Originally Posted By: hybrid8
the image format is irrelevant as long as it's one supported by HTML, which JPG is

There is exactly one reference to JPEG or JPG in the HTML 4.01 spec:
Originally Posted By: HTML 4.01
Examples of widely recognized image formats include GIF, JPEG, and PNG.

No image formats are explicitly supported by HTML. None. It doesn't even suggest that browsers "SHOULD" support any particular image formats. In fact, it encourages HTML authors to use the OBJECT tag instead of the IMG tag, and the OBJECT tag is the same tag that the HTML spec says is to be used for "applets", and it goes out of its way to say that "applet" includes more than just Java applets:
Originally Posted By: HTML 4.01
Previous versions of HTML allowed authors to include images (via IMG) and applets (via APPLET). These elements have several limitations:
  • They fail to solve the more general problem of how to include new and future media types.
  • The APPLET element only works with Java-based applets. This element is deprecated in favor of OBJECT.
  • They pose accessibility problems.
To address these issues, HTML 4 introduces the OBJECT element, which offers an all-purpose solution to generic object inclusion. The OBJECT element allows HTML authors to specify everything required by an object for its presentation by a user agent: source code, initial values, and run-time data. In this specification, the term "object" is used to describe the things that people want to place in HTML documents; other commonly used terms for these things are: applets, plug-ins, media handlers, etc.

Originally Posted By: hybrid8
You can transform the image within HTML

In what way? Changing the size? You can do the same thing with OBJECTs.

I'm sorry, but you're just flat-out wrong here; your position is indefensible.

I'm not going to argue that Flash is a defined part of the term "web site", but I also wouldn't argue that the terms JPEG and PNG are, either. That said, if the web browser was unable to render JPEGs or PNGs, I would consider that to be something that kept it from being able to render "all the world's web sites". In the same way, I would consider something that fails to render Flash unable to render "all the world's web sites". I recognize that their point here is (or at least was) that Mobile Safari had capabilities in the same league as those of desktop browsers, as opposed to the crap that came with smartphones before the iPhone was introduced. There's clearly some point at which an image or object format can be considered irrelevant (for example, I don't think a browser's inability to render SVG would raise many eyebrows), but I don't think that there are many people that would claim that Flash is an irrelevant part of "all the world's web sites".
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Bitt Faulk