Web developers have faced the issue of being compatable with the iPad.  After Apple released the iPad, it became very clear for Web developers that the device would not support Adobe Flash, or any other Web plug-in.   If Web developers wanted all the dynamic content on their pages such as videos and animations to appear correctly on Apple’s new device, they had to create it using only the next generation markup language for the Web, HTML5, and related open standards.  In my opinion, this is a problem!Google reveals that there are at least 74 million web pages that use the Shockwave Flash (SWF) format. It is a tall order to ask all of them to change for a single company’s line of products, even if Apple sold more than 500,000 of these devices last weekend.  Developer tools for HTML5 aren’t as advanced as those for Flash, and the standard is not finished yet, which could lead to more work for developers down the road to readjust pages to meet the finalized standard.   Eschewing the Web’s plug-in model, the iPad may potentially miss out on cutting edge features enjoyed elsewhere on the Web.

Web developers interested in tweaking their sites for the iPad, but also using continuing to use Flash, may have no choice but to build, as Flickr did, hooks specific for the iPad.