In case you haven’t had Internet or television access for about a week, last Wednesday Apple previewed their new tablet device, the iPad. The preview generated ohh’s and ahh’s (from the Apple faithful) and adolescent snicker’s about it’s name (from the Apple critics). And of course it also generated much debate as to whether or not people will actually buy the thing.
But lost in all the noise was a glaring marketing mistake by Apple. A mistake that not only garnered the wrath of Adobe, but caused one person to actually file a complaint with the FTC. In fact, this mistake was so bad, Apple actually changed their marketing photos/videos for the iPad…literally overnight.
What was this mistake? Flash.
The iPad, just the like iPhone and iPod Touch, can’t display Flash files (at least in it’s current pre-production version). That means the iPad, just like the iPhone and iPod Touch, can’t display about 75% of the multimedia content on the web (um, like your videos).
Yet, in Apple’s slick marketing videos and photos for the iPad, they showed Flash content from the New York Times web site being displayed. This, even after Steve Jobs demoed the iPad live…visited the New York Times web site…and all the Flash content showed up only as broken boxes.
AppleInsider.com was the first to point this out (with nice screen shots to illustrate).
Next came Adobe, with a sharp-tongued review from one of their Flash group managers.
And that was followed by Paul Threatt, a graphic designer from Atlanta who filed a complaint with the FTC. In his complain Paul states:
In several advertisements and images representing the Apple products in question, Apple has purposefully elected to show these devices correctly displaying content that necessitates the Adobe Flash plug-in…this is not possible on the actual devices…and Apple is very aware of that fact. Despite the controversial lack of support for Adobe Flash on these devices, Apple has elected to depict these correctly utilizing the Flash plug-in. This constitutes willful false advertising and Apple’s advertising practices for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and the new iPad should be forcibly changed.
The result? Overnight, almost by magic, Apple changed their marketing photos and videos for the iPad, so Flash-based content is no longer displayed in those advertisements.
Which leads to maybe the biggest question of all…would you buy an iPad, if just like the iPhone and iPod Touch, it doesn’t support Flash files?
For the same reason gazillions purchased the iPhone.
Flash is buggy, a battery hog and a CPU hog.
It will force people into HTML5 which is FAR more friendly AND not in the hands of ONE company, ie ADOBE.
YouTube is already supporting HTML5.
I doubt I will ever buy one since I simply don’t see the value in the device.
I have an iPhone and love it. But there is no way I want to carry this ipad (terrible name by the way and I am not an Apple hater) around when it really does nothing more than I can do with my iPhone – short of a larger screen.
And the Flash thing is a big problem for me… namely because I earn a living selling Flash based videos! Hopefully Apple comes around and eventually supports Flash.
It’s about the user experience and quite frankly, I don’t miss flash. If users don’t miss it – then who really cares. I don’t support Adobe – I support (and my readers support) their individual needs. Meet my needs and you can do it in any software you like. If we can use html 5.0 to deliver video files – then that’s all good. Just one more technology (no matter how widely adopted because that was available at the time) which is being supplanted by another, more easily used one. It’s a non-argument from my perspective unless I’m an Adobe or Flash supplier.
I wouldn’t buy it without flash.
Great post Dave. As someone using a lot of video, I have been standardizing on mp4 and h.264 since all devices seem to play nice with this including iTunes and iPods/iPhones. Even flv players like the ubiquitous JW player can play these files.
I only miss flash on my iPhone when the page developer has not seen it fit to either offer me the link to the mp4 or insists on only showing it through an swf player.
Lack of flash on iPods and iPhones has not stopped 8Mil+ from purchasing.
Love my iphone, but I don’t don’t see why I need the ipad. Besides Apple chose to release it now with availability still two months out. Almost like they were trying to lock the market up before other competing devices hit the shelf. I think I’ll wait to see what else is out there to support my video needs before I drop a kilobuck on a new toy.
Dave,
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I see the iPad as a bridge device (a friend said a bridge to nowhere) that is not intended to be the holy grail but rather a real world experiment in integrated multimedia devices (what works, what doesn’t).
Based on user input Apple (and the industry) will adapt as they move toward the future of disk free anywhere/anytime access to ANY piece of media (print, audio, video, etc.). Just my thoughts for whatever they are worth.
John