In case you’ve been living under a rock: Apple isn’t particularly keen on Flash. They can’t control it, and the company claims it’s the number one cause of crashes on Mac OS X. Now that Steve Jobs is busy promoting the iPad to content providers, he’s also on the offensive against Flash.
Fail or win for the iPad will in part depend upon the amount of content Apple can deliver to its customers through the tablet device. As such, Jobs is making the rounds, talking to major content providers – print, mostly – to get them to publish their stuff on the iPad. The problem? Many print media like Flash and have invested in it. The iPad, obviously, doesn’t do Flash.
So, Jobs has a tough job ahead of him. He has to convince content providers of a number of things. First, that Flash is bad, evil, and will step on little kittens. Second, and probably much more troublesome, he has to convince the print media to invest a lot of money into switching from Flash to producing content in other ways – h264, HTML5, you name it.
Jobs was in full force in his dismissal of Flash while pitching the iPad at The Wall Street Journal, according to ValleyWag. He made the usual claims – Flash is slow, a resource hog, major attack vector, all things that are hard to disagree with. He also called Flash a dying technology (“We don’t spend a lot of energy on old technology.”), and compared Flash to floppy drives, old data ports, CCFL backlit LCD, and even the CD (what, CDs are dead technology now? I must’ve missed that memo).
Jobs also reportedly said that the iPad’s battery performance would degrade from 10 hours to 1.5 hours if it had to spend its time decoding Flash. However, as ValleyWag rightfully notes, the iPad wouldn’t reach its advertised 10 hour battery life when decoding regular video either. Still, Jobs’ point is valid: Flash is a resource hog, which hurts battery life. No secret there.
Where things start to get a little sketchy, however, is when Jobs said that leaving Flash would be “trivial”. ValleyWag explains quite well why ditching Flash would hardly be “trivial” to a publication the size of the WSJ:
That’s just not right; even assuming the Journal could duplicate its Flash slideshows, infographics and other news apps using iPad-friendly technologies like Javascript, it would take a decidedly nontrivial amount of time and effort to create or acquire such a system, hire staff who understand it as well as Flash, train staff on how to use it, and integrate it into the Journal’s editorial workflow. It might be a great way to advance web standards like HTML5, and a great way to get the Journal on more devices, but it would hardly be “trivial.”
I’m all for Jobs using his influence to promote web standards, but my fear is that, knowing Apple, this is much more about locking content to the iPad and iTunes than about promoting web standards and destroying Flash to make the web a better place. In the end, Apple is a company, and just like any other company, altruism doesn’t exist.
Still, if this brings Flash yet another step closer to the grave, then who are we to complain?
I’m really quite impressed (in an evil sort of way) that Apple has been able to define the terms of the debate about Flash on the iPad. There are three issues at stake here:
* Apple doesn’t ship Flash by default,
* Apple SDK agreement prohibits developers from bringing browsers that support Flash to the app store, and
* Installing software from non-app-store environments (excepting limited betas and internal corporate deployment) is a felony in the U.S., thanks to the DMCA.
Apple has managed to focus the media on the first of these issues, but it’s really irrelevant. Ubuntu doesn’t ship with Flash, but there’s nothing stopping me from installing it on my system if I wanted to. I don’t use Internet Explorer under Windows, so I had to install Flash separately for use with Firefox.
Of course, I also installed a Flash blocker (NoScript) because Flash is a buggy, laggy, insecure, and unnecessary blight on the browsing landscape. There are still sites that require it, so I have it installed for those sites and those sites only. This is a choice that I can make at my own discretion because I can install software of my own choosing on my computers.
Instead, Apple has removed this option from iPhone and iPad users with the force of U.S. criminal law, and all the media wants to talk about is how bad Flash is. For shame! I may not like Flash, but I will defend to the death iPad users’ right to run it on their own hardware.
This situation hasn’t changed since the iPhone was originally introduced. I recognize that it can be tiring to beat on this point without any real change, but the Flash issue, like the Google Voice application that Apple still purportedly continues to “study”, is ultimately the result of Apple’s app store restrictions. Please don’t forget that when discussing Flash on the iPad.
I’m not really interesting in “fighting to the death” for people to have a right for Flash on the iPad, when it’s clearly obvious that it never has, and never will have it.
It’s quite simple: the specs are there. It doesn’t do Flash. If that’s not acceptable, buy one of many other devices that do provide this functionality.
It’s Apple’s right to not have it on there, and it’s the consumers’ right to buy it or not buy it. Quite simple. I can understand if Apple said it would be there, then pulled it. But that’s definitely not the case.
The iPad specifications don’t say that it supports Skype or AIM or any of the myriad other applications that developers have brought to the platform. Unlike these applications, Flash falls into a category that Apple has said that they do not allow on the App Store, and more importantly they prevent users from installing and running applications through other mechanisms through U.S. law. This is what I was referring to.
Apple can ship the iPad with whatever they deem to be worth including; I have no issues with this. But they’ve gone far beyond simply making a decision not to include Flash.
Actually it was made quite clear that the iPad will run the 140,000+ apps available already for the iPhone OS, of which Skype and AIM are two of them. Anything else is made quite clear in the SDK.
Don’t agree to the terms? Don’t develop for or purchase the device.
I believe the point was that the media is focused on eeveil flash and it’s lack of presence on this one device while ignoring the 2000 pound elephant on the other side of the room; DMCA being used to block device owners from justifiable access to there purchased devices. Your own comment is an example; all about flash, ignoring the related but much larger topic.
In the media’s defense, they go with what drives higher page visits. DMCA isn’t new and hip like Ipad is so they focus on what gets bigger hits rather than what is a bigger issue.
DMCA has to be one of the poorest and most abused information related laws of the decade.
Again, it’s an agreement you make when you buy the device, that you will not jailbreak the device and run such apps, or if you’re a developer that you will abide by the SDK agreements. If you don’t like the terms, don’t buy the device.
I really don’t see the problem. I get tired of people looking at specs or feature sets, even those being artificially kept from doing things due to licensing, and people bitching about it.
Apple isn’t altruistic, they are not open source, Steve Jobs is extraordinarily controlling.
Welcome to 1984.
As an Apple owner (but not fanboy) I DO NOT think Steve Jobs wants Flash kept off of the iPad/iPhone due to the very valid reasons that it’s insecure and slow. It’s got everything to do with him not being able to control the platform.
Edited 2010-02-19 20:44 UTC
“Again, it’s an agreement you make when you buy the device, that you will not jailbreak the device and run such apps, or if you’re a developer that you will abide by the SDK agreements.”
One of the reasons I’m not the target customer for the device is it’s agreement and imposed limitations. It’s absolute madness to be able to invoke more than a void warranty on someone for disassembling there personally property. The same extends to software; I’m allowed to possess it on my hardware but I’m not allowed to look under the hood? I can’t run my choice of software on my owned hardware with or without the original bridging software in-between? Not being able to duplicate for a second person makes sense. Demanding physical control of goods they have sold? Can the milk man do more than refuse me my deposit if I look at the shape of a milk bottle or dare to use it for water instead?
Now, here’s the thing; it’s not civil law. If it where simply a breach of contract, refusing warranty would make sense but in extreme cases, civil court and some sort of settlement. The DMCA is criminal law as I understand it. Basically, HB pencil company is invoking criminal sentences for daring to chew off some of the wood, look at how the eraser is attached or write on unapproved brands of paper. Both are disposable goods given the limited number of sharpenings or lack of user removable battery.
“If you don’t like the terms, don’t buy the device.”
