Flash-Free Versions of NPR, Wall Street Journal Web Sites Coming for iPad

All Things Digital is reporting that NPR along with The Wall Street Journal are just a few of the big-name media outlets preparing Flash-free versions of their respective sites specifically for Apple’s new iPad.

While National Public Radio is scrambling to have their iPad application available for the iPad release moment, they are additionally putting the finishing touches on their app alternative solution for users to listen to their programming directly from the iPad on April 3rd.

“Use the iPad’s browser to visit NPR.org, which will detect that it’s being viewed with Apple’s device and serve up a custom-built site. that means no trace of Adobe’s (ADBE) Flash, which is used to potential graphics and media on the site.”

The Wall Street Journal will additionally have their Flash-free, iPad specific, front page in a few short weeks. However, the deeper you go into their site you will find that Flash does still exist. That’s certainly understandable given how large the site is and how deeply Flash subject matter, particularly video and advertising, has been integrated. Detecting iPad Safari’s rare user agent string might be easy adequate (that’s how so

many sites detect and deliver iPhone optimized web sites already), but setting up complete mirrors absent Flash is by no means a simple task and may not be a viable solution for those sites out there that depend on Flash to display most of their composition. (Though hopefully it will cause sites that use Flash for no reason — we’re looking at you restaurants! — to rethink the decision and switch to more basic, searchable, and friendly standards based technologies).

As the battle within Adobe and Apple by Flash continues to heat up, it’s interesting to see where the chips are falling. Is not having Flash on the iPad or iPhone still a concern to you? Let us (and them) know how you feel in the comments!

Flash-Free Versions of NPR, Wall Street Journal Web Sites Coming for iPad is a story by TiPb. that feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog