In just months, from seemingly nowhere, Apples solo campaign to dethrone Flash as the de facto standard for web video has gathered enough momentum to get over the top. The question is no longer whether HTML5 will or should do the job, but when.
Last week signaled the tipping point, when Microsoft confirmed HTML5 video support would be included in the next version of Internet Explorer, which is due later this year. That move will swing the percentage of browsers supporting the nascent standard well above half, and will rapidly accelerate adoption by publishers, despite lingering technical and legal issues.
The shift is already happening on the mobile web, and eventually in perhaps as soon as two years HTML5 can be expected to serve most new video online.
There's a ton of momentum behind HTML5, and its well-justified momentum, Mozilla VP of engineering Mike Shaver tells Webmonkey. The future of the web is the web, and betting against the web is a bad idea.
Flash has been taking a beating lately. First, the iPhone ignored it, and now the iPad is ignoring it. Apple CEO Steve Jobs is on a public rampage against the technology. He and other proponents of open web technologies are calling for advances in HTML5 to fully replace the Flash Player.
They're in for a tough fight: Adobes Flash Player browser plug-in is the reason so much rich media, audio, video and animation are playable on the web. Without Flash, you wouldn't be able to view most of the videos posted online, and your life on the web would be pretty miserable. That's the main reason its installed on more than 90 percent of web-connected PCs.
But users complain about Flash's poor performance on PCs and its power-sucking behavior on portables. Security experts deride it for its safety shortcomings. Web purists argue the point that, unlike HTML5 and other open standards, the Flash experience is owned and controlled by a single vendor, Adobe.
A lot of people think its time for Flash to move on and give way to HTML5. Web pages written in HTML5 can play videos natively, meaning the browser can play a video without the need for plug-ins. Google's betting on it: The company built a new version of YouTube that uses HTML5s video tags instead of Flash to play clips. Other video sites like Vimeo and DailyMotion quickly followed suit.
Last week signaled the tipping point, when Microsoft confirmed HTML5 video support would be included in the next version of Internet Explorer, which is due later this year. That move will swing the percentage of browsers supporting the nascent standard well above half, and will rapidly accelerate adoption by publishers, despite lingering technical and legal issues.
The shift is already happening on the mobile web, and eventually in perhaps as soon as two years HTML5 can be expected to serve most new video online.
There's a ton of momentum behind HTML5, and its well-justified momentum, Mozilla VP of engineering Mike Shaver tells Webmonkey. The future of the web is the web, and betting against the web is a bad idea.
Flash has been taking a beating lately. First, the iPhone ignored it, and now the iPad is ignoring it. Apple CEO Steve Jobs is on a public rampage against the technology. He and other proponents of open web technologies are calling for advances in HTML5 to fully replace the Flash Player.
They're in for a tough fight: Adobes Flash Player browser plug-in is the reason so much rich media, audio, video and animation are playable on the web. Without Flash, you wouldn't be able to view most of the videos posted online, and your life on the web would be pretty miserable. That's the main reason its installed on more than 90 percent of web-connected PCs.
But users complain about Flash's poor performance on PCs and its power-sucking behavior on portables. Security experts deride it for its safety shortcomings. Web purists argue the point that, unlike HTML5 and other open standards, the Flash experience is owned and controlled by a single vendor, Adobe.
A lot of people think its time for Flash to move on and give way to HTML5. Web pages written in HTML5 can play videos natively, meaning the browser can play a video without the need for plug-ins. Google's betting on it: The company built a new version of YouTube that uses HTML5s video tags instead of Flash to play clips. Other video sites like Vimeo and DailyMotion quickly followed suit.
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