Vimeo wants to make it easier to watch online video on your Apple iPhone, iPad and Android phones and the video-sharing site has introduced a hybrid Flash/HTML5 player which will detect what device you’re on and give you the appropriate format.
The company has been working on the new version for at least five months and when you play a video, it will detect if it should play it back in Adobe Flash or HTML5, as well as what type of video it should play based on the connection speed. This means your Flash-less browser on the Apple iPhone and iPad should be able to watch these videos in all its glory.
“The videos will be playable in any browser and work with future platforms as well.” said Vimeo VP of products Andrew Pile, in an interview with USA Today.
Vimeo’s competitor YouTube is already accessible on the Apple iPhone and iPad but it’s through a standalone app and the video quality isn’t always as good as some people would like. YouTube is also experimenting with HTML5 videos on its mobile site to easily reach the Apple iPhone and iPad.
The Apple iPhone and iPad lack Adobe Flash technology because Steve Jobs believes the ubiquitous web technology isn’t optimized for mobile devices well. He prefers web publishers use HTML5 to reach the iOS crowd or just develop apps for the App Store (which Apple can get a revenue cut out of).
Adobe has outlined its own counteroffensive and the company is trying to get Flash on as many devices as possible. We already have the full Flash Player 10.1 for the Nexus One and multiple Android, Research In Motion and Palm phones should get this soon, too.
The Vimeo HTML5 player does show that some content providers aren’t going to wait for Flash to get on mobile devices in massive quantities. By utilizing HTML5 content, these publishers can reach the more than 100 million Apple iOS users, as well as any mobile phone user with a modern Webkit browser, including Android.
[Via USA Today]