I absolutely agree but the market being drawn to blinky lights; the Iphone is doing well without the full potential of the hardware. Us hairless monkeys continue to chase our digital watches and green pieces of paper.
“I really don’t see the problem. I get tired of people looking at specs or feature sets, even those being artificially kept from doing things due to licensing, and people bitching about it.”
SSH would make it a native node in my network; mounting, transfers and shell. With terminal applications, it’s usefulness multiplies. That’s not permitted without jailbreaking. Third party repositories expands the software library and reduce load on Apple’s systems along with rushed applicant review and delays. The phone has network ports hanging open; no use of the native firewall without the breakout. But again, what other physical goods can one purchase and suffer criminal charges for modifying in un-criminal ways? If one modifies a weed whacker to use as a weapon then sure but if one paints it or replaces the gas engine with an electric motor?
“Apple isn’t altruistic, they are not open source, Steve Jobs is extraordinarily controlling.
Welcome to 1984.
As an Apple owner (but not fanboy) I DO NOT think Steve Jobs wants Flash kept off of the iPad/iPhone due to the very valid reasons that it’s insecure and slow. It’s got everything to do with him not being able to control the platform.”
Hopefully no one is under the impression that Apple is more than a retail company. Apple is a merchant first and foremost regardless of what the marketing says. The product is money, the retail units happen to be a production tool. There is definitely a business strategy behind it being such a big talking point.
BTW, the N900 comes with full support for Flash 9.4.
Why begging Apple to add some technology they are not interested on if we can buy something that lets us do it?
Because eReader, Barnes & Noble Reader and the Amazon Reader don’t run on the N900 afaik. This leaves me out in the cold for the N900 as I use my iPad Mini (iTouch or iPod Touch whatever you want to call it) for reading in the main. It is nice to be able to view video and run other programs as well (which I do) but I still primarily use it to read books.
What you don’t understand is this. Adobe *did* make a flash plug in for iPhone and showed it to Apple. When Apple tested it, it was so CPU hog-sh that it caused the iPhone to ONLY RUN FOR THIRTY MINUTES !!! When Apple came back they asked Adobe “why dont you code your graphics on the GPU” (instead of CPU). Adobe buried the project and Apple said “no thanks”
how can anyone blame Apple for refusing this *GARBAGE* known as flash. I run Mac *and* linux… on linux flash regularly locks up my sound card.
flash is a turd slowly circling around the drain. THANK GOD for Steve Jobs forcing the issue, the sooner Flash dies, the better. Hopefully Apples efforts to rail against flash will help speed adoption of HTML5.
please people don’t hate on Apple on this issue.
Please, implement some technology similar to such “garbage” but better!
DISCLAIMER: I do not like Flash but the way Apple wants me to avoid something that they think is bad to me is just silly.
I already hate Apple for Quicktime and iTunes on Windows.
Let’s put it this way..
1) What apple is doing is completely abusive
2) At the same time though, not many defend flash. Flash gets no love from OSS advocates, no love from Microsoft and no love from Google. Let’s be honest, the internet would be better without flash.
So in the end, it’s a fight between bullies, why taking sides?
Bitch, moan, and gripe all you want. Flash is going bye-bye.
What I find most disturbing is this attitude of, “well, you’ve bought the device off us but we still control it even after you purchased it”. Umm, its my device now, what gives you the right to dictate to me what I can and can’t load onto it? and that control freakish attitude by Apple is the attitude I fear which is creeping into their product line up under the guise of ‘making the computer experience easier” (aka non-user replaceable batteries, the refusal to fix bugs that third parties like Microsoft find but willing to fix those which their own developers have problems with – thus giving them an unfair competitive advantage etc). The worse part is that the attitude is sanctioned by law in the United States.
Why doesn’t Apple allow people to install software by themselves? it could be easily done, you simply add an option in preferences, “allow software to be installed manually” then when you click it there is a warning that, “doing so will void your right to technical support” and then you click agree (which sends off a message to Apple along with your serial number that you no longer qualify for technical support). It would be a win-win situation, Apple doesn’t have to deal with people who screw up their devices and in return the average user has the ‘privilege’ of being able to load stuff onto their own device.
The attitude by Apple at the current moment is pushing me closer and closer to Windows 7. 2-3 years ago I wouldn’t have said such a thing but with Windows 7 finally addressing 14 years worth of whining I’ve had about Windows pretty much makes the choice between Mac and Windows a matter of price and convenience rather than it being a choice of having a great operating system whose short comings (by way of freedom, price vs. performance etc.) pale in comparison to the crappiness of the alternative.
Edited 2010-02-21 00:49 UTC
Actually Apple do allow you the option to install any software you want on your device, I’ve taken that option and it’s great! By the way it’s call a “Developer Licence”, I have one now and have spent the last month spending every free moment to write my own apps and downloading and compiling source code from the Internet (plenty of devs have published their code on the forums)… If you really want it, it’s there…
I wish people would explore the options before they decide somethig can’t be done!
BTW, the iPhone development environment is a dream to work with!! If you like programming you will love it!
Except they make you pay $99 USD for the “privilege” to install your own software, something that really shouldn’t be treated as a privilege at all. Don’t they make enough from iPhone sales already?
I think it’s actually bringing the iPad one step closer to its grave.
It’s obviously not about promoting web standards, it’s all a question of revenue stream. More importantly it’s not really about flash as the video container, even if some egos at Apple got heavily bruised when flash beat them and QuickTime failed to gain traction on the internet.
But for the iPad, it’s about games and similar content, more precisely flash games. There are thousands available and new ones are quickly developed. Those quick and easy games are a perfect fit for casual gaming with a device like the iPad. It’s not surprising Apple want to control and lock down the market, and profit on such games trough the app store.
No, Apple just doesn’t want to depend on a single other company. The whole PowerPC story left a deep scar at Apple: IBM didn’t want to produce a G5 notebook CPU, Freescale had no interest to do either, let alone compete against IBM at workstation/desktop CPUs. Therefore Apple left PowerPC and went x86 for Macs where Apple can easily switch to AMD CPUs if Intel doesn’t provide what Apple wants.
Flash only comes from Adobe. Sure, there are FOSS clones, but those work even worse than Flash (I tried to replace Flash with Gnash a few weeks ago — Gnash’s CPU utilization was 3x-4x as high on YouTube).
Adobe dropped Apple in the past already (discontinuing Frame Maker, Premiere, and several Elements applications — some where revived after Apple’s success with Intel Macs, but that was still by Adobe’s grace) which is why Adobe does not want to fully depend on Adobe any longer for crucial technologies.
The fact that Flash on Mac OS X (and Linux etc.) is even worse than the Windows version, didn’t help Adobe’s position either…
Edited 2010-02-19 18:41 UTC
How would allowing a browser with Flash in the App Store induce a dependence on Flash by Apple?
What dependency? The statment does not make sense at all. Having flash as an option on the iPad does not make Apple depend on anyone, it’s just an option(It’s not crucial either). But flash does give the users access to a waste amount of games without using the app store, and that is something Apple do not want. It’s about locking content to the app store, to protect their revenue stream.
Edited 2010-02-19 19:05 UTC
Ever tried to browse YouTube and many corporate websites without Flash? It’s basically not possible.
The mobile web is still young. That’s why Flash isn’t as ubiquitous there as on desktop PC.
When the first iPhone was released, mobile web basically didn’t even exist. Sure, there was WAP, but nobody used that.
Not saying that Apple invented the mobile web, but it started to take off around the time of the iPhone launch, when smartphones became a commodity.
Websites still have to be tweaked to fit well on small screens. That opened the door for Apple to step in and tell web designers: Don’t use Flash.
