May 3, 2010

by Winston Tsao, CTO, Centrax Corporation

Now that iPad is proven to be popular, it is estimated to have sold more than 1,000,000 in only four weeks.  As in my previous blog entry, it is a great device to consume content.  However, developing content for it is an entirely different story.

The iPad supports popular media formats:  AAC, MP3, AIFF and WAV for audio, MPEG-4, MOV, H.264 and M-JPEG for video, and PDF, MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint for documents.  But unlike computers and perhaps other mobile devices, the iPad does not support Adobe Flash.  Steve Jobs has publicly stated that the iPad will not support Flash now or in the future.

Whether it was a business or a technical decision to not support Flash for Apple is up for  debate. As a learning content development company, we must look at the platform and decide whether we should support it.  One million iPads is not such a small number, and the number will only grow as the iPad price comes down over time. Currently, the iPad is targeting the consumer, for consumer practices. Although we can’t forget that consumers make up all core client bases, the question remains whether the iPad is best suited for learning purposes for our client audiences.

Part of the iPad’s popularity is based on portability and its relative low cost for operations and support. However, is this enough to also make it a good tool for learning development and learning consumption? Currently all media files can be produced with existing tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier and After Effects.  But to achieve the interactivity of Flash, there are only two paths on the iPad:  using its built-in Safari browser, and the ability to develop a custom app. Let’s take a look at these features more in depth.

Safari on the iPad supports HTML 5, a new web scripting standard.  However, because HTML 5 is so new, there is no authoring tool for designers to quickly design interactive content.  The learning curve for developing native iPad apps is also steep.  It is not only unfamiliar with designers, most programmers are also not familiar with the Objective-C language required to develop native iPad apps.

Apple has intentionally positioned the iPad as a new computing device, not as an extension of existing laptop or netbook computers.  On the down side, we cannot use Flash to develop interactive learning content for the iPad, but hopefully as the platform matures and more tools become available to aid designers in rapid development of content, the iPad will be considered a promising mobile device for web-based training and learning.