Scribd Abandoning Flash for HTML5
TechCrunch reports that social document sharing and publishing site
Scribd has announced that it is scrapping its current Flash-based system for one based on HTML5.
Scribd co-founder and chief technology officer Jared Friedman tells me: "We are scrapping three years of Flash development and betting the company on HTML5 because we believe HTML5 is a dramatically better reading experience than Flash. Now any document can become a Web page."
Instead of displaying documents in a Flash-based box, Scribd's content will become large webpages viewable directly in the browser and will offer bookmarking support to assist with long documents. The move to HTML5 will obviously also make content compatible with devices such as the iPad that do not support Flash.
Scribd's currently uses a Flash player much like YouTube's to allow people to upload and view documents on the Web. But with HTML5 standards now making their way through not [sic] browsers, there is little reason to do that. "Right now the document is in a box," says Friedman, "a Youtube-type of experience. There is a bunch of content and a bunch of stuff around it. In the new experience we are taking the content out of the box."
According to the report, Scribd is rolling out HTML5 versions of 200,000 of its most popular documents today as it begins the switch for its complete library, which numbers in the tens of millions of documents.
Popular Stories
Software from an iPhone prototype running an early build of iOS 26 leaked last week, giving us a glimpse at future Apple devices and iOS features. We recapped device codenames in our prior article, and now we have a list of some of the most notable feature flags that were found in the software code.
In some cases, it's obvious what the feature flags are referring to, while some are more...
Next year's iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max will be equipped with under-screen Face ID, and the front camera will be moved to the top-left corner of the screen, according to a new report from The Information's Wayne Ma and Qianer Liu.
As a result of these changes, the report said the iPhone 18 Pro models will not have a pill-shaped Dynamic Island cutout at the top of the screen....
Last week, details about unreleased Apple devices and future iOS features were shared by Macworld. This week, we learned where the information came from, plus we have more findings from the leak.
As it turns out, an Apple prototype device running an early build of iOS 26 was sold, and the person who bought it shared the software. The OS has a version number of 23A5234w, and the first...
Apple is testing iOS 26.3, the next version of iOS 26 that will launch around January. Since iOS 26.3's testing is happening over the holidays, it is a smaller update with fewer features than we've seen in prior betas.
We've rounded up what's new so far, and we'll add to our list with subsequent betas if we come across any other features.
Transfer to Android
Apple is making it simpler...
The first foldable iPhone will feature a series of design and hardware firsts for Apple, according to details shared by the Weibo leaker known as Digital Chat Station.
According to a new post, via machine translation, Apple is developing what the leaker describes as a "wide foldable" device, a term used to refer to a horizontally oriented, book-style foldable with a large internal display....
Macworld's Filipe Espósito today revealed a handful of features that Apple is allegedly planning for iOS 26.4, iOS 27, and even iOS 28.
The report said the features are referenced within the code for a leaked internal build of iOS 26 that is not meant to be seen by the public. However, it appears that Espósito and/or his sources managed to gain access to it, providing us with a sneak peek...
There's now a dedicated Apple Music app for ChatGPT, which allows ChatGPT to make music recommendations and build playlists.
Apple Music can be added to ChatGPT through the Settings section in the Mac app, website, or iOS app. Apple Music is listed under the apps option, and connecting to it requires signing in with your Apple Account for authorization purposes.
ChatGPT can be used to...
We have been covering iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 17e, and iPhone Fold details from The Information's report about future iPhone models, and next up is the iPhone Air 2.
The report says that Apple aims to make the iPhone Air 2 more attractive in two ways.
First, Apple is apparently considering adding a second rear camera to the device, which would resolve a key limitation. The current iPhone...
Apple is developing a high-end iMac featuring the M5 Max chip, according to information from leaked internal software.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
The finding comes from leaked kernel debug kit files used by Apple engineers. These kernel debug kit files enumerate unreleased Apple hardware by internal identifiers, such as codenames and platform names, and they...
