is the trend exponentially increasing or will it stabilize?

I agree with some other commenters that Javascript, CSS, & HTML can do what Flash can do and one can do it in a cross-browser functionality. However, it may be easier to do it in Flash.

Another question a client will ask when looking at the project is how long will this interactive piece live on my website? Am I designing for now and will I replace it in three months or two years? I know many of us might scoff at two years, but I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of small/medium sized websites that could use an overhaul.

At the very least, you’ve brought up some salient points and remind us to think about the technology choices. Thanks for doing the leg-work and sparking the conversation.

May 17, 2011

@Scott We got our Flash statistics from Adobe. You can view them here: http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/?promoid=IBDID

May 18, 2011

@admin You didn’t notice that Adobe contradicts itself in the report you quote as gospel? First they say 99% then 98% then 99%. Which is it? Regardless, John Gruber of Daring Fireball explained that Flash isn’t installed on 98% or 99% of browsers – it’s installed on 98% or 99% of browsers that are capable of running Flash. Not the same thing.

@Dale, which browsers do not support Flash? iOS, BB (except the new Playbook) and older smartphone devices. I believe that the statistics of this article will show hardly any difference if you take of BB and older smartphone devices from the 99% portion (iOS is already taken off).

Scott, have you excluded iOS devices from your statistics?

@Dale, and with regards to the Adobe statistics…

1) what is the difference between 99% and 98% in the context of this discussion?

2) have you opened the link to the mobile device statistics and the anticipated 80% penetration by 2015?

Josh Anderson

Thank you for being on board with common sense and helping educate the market.

The anti flash hype machine and html5 misinformation machines are not going to be happy with you

We published an article regarding the deception behind the html5 hype machine last year: http://transparentplayer.com/html5_video.html

Since then we have helped many clients adopt the smart market-centric approach of flash by default and html5 fallback by sensing iOS visitors.

Regardless of statistical variations the stark constrast in market penetration is undeniable and anyone who attempts to continue to deny the desirability of a default flash approach with html5 fallback is doing a disservice to their clients if they recommend html5 video default.

Its all about the eyeballs and if you want more eyeballs its flash default html5 fallback.

@Matthias

That 80% penetration by 2015 number is pure crystal-ball gazing. Even if that’s true, what will be HTML5′s penetration by 2015? I’ll bet it’ll be higher than 80%.

@Scott – I think you are approaching this issue in the right way, by looking at your own web site traffic, and determining the market penetration, but for this study, as Admin mentioned, they went off of Adobe’s numbers. But to put up some of my own numbers, to give you some perspective, I just looked at the analytics data from a web site I have access to, and here are the stats I found.

256,809 visits (in 30 days)

18,112 No Flash, All OS

4942 = iPad, No Flash
4239 = iPhone, No Flash
3456 = Mac, No Flash
789 = iPod, No Flash
756 = Android, No Flash
447 = no OS set
386 = BlackBerry, No Flash
186 = Linux, No Flash
32 = Samsung, No Flash

The above numbers include the majority of “not set” or what most people consider “No Flash Installed” users. There is some pretty good information here, and you can also make some informed assumptions that will help you make a decision. The stats are very similar to to some of your stats, and it looks like there is a 93% market penetration for this three month period on this web site. But the interesting thing that you can assume is that iPad, iPhone, and iPod users will also have a primary device like a laptop or PC to view web sites. To me, this means that even though 9970 or 55% of the No Flash user will still have the opportunity or potential to view the Flash-based content on their primary device. So in my opinion, this web site has the potential to reach 97% of users with Flash-based content, and more if you count the number of non-iOS secondary devices like the G1.

Now, I know I will be attacked for using fluffy words like “potential”, but from a business perspective you are always making assumptions and betting on the potential of your products and services.

@Dale – Yes, Adobe should be stoned for the misprint about 99% / 98%, but your comment about being installed on XX% of browsers that are capable of running Flash needs a bit more explanation. What exactly are you trying to say? Also, I don’t believe Adobe is claiming anything other than, “…reaching 98% of Internet-enabled desktops in mature markets…”. I don’t see any claims stating otherwise.

As for John Gruber, I see him as a closed-minded Flash hater, from his various postings on his site, which means his information will be suspect and heavily biased. Its like listening to a “Birther” trying to explain how Obama should be impeached. You are just not going to get good information from the source. I also did not find any discussions about Flash Market Penetration percentage, so please point me in that direction.

One thing I have noticed is that there is a group of individuals that “preach” web standards and anti-Flash sediments, but they typically ignore what the User wants, and instead tell them what they need. The same group thinks that any browser plugin is the spawn of Satan himself, all the while using FireBug and IE Tab to spin their semantic web. I have always viewed Browser Plugins as a way to extend the web browsing experience, and give the user what they want… a fully immersive interactive experience. I have yet to hear an argument against the use of Flash, that takes the generalized public and puts them at the top of the priority list.

Users want Flash… or at least 99% of them do.

EDIT: sediments = sentiments

not sure if Flash plays in rivers quite yet

@rascalpants “Users want Flash… or at least 99% of them do.” Wow, that’s a statistic I’d love to see backed up. And don’t say because Flash is already installed on so many browsers that it means people “want” it. That won’t pass the straight-face test. It’s there because for years Flash was bundled with browsers.

You mention web standards folks who don’t like browser plugins but use tools like FireBug but that’s another attempt to spin information to arrive at the outcome you desire. We developers suffer through browser plugins so our end users don’t have to.

If you spin projects as well as you spin perceptions, I’m sure you have a very successful career.

@admin – Thanks for clarifying the source data.

@Matthias Wille – Why would I exclude iOS devices from my statistics? They are the users of the websites. I want them to achieve the website’s goals just as much as other users.

@rascalpants – Assuming iOS users will use their alternative device is not user-centric thinking. It frustrates me, when I’m on an iOS device and go to a flash based site or a flash based video and get served a big empty box or a dumbed down version. Big budget sites are smarter these days and serve multiple versions of their site, but doesn’t that defeat the purpose of using Flash in the first place?

