… But is its success making it too powerful?

It would be criminal if the iPad was, indeed, ’the end of the website’, as suggested by your recent feature (Hype Pad, DW 20 May). What would the online experience become if every Internet presence required the development of an app, apart from corporate and marketing heaven?
The beauty of the Web is its democracy, the fact anyone can create a basic Web page. This isn’t about design, but content and information, what makes the Internet the amazing resource it is.

Whether you’re an individual, a small business or a large multinational, the Web should be open to you to create the content you wish to create (barring extremes). As a creative, I have a (designed) Web presence, but only because I can build in Flash. Building an app is beyond me.

Flash itself is also now a battleground. Apple’s insistence on snubbing it is also undemocratic. Steve Jobs’ assertion that Ajax, Javascript et al can now do many of the things Flash can do holds no water as it still restricts iPhone and iPad users from experiencing some of the richest media available, while also restricting the creation of new rich media to serious code-heads. For me, such short-sightedness renders the iPad next to useless – and I’m a complete Apple-head.

Andi Rusyn, Space and Room, by e-mail