Infographics are an “in” thing right now, because, let’s face it, it’s hard not love visually-appealing graphics that offer a clean presentation of the information in question. In this case, the subject under scrutiny has to do with web file formats of choice. In this case, it’s Flash versus HTML5, the expected successor to the Flash thrown.
While that may be, the infographic in question, provided by Periscope.com, reveals this upcoming changeover has a ways to go before Flash is rendered obsolete. First, the infographic, resized for presentation purposes. Click the image for a bigger version, which measure around 1.2 megabytes worth of file size:
As you can see, while the desire for HTML5 might be high, the adoption process is still ongoing. As of this month (May, 2011), there are over 2 billion Flash users, as opposed to 800 million HTML 5 users. Of course, these numbers could mirror each other in a few years, but for now, Flash is still king.
Blame YouTube, I guess.
Another area of interest lies in the browser-ready section. For the Internet Explorer crowd, only IE9 supports HTML5. Firefox has had HTML5 support since version 3.6 and Google Chrome has supported the format since version 10. In the mobile device territory, support for the newer format is surprisingly high, with the exception of the Nokia and BlackBerry environments. Of course, if either company wants to keep up with the Joneses — Google and Apple, apparently — then such expect such a distinction to change in the near future.
Of course, HTML5 is still in its fledgling stage, so expect these numbers to be a little different in a few years. An area discussed by Periscope includes iPad proliferation. It seems Apple is pushing developers who want to design for the “iEnvironment” to focus on the iOS format:
If your goal is to develop content in HTML5 so that it can be viewed through both a web browser and the iPad, (to reach the largest amount of people), you might be a little disappointed. Content developed in HTML5 for the iPad has the least available features and performs the worst out of all HTML5-compatible scenarios.
Periscope concludes their post with the following heads up, “from a purely analytical point of view, the best option for developing a feature-rich dynamic data visualization right now still seems to be Flash.” Just as long as a standard-format iPad user isn’t part of your intended audience.