Apple has released the iPad. If you actually don’t know or aren’t sick of all the posts, you are in the minority…

What are the problems with the iPad?

1. Charging from power plug-in is the only efficient way;
2. Fragile-not as tough as the iPod or iPhone;
3. Apps are more expensive;
4. No Flash;
5. Not open–not open-source software, but open to put your own stuff on there…;
6. why go on?

Flash isn’t necessary! Or so I hear. Many say that HTML5 will solve the streaming video / Flash debate.

No it won’t

You see, Adobe’s strength is that it understands that the output we view may be affected by different monitors, printers, etc… Adobe’s products make all that irrelevant. PDF documents look the same across platforms (OS/X, Windows, Linux, …) and software (Office, OpenOffice, Wordperfect, …).

Flash isn’t just streaming video–although many think it is limited to that function. Flash provides many other benefits like not having to worry if you have the right codec for the video or audio. What codec you ask?

Right… You see, Flash takes care of all of that for you. The user has Flash and does not have to worry if the video was encoded with H264, mpeg, mov, avi, …. The end user does not have to worry about codecs, resolutions, other software, etc. It is a complete platform for the delivery of ’stuff.’

If you think Flash = streaming video, please go here and read…

It is more complex than that…

Do you program at all?

If you program a little, you may want to put some of your programs on your mobile device. However, you would have to submit your program to Apple for their verification/approval if you want to put it on your iPhone/iPad/iPod. Why? To control the user experience?

Sure. For the non-tech / average USA citizen, that is fine. Why not allow those of us “with the know,” to do more? You see, I will not submit my stuff for Apple to approve or reject. Why should I? I would have to pay to have it approved when I only want to use it myself? What if I don’t want it released?

It is MY device, isn’t it? To me, this is like Apple telling me they have to approve those I add to my contact list. I understand that MOST users don’t feel the same way, but it is an issue for me.

Summary

Don’t let Apple ouster Flash to put in H264–that it controls. Why is one better than the other? Flash does a little more than just encode video-streaming or otherwise.

Look past the shiny lights and tech. Like people, tech shouldn’t be judged by popularity or exterior appearances.

Or are you that shallow?