The thing is, to code interactive animation with cross-browser compatibility, We will likely need to either forget a portion of the web population (which is argued for in this article), or we’ll need to use multiple versions, A flash Version, a javascript version, etc…

Business owners don’t care about technology, they just want to sell more widgets. Users don’t care about technology, they just want to interact and engage with websites in a dynamic way so they can buy more widgets.

My thought behind posting some stats, was that I think the 99% flash browsers is over-stated. I think it was true at one point, but I’m not sure it is true anymore. Additionally, I think we have to look at the trends. Trends point to more mobile usage. The question is will those mobiles have flash installed?

@dale – it is not a stat, it is a quote. I said it, and it is a biased opinion… not a stat. And thanks for supporting my opinion by highlighting the fact that game-changing corporations like Google and Microsoft thought that enough users wanted the Flash Player to bundle it with their browsers.

I don’t know of any web dev worth their salary that doesn’t use 3 to 5 browser plugins to expedite their production process. These plugins were created because there was a demand, much like the demand for Flash.

I hope your book has a bit more substance than your comments.

@Dale, I really wasn’t trying to start the usual “HTML5 vs Flash” argument. I honestly had enough of this. I simply wanted to indicated that there is not need to discuss the used statistical info to the detail of 99% vs 93% as it doesn’t make a difference. That is way my argument was towards the value of the few percent of users not having Flash capabilities and what the best strategy is to include them into your targeted user base.

But as you started it, I just want to point you towards some official timelines of HTML5. The following is taken from the official W3C sites…

“Question: When will HTML5 be finished? What is the status of HTML5?

HTML5 is a work in progress. We expect to be feature complete by May 2011″ (May is here, but haven’t heard anything about the feature complete status). “W3C is developing a comprehensive test suite to achieve interoperability for the full specification by 2014, the target date for Recommendation.”

Considering a target date for the full specification document is the year 2014 and not suggesting this target date is maybe too “crystal-ball glazing”, it is unlikely that by 2015 a wide spread penetration will be achieved where one HTML5 app works on all browsers without browser specific adjustments.

Having said this, I do believe HTML5 will at one point supersede HTML, but it won’t replace Flash. So we can meet in 2015 and discuss again what the better technology is for what purpose. Right now it’s a little premature.

If I walk into a carpenter’s shop, and ask for a table, the carpenter will make a wood table.

If I walk into a metal shop, and ask for a table, the metal shop will make a metal table.

If I walk into a plastic shop, and ask for a table, I’m going to get a plastic table.

Now back to technology:

If I ask for engaging website that works on all browsers with visualization, 3d models, animation, etc.

If I go to a Flash shop, I’m going to get a Flash site.

If I go to a Microsoft shop, I might get a Silverlight site.

If I go to a Standards shop, I will get a standards based, plug-in free site.

The user doesn’t care except, they want it to work on all their devices.
What should a forward-thinking client get with a constrained budget?

@Dale, What do you think? Don’t you think it should be a Flash + HTML5 implementation right now?

@Scott

“Assuming iOS users will use their alternative device is not user-centric thinking.”

I am not saying they will have the potential to view the content on an alternative device, but on their “primary device”. Based on various articles that I have read in the past that state that the typical iDevice user also has a primary device, like a MacBook, iMac, or PC, where they do the majority of their web surfing. If you have an article or study that has found that most iDevice users only use that device for web surfing, or use it the majority of the time for surfing, then that is great information to have on a specific demographic. send it along if you have it.

” It frustrates me, when I’m on an iOS device and go to a flash based site or a flash based video and get served a big empty box or a dumbed down version.”

Isn’t this like walking into a Burger King and getting mad that you can’t order a Big Mac? Or more like a person who buys a Hummer and doesn’t like the fact that they get 6 miles to the gallon. You chose to purchase a device that does not support a technology that is extremely ubiquitous on the web.

“…but doesn’t that defeat the purpose of using Flash in the first place?”

No it doesn’t. For the majority of their market, they want to provide a specific user experience. Having the budget for an alternative version of a site is important for the general public is you want to reach as much market share as possible.

“Business owners don’t care about technology, they just want to sell more widgets. Users don’t care about technology, they just want to interact and engage with websites in a dynamic way so they can buy more widgets.”

I completely agree with this, and have been saying all along… or at least attempting to say it. And as experts in our field, it is up to us to make recommendations to the business owners to user a technology that can be used by as much of a specific market population as possible. And in this article, the argument is in favor of Flash.

I also agree that the 99% statistic that Adobe has supplied is not something we should bring to our clients, and instead should use our own analytical data, or better yet, that of the clients, to make a case for a specific use of technology.

I didn’t see Josh’s post. I think you’ve got it right.

…adopt the smart market-centric approach of flash by default and html5 fallback by sensing iOS visitors.

@Scott – you forgot to walk into a New Media Agency that is talented and knowledgeable enough to know what tool to use for the specific user population, project, and budget constraint.

@Scott, to properly get your statistics into the context of this discussion, it is important to know why you experience a drop in Flash enabled users. If the answer is because of the increase in iOS users – and for this matter all other smart device users without Flash support, such as Blackberry users – then it is clear that your suggestion that the drop in percentage of Flash enabled users could continue to rise will likely not be true and the effect will rather be of temporary nature.

Reason being that smart (mobile) devices have web enabled for longer than they got Flash enabled. Considering the Adobe statistics about Flash penetration in mobile devices by the year 2015 – and assuming they are not too far off – one can say that this ditch in your statistics will soon disappear as more and more mobile devices will be Flash enabled. I believe it is fair to assume that the penetration of normal PC users will remain at a high percentage value (be it 99% or slightly less).

I believe the decisive factor in the statistics is the mobile device market. And here are three actors which will make the difference. As Android’s market share will over proportionally rise, the percentage of Flash supported devices will rise. The next actor is RIM. If the Playbook is just the start and OS7 or OS8 will maybe too support Flash, then only iOS stays behind…or maybe not, who knows

In any case, it is very likely that you will experience a rise in percentage of Flash enabled users any time soon.

@rascalpants

“New Media Agency” LOL. I used to think that was the case, but I’ve just talked to a bunch of Design Firms and Freelancers recently about a couple of projects, and Its clear they all are biased towards their expertise. Very few have the expertise or are are savvy enough to recommend a multi-tiered approach.

