Each of the many iPad threads mentions “lack of Flash” as one of the two main reasons not to get one.
I don’t get it.
Like Hitler, I was very upset by the realization that iPad does not support multi-tasking, but “no flash” elicited little more than a shrug. What do people use flash for that is so important to them?
He saved every one of us.
No Flash means no dicewars.
Well, I’d say that a good 25% of websites I frequent won’t work properly without it. Ever try browsing the web with it blocked? It’s a nightmare.
Its ubiquitousness is the main problem. If the iPad becomes popular enough that sites start to move away from using it, that problem would fix itself. shrug I have a lot of other problems with the iPad, so I probably still wouldn’t get it, but the Flash thing currently would be my biggest issue.
Hardly any of the sites that I frequent use it. My heady days of wandering aimlessly around the internet are over so it’s possible that I lead a sheltered cyber-life.
That’s my prediction. I expect iPad will give HTML5 a big shove making flash unnecessary.
I just sent a complaint to a business tonight who’s website won’t do anything until a flash ad loads and starts to play. I can’t check my card balance or their special for the day until I allow the flash to load and play. This is why no Flash is a big deal even if you don’t browse random sits for fun. I also know a couple more company sites I have to go through the Flash hassle to get to something I need to access.
Chipotle’s? Just use their App instead. 
I run the Flashblock ad in Firefox because Flash is a potential virus vector. I enable it for certain sites but overall I don’t miss it. Corporate websites which rely on Flash don’t get my business. Their loss, not mine.
Many sites use flash in one way or another. For instance, a lot of video “wrappers” are made of Flash. No Flash, no video.
Every man, every woman, every child, everybody.
Flash!
Ahahhh.
If by “nightmare” you mean “vast improvement” then I agree. 
Lol thank you!
I had no idea what that was about until you added the next line 
I figure that will get fixed pretty quickly…but none of the video sites i visit use flash anyway.
You guys do know the difference between Flash and Flash Video, right? Flash is what those games on Addicting Games and annoying corporate website intros are done with. Flash Video is YouTube and other streaming video sites. Different things. Bad branding by Macromedia (and now Adobe), but different things.
But why should I go out of my way to inconvenience myself for no gain, even if it’s just for a couple of years and for some places? When there are a ton of other toys out there that do pretty much the same thing and wouldn’t inconvenience me at all, for a lot less?
shrug Like I said, I still wouldn’t get it in its current form and function set, even if it did do Flash, so it’s pretty much academic for me. Too little function when balanced against the size. I just don’t understand Apple’s thought process with this one. I’m guessing that there was some sort of cost and/or licensing problem?
Neither one works on iPhone OS, though.
That’s the thing: I’ve never heard anyone come up with a replacement for flash games and flash cartoons. Videos and navigation, sure. But javascript games are slower than their Flash equivalents.
As for Apple’s thinking: two things. Flash has been not working well on Apple platforms. It is a huge memory and processor hog. And it isn’t as stable as the rest of the Mac OS
Also, while every other phone company is getting a mobile version, Apple would not give up it’s API completely to Adobe (they claim), and so they can’t make the tweaks necessary to streamline Flash to acceptable speeds. Apple, on the other hand, claims they’ve given them everything they need, and Adobe has just dropped the ball and would require them to use faster processors, and thus cost more.
The whole reason the iPad uses the iPhone OS is because that OS is optimized to run quite quickly on the hardware provided, as the chip is just an advanced version of the cheap chip used in the iPhone. They don’t use the full MacOS because it would be too slow. Jobs is obsessed with making sure the device runs quickly enough.
Heck, I think that’s why he didn’t allow multitasking.
Right, but some people in this thread claim they never/seldom use sites that use Flash. It’s important to know that there’s different types of Flash to know if you really do or do not encounter Flash and need/want it on the web.
Flash is to the web today what Java was back in 1998.
The real thing is YouTube uses Flash. This is what makes most people upset about it.
It is also my main gripe with YouTube which is owned by Google. Flash is a proprietary format.
There are open source equivilents to Flash and as an innovator Google should’ve used that on YouTube.
Two questions:
How would I know which websites I visit use Flash?
If YouTube uses Flash (or Flash Video), how come I was able to watch YouTube videos when I was playing with an iPad at the Apple store yesterday?
“You’d better run, you’d better fly.
Hide your daughters, hide your wives.
Lock your doors and stay inside
Here comes Flash.”