It does. You just don’t get it.
Just like Photoshop on Macs is just an option. Yeah, right….
From a business point of view it’s not an option: Either you ship Flash and therefore bolster its use in the mobile web and then be the clown when Adobe pulls the plug in Flash for Mobile OSX.
Or instead help to boost vendor-independent technologies like SVG+JavaScript.
Adobe canceled the development of Mac apps the past already. There is no guaranty that Adobe won’t cancel Flash for Mobile OSX.
Oh common… most simple “Flash-like” games on the App Store cost like one buck or so or are completely free. Apple gets just 30% — that’s either 33ct or maybe even nothing because the games are free. More complex games can’t be done using Flash anyway.
Now imagine how much money could make in comparison if Apple sold a Flash plugin for $3.
Not only isn’t it about “controlling apps”, initially Apple didn’t even want to allow native apps anyway! When the first iPhone was released, the “SDK” was some text edior to write JavaScript.
Mobile Safari understands SVG, JavaScript, and HTML5 video. You can right now use those technologies to pretty much replicate Flash’s feature set: http://www.codedread.com/yastframe.php (that’s a SVG+JS game — should work on iPhone without any use of the App Store)
So rather than giving the user the possibilty to view those sites, they don’t include flash. To avoid to depend on Adobe?
The logic of that does not make any sense what so ever. It can not be, or become a dependency since they are able to drop it. As for changing the habbits of web devlopers, Apple does not have the market to make that happen(Much migration to HTML5 etc will happen the next years, but not becouse SJ tells them to).
Back to pressent day and the realities. Flash has the ability to remove revenue from the app store and Apple, hence they are against it.
Edited 2010-02-19 22:28 UTC
Your line of argument is totally flawed. Sorry.
Corporate websites that use Flash for navigation etc. don’t really work on small screens like iPhone’s. So those Flash elements have to be redone anyway and if you have to redo them anyway, you can just as well use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
And YouTube has a Flash-less HTML5 version already.
Dude, have you even looked at Apple’s smartphone market share?
Many major website providers already made mobile versions of their websites — usually without any Flash or Java content at all.
To hell with your so called reality. The reality is that Nintendo Wii’s web browser does have Flash support and there is no evidence at all that Wii customers play Flash games instead of native Wii games.
Your line of argument stays flawed, because you totally omit the fact that there are also free games the the App Store.
Here are some actual facts from reality for you:
Flash for OSX sucks balls. It’s so badly written, it requires much higher CPU performance than the Windows version. Since iPhone/iPad also use OSX, Flash would have exactly the same problems there as well.
It took Adobe to until recently to even announce that a future Flash version for Mac OS X will make use of somewhat current OSX APIs that will in crease Flash’s performance.
Another fact: Many ads are delivered as Flash. Without using an adblocker, a typical web surfing user would be left with an empty battery in no time — at least on OSX-based devices.
Yet another fact: In most cases Flash is used, it’s not even needed at all. Same results with less battery draining can be achieved using common web standards and as WebKit and Opera luckily are the dominant mobile web rendering engines, they are compatible to all of those standards.
In the transition period, when webmasters still need some “motivation” to use pure HTML, CSS, and JavaScript instead of Flash, access to a few websites may be restricted, but in the end it’ll pay off.
Hardware manufacturers sadly from time to time need to kick developers in the butt to change their habits.
When Intel introduced Hyperthreading and later their first multi-core CPUs, software developers complained how much more complicated programming with more threads is and that Intel should instead rather bump clock speeds on a single core only. And during that transitional period, software actually performed worse on dual core CPUs than on higher clocked single core CPUs, but now we have better performing computers that even use less energy.
Same with Flash: If Apple (hopefully with the help of other manufacturers) push web developers to use current web standards instead of Flash, websites will perform better, drain less battery, and be compatible with every browser/new gadget regardless if Adobe has the grace to port Flash or not.
And SJ talk is mainly about the iPad, and it does not have a small screen. So the argument is sound.
Have you? They are not exactly market leader.
And all other smart-phones access those to. But this is not about crippled phone surfing, it’s about the new pad platform. Which incidentally has zero market share.
Flawed argument, as the Wii is an dedicated gaming platform and games the reason you buy it(How many actually use that browser regulary?). The iPad are an web device, you don’t buy it for the games, but you still may want to play some light games on it. For instance, games like the flash games that millions of people play every day.
It’s still a lock in to the app store, validating my argument.
Does not matter, if Adobe decide to put resources on it to compete on the iPad market they can fix that(I guess they don’t see OSX as a very important market, just as the user number indicate). Regardless of quality, it breaks the Apple lock in which is the real reason.
And apple is not able to implement such functionality in the iPad browser? If battery is their real fear. Besides when using 3G most users don’t want top pay for adds, so the addblocker should be there already.
Irrelevant, and it’s fixable(addblock).
It’s not about standards, it’s about lock in and protecting their profit. It’s the normal practice from Apple, trying to make it look like anything else is just dishonest or fanboyism.
Edited 2010-02-20 12:58 UTC
Regardless of Apple’s motives, which I think we can all agree are less than altruistic, the end result could still be desirable. No more Flash, greater adoption of HTML 5. It would actually have the effect of reducing lock-in, not promoting it. I can’t see any path through here that would lead to greater Apple lock-in, and if Apple think devs are going to concentrate only on the app store they’ve got another thing coming. Of those 185,000 apps or however many they quote now, as an iPhone owner myself, I see very few that are actually of value and most of those are either available for other platforms as well or wrappers around web services. No matter how Apple thinks this will help them, what it will actually do is level the playing field by reducing Flash’s presence on the web. That will do nothing but good, no matter what Apple’s intent.
The end result SJ/Apple wants is for us to use iTunes to acquire movies, games, music for our small devices.
Adblock only stops flash when there is an adblock available. What’s your bet that Apple would refuse to allow ad blocking software on their iDevices? Besides, ad blockers don’t catch everything, not by a long shot.
Fascinating how you bend even your own line of argument just for the sake to make Apple look bad.
First you say Apple refuses Flash because of free Flash games, then you say that I can’t use Wii as an example, because Wii is about games, while iPhone/iPad is not.
Really fascinating — and amusing.
Reminder: It’s perfectly possible to play free games on iPhone/iPad, even without involving the App Store. I already posted http://www.codedread.com/yastframe.php
It’s a free Tetris variant written using SVG and JavaScript.
These days JavaScript is very powerful. Even more complex games are perfectly possible with it.
Mafia Wars, one of the most popular games on Facebook, is written in JavaScript and not Flash.
Edited 2010-02-20 15:45 UTC
dude, the iPad is connected to a BATTERY. Flash would eat up the power like PacMan on steroids. Flash is NOT even GPU enhanced. Stop thinking that Flash is an option on PORTABLE MOBILE DEVICES. Give Apple a break here.
Just read the first paragraph of this article.
http://gizmodo.com/5374115/flash-101-full-flash-for-everyone-but-ip…
The version of Flash coming to Android, RIM, WP7, etc, etc. will be GPU accelerated.
In 2008 when Adobe originally tried to bring Flash to iPhone your argument was strong and no one had room to argue. I wonder if when Steve brings up the battery life argument is he talking about 2008 Flash or 2010 FLash 10.1? My bet it’s the earlier argument.
The upcoming Flash will be blocked forever to protect iTunes revenue.
That makes absolutely no sense what so ever; you’re talking about something that Apple is dependent on versus what the end user is dependent upon. The issue isn’t even what is and isn’t dependent – the issue is about an end user who has purchased a device and not being able to load onto it what they wish to. It would be like me selling you a car and then stating you that you can’t hang fluffy dice on the mirror – excuse me but it is your car now and I have no right to therefore exercise my sovereignty over it!
