In case you haven't noticed, the iPad does not support the Adobe Flash plugin and instead went with HTML 5. At the time when the iPad first came out, many were dismayed by this omission. In fact, it was even a selling point in a competitor's commercial for their tablet that had support for Flash. Some saw this as a serious flaw. "Are you kidding? How could they?" Amazingly some even suggested it would hurt them with the gaming market. That is laughable in hindsight, as the iPad is all about gaming. No, this was not merely an omission on Apple's part, it was a bold and carefully thought out strategy. Apple knew that they did not want to be at the mercy of Adobe in maintaining the secure and enjoyable Apple experience that their customers were accustomed to. Flash is notorious for security holes and crashes, not to mention being a memory hog. In retrospect, several years in and with most websites adapting to the iPad, I think we can all agree that Apple once again chose the right path despite their critics worries.

Well, look who has joined the party. Microsoft just announced on their Building Windows 8 blog that their Windows 8 Metro Internet Explorer Metro (tablet version) will be plugin Free. It is built on an HTML 5 engine. Just like Apple, their desktop version of their browser will continue to support Flash.

For how long will this dying proprietary beast stay alive, remains to be seen. Not long is my estimation. I can imagine a time in the not distant future when we read that Apple no longer supports Flash all together. In my opinion, that day can not come soon enough.