“Apple CEO Steve Jobs reportedly told the Wall Street Journal it would be ‘trivial’ for the newspaper to ditch Adobe’s Flash software in preparation for the iPad. Media-industry types who disagree have been emailing us. ‘Oh, sure, just use Javascript: well guess what, we don’t have a bunch of code junkies in our newsroom. We do have some great designers who’ve picked up Flash and enough Actionscript to be very effective.'”
Gruber says it best: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/03/26/gawker-flash
Publishers—you dug the hole, now dig yourself out of it and stop whinging; I don’t want to hear it. I’m doing just fine developing without Flash.
Yes, and I’m doing just fine on Linux but that doesn’t mean it’s fit for you to use it – which you’ve stated on numerous occasions it isn’t.
You’ll have to elaborate, because I don’t understand what you’re inferring. These publishers are whinging that they like their comfort bubbles as is, and don’t want to change, where as other more-agile companies are having no problem with this change.
You’ll have to elaborate, because I don’t understand what you’re inferring. These publishers are whinging that they like their comfort bubbles as is, and don’t want to change, where as other more-agile companies are having no problem with this change.
Don’t try to twist things around. They’re saying that they don’t often have specialized coders and that the existing Flash development tools are so easy that even their editors can use them whereas such tools are completely non-existant for HTML5. Ie. they’re saying that they just don’t have the means to go HTML5 when Flash is so easy to use. And I can’t blame them, not everyone in this world is a coder!
That is probably why Flash ads cause so many problems.
They are done by people who get it to look right and that’s it.
Who cares that it crashed half the audiences browsers.
And not every organisation has difficulties presenting information to people in a straight forward manner without all the fluff. The BBC use very little Flash anywhere and only for specific things. Audio, Video, and Games. They have a public mandate for accessibility which means that Flash is not an option unless there are no options. If other publishers had values like accessibility to all then perhaps they would not have tarted up their sites with Flash? But I suppose we have to listen to their sobs now because they made a narrow minded decision in where to invest their technology. Boo hoo.
Audio and video can be custom served to iPad with HTML5. Games are a legitimate limitation of HTML5. You can not throw something together like you can with Flash. Apple’s stance here is to provide native apps—not a particularly good stance for the BBC.
But as far as presenting published content—no, Flash is not a valid excuse. I don’t have Flash installed and I have no problem with the vast majority of sites and news content that I read.
Stop giving an ear to these people, other companies are not complaining, getting on with the necessary changes right now, and are relishing the thought of what the iPad will mean for their content. http://twitter.com/pandastream/status/8387043166
Again – I have no problem using Linux. A whole boatload of other people have no problems either. Then why is it a valid excuse FOR YOU to say “Linux isn’t for me, I don’t know how it works, it has problems” – but it’s magically NOT a valid excuse for content providers to say something similar in the Flash debate?
You can see the double standard here, right?
Again – I don’t like Flash as you’re most surely aware, but you can’t expect news companies to change their entire editorial workflow just because Apple decides to supersize its iPod Touch. Remember: there is no tablet market. We don’t know if there’s a demand for this stuff. There is a very real possibility that the iPad will amount to absolutely nothing.
So why should news companies – especially the small ones – invest in hiring several new coders? It just doesn’t make any sense.
Edited 2010-03-27 12:53 UTC
Again – I have no problem using IE6. A whole boatload of other people have no problems either. Then why is it a valid excuse FOR YOU to say “IE6 isn’t for me, I don’t know how it works, it has problems” – but it’s magically NOT a valid excuse for content providers to say something similar in the Flash debate?
—
Some publishers would have us still using IE if they could, but they were _forced_ to get with the programme.
These publishers can see the big juicy iPie and want a piece of it, but didn’t see the writing on the wall with the iPhone. As I’ve said, other publishers and news organisations that actually respect accessibility and the experience of their end users, will have no problem publishing on the iPad.
I have no time for publishers that complain, just as I have no sympathy for companies that put their documents into FlashPaper only for Adobe to discontinue it.