I think the Burger King – Big Mac analogy is a little off. I’m not sure if I have a better one. Here’s a try:

It’s like Burger King not offering me a Whopper, because they don’t want to put the whopper in my bag. They have to use their bag. Which Burger King has every right to decide, and I as the consumer, can walk away or Burger King can decide to change their policy.

@Matthias Wille
Good points. Definitely agree that PC statistics remain high. In my case, the statistics definitely coincide with an increase in mobile devices. from near 0% in 2009 up to about 6+% in 2011. That’s the trend, I’m wondering about.

I guess I predict mobile device usage will continue to increase. (I know going out on a limb.)

In the short term, mobile devices will continue to not have Flash.

In the long-term, adobe, apple, microsoft, et al., will either strike deals to get flash to work on mobile devices or adobe will transition to an Flash/HTML5 hybrid implementation. In fact, I’m sure adobe will do both. Its whether Apple will agree to install apple.

One wrench is if Apple continues to sell increasing market share of non iOS computers, because future Mac’s will not come bundled with flash which may mean a lower install base.

Great Fun discussion!

@Scott – I agree with you… not all agencies are created equal, and the majority of agencies, much like developers, will pick one side or the other, and it is normally based on their unwillingness to learn or lack of skill in one technology that gives them an easy path to making a decision. Again, a “good” agency will have the skills or at least the technical knowledge to recommend the right solution.

I love me a good Analogy Battle, especially with someone willing to listen to a different point of view. But I think your BK Bag analogy is also a bit off, and should be closer to this…

“It’s like Burger King not offering me a Whopper, because they don’t want to put the whopper in my bag because my bag doesn’t had a big enough opening to fit the Whopper. They have to use their bag.”

I don’t think it has ever been a secret that iDevices don’t support Flash, and Steves Jobs made sure everyone knew that with his marketing letter about not supporting Flash. So you knew full well that your “bag” would not be big enough, and that you might “stay hungry” if you walk into a “BK” and expect a “Whopper”. I understand that at the time of purchase, the bag you currently have was the best choice for you, but for the majority of hungry customers, they are using a bag with a larger opening and enjoying a tasty burger.

Man, I am hungry.

OK guys that’s it. Burgers, bags and Flash…we definitely are heading in the right direction…LOL

It remains great discussion although at some points seems people lose temper .

As mentioned earlier, we also came up to same conclusion as Josh: at this moment both technologies should be supported in your DV solution and user should be automatically forwarded to suitable version. The solution will provide same information but highly likely look slightly different (however nice looking in both cases!). On this blog you can see what we have done with most important part of our dashboard and the difference between solutions http://html5-flash.tumblr.com/

The average customer does not have notion about used technology as long as it works. Only when solution does not work, the customer might became aware about used technology and that’s not the best way to present your technology to user (eg. iPhone user thinks “Flash = bad/no experience”). The same user on the PC sees no special notion that something is created in Flash, so on PC there is not association “Flash=Nice experience” (it just works with no special message “this is Flash”).

Concerning the discussion about statistics. I am a researcher for more than 10 years and my advice is: you definitely should ONLY use Flash/NonFlash stats from the website you are developing for. These are ONLY relevant stats for you. Per website difference can go from 90% NonFlash to 0.01% NonFlash. Using statistics from other websites is good way to make you aware that other website have different population composition (or similar). This is important information but not in deciding what is optimal DV solution for your website.

The “problem” with dual approach (Flash/HTML5) is the budget and turnover time on large projects. The customer usually will not accept the costs. The supporters from both camps, who favor one of the approaches, do not help customer realize the risk of choosing single approach and possible consequences (dissatisfied customers posting all over the web their anger and criticism).

I expect that short future might became even more confusing because Flash/HTML5 support on smart phones is used as strong unique selling point. I expect that Google will continue to support Flash and might slowdown support of all HTML5 and Apple will not implement Flash in the near future. If Apple implements Flash it will be experienced as losing the war against Google (and Adobe). This would demage Apple’s image because Android and Apple are strongest competitors. In my view Apple’s strongest point is their image. Supporting Flash years later than Android just does not fit that image. Although I think iPhone users would not object Flash support because I truly believe that they too are not interested in the technology as long as it helps them achieve their primary goal and that is: “obtain the information they are looking for on the internet”.

May 19, 2011

Enjoying the discussion here folks… some good arguments (and some not so good ) As I said last week, I’m not nearly as partisan on the issue, but find the topic to be interesting and important.

Came across this article about the status (and current limitations) of HTML5 for mobile:

“HTML5 isn’t solving mobile dev issues yet” – Macworld
http://www.macworld.com/article/159922/2011/05/html5_mobile_development.html#lsrc.nl_macweek_h_crawl

@Dusan

“The average customer does not have notion about used technology”

I have to disagree… and Motorola and BlackBerry have spent millions of dollar on TV commercials stating that their tablets have Flash.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STw4zti94iM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndhuEUX1kIU (hate commercial)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHOZZJ_2Wjg (may not be a broadcast video)

I think these commercials are enough to make my case for “users want it” and “users care about the technology used”, or else they would not specifically state the tablets have Flash.

I also think that if we continue to see the growth in Android devices that support Flash AND this impacts the sales of iDevices, then Apple will quietly start supporting Flash.

I think this is the quote that says a lot about HTML5 in general, BUT is not in favor of Flash, but instead in favor of Apps(for mobile).

“Starbucks initiated a project to use HTML5 in hopes of making its Website work well across the many mobile browsers. “It worked but it taught us it was too hard,” said K.C. MacLaren, director of mobile and emerging technologies at Starbucks. Starbucks’ Website is relatively “high functioning,” with a lot of Javascript, making it hard to replicate, he said. It took too much work to transition the site to HTML5 and make it run well on the many browsers that run on mobile phones, he said.”

And yes, I do know you can build apps with Flash/AIR, and also build apps with a JavaScript stack and port to apps using Titanium Dev.

@rp -

Those “Supports Flash” ads stuck out to me as well when I saw them, as somebody in the industry. But I wouldn’t go so far as to say:

“I think these commercials are enough to make my case for “users want it” and “users care about the technology used”, or else they would not specifically state the tablets have Flash.”