The issue has nothing to do with Apple and supposed dependencies, the issue is about Apple not allowing its users to install the software they want on a device that they bought; if Apple don’t like Flash and think HTML5 is the future – great! I think that attitude is admirable but if they wish to change things then they should come out with tools to speed up the transition from Flash to HTML5 instead of simply restricting what people can and can’t do on their devices.
Edited 2010-02-21 01:00 UTC
Apple hates Flash not for the same reason why some of us hate Flash. They like the idea of earning money on little games that would otherwise be free if Flash was on the iPhone. Apple is a business first so money is king.
HBOgo, Hulu, EpixHD, etc, etc. all use Flash for better or for worse. Apple probably sees all the streaming sites as competition to iTunes, that may be available on phones/pads/slates/netbooks and PC’s
I support HTML5 but I don’t really believe Jobs/Apple supports HTML5 for the same reason as I do and at the same time are trying to manipulate my dislike for Flash to build support for their cause.
you pretty much summed up everything i was about to say in my comment. Apple (being mostly Steve) does just like being in the computer world ecosystem, but instead feels the need to control it. Thats all well and good because if you can (and they have in the iPod and iPhone markets), you will make a boat load of money and your shareholders will think your a god.
If Apple starts loosing their edge on their app store it will be problematic. Developers will choose the path of least resistance, develop in flash (to ensure cross platform compatibility), and hit a larger target audience. Since apple won’t let flash on board the developers are forced to do things apples way, from the app writing aspect to the app store that apple controls.
apple will gladly sacrifice user wishes to maintain control, especially since many apple users feed into the “Apple knows best” way of thinking. Steve knows he can get away with it because his minions will follow him to the grave and beyond. I mean it, like ancient Egyptian style with a bit pyramid and his servants being buried alive with him. …except the pyramid would just be a giant apple store cube, but large enough to be seen from space.
Edited 2010-02-19 18:35 UTC
the pyramid would just be a giant apple store cube, but large enough to be seen from space
That would totally rock, dude! [takes hit off of home made *cigarette*]
Your comparing games written for the iPhone which are openGL/GPU enhanced, to flash? You gotta be kidding me. I’ve run the iPhone simulator and Apple XCode development environment. Nobody is afraid of Flash games. Not even close.
Most of the games I’ve seen on the AppStore have descended from Flash games.
Now you can buy the ad free version of the same games for a couple of bucks, 30% goes to Apple; or get the ad version which in the future Apple will require all devs to use AdMob, which Apple owns.
I prefer Flash to die, but not at the sake of iTunes becoming the defacto place to get games, video, etc.
100% in agreement with you – the flaws in Flash, especially on the Mac is a god send to Steve Jobs; I bet he is over the moon that he is able to use a legitimate gripe regarding Flash and then use it as a cover for what his real complaint is – that Flash/Silverlight/etc undermine his own business model. So rather than come out with his real position he hides it under a legitimate gripe.
For me Apple should not be the gate keeper dictating what can and can’t be loaded onto the iPhone or iPod Touch; it is the user because it is the user who purchased the device. It reminds me of the video on Youtube, “you don’t own a Mac, you’re only along for the experience”.
Eh? On any other Apple device that’d be correct, but the Mac? They haven’t even tried to limit what you install on a Mac yet. You can even wipe OS X completely and put whatever os you want on there, let alone whatever applications you want. It does make me wonder if they’ll eventually try it though.
I never said that they did; I have two Macs (iMac and MacBook).
I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future one sees a App store of some sort with restrictions placed on what can and can’t be loaded for the ‘sake of security, reliability and maintaining a great experience’. I know it is a slippery slope fallacy that I’m making but at the same time if Steve remotely respect his customers right to exercise his or her sovereignty over the device they’ve bought there would be a feature to allow applications to be loaded from non-App Store sources.
I have friends who work for Apple and Mozilla … we have gotten into discussions about Flash, I informally hear that Flash is directly implicated in ~90% of browser crash reports. On Windows, Flash always activates a 1KHz multimedia timer (even if it does not use it); good power efficiency requires less than ~10 wakeups per second, so just having a Flash web page open will cut laptop battery life in half.
This is not to say I find Flash evil: it fills a niche that is still vaporware with HTML5 and friends, and has done so for enough years to become standardized. It’s like Windows 95 – revolutionary for its time, but still leaving great room for improvement.
Flash is simply not ready for embedded devices like cell phones or tablets. Your PC and your laptop can deal with Flash’s failures (you can restart web browsers and plug in to the wall when Flash gulps battery power); your cell phone or tablet are less fortunate.
OK, I hate Flash as much as the next Linux geek, BUT I think there is hope that an accelerated Youtube flash player uses only slightly more CPU than the HTML5 counterpart.
For other animated web crap OK flash needs to die. But Flash 10.1 on ARM is not final yet and we will see on a few ARM devices how much more battery it really eats.
My guess is that it will not reduce a “10” hour battery life to only 1.5. Steve is spinning it again.
You cannot bash some technology because of the bugs it has right now; all issues can be fixed in next versions and that’s it… the important thing about Flash is the technology behind it.
What!!??
Yea.. um Vista…. lolz
Yes, Windows 7 is a good descendant of Vista.
MacOSX is a good descendant of the primitive MacOS.
Actually, almost all the software start being bloated, slow, buggy… but the best software evolves to brilliant products (including Java or .NET platforms).
Huh? MacOS Classic and MacOSX have very very little in common, they are not even related.
Crappy technologies should not be allowed to mature and become “better” because if they are force fed, they tend to overshadow and displace much better alternatives which are far more functional from day 1, but are unfortunate to be backed by a small company without the market inertia of Adobe for example.
so why are we still using Win32 API or Intel x86 (x86_64 is an extension ot it) if “crappy technologies” should not be welcome?
That is probably the most ridicules statement I have seen in a very, very long time.
You definitely have not seen the speach “Defending the poor” given at the “26C3: Here Be Dragons” (http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/Fahrplan/events/3494.en.html ; you can watch it there). It is an eye opener (Hint: Look for information regarding compatibility).
Yeah, you are right, it is all (or mostly) about videos and games.
Edited 2010-02-19 21:24 UTC
Do you realize how long Flash has been around?
You could have made that comment a decade ago.
I hesitate to call html5 vaporware. this http://rainwave.cc“>html5 sais its not.
with Steve Jobs on Flash. It is bad for BSDs Linux Solaris and other OSes. On Linux is crippleware though on windows it works many times acceptably But it is not a good practice when web pages are loaded with Flash. H264 is also not an option due to its proprietary nature. I find HTML5+JavaScript+Theora/Vorbis the best combination. But yes it is not easy for the casual non-programmer content creator to use them. But some education always pays off.
Edited 2010-02-19 18:12 UTC
Contrary to my nick, I don’t use Linux a lot any more.
But on the distributions I (occasionally) use Flash seems to work fine.
I agree. But that is why I use Firefox with Flashblock.
Flash works fine on Linux? F*cking Farm Ville causes 40% CPU utilization on my Core2 Duo!
It could be worse. At least Adobe actually bothered to port Flash to Linux at all.
Actually, there’s a Solaris version too. Works on Opensolaris. Not that this changes the fact that it’s a bloated, nonstandard, resource hogging, inaccessible piece of shite of course.
mplayer plays H264. Linux users do not have to pay a royalty to CREATE or WATCH H264, yes its proprietary but only for Mac/Windows users. Linux = free!
