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The Swiss Cheese Web Ain’t The Web
Young Urban Professional
Seemingly overnight the Information Superhighway (does anyone call it that anymore?) became littered with potholes. In the last week Apple sold nearly 500,000 iPads, none of which support key technologies that we have come to rely on, including Adobe Flash, Windows Media and others. (Adobe and Microsoft are Edelman clients.)
For the last week I have been using my iPad as my primary device. I enjoy the slate format and think it’s the next big thing for computing – one that will see lots of winners. Unfortunately, this comes at a cost. I don’t get to experience the web like I used to, but a version of it that only Apple approves of – one that’s peppered with potholes that turns it into the swiss cheese web. The above image is what our own web site looks like on the iPad, which proudly uses Flash for certain features.
This poses a challenge for Web developers – one that Josh Bernoff so eloquently details on his post on the “Splinternet.” Should one develop the most robust experience using the best technologies on the market or should they kowtow to Apple’s vision for the Internet? Tough call.
In the end we believe that marketers should develop for the masses – the common denominator that unites the broadest universe of consumers. Right now, that’s desktop browsers with plug-ins. However, if developers need to start coding different versions of their site for different platforms, then we have trouble ahead. Standards are what made the web become a mass consumer medium.
Edelman Digital calls on Apple and all companies to support consumer choice – to allow consumers to have the same experience they are accustomed to on the desktop. Where once mobile devices were not powerful enough to run rich media technologies, that’s no longer the case. Why ban Flash and WMVs yet support Quicktime and PDF – two other standards. It makes no sense.
The Swiss Cheese Web ain’t the real web. At minimum Apple and others need to convey this up front (a disclaimer in their ads would be a nice start). However, it is our hope that they will open more and embrace the same standards that have allowed online innovation to blossom.
Reader Comments (12)
As a quick disclaimer, I'm not a hardcore techie. I can build a website and play in code a bit, but I don't have a horse in this race.That said, I would first disagree that Flash is a standard. Yes it's common, but it's not a standard the way that PDF actually is, since Adobe turned it over. Another way to get similar effects, HTML5, is an actual standard (or at least, will be).Second, a touch screen is unable to 100% replicate a desktop experience. You can't guarantee the same experience, as you're calling for.For example, Edelman's site you reference uses a mouseover code that highlights text or pops up a window as I roll my mouse over it. It's a functionality that is only partially available on a touchscreen. Flash has some quirks like that as well and because it's as robust as it is, those quirks could mean a page just wouldn't work on a touchscreen (depending on the features it employed). Enabling Flash might prevent a "swiss cheese web" but that doesn't mean it would necessarily be a more functional web if certain features didn't work, and there was no indication that this was the case.At least with the swiss-cheese, there's a hole, and you know that it won't work and you're not frustrated and thinking your touch screen lost sensitivity.
@steverubel Why do you "proudly" use Flash? There are definitely certain instances in which Flash can enhance a user's experience, but they are few and far between. In almost all cases what people are using Flash for could more easily and more semantically be accomplished with HTML, CSS and JavaScript.As for why Apple should ban Flash from their devices; have you ever used an Adobe product? I have never used a version of Photoshop that hasn't crashed on me multiple times a day, every day. The only software I use that crashes on me more than Photoshop is the Flash plug-in. Do you think average users are going to blame Adobe when the Flash plug-in crashes in Mobile Safari? Do you think the average user even has any concept of what Flash is or who makes it? Apple would be blamed for every single problem the Flash plug-in has. Why would they do that to themselves?I've been a web developer for 10 years and the only day that made me more professionally happy than when Google announced they were dropping support for IE6, was when Apple announced they wouldn't be putting Flash on the iPhone.
Brandon I use Adobe products all the time - photoshop.com, Connect and their new iPad app. In terms of why Flash, it still does lots of things HTML can't and it's a critical part of a true online experience.
Wow, I agree with you often, but you look completely clueless here. Come back to this post in 5 years and you'll laugh at how wrong / outdated you are.
