Virgin America selects HTML over Flash, re-ignites the Flash vs. HTML debate

By on Mar 3, 2010 at 1:41 PM
News March 3, 2010

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Steve Jobs made headlines last month when he publicly dissed Adobe and its Flash technology and declared HTML 5 as the future of interactive media on the web. Though not as bold in its pronouncement, Virgin America has confirmed that it is switching to an all featured, interactive non-Flash website and has become the second high profile technology company to publicly dump Flash in lieu of HTML. According to Virgin CIO Ravi Simhambhatla, HTML will provide all the functionality Virgin’s website will need and will open up the company’s website to all mobile users regardless of platform and Flash support. Virgin is turning its sights towards mobile users as it seeks TSA approval for an electronic boarding pass that can be displayed on a mobile handset. If Virgin wants to grab the largest number of potential customers, it can not utilize Flash and risk excluding those users of non-Flash handsets, most notable of which is the iPhone. Not only is it interesting to see the HTML vs. Flash war play out in the technology industry, it is also interesting to see how Apple, through the success of the iPhone, is indirectly influencing the future of the Internet. But that was part of their plan all along.

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  • AT&T_CSR

    I love virgins.

    • StevenGlansburg

      ^still is one

      • Steven’s_Stepdad-to-be

        MomGlansburg is taking care of that tonight, actually.

      • StevenGlansburg

        I was a test tube baby…. :(

      • Steven’sMom’sMostRecentLover

        even testube babies need surrogates for birth, so yes you do have a mother. also whoever donated the egg. I’ve been with them both so, no matter.

    • drew

      virgin is hot

  • Ryan

    And so the slow death march of Adobe Flash begins…

  • Confused

    Why do you have to choose one or the other? Just use the appropriate technology where applicable. A lot of sites work well as hybrids (like the NYTimes).

    • meske

      You’ve got to take a look at the business model. It’s cheaper to maintain a single code base. And if you can make it flashy and standards compliant, any platform out there will benefit.

      If anything, the mobile market’s lack of Flash has moved this along more than anything else. In reality, Flash has kind of killed itself by not focusing on mobile devices sooner. If they were on the ball and had flash working on blackberries (for example) two years ago, there would be a much greater debate as to the value of the platform in mobile computing.

    • Christopher Cox

      The goal here is to increase availability. If HTML5 can replace flash, and do it with greater performance then why not? HTML5 content is handled directly by the browser. Flash is a separate component requiring a separate license. So why throw in an additional layer when you don’t have to? By making their sites pure html5, they pretty much open it up to just about all mobile platforms at once. If a new device comes out, they don’t have to wait for Adobe to create a version for it. The site will just work because it is browser supported. Makes perfect sense to stay 100% away from Flash.

  • T

    I think you may be giving the iPhone a little too much credit here. HTML5 is just another evolution in the progression of technology – and it may make Flash redundant. It’s coming whether the iPhone ever gets Flash or not.

    • meske

      Agreed. I don’t believe this has as much to do with Apple as it has to do with mobile adoption. The mobile platform has been evolving quickly to larger screens and more data-centric features. I’m not saying the iPhone didn’t move this along greatly, but I think Steve is just getting the press while many of the webs finest have been quietly working away on standards based solutions.

      • http://easeintotheswitch.com/ mikeb

        One thing you may not know about is Apple’s heavy involvement in the creation of HTML5. Apple employees played a very large role in the creation of HTML5 through their work in the WHATWG.

        Apple was busy at work increasing the capability of HTML at the same time they were developing the iPhone and iPad. They knew HTML5 would quickly make Flash redundant – especially when spurred along by the absence of it on their mobile devices.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whatwg

    • Christopher Cox

      I don’t think the majority truly believe Apple is the reason for them dumping Flash. I think that it gives more credibility to the growing point that Flash on the iPhone (or any mobile platform) is un-necessary. I fully support having a browser supported method of animation and other elements instead of having to rely on another piece of software with another license to do what the browser can just do natively. Back in the day we had to rely on RIP (remote imaging protocol) Terminals to view graphics from online services like BBS (Remember the old Prodigy?). Now that web browsers came into the picture and could display images natively, RIP faded away. Flash will go out the same way. It simply is un-necessary. Browsers have evolved past the need for a separate plugin.

