Today iPad is available in Europe. We’ve purchased our first iPad the day it was launched in New York, but it was stolen while being delivered. Fortunately, the second one has been safely delivered, which enabled us to explore its features.

In brief, it’s an awesome and the most easy-to use device ever.

The main iPad's shortcoming is that it has no Flash video support. Since all videos published on the CSM use a Flash video player, none of them has been readable on iPad. So, we have modified the application so that it could replace videos in H264 format, compatible with iPad.

Initially, we have used Flash video format (FLV) because this technology is required for our player.
Apple has refused Flash support in the iPad under the pretence that it consumes too many resources, which considerably reduces its autonomy. And the benchmark testing of our player has shown that it’s absolutely true. It was impossible to reduce down to 40% the use of processor for MacOSX.

The new HTML 5 provides native video support (no player needed) but in H264 format only. FireFox (30% of the market) refuses to integrate this format support because H264 is not open source. Google has bought ON2, an American company specialized in video codecs, renamed from VP8 to WebM and made it open source.

This pushes us to create videos in various formats to make sure your website could be readable at any platform. Working on our new WebTV offer has helped us to propose the iPad support in short time.

To celebrate my 40th birthday the CampusPlex team has offered me a long weekend in Berlin. I’ve been working with our team members on the support for iPad at WMaker then. And had the impression of turning back time, while visiting the gallery showcasing Mesopotamian arts. iPads should have been looking like this 5000 years ago....

You can announce to your readers that your websites are compatible with iPad from now on!!!!