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I think Google's playing the long game here. So they won't switch tomorrow but they'll try to make WebM the defacto standard by getting everyone but Apple on bo

I think Google's playing the long game here. So they won't switch tomorrow but they'll try to make WebM the defacto standard by getting everyone but Apple on board. Then they'll leverage the open nature of the codec and its new found market dominance to force Apple's hand. This is the same strategy Apple's using against Flash by only supporting HTML5 and to my eyes it's working.

deleted 16y ago
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davej 16y ago
Apple's reasons for not supporting Flash on their mobile platform are primarily performance reasons. It's not only Apple that isn't supporting WebM by the way, IE9 won't support it (unless you have a VP8 codec installed). In fact, the only browsers that currently support WebM in their latest stable versions are Chrome and Opera. Remember that flash doesn't support WebM yet either. WebM might well become more popular than H.264 for web video in the next couple of years and I wouldn't be all that surprised if Apple supported WebM in their next Safari release. But… I'd still be very surprised if YouTube stopped encoding videos into H.264 in this decade.
- Xuzz 16y ago
  Apple's primary reason for not supporting Flash is that there is not a "Browser Plugin Store", there is an "App Store", and Flash is decidedly not an "app".
- clark-kent 16y ago
  Mozilla is also supporting it. Upcoming Firefox versions will support WebM. Even IE9 will support WebM with HTML5 when the codec is installed locally on windows.
  - danudey 16y ago
    As will Safari on Mac (it supports theora if a codec is installed).
- cpeterso 16y ago
  > Apple's reasons for not supporting Flash on their mobile platform are primarily performance reasons. But Apple also wants to protect its monopoly for iOS app developers and App Store distribution. The Flash plugin would allow application developers to write cross-platform apps and bypass the App Store.

deleted 16y ago

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davej 16y ago

Apple's reasons for not supporting Flash on their mobile platform are primarily performance reasons. It's not only Apple that isn't supporting WebM by the way, IE9 won't support it (unless you have a VP8 codec installed). In fact, the only browsers that currently support WebM in their latest stable versions are Chrome and Opera. Remember that flash doesn't support WebM yet either. WebM might well become more popular than H.264 for web video in the next couple of years and I wouldn't be all that surprised if Apple supported WebM in their next Safari release. But… I'd still be very surprised if YouTube stopped encoding videos into H.264 in this decade.

Xuzz 16y ago
Apple's primary reason for not supporting Flash is that there is not a "Browser Plugin Store", there is an "App Store", and Flash is decidedly not an "app".
clark-kent 16y ago
Mozilla is also supporting it. Upcoming Firefox versions will support WebM. Even IE9 will support WebM with HTML5 when the codec is installed locally on windows.
- danudey 16y ago
  As will Safari on Mac (it supports theora if a codec is installed).
cpeterso 16y ago
> Apple's reasons for not supporting Flash on their mobile platform are primarily performance reasons. But Apple also wants to protect its monopoly for iOS app developers and App Store distribution. The Flash plugin would allow application developers to write cross-platform apps and bypass the App Store.