Regular readers of the blog know that I am no great fan of Flash on business web sites. Primarily, I don’t care for Flash on business sites because it usually doesn’t do anything for the utility of the site. A snazzy flash animation shows off the cleverness of the web designer, not the merits of the company of products being presented. In the best case, it adds little or nothing to the utility of the site. In the worst case, it distracts or even annoys the user.
With the recent increase in the use of mobile devices like the iPhones, Blackberrys, Android Phones, and the iPad, Flash presents additional problems. Flash makes heavy use of a computer’s processing power, so Flash sites may not render well on mobile devices, and it can quickly drain a users battery. In the case of the iPhone and iPad, Flash quite simply does not work at all.
So it comes as no surprise that last week, Adobe revealed that they were discontinuing support for Flash on mobile platforms (see the article on ZDNet for details.)
With the usage of mobile devices and tablets growing by leaps and bounds, more and more users will be unable to access some of all of the features of your website if you are still using Flash.
If you do have content on your site that really needs the multimedia boost offered by Flash, there are alternatives that work as well or better. HTML5 is becoming quite a mature language, and is supported well by almost all modern browsers. HTML5 does not require additional plug-ins, and doesn’t eat up processing power and mobile batteries.
So if you are currently using Flash on your website, now is the time to consider your options.
If you need help in transitioning your site from Flash, contact us HERE. We can help.