Huh? FOSS h264 codecs also work on Mac on Windows
Apple has already licensed H264. So, Mac users don’t need a license for it to play H264.
In the parent post you claimed the opposite. You claimed that only for Linux users it’s free.
You do know that if you produce H.264 videos with X264 in a country that acknowledges H.264’s patents, by the terms of the H.264 license you, your descendants, your viewers, and anyone who happens to know you could be sued into oblivion right? Using X264 and shouting “Free! Free!” doesn’t fix the H.264 curse. How does X264 on Linux differ from X264 on Mac or Windows? Same library, same technology… same legal quagmire.
If I install Adobe Flash on Linux, I get the exact same rights (to play YouTube videos etc) as if I had installed Adobe Flash on Windows. Actually, on my x86_64 Linux OS, Adobe Flash works a bit better than on Windows, because the Linux version is a native 64-bit binary. AFAIK, the Adobe Flash plugin on Linux is licensed exactly the same as the Adobe Flash plugin for Windows … Adobe pays the license fees, not the end users. What does it matter to Adobe, really, if users are running Linux or Windows? Why should they care at all?
But you are right also when it comes to encoding video.
So if people are going to encode videos, they should of course be using Theora. Theora 1.1 will give almost as good results as h264 (or x264), so close that most people won’t be able to tell the difference.
Therefore, both playing videos (h264 and Theora, Flash and HTML5) and making videos (Theora/HTML5 only) are legally covered under Linux … at no cost to end users.
Problem solved.
Edited 2010-02-20 05:29 UTC
This is entirely innacurate. mplayer plays H.264, but not by default because it is illegal in the US (and I believe a few other countries). If you live in a country with software patents (such as the US), using H.264 is much less free than on Windows and Mac. Windows and Mac have proprietary software that already has an H.264 license, so the end user never has to worry about it. On Linux, there really is no legal option.
Not true: http://www.fluendo.com/shop/category/end-user-products/
On my Arch Linux x86_64 installation, Flash is fine.
Here are the details:
It is a native x86_64 package, version 10.0.45.2-1, it is not a beta.
http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/
This is the current version. AFAIK, there is no released 64-bit version of Flash for Windows or OSX.
I can’t see how you would think that Flash on Linux is crippleware when it is more advanced than on Windows or OSX.
Edited 2010-02-20 05:08 UTC
Android based phones really should pick up on this. As long as Steve’s making flash out to be this horrible beast that their hardware can’t handle, it’ll sound great for the mobile devices that have flash 10 ports and do fine with it.
It’s not a case of saying that the hardware can’t handle it, it’s a case of saying the software is bad for hardware of this purpose.
There was an article on here the other day about a company who’ve developed a (supposedly) unique “one-handed” phone UI, whose horrible web site was done entirely in Flash. I have the latest flash player plugin installed on my Mac and when I went to that site my dual core iMac (2.4GHz) saw combined processor usage go from less than 5% to just over 150% – around 35% for Safari and the rest for the Flash Plugin. I opened a VirtualBox VM running Windows 7 (after closing that hideous site on my Mac browser) and opened the site in IE8. My Mac’s total processor usage went to and stayed at around 55%.
This is not uncommon. My teenage daughter plays some of those flash based games online with her friends and it’s been more efficient on her Mini to set up a VM running Windows and let her run them in that environment.
Flash as it stands is a diabolical waste of resources on anything other than Windows and while Adobe have promised to fix it the reality is it’s taken a stand like this from Jobs to bring that into being. Ask yourself the question, if Jobs hadn’t made this stand would Adobe have done anything about the situation, or would they have just kept on building an also-ran version of the thing for everything except Windows?
Edited 2010-02-20 00:25 UTC
Come on guys. Flash has no business on mobile devices. Just look at my C2D machine just from visiting http://www.flash.com.
%CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
40.5 3.4 0:35.65 npviewer.bin
Pathetic!
I’m not advocating Flash, but 10.1 is supposedly going to fix that when it is available.
I prefer Flash to die for the sake of open standards rather than because Steve Jobs not liking it because Flash is a serious threat to his companies revenue stream.
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/
10.1 is a good release addressing a great many issues. its stable enough for general use, has been for a few months.
I tried 10.1 beta 2 on my MacBook. I had to uninstall it and revert to 10.0.whatever.
Supposedly a beta 3 is around the corner, with Mac-specific enhancements, but I don’t have high hopes to be honest.
Too little too late with the 10.1 alleged fix. Adobe had about 8 years to fix Flash and with every release it gets more bloated and brings a brand new C2D CPU to its knees.
All Adobe cares about is profits. These days they just change the version number on their products and call it a day.
I’m glad Apple is sticking it to Flash. Browser plugins are a dying technology. Don’t want either Flash or Silverlight, or ActiveX.
Code with standards or go home.
There will be no way to avoid add-on plugins, either to the browser or to the operating system’s media framework (Quicktime in OS X), so long as there’s no mandated standard codec for HTML 5. I don’t relish going back to 1999 where you had to install a whole mess of codecs just to make sure you could play web videos, and some of those codecs ran worse than Flash at the time. Just mandate a codec and be done with it, we could see a lot more HTML 5 if the w3c would stop BSing around with corporate interests.
Many of you don’t seem to get it. Banning Flash from mobile devices isn’t the way to go. First, some of these scaled-down mobile devices aren’t designed to run a bunch of applications at once; therefore, higher CPU utilization by a single app isn’t something you should be using as a metric for usefulness. Second, if Flash doesn’t run properly, customers will stop going to sites that use it, the sites will discover that they’re losing their customer base, and the sites will migrate to something else (perhaps HTML5) that meets their customers’ needs better. If Adobe starts to lose developers, they will either optimize Flash, or they’ll perish. In other words, let the market sort it out. It will yield far better results than banning certain technologies.
Edited 2010-02-20 20:56 UTC
The fact is that most people WON’T stop going to those sites. If flash seems to be working but runs the battery down in half an hour they’ll just blame the device – they have no idea what’s really causing the problem.
I’ve been removing viruses and trojans from computers for years, something that I never get on my own Windows installations, and I always tell the users how to ensure they don’t get them either. Make sure these pieces of software are installed, make sure you allow the updaters to run, don’t visit these types of sites, run ad blockers and don’t click these types of ads if they appear, use this piece of software instead of that one. All really simple stuff. Yet they keep doing it. And they either blame the computer or me. Just like users who’s batteries go flat in half an hour would blame the device, not the real culprit. Just because YOU know the real reason doesn’t mean they do.
We’ve seen it in the past where poor device performance has been blamed on the device rather than the third party add-on (software or hardware) that was really causing the issue. Personally I’m happy that I don’t get Flash content on my iPhone, and I’ve never yet found a site that I needed to access when I’m mobile that required flash.
The only way Apple could get around it would be to have the user specifically agree, via a warning form, that they understand the implications of running flash on the device.
But then again, you’d have an issue with those people who believe that clicking “Agree” doesn’t actually mean you agree…
You’re side-stepping the issue. HTML5 isn’t going to result in lower CPU utilization or extended battery life. It’s going to push the machine just as hard.
You must not visit very many game- or media content-related sites, then. Most of them are Flash driven. Look, the reason that you probably don’t miss Flash is that you’re under the mistaken impression that the CPU utilization of “apps” is lower than Flash. How did you arrive at that conclusion? Do you think that apps run at zero CPU cost?
That’s nonsense. Apple doesn’t put up a warning for general app usage, and CPU utilization is still an issue in those scenarios, as well.
Some people are morons. Nobody can fix that problem.