Close and proprietary technologies always get cut off or discontinued at some point. We all merely bet against what will last long enough, and what technologies will be easy to migrate from / to. In 15 years I’ve made various bad decisions but right now, with HTML5, I know I’m on the right track.
Precisely correct. The iPad is for limited use, if that. The size, the hardware, the power the price. They are all wrong. As for content to create momentum for the device, good luck without flash. I would not hire new wankers for HTML5 in this economy. Jobs blows.
I, for one, don’t see the double standard.
Apple chose to make a new platform. Publishers can either choose to play by the rules of that platform or not. Why should Apple swallow expense to accommodate everybody’s Flash addiction?
For once, I find myself applauding Apple (an extreme rarity) for doing the Right Thing. Getting people to kick the Flash habit would be good for everybody except Adobe, and that’s a future I can live with.
P.S. Thom, what does this have to do with Kroc’s Linux opinions? Nothing. Don’t try to redirect the argument to something else. He can be irrational about some things and rational about others. He’s dead on, here. And, once again, that’s not something you find me saying very often.
I don’t think it’s as simple as that Thom. This goes way beyond the iPad.
I cannot stand Steve Jobs but I wont let that taint my view of the problems that exist with Flash.
Having said that I completely understand the views on ‘switching’. It’s not as simple as saying that more agile companies don’t have a problem. In the enterpise world you need a strong business justification, migration plans, support infrastructure, project management and of coarse a budget.
For example, Solaris 10 is a huge improvement over Solaris 9 but for many places they simply wont migrate until they absolutely must.
There’s not much more to be said – we’re in the middle of the most fearsome economic crisis ever, so hiring new developers and/or designers is not the choice that most companies will make. Re-coding an already created workflow with something totally new from the ground up is not an easy job, plus if it will be only because of some people’s intentions not to support Flash. Apple’s market share is not that big to control this non-existing tablets market. If it was MS, that would be another story. The same story would be if tomorrow Fujitsu, for example, creates new more-power-efficient mainframe, but it would require different type of sockets – would you overhaul your entire lab ? I don’t think so. Apple’s efforts to fight Flash will fail. Again, I’m not a Flash supporter, but I feel pretty fine with it (on Linux) – and it’s already close to a standard, like MP3. Yes, FLAC is better for me, but it’s not widely used. So, iPad readers are likely to remain in the information hole when it comes to Flash, IMHO.
It does if they wanna get on the iPad. If they don’t, nobody’s forcing them.
Look at it like this: in Web and publishing, new markets and niches are always opening due to technological advancements. If you want to expand in those new places, you invest in a technology upgrade. In this case, JS coders. If you don’t wanna, fine.
That being said, I have to agree there’s a gaping hole staring us from behind the HTML5 adoption: the complete and utter lack of integrated designer tools. With Flash, Adobe’s tools were there and were good. But now there’s nothing, as far as I’m aware, that smoothly integrates Wysiwyg HTML5 editing with JS coding, SVG graphical editing and flash-like scene and timeline capabilities.
Even if Flash designers were willing to upgrade their skills and tools, there’s nothing they can upgrade to. As far as they’re concerned, they’re giving up the tractor plow for a shovel.
Designers should design and coders should code. Flash allows designers to code, and that is why Flash is so bad.
The publishers are complaining that they will have to hire coders to code! Oh the horror! Image that even the Flash stuff would work well… That would basically destroy the world as we know it!
If ipad users are only 2% of visitors then they aren’t going to be worth the costs of hiring new coders.
I don’t like Flash either but this isn’t the way to replace it. I also think Jobs is full of it when it comes to his reasons for not supporting it. Allowing Flash means you can buy your tv shows and movie rentals outside of itunes.
Someone needs to ask Jobs why the ipad doesn’t have Silverlight either.
I personally found it not really amusing that they said code junkies to the coders and great designers to their graphics guy, that just shows how high they value this profession.
I personally would not even think how they would flame me openly if I was another paper or an important person and would openly say their designers were design junkies.
I know thats just mean that they didn’t use the proper terminology… I mean seriously all us code monkies are totally offended
I give you that there are certain Flash designers I have seen who do really crappy, resource-intensive animations because they have no clue. But I think they are in the minority.