    • MikeD

      I think you have missed the whole picture. The iPhone is the most visible reason why flash is dying off. The writer never said it was the only reason. But you can easily go back to prior discussion on BGR and find the WinMo and Fandroids talk about how the iPhone can’t run flash. The HTML 5 issue grew greatly because of the mobile device explosion among average consumers. NOT GEEKS. Average consumers were buying smartphones at an increased rate. Then the stats started to pour in and overwhelmingly the mobile platform hitting up the websites the most was the iPhone/iPod Touch.

      Thus making the developers realize that there was a large swath of people unable to view their Flash content. Since then HTML 5 is talked about almost everyday. Virgin is now moving off of Flash, YouTube and Vimeo are going HTML 5 as well.

      The HTML 5 debate has been a hotly contested point of many iPhone bashers. Flash has been bloated and a processor hog for many years. Its was designed for use on a desktop. HTML 5 will be a great move for all devices.

      Adobe never really had a mobile strategy.

  • bonny

    virgin is the puppet of apple.

  • Mog

    T: That’s true, but I think the iPhone/iPad is sort of speeding that extinction along. It’s kind of like the original iMac and floppy drives, serial ports, and parallel ports — sure, we’d stop screwing in our cables eventually, but would it have happened as fast if Apple didn’t go all-USB? Who knows.

    I don’t much like Flash, so this makes me happy. :)

    • T

      Well, if it is playing a hand in pushing it towards extinction… then I’d love Apple to support a PDF alternative. PDF needs to die. :)

      • Ben

        PDF did become an open format, so I am good with it. as long as you don’t use Adobe’s PDF reader it’s a perfectly fine file format.

      • Christopher Cox

        Just as Ben said, PDF is open, so everyone can just use it. Every mobile platform can view PDF documents. On my Linux machines, I have never once used an Adobe product to view them. That being said, a format like PDF is necessary. And no, word processing formats cannot replace it.

  • jay

    I’ll be very glad to see the eventual death of Flash, BUT current phones should still support it. There are just too many websites that still use it.

    With today’s powerful phones, I should be able to access every site, regardless of what technology a site is using.

    • Ben

      the thing is there’s no way adobe can guarantee flash that works on desktop machine (that uses 99% CPU) will work on phones.

      So by the end of the day you’ll have a lot of flash contents that may or may not work on a phone.

  • Channan

    I’m all for HTML replacing Flash in many situations, but Flash is widely used NOW. I hate how these big companies switching from Flash is ensuring Apple will never put it on my iPhone.

  • steve

    So in an attempt to make their site more accessible, they’re going to cripple it for the majority of users that don’t have a browser capable of rendering HTML5? That seems backwards. Are they just dumbing down their site to HTML4 (ie. no rich content)? Seems like a PR stun.

    • http://easeintotheswitch.com/ mikeb

      HTML5 features will degrade gracefully on unsupported browsers. It’s basically a non-issue.

  • steve

    Ah, Route Map is still Flash. Suppose we’ll have to wait years for that to be replaced by HTML… but way to grab the limelight anyway Virgin.

  • wang46969

    so who the hell in America flies Virgin anyways? forget the website for a moment i need answers to the first question.

    • ktowncrawler

      i use it all the time to fly between SF and LA. best airline by far. and it’s as cheap as southwest

  • Hollaman

    i hope to god flash gets killed off by this, nice to see apple using their weight to make a change that is not only better for them but for the entire internet (mobile or not)

    • Unit

      Did Flash touch you in private places? What’s with the anger? It’s ignorant to claim Flash has no value. Lots of great work has been done with it. It’ll slowly be phased out… but really, why the rage?

      • Christopher Cox

        The closed nature of Flash causes lots of problems. Performance on machines outside of Windows is not very good because it is up to one company to decide who gets to use it. I use Linux, and Flash for that platform is not as good. Is it Linux problem? No. It is because Adobe puts its development priority last. The HTML5 version of YouTube runs 50x faster than the Flash version on my Linux machines because we don’t have the overhead and the browser can handle it natively. Flash had its time. It’s time has now passed. Browsers themselves can provide the same experience without a plugin. This is how it should be. Now, these companies can make rich pages available … and be sure it runs well on all platforms. And we don’t have to wait for the green light from one company like we do now.