Users don’t “desire” Flash. They desire interactive media, which means not staring at a big blue Lego. So sure, they desire a device that can play all available media.

So from an advertising perspective it’s smart to take shots at something that frustrates users about Apple products (lack of interactive media), but I wouldn’t assume this to mean they care what we use to build that media.

@Andrew – The entire premise of a nationwide ad for Blackberry, which millions of people have seen, was specifically about Flash. The commercial is specifically selling Flash as a way to get a full web experience. Hell, they even went so far as purchase to rights from Queen to play the song.

Yes, they “desire” a full web experience and Flash is the way Blackberry is marketing how to get what they want. They are selling it in this ad as the main feature of the tablet.

It is the same as Samsung selling an LED HDTV… watchers “desire” a picture perfect extremely thin TV, and LED is the feature that is marketed to them to get it. So they “want” that feature in a TV, just as much as a person who knows nothing about Flash, wants it because they are told it will give them a full web experience.

We can get hung up on semantics, but the commercials still prove my point, that the end user wants a feature to satisfy their desires.

@Rascalpants

I totally agree with Andrew.

Using Flash as a differentiator is smart business from Blackberry & the Mobile providers, but normal users are not going into the store saying. Oh, I need a Phone that has flash. Even after watching the commercials. Of course, I think if anyone knows someone who owns a mobile phone store, they’ll have better data.

Why are we arguing over semantics? You get the idea… there is no need to hire a psychologist to figure out a person’s desires.

But… they WILL actually go into a store and regurgitate a feature they heard on TV or someone else say online, especially something as easy to remember as “Flash”. There are a few parodies of Best Buy VS Customer conversations on the web that make fun of this very fact.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL7yD-0pqZg (use speakers)

“It has the WIFIs”… priceless!

A person has no idea what the feature is or why they want it, but they WILL ask for it if it is mentioned in the media.

But we digress…

WHOOPS! should have said… (use headphones)

sorry

Consumers maybe do not care about the technology behind buzz words, but they do memorize and connect the latter to a property a product has or not. Hence consumers do make equations such as Device with Flash = More Media, Apple Devices = Less Media. Of course other parameters going into the decision making, such as iTunes – which compensates to a certain extend – , otherwise Apple wouldn’t sell.

May 20, 2011

Jeff @ Academia

Awesome post. Cheers. Please make sure to keep blogging.

May 22, 2011

et al…

This is a nice article that explains one area where the iDevice rules… mobile video.

http://goo.gl/LkLDr

know your audience… if you want to serve video to mobile… bess use HTML5.

May 24, 2011

Flash vs. HTML5 Infographic | Best Infographics

[...] platform and has a large following. Flash websites are better supported too. The following infographic by periscopic.com compares how Flash stacks up against [...]

June 5, 2011

Flash vs. HTML5 | 视物 | 致知

[...] 用可视化的方法比较几个相似的东西，显示它们在不同属性上的特点，可以帮助读者快速而直观的发现它们之间的差异。我们已经介绍过了MAC用户 vs. PC用户和更现代的火狐？等这类的可视化作品。设计公司Periscopic往往会收到用户关于Flash和HTML5的询问，在两者之间选择实现网页设计。为此，该公司制作了一个关于Flash versus HTML5 的可视化，列出了几点可能用作项目选择的参考意见，而主要的观点是:Flash明显拥有大量的用户，而缺点是有些移动设备并不支持；HTML5目前还是处于开发阶段。同学们，看了上面的对比，你会选择哪个呢？对于不同的属性，上面的作品采用了不同的可视化方法。如果同学们也来设计这样可视化，会采用怎么样的组合呢？ [...]

June 13, 2011

Hype or a new age of rich media on the web? | Salted Herring Blog

[...] graphic interpretation recently (with a lot of debate following) summing up the numbers. http://now.periscopic.com/2011/05/our-research-into-flash-and-html5-which-one-is-right-for-your-proj... Still only around 2% of average internet users globally are coming from iOS (iPad and iPhone) [...]

June 14, 2011

HTML 5 vs Flash: Is Flash really on its death bed? | Frank Digital Blog

[...] Designers Perioscopic did some research into HTML5 vs Flash with some interesting results. We’re a bit skeptical though. Their research into browser [...]

Mark

Yay, lies of adobe evangelists. Flash is less than 99% as of now, and iOS browsers are somewhat more that 1%. And in terms of revenue, one iPad user is more valuable than ten people that use Firefox, give or take.

Can’t be honest when doing business, can we.

June 23, 2011

Bogdan

And consider Opera browser if you’re aiming at Ex-USSR market: in Russia, Ukraine, and other CIS countries it’s a lot more popular than all Firefox versions alltogether.

@Mark

“And in terms of revenue, one iPad user is more valuable than ten people that use Firefox, give or take.”

I would rather tell “lies” that are backed up by research studies conducted by 3rd parties, than to tell the “truth” without evidence.

Until the stats for Flash go below 75% and the stats for iOS go above 15%, then the argument about Business ROI still stands.

Alan Gilbertson

Nice to see this work being done. Although like some others here I would question one or two of the assumptions, the general conclusion matches what I see in day to day analytics.

One website that I manage and track closely for a theater client (it’s a regional performing arts center) gives a pretty good picture of average browser usage. In the last month, iPad accounts for 2.4% of the traffic, iPhone and iPod 5.7%, Android 7.5% (up from 5.8% 3 months ago), all other mobile 0.6%. Non-mobile platforms show Windows 68.75%, Mac OS 13.6%, *nix 0.5%, with some random bits like Google TV, PS3 and the Wii rounding out the balance.

Mobile platforms as a whole comprise about 17% of site visits, up a few percent from last quarter. (It’s about 13% for the year to date.)

About 13% of all visitors, pretty consistently, do not have Flash. This would be all of the iThings, Blackberry, Symbian, ‘Droids running 2.1 or below, and those regular systems that did not have or weren’t enabling Flash.

This is just one site, but it’s visited by a wide demographic, so probably fairly representative. Netaverages shows Windows with 86% and Mac OS <10%, so our Southern California market area may be a bit skewed toward Macs compared to the global average.