But you’re also missing the fact that Flash allows coders to code–namely using Flex–and to do so with a much greater degree of ease and freedom in terms of animations and visual effects than what HTML currently allows for. In the hands of a proper coder Flex’s capabilities beat the crap out of HTML.
Now I’m not arguing that HTML can’t fight back, I’m just saying that as things stands today, there are good reasons why good coders might actually still choose the Flash platform.
Seems like a gret business oportunity for someone to develop this kind of tools..
Oh come on, what a load of crap – when I was in the mood a while ago to teach myself how to use Flash I had a look at what was required to learn it and believe me JavaScript and HTML is no more complicated than Flash. You’re still having to learn a language, a big and complicated tool, and you’re reliant on a plugin made by a company who doesn’t give a crap about producing a decent plugin.
Guess what mate, most of us here wouldn’t give a crap about Flash if it was small in size, light weight in memory usage and CPU utilisation. If we could use it on our Mac’s without the battery power being sucked harder than a woman servicing a man in a hurry on Kay Road in Auckland.
As for the rest; what I see is a co-ordinated effort by Adobe to force Apple to open up their platform to Flash; it is nothing more than that. Many of these organisations chose to go with Flash even though it was very clear with the launch of the iPhone and iPod Touch that there was no desire by Apple to open up the platform. They had the time to think about it and plan based on possible future devices holding true to the ‘no flash policy’. Instead of studying, reflecting and hiring the right people they went out against what the market was saying and hired some flash designers. Well, quite frankly, based on that stupidity they can go and suck eggs for all I care.
Edited 2010-03-27 23:34 UTC
There’s nothing stupid about using what the vast majority has especially when it is cost effective.
Silverlight is better tech for browser games but I seen many discussions at .net related sites where developers grudgingly went with Flash simply because of the install base. Sure there are always long term concerns but you have to balance them against short term profits.
If the money is in good enough tech then that is what you use and save some of that money so you can invest in something else later. You don’t pick the technically proficient solution in every case. A lot of companies would go bankrupt if they adopted your vendetta against Flash.
Web consumers are very fickle and if your content requires installation of software or a different browser a significant percentage of them will go elsewhere. They’ll go to back to their Google search results and pick something else. They know that within a few tries they can find something else that doesn’t require an install. You have to have very specialized content like netflix to get them to install something. Your typical news site is not in that position.
Cost effective both long term and short term; content doesn’t just exist as it is and then destroyed a week later, there are issues of archiving, maintaining it and providing access to that archived material in the future.
But we aren’t talking about Siverlight; we’re talking about existing technologies, JavaScript and HTML, that are present on all modern browsers, that require no additional plugins to be installed versus Silverlight and Flash. If you’re going to stated that, “Web consumers are very fickle and if your content requires installation of software or a different browser”, then you’re going to have to equally explain to me why there isn’t a moan about installing Flash, Shockwave or Silverlight. What I am advocating is using the existing technologies out there already rather than installing yet another plugin, as you propose, just to get some rudimentary web experience.
Back to Flash again, I have nothing against Flash or Flash like technologies in principle as so long as they don’t hog the CPU, chew threw memory, bring browsers to a crawl, and are a massive walking security hole. The simple fact of the matter is that Microsoft has provided Silverlight on Mac without a single fault that I can point out – it is virgin purity in every sense of the word. It is fast, reliable, does not hog up the CPU, the browser remains snappy at all times and so on. I could lap praise on it for hours if I could – but the simple fact of the matter is that Adobe is blaming Apple for not providing hooks into hardware for video acceleration and yet we have Silverlight able to do everything that Flash can do but without needing to resort to hardware acceleration trickery.
So what we have Adobe who want a piece of technology used, they gang up with content producers as a pawn in a hope to win Apple over – but guess what? you don’t see a single damn thing by Adobe being done to address the performance issues that Apple raised. Amazing, rather than actually address the flaws they bribe content producers to lobby and put pressure on Apple rather than Adobe fixing their crap software. So please, stick to the topic, the topic is Flash, its shittiness and the Adobe refusing to fix it.
