If for some reason you were living on a remote uninhabited island for the last week, you probably didn’t hear about Steve Jobs’ blog post highlighting Apple’s position on why it’s not planning to support Flash on the iPhone or iPad anytime soon.  Otherwise, you’ve probably at least heard of Apple’s position if you didn’t read the post in its entirety.  For the sake of brevity, I’ll provide the short version:

1. Apple has no plans to support Flash on the iPhone or iPad.
2. Ever.

As an online retailer, why should you care?  For starters, over 1 million iPads have already been sold since its launch (in 28 days).  That is twice the pace of sales as the original iPhone, despite the iPad’s higher price tag.  Love it or hate it, the iPad is a hit.  With a bigger screen, consumers may quickly make the iPad a strong force in e-commerce for the simple reason that it can be easier to shop on a screen with larger dimensions. Second, iPhone sales are booming. Apple sold 9 million iPhones in the second quarter alone.  In 2009, it sold around 25 million iPhones. A new iPhone will likely be announced this June.  Apple is on a tear.

We posted on HTML5 earlier on the VCC and its relevance to video commerce, but since that time several important developments have taken shape in the industry.  MPEG-LA extended free licenses for the H.264 codec through 2016, providing the marketplace with additional certainty around the viability of H.264 (what happens after 2016 is anyone’s guess).  Second, Microsoft announced HTML5 support will be included in Internet Explorer 9.  HTML5 video is already supported in Firefox (3.6), Chrome (3+), Safari (3,4).  Now that Microsoft is in on the HTML5 party, all the major industry players in the browser game are aligned.

If you are not supporting HTML5 today on your site, it is something to consider strongly.  With surging iPad sales, soaring iPhone sales, and what is likely to be strong next-gen iPhone sales (many purchasers of the original 3G iPhone have expiring plans with AT&T this June and may look to upgrade their phones subsidized with a new plan), retailers can expect to see more shoppers using these devices.

Until next time -

Happy Selling!