Yesterday, after being confused once again by the “quarterfinal” system on Masterchef, I decided to get out my trusty iPhone and do some browsing of local wedding photographer sites. I knew which sites I wanted to visit, and of the ten that I visited I was greeted with the following screen shot on six:
You may, or may not, know that the iPhone, iPod Touch and the up-coming iPad do not (and probably will not), support Flash.
If you have a Flash based website, I encourage you to use an iPhone/iPod to check out your site (or, if you have a Mac, you can emulate your site by looking at iPhoney)
The example I am using here is what I see a lot – you go to a Flash based page, and all you see is the blue diamond.
That’s because the Flash application has not been set up to check for a non-flash enabled browser (bad).
A great example of a Flash site that works on an iPhone etc., is Jeff Ascough’s site.
The developer’s of Jeff’s site have put into place contingency code for this very reason. Jeff’s site looks good whether you have Flash installed or not. This type of contingency code should be used all the time if you have a Flash based website.
I looked at my Google Analytics and over the last month, 7% of visitors to my wedding photography site have been using either an iPhone or an iPod. This will increase, perhaps dramatically, over the next year or so – especially when the iPad launches.
So – just try it. Open your site on an iPhone and see what you get. If you get the blue diamond, or you get a message to “download flash” then you are alienating yourself to an ever increasing set of potential targets.
If you don’t think it’s a serious issue, then you don’t agree with Virgin Airlines who have removed Flash from their site because of this.
Cheers
-km (Listening to: Lately, I’ve let thing Slide by Nick Lowe)
Hi Kevin,
Not being a slave to the Ipod ;0) Is there a good Ipod simulator (PC based) that I could utilise to test how my site/blog is handling Ipod traffic?
Great site by the way.
Jonathan
Hi Jonathan – I couldn’t find a PC emulator unfortunately. I’m a PC user myself so did look – but no luck. If you want to ping me an email I’ll check out your site on my iPhone for you if you want.
Cheers
Kev
Please replace Ipod with Iphone….I couldn’t do without my Ipod…it’s the phone I don’t have !
I’ve just been thinking about this in terms of online magazines and the iPad.
Most online magazine building services such as zmags sell themselves on converting PDF files to Flash based books.
While this all looks great on a PC it’s not going to work on an iPad – ironically this is what the iPad would be perfect for!
As offline publishing numbers drop more and more we’re seeing cheaper online versions becoming more popular – I wonder how many of them offer a PDF version verses of fancy Flash one?
It’s a good point Michael. Flash is perfectly placed for mobile books etc., but if the mobile devices don’t support it what will happen? I have my NAPP magazine delivered electronically via a Flash tool. I’d love to be able to pop that on my iPhone – but alas no…..
-km
I’m boy new to the web and also needed to read up on this subject.
Have you ever considered writing an e-book or guest authoring on other websites? I have a blog based upon on the same ideas you discuss and would love to have you share some stories/information. I know my visitors would appreciate your work. If you are even remotely interested, feel free to shoot me an e mail.