It appears that the new Windows 7 Phones allow Silverlight on them. This is a much richer, and easier to program, environment that html5 and javascript, which is a real mess in my opinion.
The WSJ uses Flash because it standardizes away all the massive browser compatibility issues, and seriously simplifies coding. Same with Silverlight. Will MS let silverlight based games go onto their phones? And if so, will that give them a huge advantage over the iPhone and iPad?
As was mentioned before, here’s an article about Silverlight on Win Phones:
http://wmpoweruser.com/?p=13486
Except Silverlight is *not* a standard, neither is Flash.
They are not part of the web because they are not available everywhere and aren’t normalized by the W3C.
Of course they will, but why use Silverlight when Windows Phone 7 comes with XNA, which is also used on XBL?
Except that XBL games are probably not going to run on your phone any time soon…
I imagine most Silverlight games are much more feasible with regards to the hardware requirements.
I see this as a clever way to block Flash Advertisements.. and if HTML5 hits it off we should be just dandy with that..
Edited 2010-02-19 19:47 UTC
Jobs is a megalomaniac and thats all there is to it. Flash isnt that great but to claim its responsible for OS crashes and dropping their (blatant lie) battery life from 10 to 1.5 hours is just bollocks. I find it quite entertaining how finally ol’ Jobs and Apple in general have reached the level of lies that it even has the apple tribe going “WTF”. Wonder why they didnt mention the super high tech wondrous game changing revolutionary single button mouse! Laptops with no external video. The purchase of the Aqua NIS login plugin then dumping it from their “most compatible” next version of OSX yet. And so on… Apple(Jobs) you are almost a laugh but really a cry.
I don’t know if I’m the only user that doesn’t complain about Flash being a resource hog – it works fine on both old hardware with W7 and Quad core Xeons with OpenSuse. Now, to the hilt – Jobs is just trying to sell his product, as it’s mentioned in the article, it’s not an altruism. HTML5 is still work in progress, remember that. Still a codec has to be defined, H2** is proprietary, etc. But hey, Jobs, can you tell Youtube to convert all their videos (name other video sites here) ? I would hate not be able to look at a certain video when sitting in the park, browsing wireless with iPad ? Should I store videos on iPad – is there enough place for my HD shots ? Don’t lock me down, please, let me decide what I want to run on my piece of hardware, my money, my device, my machinery ! The scream is not Apple related necessary, it’s for all vendors that choose to tell me what to do. I’m still alive…
Sorry I forgot to send you the memo: CDs are a dead technology, and they have been for at least a few years. People still use them, but they’ve pretty much been supplanted by flash memory and downloads.
Bah humbug.
Yet another example showing SJ is a complete control freak… He has changed computing somewhat (possibly for the better) but attempting to remove Flash from the web is quite a leap even for him.
The iPad needs Flash to be a success (This is a consumer device!), the quicker Apple realises this the quicker they can stop being pissed about people complaining about the lack of Flash.
Surely Flash is available for ARM anyway? And I’m sure Apple has enough $ to negotiate a deal for Flash on the iPad.
the iPad was created ONLY to compete with the Kindle and Nook readers, despite what everyone thinks, the iPad is not a smaller version of MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, etc. Its a business model, not a device. Apple intends to sell books through iTunes. iPad is zero about technology. Its just a device to sell books. Apple makes more money on iTunes than lots of other hardware it sells.
If that were true Apple would have just made an e-reader that would have cost less than $200.
Instead they made a giant iPod touch. Steve even demoed it showing off HD video and games. It even has a iTunes lite.
Edited 2010-02-21 05:15 UTC
Also, nothing has ever stopped Apple from joining the Open Screen Project:
http://www.openscreenproject.org/
And from what I understand you can have access to the Flash source code which gives Apple the ability to optimise the code, fix the problems that they claim exist. The problem is that for them its all a one way street – they do the least amount humanly possibly an in return everyone else bends over backwards accommodating their unreasonable demands.
“hire staff who understand it as well as Flash”
That is part of the problem, sites get done badly by people who don’t understand flash but can still whip up something.
i’m curious why there is such a negative tone in this article as well as from half of the comments here, good for jobs for being a ‘control freak’. the video content on flash is already h264, really all he’s pushing is to use html5 over flash.
i’m a bit shocked at all the backlash, even ignoring the huge performance issues (and you really think a .1 release is going to fix it all?), what happens to every new OS that comes out or people that want to use an older OS or *gasp* BeOS where flash isn’t supported? why so much push back from people here when someone is trying to push things to be more open, is really because you just don’t like the guy?
Read my earlier reply here.
http://www.osnews.com/permalink?410035
It’s not I or others who think like me are disagreeing with what Steve is saying, it’s that there clearly is an alternative motive going on here.
Flash competes with all the little games the AppStore sells and Apple gets a cut on.
Flash competes with iTunes video distribution (HBOgo, EpixHD, Hulu, etc, etc)
I can see why Apple rejected Flash on the iPhone when it was originally ported for performance issues. That was then, now is now. Apple now is rejecting Flash because of it’s threat to Apple’s revenue stream. Why buy video or games through iTunes when you could get the same games for free or video through ad based sites or subscription?
It’s also not like any of these popular Flash sites will go HTML5 soon (Internet Explorer is to blame) so Apple clearly has time to setup a mind and market share that iTunes is the only place to go to get fun little games and video if you own an Apple product.
Edited 2010-02-20 00:39 UTC
Just like the iphone and ipod touch can.
Flash however isn’t available when surfing.
He should have included silverlight support for netflix. Of course he’d rather you buy movies through itunes.
Bashing Flash but not supporting an alternative calls his motivation into question. But as others have pointed out it’s an Apple device and they want you stick with the itunes store. If you don’t like it then don’t buy it.
HP’s slate is really looking better at this point. It costs less and comes with Windows 7 so you can install whatever the hell you want.
Why is this even being debated? All Flash is is a crash-heavy, CPU-heavy wrapper around *content* that can be shown in much simpler more straight forward ways without all the dicking about ( http://venomousporridge.com/post/389785000/a-conversation-i-have-ev… ).
And nobody has mentioned one of the major reasons Steve won’t let Flash on the iPhone / iPad—even it were super efficient—it represents another API. It has to map its own touch-events, it has its own API for doing its own things and Steve wants only the native API to be used because if you have a product that doesn’t have control of what’s on it, then you can’t steer that product where you want to go.
Take for example the story of ActiveX. Mozilla had ActiveX support and could have easily have flipped the switch and shipped it, and it would have gained them market share easily (especially as they were near death then), but they didn’t. It would have cemented use of ActiveX and that would have meant no resurgent Mac and Linux, no iPhone, no modern mobile handsest at all. We would still be stuck with PocketPC. We’d be stuck where Korea is right now with 99% Windows/IE usage where you _require_ IE to do any secure transaction. There would be no iPhone or iPad to speak of if that were the case in America because it’d be impossible for anybody but Microsoft to compete.
Flash is bad for the web, period. I honestly can’t understand why it’s even debated, Apple are doing the right thing—even if it’s for selfish reasons.
You don’t need an x86 elephant to move an image across the screen anymore, thanks.
Flash, I hope you die on a rusty spike, alone and miserable.
Edited 2010-02-19 22:15 UTC
Doing the right thing in this situation would include support of viable alternatives.
It’s nice to see a public condemnation of Flash but at the same time since Flash has (cough) issues it also works in the favor of Apple by letting them push their itunes store under false pretenses.
I have a perfectly functioning brain, why thank you, and I can make decisions for myself. I’m not some bimbo waiting for Apple to tell me what to do.
