The iPad Already Reshapes The Internet

 

If you don’t already know, then we’ll say it again: the iPad doesn’t run Flash. If your website uses Flash, well then it won’t play well on the iPad. As it turns out, a lot of people want their sites to look pretty on the iPad so the Internet is already starting to look different.

One of the interesting effects of the iPhone was that it drove websites to format their content for the cell phone in at least one of two ways, and often both: iPhone-optimized sites, where the navigational elements were more finger-friendly and more app-like, and actual iPhone apps in some other cases. We’re starting to see a repeat of this with the iPad although the size adjustment is less of an issue than the lack of Flash support, and the fact is, a lot of sites will be ready for this on day one of the iPad launch. That being said, Flash is here to stick around, for many reasons despite Apple’s opinion of it.

The National Public Radio, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal are all following twin attack, by launching iPad-tuned homepages that dispense with Flash entirely and new layouts designed to be held in your hand, like the front page of a newspaper, on top of which they are also releasing iPad apps. The WSJ app runs $17.99 a month, $215 a year, which is a seemingly ridiculous price, since subscribing to both the print and online editions is a mere $140. Although we don’t know exactly what it looks like for the iPad. On the other end, although we’ve seen the NYT iPad app, we don’t know how much it is going to cost as of yet. NPR’s app is a free iPadded version of its iPhone app.

There are also the video services, which are in a way basic Internet infrastructure. Youtube, of course, has been playing with HTLM5 for a bit, as well as Vimeo and both have served up iPhone OS tailored video for a while. Brightcove, another big video service, used by a lot of magazine sites (such as Wired, Slate, Time, and NYT) is making HTML5 powers more widely known with the “Brightcove Experience for HTML,” specifically in response to the iPad with the NYT and Times listed as customers using Brightcove HTML5 edition, meaning that they will have their iPad-ready video at the get-go.

Not to mention that sites like TED now offer Flashless renditions for the iPhone OS devices and CBS is the only major network not to be on the Hulu boat, is cleverly testing an HTML5 version of its video site, so even though Hulu won’t work on the iPad right now, CBS will be.

It is interesting to say the least that a device promising to be the best browsing experience is in fact reshaping the Internet. You could argue that its moving sites away from proprietary formats and heavy resource sucking designed to more open standards and more efficient layouts that are easier to use. Surprisingly, it’s not like Apple hasn’t been remaking the web already- they have been hugely involved in web standards with their work on the WebKit rendering engine, which powers Safari, Chrome, and most every decent mobile browser around. Combined with the standards that the iPad is setting, Apple has essentially defined the standards for mobile browsing.

There isn’t much of a choice for site designers to follow behind the thought as well. John Gruber points out that if you care about people on the iPhone OS devices being able to use your site, you are going to redesign it, and “if you don't think people using iPhone OS devices are an important segment of your intended audience, you're probably wrong."

The reason the iPad could have a larger effect on the Internet than the iPhone is actually really simply because it is bigger. The challenge of best displaying your content on the iPhone simply wasn’t making sure you had a Flash-less site, it was fitting all of it into a 3.5 inch screen, reducing it to the utter essentials to fit the way people use their phones. Summed up a task that might have gone beyond mobile-optimized sites in many cases. With the iPad, two of the bigger restrictions: the tighter screen and smaller windows of time aren’t there, so content producers very well might not need an app to fit their content onto the iPad. In other words, they can just build a site instead of an app, which is why the iPad might have a larger effect on the Internet than the iPhone. Especially if Apple ends up selling a large quantity of them. Time will tell (less than 2 days to be exact) and in the meantime you can enjoy the Flashless HTML5 sites popping up.