Since Apple have approved the Skyfire web browser which plays Flash videos for the iPhone, was this done to prove that Flash has lost relevance?
Brian X. Chen of Wired has spent some time with the app since it came out on Wednesday. He first had to find a website with loaded Flash video, and found the search difficult. Many websites which feature a lot of video including the likes of YouTube and DailyMotion have already moved to HTML5.
It was also found that 54% of web video is now HTML5 compatible. He was eventually pointed to a website called CWTV. As soon as Skyfire knew he was trying to play a Flash video, a play button became available at the bottom of the browser. In less than five seconds an episode of ‘Smallville’ was being streamed.
Some problems were discovered when the TED Talks website was loaded. The site is a gallery of Flash videos and the browser wouldn’t transcode them. The author had a tough time finding reasons to use Skyfire, but concluded that the main reason for it is that many porn sites still rely on Flash. This could be for a limited time because his ‘research’ says that most porn sites will be changing to HTML5 soon.
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