One other snippet of interest: all the 4:3 screen ratio sizes are trending down; 16:9 and other non-4/3rds are trending up.

June 29, 2011

@rascalpants: For all the hype, video on any mobile device is still a pretty lame experience once you’ve gotten over the novelty (“Look Mabel! It’s amazing!”). The article you linked starts with, “Mobile video is still a small part of overall online viewing…”, a fact that is no surprise to anyone.

In the context of this thread, though, the fact that you mention it points up the masterful bit of marketing that Apple did in equating Flash with video, which of course it isn’t, and also isn’t the point of the research we’re discussing here.

Robin Hilliard

I was surprised to get this far through the comments without anyone pointing out that this is all about what’s happening inside the browser, and not desktop/mobile/embedded apps and user experiences in general.

We use HTML/JQuery and Flash/Flex/AIR technology extensively along with native iOS and Android, and the trend I see is that fewer and fewer of our applications (as opposed to vanilla “document” style web sites) run inside a browser, especially on mobile where people have very strong expectations of how their apps should behave native UX-wise (Sencha and JQuery Mobile are nice, but our clients prefer a native UI).

The HTML5 vs Flash arguments will continue (unfortunately) but in the meantime the role of the browser is changing. You can wait for the Flash plugin penetration to fall to 75%, but in that time it’s also possible that HTML will increasingly become the content you put in your fancy Webkit rich interactive layout control, in a native or AIR mobile/desktop application (TweetDeck anyone?).

Robin

@Alan, I cannot concur with your experience. I reach max. bandwidth of 6/1.5 Mbps and an average of 4/1 with my HTC Desire HD. I can watch YouTube video in HQ with crystal clear sound and perfect high resolution (pixelisation free) video. In all an excellent experience. Maybe you should relocate to Malta and get an HTC Desire HD

June 30, 2011

Flash or HTML5? | DustyPixels.com

[...] Periscopic – Our Research into Flash and HTML5: Which One is Right For Your Project? [...]

July 3, 2011

Neil

And the best thing about Flash is, you no longer have to worry about portability, because you will generally be using a mains cable.

July 6, 2011

Flash vs. HTML5 :: Innovatie Dagblad

[...] var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};Design firm Periscopic takes a look at the Flash versus HTML5 debate and some considerations you should make if you’re deciding which one to use in your projects. [...]

July 8, 2011

HTML 5 versus Flash | Let's Flash!

[...] machen, die Leistungsfähigkeit und Einsatzmöglichkeiten beider Kontrahenten zu befragen, so etwa now.periscopic.com: Flash (links) versus HTML 5 [...]

Computed·Blg

Why Opposing HTML5 And Flash Is Nonsense…

Via Forbes —– HTML5 is a hot topic, which is a good thing. The problem is that 99% of what’s been written has been about HTML5 replacing Flash. Why is that a problem? Because not only is it irrelevant, but also it prevents you from seeing…

July 19, 2011

BrettK

It’s so much simpler than everyone makes it out to be though… Flash gets you 99% of your audience minus those stubborn mobile apple folks.

The mobile market is pushing flash comparability as a big feature on new devices (View the whole web not just a part) style marketing lines… So soon enough Flash is going to be supported on 99% of all mobile devices too.

Does that mean HTML 5 is useless? no! HTML as is, is defunct and awful. It desperately needs this update. What’s happening now is HTML 5 is moving into the space that flash used to own (Vector graphics, animation, ect) but flash is moving on too (3d and GPU acceleration, ect).

The result? A future web that is much better and fully interactive but not unlike the one before apple threw in a stupid speed bump. A web of blended content, HTML5, Flash, and possibly more, working together and reaching the max number of people.

July 21, 2011

thehalvo

Yeah where did you get your stats exactly? Some of them seem really off. I completely agree with Dale Cruse that ‘concluding that 40% of browsers support HTML5 is 100% misleading’ and ‘saying “What was more interesting is that only 1% of browsers are available for use on the iOS.” is also very misleading. Here’s a better statistic, in my opinion: Is HTML5 supported on iOS? Yes. Is Flash supported on iOS? No. 100% vs 0%. There’s a statistic.’

I think you need to do some more research, rewrite your article, and amend your points to be fair to your audience.

@thehalvo Our sources for the infographic are listed at the bottom. Did you view the entire image? http://now.periscopic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Flash_or_HTML5_0502111.jpg

@thehalvo – I think you misinterpreted the article. the 1% is about the number of ppl that have Safari for iOS and that market penetration… the 99% is the Flash player penetration in all browsers.

So out of the over 2 Billion potential users… 99% of them have the potential to view your content with Flash, while only 20 Million or 1% can view your content if it is specific for Safari on iOS.

I think you show your naivety (business & otherwise) by implying that iOS is the only system (HTML5 works 100% for iOS) that a general audience will be using. Far from it, and the article and comments explain this.

if you would read thru the plethora of comments, you will see this discussion and the article more clearly for what it is trying to communicate.

most important… know your audience.

@thehalvo. Not sure if you follow the developments in the mobile market. Except for iOS devices, the entire rest of the market is heading towards Flash support or is already supporting it respectively. I have an HTC Desire HD and a Blackberry Playbook and Flash runs perfectly well on both. NO CRASHES, NO SLUGGISHNESS.

When it comes to HTML5 vs. Flash it is only the mobile device market that is effected by this debate anyway. All other platforms support Flash and HTML5 (or will support HTML5 – as it is no concrete standard yet).

Latest Gartner statitics show following market share for smart phones:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139301/Symbian_Android_will_be_top_smartphone_OSes_in_12_Gartner_reiterates

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139026/Android_to_grab_No._2_spot_by_2012_says_Gartner

“Here is the full official 2012 forecast from Gartner, based on sales of 525 million smartphones: Symbian, 196.5 million sold, 37.4% share; Android, 94.5 million sold, 18% share; BlackBerry, 73 million sold, 13.9%; iPhone, 71.5 million sold; 13.6% share; Windows Mobile, 47.7 million sold, 9% share; Maemo, 23.5 million sold, 4.5% share; Linux (generally), 11 million, 2.1% share; WebOS (from Palm Inc.) 7.6 million sold, 1.4% share.”