Edited 2010-03-28 03:08 UTC
[q] matter is that Adobe is blaming Apple for not providing hooks into hardware for video acceleration and yet we have Silverlight able to do everything that Flash can do but without needing to resort to hardware acceleration trickery.
[q]
Well the truth is that Adobe was right, up until Snow Leopard there were really no decent hooks into the hardware. Microsoft just has the advantage of being able to leverage the new hooks in SL while Adobe still is working on it.
But be aware, Microsoft has a long history of abandoning platforms, there once was an IE for Unix and OSX, there was a Com for Unix a Com for OSX etc…
Microsoft usually decides to support a platform once they have reached their goal, so if you support Silverlight now you might end up with a dead platform on the Mac sometime in the future.
Btw. Java Apples have become really nice in the recent past, the Windows plugin nowadays is excellent with small footprint. I wonder why no one really considers it, it is the only reallly close platform alternative to Flash we have currently.
Because Java takes a little minute to load on older hardware and netbooks, and people want ads to show up quickly ?
Incorrect. In order to get HTML 5 video, SVG, or next-generation CSS support you need to download a new browser. Plus each browser supports the web “standards” differently enough that the experience often varies significantly depending on which browser you use–and that’s *after* the developer put ridiculous amounts of time and effort into making sure they worked “well enough” everywhere.
Flash offers a unified development platform that’s not in a constant state of flux, that has great development tools available, and that can be tested once and assumed to run exactly the same everywhere regardless of browser or OS.
I’m not saying HTML5 doesn’t have a chance. Just that it doesn’t have a chance *right now*.
I was showing an example of how good enough tech is often the most cost effective.
What are you suggesting here for streaming video anyways? HTML5? What about browsers that don’t support it? Encode twice? What about interactive media? Are you going to support IE6?
The nice thing about plug-ins is that you don’t have to test in half a dozen browsers. Once you start using a lot of javascript you run into browser quirks, especially with older browsers.
They’re used to installing Flash and chances are that they already have. But for Silverlight and other plug-ins it is a disadvantage.
If you want to make a business out of the web then you SHOULD hire professional web coders.
I wouldn’t hire a plumber to fix my electrics or a carpenter to service my car so why should news publishers hire somebody other than web developers for developing their website?
Besides, with a proper content management system in place, they shouldn’t need a team of coders.
Why would any sane person listen to anything Gruber says?
Makes it really easy to block out their ads and unwanted shit at least.
My mother-in-law recently set up a mobile broadband account and was shocked when she’d used 3Gb in two weeks because she “only really reads the news sites and does a bit of email”. I went through some of those news sites with her – sites that auto refresh regularly if you leave them open – and showed her how much of the page – mostly ads – was flash content, by installing a Flash blocker. She thinks its great now, she still gets all the news articles but doesn’t have to put up with loads of crap, and of course its significantly faster loading, and most importantly uses much less data.
They can keep me ad free as long as they like…
Edited 2010-03-27 12:49 UTC
You know that your “free” (as in costs) news are paid by the ads, though?
You know that your “free” (as in costs) news are paid by the ads, though?
There are of course people who don’t either understand that or who don’t care and feel they are entitled to do as they please, but there’s also several rather good reasons for blocking ads: ads are a VERY popular way of spreading viruses and malware (this being a very serious issue) and more often than not they are very disturbing and cause irritation more than anything positive.
They should either check all the ads they use so that they can be 150% certain that there’s no malware/viruses attached or they should device some safer way to advertise.
I install ad-blocking on every computer I fix. It is a basic, _essential_ security requirement. I replace Adobe Reader with Foxit. Those two actions see that the user has a safe, problem free computer with a notable, praiseworthy difference in the speed and the enjoyment they get out of their computer.
I would use NoScript instead, but it’s simply not a technology you can set-and-forget.
If Flash / Reader were not the single main entry point for viruses, and if advertisers and publishers who use advertising did a better job, then I wouldn’t have to block them. Requiring JS to insert an ad is simply wrong; the SWF should be hotlinked by the publisher’s own HTML. Besides Flash exploits, that would greatly help reduce the _risk_ that comes with advertising.