  • http://www.applebythehour.com Jarrett

    Maybe one of the five coolest things I have ever seen on the internet.

    http://gizmodo.com/5484736/how-ok-go-built-the-craziest-rube-goldberg-machine-yet

  • Rang3r

    Yes thanks to apple! But boy genius u fuckin asshole stop putting stupid bullshit like this on this fuckin dumb ass fuckin website. All u fat hairy nerds go to fuckin hell. Put interesting news on here like AT&T buying verizon!!

    • jfr

      Thanks for the edifying post Rang3r.

  • loki

    @wang46969,

    everytime between Washington State (Seatac) and Cali (LAX).

    Cheap prices and by far the best service I have had.

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone) at: Olympia North America

  • rederikus

    HTML 5 IS the future. Adobe is nowhere. Fail.

  • Stromson

    Flash has had a good ride, but it was inevitable that it be “replaced” (I don’t think we’ll see a true Flash phase-out for some years to come).

  • DaneS

    Off Topic:
    Does anyone else wonder why Rang3r is being such a prick….all those things he said, are they about him, and is the only place he is confident enough to admit them is on a tech blog, where no one knows who he is, or for that matter really gives 2 shits. I was just wondering.

    On topic:
    And I agree with the others, Yes Flash will go away, be replaced whatever but not for some time.

  • loki

    Flash is cool but the fact is that a good chunck of people use smartphones to access stuff online on the fly. In this case being airline tickets (Virgin America) then it makes sense. They are making a strategy move by being accessible and not being hindered because some devices are not flash compatible.

    You can argue that a cell phone is not the device to use to look certain things up but ill tell you that I use my iphone or blackberry before I turn on my computer.

    Will flash fail? I dont really know too much about html or flash but can say that from a consumers end, I side with Virgin America and understand where they are coming from.

    • Christopher Cox

      Not only is the move the HTML good for mobile phones, it is also great for everything else not Windows. Adobe Flash on anything else is slow and consumes more resources than it needs to. This is not the fault of the other platforms .. or an indication Windows is better. It is because Adobe chooses to focus their attention on Windows platforms first. This is a more Internet focussed society. Why do we have to look to one company (Adobe) to decide which platforms get to view this content, or which platforms get a better more optimized version? As it should be … a rich web experience should be provided by a standard everyone can use, not support provided by one company.

  • Mike S.

    I use a Flash-capable phone (Moto Droid) but still have no interest in Flash on my phone.
    Nor on my desktop, actually.

    Flash must die.

  • Cptn. Obvious

    Apple influence the internet?………isn’t Google THE internet…..and aren’t they getting along nicely?

  • rd

    Apple is just hurt that their silly QuickTime never took off.

    • Ben

      yeah, Quicktime so didn’t take off that ISO decides to base Mpeg4 on Quicktime…. yeah total failure there.

  • br14

    Listen to all the Apple fan boys forecasting the death of flash :-)

    Sadly for Apple the rest of the world loves flash. Which is why just about every other smart phone manufacturer in the world (among others) is part of the “Open Screen Project” to standardise Flash. And Google said last year they’d also be joining.

    I imagine we’ll see the first devices to run fully fledged Flash later this year.

    The damn has already burst. While Virgin may be dropping Flash, innumerable other major corporations are standardising on Flash and Flex. Just check the jobs pages.

    • Ben

      Which “major” corporation is “standardizing” on Flash.. really. Their web department must be overrun by morons.

      The only device that can run a full fledged Flash is probably a Windows machines with several gigs of ram and a multicore CPU, and frankly not even that can run all the “feature rich” flash “apps” out there. So yeah keep dreaming about full fledged Flash on a phone.

      BTW the only thing “open” about the “Open Screen Project” is the name. LOL

      • me

        lol “web department?” Jesus christ kid…you know how I know you’re in high school? You think corporations have “web departments.” Dumbass…

  • tommyinnyc

    There is a difference between a company not using flash and a platform like apple not allowing users to use flash. I am happy that Virgin America is telling the world that it thinks Flash is not secure and doesn’t like it but I am against a company telling me I am not allowed to use Flash.

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