I don’t want some stupid company dictating what I can and cannot run on my computer. If I want to run Flash, I should very damn well be able to, whether His Steveness thinks it will hurt his device or not.
I run Chrome with Flashblock.
Then don’t buy Apple products……….
And if all of those ads turned into HTML and JS then you would hardly be clamouring to demand they were changed back to Flash either. Flash is just a content provision, and not a good one in most cases.
If most use of Flash out there suddenly changed to HTML alternatives, there would be no complaints. It’s just content, dammit. It’s a wrapper around content that makes it harder for that content to work on other devices without Adobe’s personal blessing. Why is that in any way a good thing? People want content, Flash is a hurdle they have to go through to get that content. It won’t be missed, not one iota.
Because …
(a) Flash is more ubiquitous than practically any other Web technology other than earlier forms of HTML (not HTML5)
(b) Excluding Flash means that a huge amount of content simply won’t display. Meaning that the iPad and iPhone offers a degraded Web experience.
(c) Flash instability is hugely exaggerated. Crashing is rare. You would think by the bleating of Apple fanboys that no web page is capable of running with Flash enabled. Which is nonsense.
(d) Apple cares solely about controlling the application platform, not about stability. I’m not buying any of their technology anymore. I’m sick of closed ecosystems. Let people run software that isn’t vetted by Steve Jobs.
(e) Whether or not Flash is “good for the Web” will be determined by the outcome of HTML5 v Flash, not by iPad v Flash. So, it’s a little early to make such predictions. And, quite frankly, Flash has been hugely successful in making the Web accessible to millions of people. You may not like that. But millions of people do use it everyday, and there hasn’t been anything even remotely comparable from the FOSS community which came close over the past decade.
Edited 2010-02-20 03:10 UTC
(a)(b) Boo hoo. Degraded by not bringing the page to a grinding crawl as all the Flash ads manage to eat up the entire capacity. The web experience on the iPhone is so good because it doesn’t have all the Flash junk that makes your average page a fan-inducing, battery-eating crawl. When that content changes to HTML/JS then the iPhone will be able to better manage it on its own terms.
(c) Yet, if Flash disappeared, or Adobe fixed the crashing then there would be 90% less crashes. That’s a target worth targeting. Crashes may be rare, but Flash is still the cause of all those unnecessary crashes, and adding the numbers up that most still equate to millions of unecessary crashes.
(d) Reducing the requirement for Flash on the web will ensure that anybody can make a new device to compete on equal footing with Apple’s products without having to go to Adobe. Apple want to control their platform, sure, but the work they have done on WebKit has *directly* allowed their competition to compete on equal terms. Apple’s stance on Flash will allow even further equal competition.
(e) I cannot understand this last paragraph. In what way is Flash any more accessible than plain text, and in what way is Firefox not remotely comparable success-wise to Flash in how it has changed the web for the better.
Sorry, fanboys, but it’s true. The reason he’s toting around to the media — that Flash crashes browser sessions in 90% of cases — is not only exaggerated (browser crashes are pretty rare for most people, so 90% of rare is still rare), but it’s simply a lie to mask his true intent: To control all applications that you run on your machines. Imagine the outcry if Microsoft did the same thing: Created a closed ecosystem, and demanded to be the gatekeeper for all applications. It’s all about the money and control over the platform. Jobs doesn’t want Flash competing with his platform.
For those of you who say that Flash doesn’t belong on a mobile device, you’re wrong. Adobe deserves a chance to run their software on the iPad and the iPhone and whatever other platform it wishes. Let it optimize for the form factor, and get the f out of the way, Apple.
and if Flash actually was fast enough to be usable on the iPhone or iPad, it would. i really don’t believe you’ve used flash in OSX, you cant even watch hulu HD content on anything less than a +2ghz core 2 duo.
Either OSX can’t pull its weight against Windows, or you’re full of crap. Which is it?
Thom, why do you let trolls like this pollute this site? This little troll is nothing but an insulting, belligerent waste of time.
why are you only presenting two options? why can’t it be an option that Adobe is full of crap, especially when the same performance issue is true in Linux.
besides, QTX allows hardware h264 decoding, since all flash HD content uses h264, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize it’s possible to use it. the same QTX framework and hardware decoding is available on iPhones and Macs with recent Nvidia cards.
so maybe you’re full of crap or just enjoy trolling, regardless you haven’t answered the question if you’ve used a Mac and tried watching HD content with flash.
Edited 2010-02-20 06:55 UTC
Because Flash playback of HD content from Hulu works just fine under Windows. If you think it doesn’t perform adequately under OS X, you can draw your own conclusions.
Flash has always ran poorly under OS X, because it’s poorly coded for the platform. Period. Call me a fanboy if you wish, but that’s the way it is. It’s long been the case that Adobe doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Apple, and thus Apple gets their worst efforts. Open up Chrome on OS X, and visit Youtube. Watch a video. Now go to youtube.com/html5 and watch the same video. Both times watch activity monitor. The difference is staggering.
Now please tell me this is OS X’s fault that Flash is so much more of a resource hog.
Wow, Steve Jobs is an asshole and want to control the Apple platform. Shall I get you your cape now, Captain Obvious?
And no, Flash doesn’t “deserve” to be ran on any mobile device. I certainly don’t want it anywhere near my iPod Touch, my Droid, or my iPad when I get one. It’s a horribly coded, bloated, security-ridden POS.
Add yourself to the list of assholes. The device doesn’t belong to Stevie. It belongs to customers. Customers deserve to have a choice over what runs, and what doesn’t.
Of course you don’t: You’re a slobbering fanboy. Stevie snaps his fingers, and you fall to your knees in awe with the rest of the fanboy horde.
Wow, I was just joking around, but now you have to resort to that? How mature of you.
And I’m not a “slobbering fanboy”, I admin all three major OSes, primarily dealing with MS SQL and VMWare ESX.
So eat shit.
You’re joking around, and you demand maturity. What a maroon.
*guzzle*, *slurp*, *gurgle*…
More maturity?
Let me explain it to you, since you’re having a tough time comprehending. I’ll even refrain from big words. There’s a difference between joking, and being an immature asshole that insults people.
And yeah, I said eat shit, because at the point you called me an asshole, intelligent discussion ceases to be possible with you.
You’re just another internet troll.
Looking at your other posts, it seems you often like to engage in intelligent conversation by regularly telling people they’re “full of crap” and just generally being insulting.
It’s amazing Thom and Co. haven’t banned scum like you from here already, given how long you’ve been around.
Edited 2010-02-20 03:31 UTC
And what is your argument exactly? Browsers do not crash often so 90% is a small number or that it’s not 90% of all crashes?
I hate people pretending to know the truth when they have clearly no numbers to back their claims! So how do you know that the 90% number is a lie?
I’d say that such comments puts you in the same fanboy category.
Cry me a river. Adobe didn’t care to optimize Flash since how many versions? Do you think they care for battery life of users? Sorry, that’s simply naive!
No, really! I like that companies that care for mobile users make their web sites accessible for them and don’t just stuff their flash laden normal website down user’s throat (not only because of flash but also because of the factor which is in most cases not intended for small screens – having to zoom constantly is not an option). So if the action of Apple / SJ leads to a better user experience, I really don’t care for the motives ..
I wonder if people that say Flash is crippled on Linux or BSD have actually tried running it. And don’t get me wrong – I don’t defend Flash itself, it’s just working on : OpenSuse, Arch, PCBSD, Mandriva, Fedora – those I have handy. There may be another reason for not running well on some machines/OSes, but I can’t predict them. So, final summation after so much comments (it always happens like that when Apple is involved) – Flash won’t go away in favor of iPad in the next 2 years or more, the so mentioned HMTL5 is not a panacea, it’s a work in progress, and youtube get around 1 million videos per day to encode and convert to flash. On the other hand, I agree that some flashy slides may be optimized to be less flashy, but that’s a content’s holder decision. If Flash works bad on OSX, then who’s fault is that ?