I’ve looked at the last few Flash exploits, they were used by hosting Flash on private sites and luring visitors to those sites through email. Getting a Flash ad on news site takes cash up front.
Malware is spread more by getting people to install fake scanners or through email attachments. Social engineering is still far easier than looking for Flash exploits.
If you want to use ad-block that is fine but I don’t like this trend in promoting it as if it is good for the web. It affects tech-oriented sites the most which is what I visit. Firefox/Chrome users that visit tech sites already have some of the worst click-through rates.
Edited 2010-03-27 23:59 UTC
The New York Times got hit by a malware ad just last September. Stuff like that might not happen that often, but when it does, it can affect millions of people. An article last week details malware ads getting through even the major advertisers http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20000898-245.html
getting rid of Flash is not going to get rid of that problem, especially if you are talking about switching to javascript.
Of course the most secure browser loads nothing at all but you have to find a balance between security and functionality. Getting rid of ads isn’t a viable solution when content producers depend on them for revenue.
It doesn’t get rid of the problem but it does make it easier to avoid. It opens up the possibility of browsers prescreening javascript to determine its intent and blocking it if it seems malicious. With open standards and protocols its easier to write tools to prevent security holes.
Sure, and if people want to look at the ads that’s fine – I have no problem with them, it’s how they make their money – and if the media outlets use non-flash content then they’ll appear on my screen too, so I’ll have no choice but to see them. But while they keep using Flash I can and will block them.
It also means I can check the news sites from my iPhone without chewing into my monthly data allocation, so its all win for me, the only ones losing by using Flash for their ads are the media outlets…
Edited 2010-03-27 13:58 UTC
Well how about reading the reasoning behind it before firing off an post:
That was the reasoning; the issue has nothing to do with advertising per-say but wankers in the news room who insist on having big, bloated and bandwidth hogging ads when alternatives could be used that use less bandwidth and similar revenue generating results. That is the issue being discussed – nothing to do with the wank feast you want on – address the objection to the ad based on the bandwidth used up because he never objected to ads entirely.
Edited 2010-03-27 23:57 UTC
I often compare how much text there is on a page vs how much space it takes for my browser to save the same page on my drive.
Finding 2K of text but 100-200K for the page is one thing (graphics takes up space).
Finding 2K of text but 1-2M for the page makes me think someone pushing the ads a bit much.
Finding 2K of text but 5-10M for the page is getting ridiculous.
The ad pushers are filling the pages with junk. Compare Google or OSNews pages to what many publishers think you should receive.
javascript doesn’t take a degree in computer science to learn, either. It’s pretty easy to use.
Especially with libraries like jQuery available.
Edited 2010-03-27 17:32 UTC
God I would love to be the hiring manager with that mandate.
For a large corporation to switch to anything it takes a dozen meetings and at least a few hundred k.
If they have a working system you can’t just tell them to switch as if they are some college student with a blog who picked up a little actionscript in his spare time.
The people in charge of these organizations are not tech oriented and neither are the managers that they hire. When you tell them javascript isn’t that hard you might as well say kabooble bobble dingle dobble.
so perhaps these “large corporations” should stop being so incompetent and ineffecient, so that they could switch easily? come to think of it, perhaps they shouldnt have been so incompetent to begin with, choosing something as abominable as flash
Both Javascript and Actionscript are based on the ECMA standard. Actionscript is generally a newer version of the spec and doubtless has some extensions, but when you compare the “greater” syntax past the class based constructs – they aren’t all that different. As to how far they diverge from the current standard, I have no idea. (I have never looked at ECMA, but the compliance is actually touted by Adobe as a “plus”, so I’m taking that assertion at face value.)
Continuing the sentiment of some previous comments… whether Flash should be used or not, these media companies just need to accept that whenever you use something proprietary, you run the risk of it not becoming the industry standard or the popularity of it may just start to go down hill. Using industry standards, while sometimes boring, can increase the life of the technology (not all the time, but most of the time imo).