@steverubel It was a rhetorical question, I know you use Adobe products; everyone does. The point I was making is that they crash, a lot. With the Flash plug-in being the worst offender of them all. That's not a subjective argument, it's an objective, empirically proven fact. The day I installed Flash blocking plug-ins in Firefox and Safari was the day my browsers (both of them) stopped crashing.The iPhone and iPad are fundamentally different computing devices than Macs or PCs. They are closed systems (the merit of which is not what I'm debating here) and therefore Apple must decide what to allow into those systems. On an open system _you_ decide. If you don't like the Flash plug-in you can remove it or install a plug-in that blocks it. But there would be nothing like that on the iPhone or iPad, so Apple made the right decision to bar Flash lest it affect their closed system.And that's if you look at it from just a technical standpoint. If you look at it from an ideological standpoint, Apple was right ten times over. Flash is a veritable pox on the Internet. It breaks EVERYTHING. It breaks the tab chain, it overrides system keyboard shortcuts when Flash has focus, it's non-accessible, it's slow to load, it's allowed advertisers to make their ads _even more_ annoying than before, and on and on and on. Just yesterday I went to Adobe's store to check out the prices on CS5. I started reading and tried to scroll down. But my scrollwheel wasn't working. After cleaning it, it still didn't work. It took me a minute to notice that they'd made the whole store in Flash/Flex, and had used Flash scrollbars, which inexplicably don't respond to mousewheel scrolling. I can't remember if I've ever had a single experience with Flash that was anything less than frustrating.And yes, Flash does lots of things HTML doesn't, but 99.9% of the uses of Flash are for things that CAN be done by HTML. Given that Flash is only necessary 0.1% (and that's being kind) of the time, I would hardly call it a "critical part of a true online experience."
Steve, nothing is new here. Forever, as a Mac users, we had these holes, not because of Apple, but because of Microsoft and developers producing websites that required ActiveX and/or only ran on IE 6. While this is not a case of turnabout is fair play, where now Apple is calling any shots, I think not including a buggy technology like Flash in the iPad/iPhone ecosystem is the right move. Just like the outcry when serial ports were removed and floppy disk drives discontinued, Apple is trying to push through a boundary here and while Flash is widespread, there are are newer and better technologies on the near horizon. I like Brandon's statements above with regards to stability and Flash delivering that small percentage of functionality that cannot be delivered with pure standards-based HTML. The early adoption phase is always painful, but let us not forget that even in today's internet/cloud centered world, there are still sites that require IE. Sites that force Flash down our throats are no different.
If we have learned anything from the commerical web, it's that usability and ubiquity are important, important goals. That said, humans are complex animals. If Augusta National were a public course would so many people long to play a round there? Were the iPad made by HTC, would Robert Scoble and thousands of others have lined up at 4:30 A.M. for first dibs? I agree that Apple has stubbed its toe here but it really has maintained it pedigree. And sometimes that is more important. Elitism? Probably. Will Apple get dinged? Probably. But do you see a hero on the horizon to bump them off? I don't.
To add to the Flash debate, see this timely article. Among the key points: Flash is still not available on any mobile devices. (Android, Nexus, Windows Mobile, etc.). Why the iPhone didn’t support Flash in 2007http://www.tipb.com/2010/04/15/iphone-support-flash-2007/And the discussion mirrors the spirited responses to your post, including: Comment: "If you’re not using Flash on your site, you’re behind the curve."Response: "1997 called and they want you as their spokesperson!"Response: "2 years ago my clients starts to ask 'modern website ,not flash.' yes,i am blessed."
I once read a tweet from someone who said she enjoyed the "gate keeping qualities of the iPad." It's interesting to think of the limitations of the iPad in this way - keeping out the sites that will load slowly or whatnot - but that decision to not view the site should be up to the user, not Apple. If the iPad continues to go the way of the iPhone, developers will probably be redesigning mobile versions of their sites that fit the iPad resolution instead of Apple tossing out the Swiss Cheese Web.
Steven,this is Job's response to why they are not using flash: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/I think you'll see that his logic is very solid.
sorry, STEVE
Wow that's some essay.