It was big news when the iPad was announced with no plans to have flash implemented on it. Once again Steve Jobs was quite specific — he doesn’t believe Flash is appropriate for mobile devices and for an assortment of reasons won’t use it. Instead, he’s backing HTML 5, a new standard which will allow for embedded video without the need for plug-ins … or the crashes, or the system slowdowns so common when using flash.

Things became more complicated when the iPad promos appeared and seemed to show the New York Times front page running video with ease. The only problem is, the New York Times front page runs video in — you guessed it — flash. Apple was quick to change the ads so that they no longer showed a video running on the front page.

Not so fast. Parts of the Times are already using HTML 5, and it’s quite possible that prior to the launch of the iPad the front page will also.

It’s already known that the Times Skimmer, an innovative way of accessing the New York Times’s content on the web, uses HTML 5 extensively. No wonder it works as smoothly as it does! (and BTW, if you have not tried it you should… it is awesome.)

But that may be just the tip of the iceberg… in a very good way.

I have it on good authority that the Times is currently scrambling to add an HTML5 player to their front page. That is a huge deal. Not only does it mean that the experience of reading the web-version of the Times on the iPad will be the “full experience” but it also means one more feather in HTML5′s cap, and one more defection away from reliance on Flash.

No, Flash won’t be disappearing any time soon, but somewhere along the way there will be a tipping point where the transition toward HTML5 speeds up and reaches the point of being unstoppable. The NYTimes backing it is a huge step in that direction.