Just about anything Sony-created proves that theory (betamax, mini-disc, memory-stick, etc.). I am sure there are some examples outside of technology-related industries as well.
I know, Flash is bloated, slow, unstable, etc. etc…
but it is the perfect tool to let designers with no computer related skills show their work; so, all the issues that everyone says bashing Flash could be approached by Adobe and worked on to improve them and make Flash a good thing.
I remember the first days of Java being bloated, slow, etc… and though I still hear some stuff like that, it is currently just a myth.
HTML5 is a good contender for Flash and provides the opportunity to Adobe to improve their technology or let it die.
Java is still slowish but the saving grace is the fact that it was never extensively used/abused in the way in which flash has been. When Java was used, it was used in particular scenarios – such as in the case of a-drive where it is used for uploading files. It was about using the right tool for the right job and Java more or less was relegated to the jobs that it did well and was never flogged to death like one sees with the advertisers and website designers with the case of Flash. With that being said, Java is still slow and this love affair by Sun with Swing doesn’t help the situation when there is an obvious better alternative – SWT which provides native look and feel without all the trickery and hacks to apply themes when working in particular environments.
Regarding Adobe; no one is denying the usefulness of Flash in principle; the question is whether the ease of use at the developer end is off set by the crappy plugin at the other end. Yes you can get your wares out there quicker for the consumer but at what price to the consumer when they’re saddled with having to use Flash plugin? I’ve given 10.1 a try and it is still horribly broken and buggy thus making it no better than 10.0 or prior releases. For me, if Adobe turned around and fully opened up Flash into a open standard where all the specifications were available free of charge and without a NDA – if Adobe open sourced their Flash plugin and developed a community of developers around it thus they focus on the development tools – then you wouldn’t see any argument over the merit or lack of regarding Flash.
Right now the hatred against Flash is deserved and has nothing to do with a blind hatred of Flash or is it to do with the fact that it is proprietary; the hatred is directed at Flash because of the crappy plugin. Fix the plugin and you won’t have a problem.
Btw, from what I understand, the ActiveX module doesn’t have many of the problems but the old Netscape plugin based browsers do – I remember not to long ago there was a push to modernise the NSPlugin model so it was more security, efficient and so forth but from what I see it hasn’t amounted to much. There is a specifically Safari/Webkit/Chrome plugin technology but I doubt we’ll see Adobe use it given that it would require Adobe to ship two plugins for two different browsers on the Mac.
I don’t get all the hate for Flash lately. I do think flash has problems, in fact many of the same problems I had with java applets.
Plugins just don’t work as nicely as they should. Partly because a web browser is shitty environment to extend. Generally you lose about 30% of your framerate as soon as you run in a browser window. Usually there are memory management limitations, which are part of the reason plugins fall over more often.
It’s not always the plugin either. Take Safari, taken down at pwn2own for 2-3 years running by plugin(java) integration issues.
I agree 100% that using flash for video is unnecessary. Browsers should have been able to embed and play video for years. In fact they have been able to, except for codec issues. Codecs issues could still fubar HTML5 video.
However, more importantly canvas is not a replacement for Flash animations. It probably never will be. Making interactive animations in canvas is horrible compared to Flash. Doing anything but simple programmatic animation in canvas is horrible compared to Flash. Given canvas is actually a programmable interface, meaning you need to code, I can’t ever see useful drawing tools for it.
As much as everyone here would cry about it. Java plugins are still useful. Flash is still useful because the browser is neither a good development platform, nor a good animation framework. Plugins aren’t going to disappear from the web overnight.
As for the iPad and no plugins at all. Apple does change it’s mind. Remember when custom apps on the iphone were webapps. Remember how crap that was.
A ton of articles i have been reading have pitched the ipad as a RICH advertising medium. You know what that means in your face full screen audio/video ads that you CANT block and the BIGGEST slap in the face will be that the content the ads will be in will be content YOU PAY FOR!! I will never pay for content that is full of ads. I will allow ads however if the content is “free” ie no monetary cost. Who wants to pay THE SAME PRICE for a digital newyork times as you do a print version. And the digital version will be full of adverts. No,… Its the same as the cable industry they want us to PAY TWICE on the web like we do now for cable NO i am rebelling from that concept. If i watch ads i will pay no money if its ad free i will gladly pay. Anyway people are using the argument that no flash on ipad =less bandwidth usage and NO ADVERTISING and offer a better experience. But it will most likely be WORSE.
