Thoughts on Flash • Hacker News Board

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#261

Post by watty » Thu, Apr 29, 2010, 4:45 PM UTC

tewks wrote: post #233

The underlying situation here is that the runtime should be an open standard. Adobe's insistence that everyone should be dependent on them is absurd seeing as they have little market power to make such demands. There is a huge need for a solid authoring tool for the canvas and Adobe is the right company to build such a tool. Adobe has been whining for far too long about its inability to lock people into a proprietary…

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/

I don't use Flash because Adobe forced me or insisted that I use it. Flash was the only solution to create highly interactive applications on the web for a long time and gained huge popularity because of this. The Flash plug-in was a failure on iPhone so they went out of their way to use the Flash environment to create native iPhone apps (i.e., no longer Flash).

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#262

Post by watty » Thu, Apr 29, 2010, 4:49 PM UTC

ROFISH wrote: post #250

meroliph wrote: post #145

I've jumped to the conclusions on the article and this puzzled me: "The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content." Because media outlets are forced to make their videos available to the iPhone without being able to use Flash, this means that Flash is no longer needed?

Yes; for video-only uses, Flash is no longer needed. No doubt the avalanche is because a popular smartphone/tablet does not allow Flash, but Steve's point is that Flash is no longer needed because similar functionality can be performed in the more open HTML5.

Wrong; Flash is still needed for DRM video (Hulu, Netflix, etc.)

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#263

Post by anujseth » Thu, Apr 29, 2010, 4:52 PM UTC

I think the timing on this post is perfect, re-directs attention from the gizmodo thing and prevents another john stewart from happening.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#264

Post by cpr » Thu, Apr 29, 2010, 4:53 PM UTC

not_an_alien wrote: post #126

grk wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Objective+C++?

Yeah, that was funny. I'll blame nerd rage.

Why? Apple's compilers support C, Objective-C and C++ in a single source, so you can call it Objective-C++.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#265

Post by pohl » Thu, Apr 29, 2010, 4:53 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #193

cjoh wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get this argument, but couldn't you say Apple gives the customer the best of both worlds? Web & HTML 5 support: developers can make or do anything they want to on the platform. App Store: Cultivated catalog of high quality apps for customers. At the end of the day, we don't need PhoneGaps or Titaniums-- we need MobileSafari to have the same hooks into the hardware (gps, compass, accelerometer, camera, etc) as Cocoa…

We're arguing for Apple to make the web app store. Clearly the current situation of open standards apps not being monetizable is not the best of both worlds.

But how is this different from the monetizibility of web-apps on the existing web?

And don't forget - even if Apple were to acquiesce and make an app store for web apps, there would still be much wailing and gnashing of teeth. The claim would be that Apple is trying to take away URL-addressibility from the web. Heck, people already complain about this just for Objective-C Apps!

Exhibit A: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=945443

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#266

Post by cpr » Thu, Apr 29, 2010, 4:54 PM UTC

ryoshu wrote: post #205

ugh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which arguments are FUD?

- "First, there’s “Open”." SWF is open ( http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/ ). ActionScript 3 is open ( http://www.ecmascript.org/docs.php , http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tamarin/ ). Want the Flex SDK? Here: http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Get+Source+... Want a non-Adobe compiler? http://haxe.org Adobe still has closed projects like Flash Builder 4 and Flash CS5. But saying that, "Adobe’s Flash produ…

Some of us old-timers (Unix v6!) are using Xcode and think it's a great toolset.

Show me a better-integrated set of editors, compilers and (most important) debugging/performance analysis tools on any platform.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#267

Post by ck2 » Thu, Apr 29, 2010, 4:55 PM UTC

  I love this paragraph, check their hypocrisy, switch Adobe/Apple:

[Apple]'s products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from [Apple], and [Apple] has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While [Apple]'s products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by [Apple] and available only from [Apple]. By almost any definition, [Apple] is a closed system.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#268

Post by watty » Thu, Apr 29, 2010, 4:58 PM UTC

doron wrote: post #137

I expect to have Flash available for my for droid soon, and for many of the reasons presented in this well articulated press release, i will not install it. The thought of having to wait till a useless flash Ad render on my mobile browser, without any ability to block them is reason enough not to have it on my phone. Unless Flash framework is completely revamped it will vanish to a place of old proprietary technologi…

If Flash never existed and HTML5 was king, what would flashing, animated, noisy advertisements be created in? Content is not the fault of the platform.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#269

Post by Xixi » Thu, Apr 29, 2010, 4:58 PM UTC

"To achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware; decoding it in software uses too much power."

Though this is not exactly news, this sounds like a confirmation of the reason Apple doesn't support Theora for html5 videos...

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#270

Post by cabalamat » Thu, Apr 29, 2010, 4:59 PM UTC

Qz wrote: post #72

This is where he loses me: "Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open." Adobe can just as easily say: "Though Flash products are proprietary, we strongly believe that standards pertaining to what software is allowed to run on your computer should be open." It's doublespeak either way, and it's crazy to think th…

> [Jobs:] "we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open."

Consider Python. Is it a standard? Yes, because there's an open source reference implementation.

Does it pertain to the web? Yes it does, because http clients and servers can be, and often are, written in this language, and its standard library and 3rd-party open source libraries support http and other web protocols such as HTML.

So if you're so keen on stand ards Steve, why can't I write web software in Python for the iPhone and iPad? Why are you such a hypocrite?

On a wider note: Steve, do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugar-coated digital handcuffs, or do you to change the world for the better?