Whilst this doesn’t include the new tablet market and whilst Apple has still a good lead here, I’m certain in the next years the statistics will look pretty much alike.

So if you look at the numbers, it is clear that non Flash supporting iOS devices will have a market share of anything between 10-20% of mobile devices (which again is a fraction of the overall market of Flash supporting platforms).

Though as said before, iOS is a lucrative market. So probably you end up needing to support both Flash and HTML5 to reach all users.

But if your website content requires Flash because there is no alternative technology available yet (and HTML5 doesn’t cover it all, never will), screw the iOS market, you probably can live with it.

July 22, 2011

Why Opposing HTML5 And Flash Is Nonsense | Movie Streaming

[...] Less than half of installed browsers are HTML5 compliant, with different levels of compliance. [...]

July 26, 2011

Brendan

Regardless of all the comments. Try getting a designer that knows very little coding and just wants to animate that it needs to be html5. There is not a chance in hell they will surrender animation over to a developer. Therefore Flash wins because there are no tools for designers that come close to the convenience of Flash. Java couldn’t do it and neither will html5. Html5 could eventually turn into flash and people would then moan about it’s canvas being abused. The ROI of an html5 site is nowhere near that of a flash site. Build once almost deploy everywhere. Oh and those flash/java developers that are doing your crazy canvas experiments are the same ones that will be too busy to come back and make tweaks for your html 5 site too. The javascript apis are waaaaay too fragmented. If developer A works on a site and developer B comes along and has to learn 4 new api’s before taking on the changes what does that do to the cost? Might as well rewrite. Flash is as close to a magic bullet as one can get for everything. Oh and if you love the freedom of open source and being hip, just grab a free open source flex sdk, a free copy of flash develop and ride! And another thing, I love the way that it is too much effort to download a 3mb plugin, but a 70mb browser is just fine to install. There is a premeditated campaign against Flash and it is not difficult to work out why.

August 1, 2011

Video Guy

“This is a nice article that explains one area where the iDevice rules… mobile video.”

This is only the case if your happy with no DRM which in my experience a large amount of companies who serve video require right?

jookyone

Interesting article, I find myself in this position quite a bit, making decisions to use HTML or Flash for our applications. For my customers, it comes down to performance usually, and unless browsers evolve further with JS/CSS/HTML rendering, then a VM chewing on binary is always going to severely outperform software chewing on human readable text.

I can’t believe anyone wasted so much time arguing about HTML 5 with a guy who sells HTML 5 books (Dale Cruze) as he clearly must argue his bread and butter. That’s like me arguing Chevy to a bunch of Ford dealers.

August 4, 2011

Yop

unique visitors (01/07/2011 – 31/07/2011)

windows: 14159231(84,96%) 47.63% of xp/vista
macintosh: 1531264(9,19%)
unix: 188835(1,13%)
apple iphone:305299(1,83%)
apple ipad:121860(0,73%)
android:187596(1,13%)
unknown:60751 (0,36%)
apple ipodtouch:45199 (0,27%)
sony playstation 3:21883 (0,13%)
other: 31393(0,19%)
nokia: 11818 (0,07%)

16665129 100,00%

flash is available on ~95%
html5 is available on ~43%

August 9, 2011

Video and Your Product Launch | Klein Consulting

[...] Vimeo, as the viewing platforms. There are many factors to consider when making this decision and this fine article by Periscopic will help you think it [...]

August 17, 2011

HTML5 & CSS3 draws fans and skeptics alike « nickpolo85

[...] Helpful link 2: http://now.periscopic.com/2011/05/our-research-into-flash-and-html5-which-one-is-right-for-your-proj… [...]

August 29, 2011

samechan

http://www.samechan.org

Это называется имиджборд. На имиджборде можно смотреть картинки, показывать картинки и просто общаться, сохраняя при этом полную анонимность – регистрация на таком виде форума не требуется и просто невозможна.

Имиджборда разделена на несколько категорий, каждая из которых отведена под определенную тематику картинок/обсуждений и в каждой из которых действуют некоторые правила (весьма либеральные, в большинстве случаев). Правила выводятся под каждой формой ответа (и под каждой формой старта нового топика).

Интерфейс сеймчана весьма не очевиден (как и основная масса того, что вытворяют пришельцы с марса японцы), но привыкнуть к нему можно весьма быстро, если внимательно смотреть и немного думать. Основная проблема начинающих – путающиеся в голове формы для старта нового топика и для ответа на топик.

Благо, в случае ошибки любой пользователь может удалять свои сообщения. Для этого надо просто отметить чекбокс рядом с сообщением и нажать кнопку Удалить на самом дне страницы. Если у вас по какой-либо причине не работают cookies, то для возможности удаления своих постов надо:
1. При написании сообщения вбивать какой-нибудь пароль в соотв. поле.
2. При удалении указывать этот пароль внизу страницы, рядом с кнопкой Удалить.
Если cookies работают нормально, то пароль генерируется и вводится во все нужные поля автоматически, вам даже не нужно его знать.

Как уже писал выше, регистрация на samechan.org невозможна, но для желающих утвердиться на почве форума существуют трипкоды — своеобразные пароли, которые при возникновении необходимости помогают доказать, что вы — это вы. Трипкоды вводятся в поле Имя после вашего ника (не обязательно) и после знака решетки (#), например: Chuvak#mypassword. После отправки ответа на форум ваш трипкод преобразуется в хрень вида !lIOcxP5MFM и будет служить уникальным идентификатором вашей личности (если трипкод не сопрут).

Спрашивайте, если что-то интересно или неясно. Разрулим.

September 4, 2011

Flash vs. HTML – част 1 | eDesign blog

[...] http://www.elance.com/p/blog/2011/01/developers-perspective-on-flash-vs-html5.html http://now.periscopic.com/2011/05/our-research-into-flash-and-html5-which-one-is-right-for-your-proj... Сподели: TweetFacebookLinkedInTumblrStumbleDiggDelicious [...]

September 17, 2011

Flash vs HTML5 | Le blog de la communication digitale

[...] complète du HTML5 ne devrait pas arriver avant 2013. Aujourd’hui, Flash est supporté par 99% des navigateurs web tandis que le HTML5 n’est reconnu que par 40% d’entre eux.Flash a certainement [...]