I just can’t believe it i see it all over again, this kind of decisions should be made by the people not Steve Jobs, or anyone who is benefiting from it, and if flash is so bad how come QuickTime crashes my computer more the flash, on any system lol even on their own system imagine that ads running on your favorite site encoded in QuickTime, i would love for someone to conduct a test with all this video browser plugins see which one is eating up the most resources/CPU. the choice is up to the people.
These publishers need to quit their bitching and get with the times. They chose a format that is proprietary, inaccessible, and fully dependent on one company who doesn’t really give much of a shit as long as it’s good enough to sort of work. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is moving on without you. Put up or shut up. They get no sympathy from me.
since there isn’t enough of an ipad market to pressure them to change.
Oh and YouTube isn’t moving on which keeps Flash going in case you hadn’t noticed.
Edited 2010-03-28 00:18 UTC
But there will be (Apple have sold out even before it’s launched). Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this discussion because they’d be no reason to moan at Jobs, because the publishers weren’t looking at the iPad anyway. They are absolutely looking at it with greedy eyes, they want the ROI handed to them on a silver platter without any effort on their part.
Both parties would prefer everyone to run the same platform for economic reasons.
But I think the ipad should have Flash since there are sites that will be Flash only even if the ipad sells like crazy.
This issue was so overdone with the iPhone that I will only give brief summery. The iPhone and iPad run on a mobile version of Mac OS X. If you want to know how Flash will perform on the mobile devices just look on the Mac desktop. Flash is a bloated resource hog that performs horribly on the Mac. Flash is basically Windows technology ported to the Mac and they did a pretty bad job at it. Due to Flash’s performance, Apple chose to pursue other technologies. If Adobe wanted Flash on the iPhone and iPad, they would have kept tabs on the Mac development.
I’m sorry that the media companies actually thought the Flash was cross platform, but until Adobe gets the resource usage more inline with the Windows version, it’s not. Basically the media companies sided with Microsoft Windows and they are now crying foul since Apple has something they want.
you just aren’t allowed to play Flash video elsewhere.
The real issue is that Apple likes how people get hooked on buying their tv shows and movie rentals on iTunes. It’s a great service but I don’t believe Jobs really has it out for Flash when he hasn’t been doing much to push alternatives. They’ve basically sat on Quicktime instead of promoting it as an alternative to both Flash and Windows media player.
I like iTunes and the iphone but my God is that company full of crap. The last thing they want is for people to buy an idevice and then purchase their media elsewhere. They have games and apps locked up in the short term but they can see how Flash is a threat to their video sales. I don’t think people here realize how many consumers are buying their tv shows on itunes. People are willing to pay a buck or two for a show if it means that it is high quality and ad-free. A lot of college students are cutting the cable bill and then just buying their favorite shows on itunes.
Honestly, must you spam every thread and reveal your ignorance? The iPhone does *not* play Youtube’s flash videos, the Youtube app streams the H.264 video directly and plays it back on the H.264 decoder hardware. At no point does flash even enter the process. I rarely say this, but I hope Apple stands firm. They’re not promoting HTML 5 for altruistic purposes true, but so long as the result is a severe decline in flash usage I really don’t care what their reasoning is. This is one instance where Apple’s control mania might just do some broader good.
Heres the latest from apple! “Iad” wtf http://mashable.com/2010/03/27/apple-iad/
Toldya
Maybe the question here isn’t about HTML5 vs Flash… maybe we should just look from another perspective… Do we need rich HTML5 tools for designers?
(…well, yeah, we do!)
Steve, stop bitching and get flash on iPad already. All publishers rewrite their stuff just because new iCrap with idiotic limitation appeared? Get real.
You are posting information from THAT site?
Can I submit this one for OSNews?
http://www.theonion.com/articles/apple-claims-new-iphone-only-visib…