iPad – Migration Away From Flash Will Take A Long Time

The reality is that Steve Jobs cannot eradicate Flash overnight. I agree with his stance on HTML 5, although I think there is still room for debate on H.264 for video. That said how can you tout a device's browsing experience when you don't support a large part of the web. Even MacRumors had this to say yesterday:

"So while developing Flash-free versions of websites may be reasonable for certain publications with the structure and resources to accomplish the feat, it is by no means an easy solution for the many sites out there currently relying on Flash to display their standard Web content. During a visit to New York City to promote the iPad to publishers, Apple CEO Steve Jobs reportedly argued against the need for Flash, pushing publications toward adoption of other technologies such as H.264 video and JavaScript that are more iPad-friendly."

There is no doubt that the iPad will be an initial success, but how long will people stand not being able to browse the full internet. All the claims that Flash is on its way out are fine, but how long it will take to migrate those millions and possibly billions lines of code. People shouted the demise of the mainframe in the 90's and IBM is still selling them at a pretty good clip.