September 22, 2011

Flash o HTML5, ¿cuál es la mejor tecnología para un proyecto? | Blog de EducacionIT - Cursos y Formacion Profesional IT

[...] Para conocer más sobre esta investigación haz click AQUI [...]

September 29, 2011

Flex Developer

I am not sure that which one is better than each other. But as per market users there are lots of users of flash. My personal experience with Flash was really nice. On the hand HTML 5 is new technology with great features. So i think it is also nice.. We have to try this..

September 30, 2011

Alexis

HTML5 en mucho veces mejor que FLASH.

October 1, 2011

Where is it all going, HTML5 vs Flash? » GSDH Advertising Agency | Design Illustration Animation Corporate Design Flash Programmer Logo Design

[...] To visually compare the Flash-HTML5 landscape right now, here is a very good info graphic and interesting case-study done by Periscopic. [...]

October 5, 2011

An interesting evolution noted in this Adobe press release today:

Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5

http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2011/11/flash-focus.html

November 9, 2011

I was just thinking about this debate…

With this news, I have to sadly change my point of view about Flash…

From a business perspective, it would not be wise to continue to support a technology that the creator no longer supports themselves.

Mobile Flash Player is dead today… Desktop Flash player is dead next.

At least there will be a ton of freelance work now changing Flash content into HTML5.

sigh.

“Desktop Flash Player is dead next” is a wrong assumption. Adobe will turn the Flash Player platform into a Desktop browser games platform.

Which totally makes sense as next to video content, games are the second largest if not largest portion of Flash content on the web. And it is very unlikely that HTML5 will beat Flash in this respect any time soon.

@rascalpants read the release. This is about Flash outgrowing the use of the browser on mobile platforms and going native using AIR. This is already happening – one of the top selling games on the iPad (Machinarium) is a Flash application compiled as a native iOS app.

More generally I think we are seeing a move of applications (HTML/JS and Flash) from the browser to native apps, because app stores and projects like AIR and Webkit have eliminated the dependency on a named browser to get functionality to users.

I don’t think Flash is going to dissaper in near future. Although I do think that more will be developed using HTML5. It is the fact that Flash is not optimal to use on smartphones now. I would never devlop online content for smartphone using Flash. So, “terminating” Flash for mobile is just recognizing fact that application is not used by developers (or at least not to that extent that brings profit).

But, the development continues, within few months quadra core 1,5GHz smartphone will be realised. All OS, expect Apple mobile iOS, support “normal” Flash. Microsoft works on one OS for all platforms (Windows 8). There are already tablets where you can turn Flash support on/off (if you want to extent battery life). I think that smartphones and (especially) tablets will merge with PC concerning their capabilities and OS they use. The second generation of mobile devices would need to show more productivity to be applied by companies to greater extent.

I expect that in near future will be no difference between smartphone and PC OS and what it supports. And I expect it wil support “normal” Flash.

Nevertheless, the form factor of device will play important role in how we design the application. I expect that navigation will remain different (finger vs. mouse) and the screen size will definitely remain different .

November 10, 2011

Jakob Sternberg

Dusan Mijatovic > “I would never devlop online content for smartphone using Flash”

Why?

I bet if Apple had supported flash you would have a different view on that.

@Robin – I have a Flash Platform developer for more than 12 years, and I still am, but if you are not reading between the lines, and making business decisions that help your clients move towards a Flash-less browser experience, then you are not being honest with them.

There are many ways Adobe could have approached this issue, and still “supported” the mobile player, without creating a PR nightmare and outright saying they are killing the program.

“…Flash outgrowing the use of the browser on mobile platforms…”

The mobile browser is in its infancy, so for a company like Adobe to stop supporting their own software, which is a fantastic distribution channel for their announced digital marketing services, why should businesses trust the fact that Adobe is not phasing out the plugin altogether?

My stance in this article has always been business driven, and while I love Flash and bleed ActionScript, I cannot continue to sell Flash as a “write once, deploy everywhere” technology to my employer and clients.

“More generally I think we are seeing a move of applications (HTML/JS and Flash) from the browser to native apps, because app stores and projects like AIR and Webkit have eliminated the dependency on a named browser to get functionality to users.”

I am seeing the opposite, and actually this announcement has only strengthened the WebOS movement. Luke W, who I don’t always agree with, has a nice article supporting the Web as an OS.

http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1441

The mobile web has gone from 5% to 7% of the global usage according to comScore in a very short period of time, and as smartphones and tables continue to replace feature phones and laptops, the numbers will climb exponentially. This is great for mobile apps as well, but your clients will still question why the same content on their desktop web site cannot be viewed on mobile web browsers. And it is not practical to expect the average mobile user to download 1000s of apps instead of viewing the same content on the web. But the main again with Flash, again is Adobe sees not future in their own software, even with mobile browser using climbing.

@Dusan – “It is the fact that Flash is not optimal to use on smartphones now. I would never devlop online content for smartphone using Flash. So, “terminating” Flash for mobile is just recognizing fact that application is not used by developers (or at least not to that extent that brings profit).”

This is a very short-sited view. Flash is already a multi-billion dollar distribution channel for Google’s online marketing divisions, and with Adobe announcing a move to start a similar operation, why would you kill support for the fastest growing mass market distribution channel (mobile web)? Not only are Flash banners, love em or hate em, perfect for ad units, but Flash is currently being used in education all over the world to deliver light-weight games and “edutainment” for schools. I know first hand their legacy systems are comparable the top of the line smart phones and tablets, so these devices ARE meant to handle Flash.

Obviously, this is about money as you mentioned and nothing to do with performance. And if Adobe sees no money in a mobile browser Flash plugin, why would I be confident in the future of Flash in a browser at all? I also don’t see your theory about a desktop browser plugin eventually being used on devices happening either. Mike Chambers made a comment that summed up why Adobe is killing support for Flash mobile…

“The Flash Player on mobile had nothing near ubiquitous distribution, and no matter what we do, that was not going to change (since the mobile platforms are primarily closed architectures / ecosystems).”.

They don’t see a way to make money directly off the plugin and they are shifting their focus to AIR and apps because that is where the money is.