With the same success I can start building a multimedia device that doesn’t support MP3 and start saying how bad MP3 is, and why we should switch to FLAC instead. No one will convert their MP3s just because of my blue eyes. So, Apple vs. Flash episode has a known end.
Edited 2010-02-20 06:59 UTC
I would like to see Adobe do a rebuttal about Apple abandoning the requirement that PCs have some form of quicktime plugin.
In future we could go to Apple’s website and see the trailers using HTML5.
Flash was the first usable and reliable cross platform graphics development system that anyone actually wanted to use. His saying “Oh just use h.264” is funny since all new HD flash video on sites like youtube or Hulu IS h.264, and if they bothered opening up the damned OSX hardware API to 3rd party dev’s in a REAL fashion it wouldn’t be as much of a CPU hog or have those stability issues.
But let’s see a flash game recreated as h.264; Is there even an existing alternative for VECTOR animated 2d that’s as simple as flash with activescript? (No, SDL/OpenGL/OpenAL is NOT the answer; and that’s from someone who writes code for those).
Their real problem with Flash is it’s a third party cross platform system; They don’t like or want cross platform support for anything on their hardware – I’m frankly surprised Apple even HAS an app store given their attitude of “our way or **** off”
But for perspective – I don’t hear them bitching about Sun Java even though they have the same attitude towards it… How is Java in relationship to Apple products ANY different at the business or software level from Flash? The answer is not at all – Except that Java is even more heavily locked out even on CPU’s that HAVE HARDWARE ACCELERATION SUPPORT BUILT IN… making half the die on that ARM1176JZF dead weight since it’s not even using the Jazelle part of the unit.
They want EVERYTHING their way or not at all on products they are selling to the consumer and in general are the enemy of the entire concept of ‘fair use’. People rag on Microsoft and Adobe for their closed and monopolistic practices when frankly, when it comes to the PRACTICES Apple is the true king – if Microsoft pulled half the bullshit stunts Apple does you’d hear the anti-MS fanboys screaming it from the rooftops; But because it’s Apple it barely gets whispered in the back room.
Edited 2010-02-21 17:16 UTC
I agree with the rest but a small correction though; nothing ever stopped Adobe from using OpenCL, Quicktime’s h264 CODEC for playback which includes hardware acceleration. Adobe wants to control everything just like Apple – so lets not try to make out that one is a victim of another when both of them are screwing each other over.
Edited 2010-02-21 20:53 UTC
That’s for sure, and it doesn’t look like there’s any shortage of bitterness in Adobe and Apple’s relationship. Apple’s grudge seems to be based on the way that Flash marginalized QuickTime on the web, the fact that there was no OS X-native version of Photoshop until quite a while after OS X’s initial release, and the lackluster OS X Flash player.
On the other side, Adobe seems to be nursing a grudge over the way that FCP essentially killed Premiere on the Mac, the way that Apple switched from Display PostScript to PDF during OS X’s development (reportedly to avoid paying the PS licensing fees), and – of course – Apple’s refusal to allow Flash on the iPhone or iPad.
It also puts Google in a very interesting situation. If they wanted to, they could seriously hurt both Apple and Adobe by switching youTube to any video format/delivery method other than Flash or h.264.
Vector animated 2D can be achieved with SVG/SMIL or with SVG/ECMAScript. The latter is by far the more often used.
I have no comment on how simple it is to do, because that is a function of the toolset used, and not of the formats themselves. It should be possible for any toolset to write output in any capable format.
FOSS tools that one can use include inkscape and karbon to create SVG objects, and Ajax Animator to animate them:
http://osflash.org/ajaxanimator
http://antimatter15.com/wp/ajax-animator/
Edited 2010-02-22 01:24 UTC
As prophets go, Steve Jobs’ track record is hilariously pathetic. Here’s a small sample of some of the other predictions that Jobs has made:
– no one wants video on an MP3 player
– e-book readers are pointless because no one reads books anymore
– it’s absurd to want to carry your computer around with you
– color displays are appropriate for television, not computers
Yep, that’s a real “visionary” right there. Knowing Jobs’ egomania, this is the kind of situation where he’ll dig his heels in and let a product fail rather than admit that he was dead wrong (yet again). And when Apple finally caves in, they’ll have to deal with backlash from their own fanboys who swallowed the previous batch of kool-aid.
Remember all of the impotent nerd rage from angry fanboys after the x86 switch was announced? They had been gullible enough to buy into Apple’s “megahertz myth” lies, then Apple goes and does a complete “Ministry of Truth” flip-flop. Priceless.
Here’s hoping that Adobe gets tired of Jobs’ childish antics, especially given that Apple wouldn’t have survived the 90s if Adobe hadn’t kept them afloat. “No Flash for the iPhone or iPad? Well I guess you won’t be needing that OS X version of the Flash authoring software anymore… and say bye-bye to the OS X versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and After Effects while you’re at it.”
There is a bit of biting the hand that feeds you there. Had I not already posted, I’d have modded this comment WAY up.
Edited 2010-02-21 20:27 UTC
Come on! SJ is well known for denying the usefulness of something when there’s a product in their development pipeline addressing it.
The really prophecy comes in when Apple does what Apple does: Doing business decisions nobody else in the industry has the guts for e. g. remove the floppy drive, standardize on USB, use combo drives instead of DVD+R, DVD-R, CD + DVD+/-R, DVD-RAM, .., standardize on H264, promote an MP3 player and digital music store, come up with something like the iPhone when everybody says the market for cells is not interesting and overcrowded already, etc.
Looking at how well Apple’s business evolved over the last years, I guess the prophecy track record of SJ is way better than the industry average ..
That hilarious prognostication shows how out of touch you are. The Creative Suite is the bread and butter of Adobe, surpassing their enterprise offerings by orders of magnitude. Go into any design shop and casually count the how many Macs you’ll see. Hint: it’s a lot.
If Adobe pulls After Effects, Illustrator or Photoshop from the Mac platform they’ll cease to be an industry standard applications in about couple of years.
But lets grant the batshit insane proposition that Adobe could pull any of these apps from the platform. Guess what? The foundations for Illustrator and Photoshop are already set by a slew of young apps like Acorn and Pixelmator which continue to stay nimble and innovate while Adobe is stuck in backwards compatibility hell. The hardest one to replace would be AFX, but in due time even that too could be overcome.
Adobe cares about Flash, but not enough to see their business decimated just so they can hold on to dying technology for couple of extra years. They’re trying to milk the Flash IDE as long as they can, because just like Shockwave it has an expiration date.
Dreamweaver is a joke, no serious developer touches that clusterf–k, that’s why I didn’t even mention it.
Funny, given the spectacular level of ignorance displayed in your next sentence.
Hate to break this to you, chum, but Adobe’s software works on Windows too. If you think that any real designer would ditch Adobe before ditching Apple, then you clearly don’t know any actual designers.
Buwahahahahahahahaha! Now I know you have no clue what you’re talking about – those “compete” with Photoshop and Illustrator to the same degree that Pages & TextEdit “compete” with InDesign.
I’ll guarantee that there has never been even a single person in the history of design who was hired because they had “Experience with Pixelmator” on their resume. You’d be better off listing GIMP or Paint.NET.
I didn’t say serious developers use it, just Mac-using web developers.