Rob Ford (the man behind the one of the industry’s most coveted web awards site TheFWA.com) started an interesting discussion on LinkedIn this morning. With all the exciting announcements coming out of CES (blog post with my favorites coming later today) he asks if the iPhone and iPad will be left in a wilderness and possibly be the only devices not to support Flash?

Rob Ford: “Tablets look set to hog the headlines at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Industry watchers expect 100 or more of the portable gadgets to be shown off at the four-day technology extravaganza.”

It seems that one key feature people look for with a new tablet is the ability to run Flash, I know I certainly do.

It also seems that every tablet coming to the market does.

So, will the iPhone and iPad be left in a wilderness and possibly be the only devices not to support Flash?

Flash on mobile is still incredibly new and we are still waiting to see exciting new mobile optimised content. We are pretty much back at Flash 2/3 in terms of the web. To illustrate that point, look at these old Flash sites on your Flash enabled smartphone or tablet, they all work perfectly:

Gabocorp http://www.thefwa.com/flash10/1996_7.html 1997

EYE4U http://www.eye4u.com/home/ 1998

NRG.be http://www.nrg.be/archived/flash.php 1998

Matinee http://www.matinee.co.uk/site2/fr_nmd.htm 1998

Who’s We Studios http://www.whoswestudios.com/flashsite.html 2002

tokyoplastic http://www.tokyoplastic.com/tokyoplastic1.swf 2003

Agencies are definitely working with Flash and AIR for mobile as we speak.

The iPhone is my most used device but I miss the lack of Flash. A friend of mine who is outside of this industry recently told me the only time he fires up his laptop is when he tries to access a site on his iPhone that requires Flash.

I am still looking at tablets but will only buy one that does support Flash.

I also feel the app store is a “boys club” network, especially after publishing an iPhone app for FWA Photo. It was a long and painful process and aftersales was useless. I prefer the freedom the web gave us and hate to see it taken away.

I believe that 2011 will see many of us moving away from the need for Flash on Apple’s devices. All that energy wasted on trying to change Apple’s stance is better focused on getting creative on devices that work.

I don’t want to hijack Rob’s discussion so I closed the comments on this post. You can share your thoughts on Rob’s LinkedIn discussion thread.

2011 is going to be an interesting year! Apple has undoubtedly done an excellent job with the iPad but it has it’s obvious flaws. While they are currently the market leader in tablets the game is changing rapidly. With CES just a few weeks away big brands are starting to tease some of their announcements. (Man… I wish I could be at CES this year! So much cool stuff coming!) Motorola created this interesting teaser that doesn’t really say anything and yet says so much…

BTW… I’m doing a little bit of research on tablets and tablet applications. If you have a few minutes I would really appreciate it if you took the time to fill out this short survey.

Even though it has its flaws there’s no denying that Apple has done a great job with the iPad. A while back I got to play with one for a few days to prepare for a demo. Next to its obvious and well documented/talked about flaws I also think it is too heavy and too big and so I was on the lookout for a smaller and lighter alternative. Obviously everyone in the tech industry took notice of what Apple had created and we’re finally starting to see the details of some of the iPad’s future competitors.

I’ve been following the news about the Galaxy Tab from Samsung for a while now. Today they started an official teaser campaign. See the video below.

Now… I’m just wondering… Am I the only one that watched this video frame by frame? Am I the only that tried to decipher the blurry text in the background? (The blurriest one says “Flash support” by the way. After all Samsung is one of our Open Screen Project partners.)

This looks like it’s a great form factor. A 7-inch screen sounds just right to me and the widescreen aspect ratio makes a lot more sense especially if you want to watch video on it. I can’t wait to get my hands on one! The second half of this year is going to be very interesting… and expensive ;-)

Earlier this week, Robert Scoble visited the Adobe office in San Francisco to talk to Anup Murarka (director on the Flash Platform team) and Aaron Filner (group product manager for AIR). In the first video they talk about Adobe’s recent announcements. In the second video they debunk some of the recent claims that were discussed in the tech community. They talk about HTML5, Apple, battery life, multitouch and more… After watching the videos, also read Robert’s (@scobleizer) thoughts on his blog.

I already blogged about how excited I was about HP’s slate device a few weeks ago. These two new videos make me want it even more!

The first one is a teaser ad from HP but make sure you watch the second video! Adobe’s Alan Tam shows the device in action! No CGI tricks here! Alan shows Adobe AIR and Flash in action on the device: Video playback from MTV.com; A Spongebob Squarepants game (most casual games on the Web run in Flash); photo editing at Photoshop.com and reading the digital version of the New York Times. Now that is the web experience I want on a slate device! I’m ordering this the minute it becomes available!