Apple finally unveiled its tablet computer, the iPad right after the unveiling everyone started to blog about the iPad, Flash, HTML5 and so on. personally I don’t plan on talking about this I’m sure there are plenty of things to read about the subject with plenty of details. In short Apple does not plan to support the Flash on any of there device which is fine I believe the success of the iPhone has gotten to there head.

 
But I do want to talk about Flash and HTML5 and yes everything is related, having an obvious domino’s effect. When we look at Flash as a technology its pretty great at one point and pretty bad on some points but overall its an integrated part of the web more then every today then any time else. This is due to the fact that Adobe has done a great job in listening to the community, but more so has improved the Flash Player at a constant rate.

 
Some of these constant changes have been support for 3D its basic 3D but when we have that and open source library’s like PaperVision 3D and Away3D we have a great solution for 3D and thats a simple example. When I look at the at Flash I see more then cool 3D websites but Adobe Air, Flex, Open Source library’s, HD video support, AMF, and much more everything from tools to technology’s to create great things.

 
So where is Flash heading? if you believe that Apple and HTML5 will not affect Flash then your wrong of course it will it it already has its to early to know how much. My thoughts are this HTML5 does look very promising but its not there yet, currently HTML 5 compliant browsers are only 60% of the market, its not at 100 percent market penetration on the web and who knows how long that will take. But of course like any technology its just a matter of time.

 
So lets say HTML5 hits the web every browser supports it, it has 100 percent market penetration, its WC3 valid, all the developers are useing it to develop. Everything is great at least you would thinks so this would be a phase were we might see Flash drop a bit with HTML5 we can create web based apps for mobile that will work on the iPhone, iPad, it will work on other mobile devices sure are sites will work on mobile and with some javascript we can create some really nice things.

 
But at the end of the day we still need to worry about cross browser compatibility, different mobile devices other then the iPhone might not work as planned and of course with Adobe’s Open Screen Project developing something in Flash can be easily ported to different mobile devices like Nokia, Android and so on. What happens when we want to create things that are a bit more advanced like 3D, games, cool touch applications or advanced RIA will it work in HTML5 probably not.

 
In the short term HTML5 will be nice but by the time you get a new feature or support for something else Flash will already be there the rate that Flash will move forwarded will just increase its popularity, and HTML5 will be not different then XHTML.

 
There are a number of great post on the subject here are some that I have read
HTML5 Versus Flash Versions, Ryan Stewart
HTML 5 Versus Flash/Flex, Bex Huff
Adobe versus the ‘Open Web’, Serge Jespers
Some questions about HTML 5 video, Lee Brimelow