Photo Portfolios – Has the iPad Killed Flash?

New mobile internet devices do not support Flash technology for web publishing. What about all the nice Flash portfolio sites of photographers? Has the iPad killed Flash technology?

The creation of Flash websites was a whole business for software houses, designers, programmers, and portfolio providers.

In contrast to Flash, HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript are open web standards. These web technologies are now capable of providing the functionality for which Flash was needed in the past. My oppinion is that Flash already has and will even become more obsolete for multimedia publishing.

Accessing my outdoor sports portfolio via the iPhone. Single portfolios are accessible with fullscreen viewing even on mobile internet devices.

Advantages of HTML and CSS versus Flash for photographers include direct linking of portfolio images and the accessability on the iPad and iPhone. Flash seems to be too much of a battery drainer for these mobile devices. The iPad holds the potential to attract new viewers to multimedia content as it simplifies access. Apple has no plans to implement Flash on the iPad and iPhone. Also, Google and Microsoft support HTML5 for video in their new browsers.

The HTML version of the outdoor sports portfolio.

My own outdoor sports photo portfolio offers both HTML and Flash technology at the moment. Depending on the device used for accessing the portfolio site, visitors are automatically redirected to the appropriate version presenting either the HTML photo portfolio or the Flash version of my photography portfolio. Users accessing my website with an iPad or iPhone are redirected to the HTML version.

For the moment, I plan to keep this double functionality. However, I expect upcoming browser updates to support even more HTML5 features such as video. In the future, the Flash part of my portfolio site won’t be needed anymore – making it even easier for me to update and maintain my photo portolio.

The Flash version of the outdoor sports portfolio. Browsers without Flash support are redirected to the HTML version instead.

The screenshots illustrate a similar viewing experience on different browsers and devices. Big images are something I love for my portfolio, and HTML is able to provide fullscreen display as nice as Flash is. In addition, HTML has significant advantages such as deep linking specific images (which isn’t as easy to achieve in Flash) such as for example the desert runner at sundown.

In my oppinion, the mobile internet devices have killed the use of Flash for portolio websites – specially in the case of multimedia portfolios for photographers and other creative visual artists.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 3rd, 2010 at 8:08. It is filed under Photography, Video & Multimedia and tagged with flash, HTML5 versus Flash, iPad, photography portfolio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.