Il giovane HTML5 vince | PSBLOG

[...] Fonte: http://now.periscopic.com/2011/05/our-research-into-flash-and-html5-which-one-is-right-for-your-proj… [...]

November 11, 2011

The week in numbers: 16 – 21 May | Contagious Feed Universal Music

[...] according to design firm Periscopic, vs 40% which support HTML5 and just 1% for iOS. More in this infographic. 10 million – the number of new web users every month in China, adding to over 480 million [...]

November 14, 2011

Flash vs HTML5!! « Technology Can Change Life

[...] a look at the more informative debate Flash versus HTML5 debate and some considerations you should make if you’re deciding which one to use in your projects. [...]

@rascalpants – Luke W writes as if he invented the idea of “web as an OS”… him and Al Gore should be making millions off their “inventions.”

Luke’s article fails to mention, or give credit to, any plugin technology, specifically with Netflix, whom he quotes as responsible for the majority of internet traffic. Netflix however, does not deliver a single kilobyte of any video/movie content using HTML/JS/CSS. It delivers content thru native apps (ObjC and Java) and on the web exclusively through Microsoft Silverlight. Failing to mention plugin technology that is responsible for delivering the majority of internet traffic is a bit misleading and undercuts what even makes the web as popular and flexible as it is. The browser is the most popular “app” because it is not limited to one set of programmers, languages, or content providers. Web standards plus plugin abilities make it uniquely and infinitely extendable.

As plugins push the art of the possible, standards then have the ability to design the next set of capabilities to support those new demonstrated possibilities in a “language for the people” aka HTML/CSS/JS (though I hope JS evolves to be more OOP). HTML 5 is a copy of Flash capabilities and it will be interesting to see what plugin abilities HTML will adopt next.

Alex Gallery

there’s storm in my brain
We’ve develop some flash applets for over three years. Now some platforms don’t support flash, some features HTML5 don’t support. And Adobe finished to support their mobile application.
Awesome

The best way is to build and support application on both platforms HTML5 and Flash. But this is the best way to exhaust your budget.

What’s the way you choose?

November 16, 2011

Alex, you should investigate http://haxe.org/, or something like it. An approach like that allows you to write code once, and deploy to multiple environments.

This tweet via @GoogleCode:

New: Swiffy Extension for Flash Professional. Develop in Flash, convert to HTML5. http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2011/11/flash-developers-export-to-html5-with.html

November 17, 2011

To Flash or not to Flash, That is the Question « Down to Earth in L.A.

[...] across while researching the hype behind the comparison between Flash and HTML5. Here’s an analysis of the data the info-graphic so beautifully illustrates. The comments were [...]

November 18, 2011

ignasi rifé personal portfolio » Flash o HTML5 ?

[...] Font original del post: http://now.periscopic.com/2011/05/our-research-into-flash-and-html5-which-one-is-right-for-your-proj... [...]

November 21, 2011

Xpellshop

We work with Flash Tools ( Flash and SwishMAX ) since 2000. I hate that discussion that Flash dies. Html 5 will never have such a strong community like Flash. Flash Player is cross-platform and compatible with almost any browser. So why Html5?

I will never stop working with Flash and i believe Flash will never die!

Also thanks for this article! It shows in simple images how meaningless html 5 is!

Cheers

Marc

November 30, 2011

Flash o HTML5. Quina és la millor solució a dia d’avui? | Ignasi Rifé. Portfoli Personal

[...] Pots llegir el post sencer a: http://now.periscopic.com/2011/05/our-research-into-flash-and-html5-which-one-is-right-for-your-proj... [...]

Hi Marc,

We’ve also used Flash for a long time (since Flash started — before 2000). We also love Flash and hope that it never dies. If nothing else, it’s simply nice to write in a well-structured language. HTML5 definitely has benefits (such as working natively on iOS), so we only see that technology increasing in the future.

Thanks for your thoughts!
Kim

December 7, 2011

Mobile Flash death throes: Is it time for developers to move on? | VentureBeat

[...] usage is on PCs, where Flash Player is the technology enjoying ubiquitous support. Last May, Periscopic put it this way: While approximately 800 million people would be able to view an HTML5 project, more than 2 billion [...]

December 13, 2011

[Infographic] Flash vs. HTML 5 | Viral & Social

[...] 5 or both (and a redirection or different style based on the compatibility of your browser) ? Periscopic put together a few figures in this handy guide designed to help you decide which one is right for [...]

December 20, 2011

HTML5 versus Adobe Flash (infographic) | VentureBeat

[...] an even more detailed analysis (and more pictures!) from a neutral party, check out this breakdown from technology specialist firm [...]

January 31, 2012

HTML5 versus Adobe Flash (infographic) | VentureBeat | Programmer Solution

HTML 5 VS Flash

[...] http://now.periscopic.com/2011/05/our-research-into-flash-and-html5-which-one-is-right-for-your-proj... [...]

Jack Stanley

Comparing Flash with HTML5 is misleading, and is like comparing Microsoft Office (An application) with C (a language). What really matters for HTML5 is an application (like Flash) that can fully unleash the power of it. Take a look at http://www.mugeda.com. Although it is still in a very early stage but already shows great potential for HTML5. Keep in mind that Flash is over 15 years old and HTML5 is in its infant. Please give some time and allow HTML5 to grow.

Infographic: HTML 5 VS Flash | iSmashPhone

[...] OneMoreLevel.com and now.periscopic.com Tweet Related Posts The Rise of HTML 5: Popular Services and iOS Development, [...]

February 1, 2012

@Jack, that is what most people with sense actually say. HTML5 is the future. Until we arrived there, we need to use the proven tools where HTML5 does not deliver yet. It is like with electric cars. Currently some invest into the future because they just love to be at the forefront, others because it makes sense in certain environments (cities, corporate car fleets), some go for the hybrids, but the mass is still buying the traditional fossil fuel burning cars. Though HTML5 moves a bit faster in being excepted widely, the technology is like electric cars pretty much in ins infancy. One just has to take care not to stick to long to the past.

February 6, 2012

Adobe Ends Flash Technology, Steve Jobs Thoughts on Flash, HTML5 vs Flash

[...] has this comparison among Flash, HTML5 and [...]

February 20, 2012