Revolution of the iPad

[Pete Ferling]

With the iPad comes another change to how clients will want their media.  Not that there was a need because of the iPad, but because now there is a means to sell that need and thus the budget approvers can do little more than agree, sigh and sign the checks.  That's good news, as that's more revenue streams for you and me.  However, you better put video skills, animation, and a little flash programing into your resume.

I'm going to send that link to my boss.  Thanks for sharing Michael.

[feppe]

With the iPad comes another change to how clients will want their media.  Not that there was a need because of the iPad, but because now there is a means to sell that need and thus the budget approvers can do little more than agree, sigh and sign the checks.  That's good news, as that's more revenue streams for you and me.  However, you better put video skills, animation, and a little flash programing into your resume.

I'm going to send that link to my boss.  Thanks for sharing Michael.

While the video linked was mouth-watering, I'm struggling to understand where the financing for such endeavors comes. Advertising revenues have been dwindling in the printing industry for years, along with subscriptions. This while access to free news and commentary has grown manifold.

Convincing people to pay for that content or for advertisers to come back will be what makes or breaks this.

[fredjeang]

This was a very welcome article, just after the debate about the evolution of pro photography. Very interesting changes are coming.

Fred.

[Pete Ferling]

I have to agree.  This both raises and the bar for those whom wish to compete in advertising, and levels the playing field for those whom have the skills required to meet those demands.  I'm going to fathom a guess that this demand is going to work well for jacks-of-all-trades or those having more than one discipline, or in other words it will no longer look like an easy profession to tackle.

What has changed, in my opinion (because I have been doing mixed media for years), is that all these special effects and kinds of media are no longer reserved for big players and ticket payers, (as I said before Fred, photography is not the only discipline feeling the pinch of change).  Technology has made it easier for almost anyone to create blockbuster style media for everyday ads.

[fredjeang]

The multitask is not really and issue, at least for the moment, but the Flash support is really a clew.
Will Apple be on this terrain the Olympus of digital photography?

Fred.

[fredjeang]

Flash is heading for a dead end anyway.

What I found really interesting is that after reading years of reviews and such from Michael, that iPad commentary/article doesn't even read as if Michael wrote it. The grammar, sentence structure is very different from his style. I read it and hear a totally different "voice". Just an observation.

About the content in itself they do not have to integrate flash, but they will, because of the advertisings needs.
If Apple does not allow it, the competition will.

Fred.

[BJL]

I would love Apple to defeat Adobe in this battle, at least on content providers not using Flash for simple tasks like video, which is like driving a Hummer to the corner store to buy a can of soda. No third party like Adobe should interfere with my choice of browser, OS, and content providers. Having the OS and browser handle video and such in a standards-based way is far better: viva HTML5!

YouTube no longer needs Flash and there is a iPhone App for YouTube, even though Google owns YouTube and Google's Android marketing is trying to benefit from the iPhone's lack of Flash support. Also, several major news organizations are reportedly working on Flash free versions of their content for the sake of the iPad. These examples not only show that Flash is redundant for streaming video, but also show the clout of Apple's mobile products (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) in pushing content providers to reduce or eliminate dependence on Flash.

I do not know how avoidable Flash is for other uses, like all those annoying, slow loading flashy web-sites, so I can only hope that the desire of advertisers to reach the large and often free-spending demographic that is "iPhone OS users" has the effect of discouraging Flash usage by advertisers as well as by content providers.

But if instead persistent usage of Flash in advertising means that a lot of advertising is invisible on an iPad, while video content comes through just fine, that would be a reason in favor of buying one, not against it!

About the content in itself they do not have to integrate flash, but they will, because of the advertisings needs.
If Apple does not allow it, the competition will.

[fredjeang]

I would love Apple to defeat Adobe in this battle, at least on content providers not using Flash for simple tasks like video, which is like driving a Hummer to the corner store to buy a can of soda. No third party like Adobe should interfere with my choice of browser, OS, and content providers. Having the OS and browser handle video and such in a standards-based way is far better: viva HTML5!

YouTube no longer needs Flash and there is a iPhone App for YouTube, even though Google owns YouTube and Google's Android marketing is trying to benefit from the iPhone's lack of Flash support. Also, several major news organizations are reportedly working on Flash free versions of their content for the sake of the iPad. These examples not only show that Flash is redundant for streaming video, but also show the clout of Apple's mobile products (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) in pushing content providers to reduce or eliminate dependence on Flash.

I do not know how avoidable Flash is for other uses, like all those annoying, slow loading flashy web-sites, so I can only hope that the desire of advertisers to reach the large and often free-spending demographic that is "iPhone OS users" has the effect of discouraging Flash usage by advertisers as well as by content providers.

But if instead persistent usage of Flash in advertising means that a lot of advertising is invisible on an iPad, while video content comes through just fine, that would be a reason in favor of buying one, not against it!

I agree with most of your post.
Flash is actually in a delicate situation, but it has also many good things. It is just a matter of when and how using it. Now it has become an obligation and it is not good.
I've been asked to not working in flash any more for certain applications that normally would have required flash, specially for what you just said.

But if I do not like the dictature of Adobe,
I won't like either the dictature of Apple.

I hope it's not gonna be: The king is dead, long life to the king...

Fred.

[feppe]

The multitask is not really and issue, at least for the moment, but the Flash support is really a clew.
Will Apple be on this terrain the Olympus of digital photography?

The faster Flash dies the better. I've become so annoyed by flash ads that I installed NoScript in addition to AdBlockPlus for Firefox. And then there are the professional photo sites which take forever to load despite having postage-stamp -sized photos, and which always have unintuitive navigation you have to squint to spot, and which breaks my browser's back button. Sure, many of them look gorgeous and probably give lots of pleasure for their designers, but the user experience is invariably horrendous.

As pointed out above, Google is already killing it through youtube moving to non-flash as part of their Do No Evil -policy. And Apple is pounding their nails in the coffin with iPad. The fewer proprietary technologies we have online the better it is for the consumer.

[fredjeang]

Well, HTML 5 is on its way but it will take some time.
But don't get it wrong. Apple is not going to save us from the Flash monopoly, and suddely we'll all have a open source system to replace Flash?
That is not what is going to happen.
I explain:

Hp and Adobe have made a corporation to compeat with apple. It is a commercial war.
The codec and technology involved into the Apple proposal is not going to be open source. Sorry for the open sourcer but it is just not going to happen this way, unfortunatly.

Flash has now an unberable monopoly, but Adobe chain are the current tools used in agencies, and a high % of the web content is displayed in flash.
So, there is still a long way before we can say that Flash is dead.

Fred.