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Thoughts on Flash

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Re: Thoughts on Flash

#311

Post by gkefalas »

watty wrote: post #262
ROFISH wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Wrong, unless you mean on computers; Netflix released an iPad app that streams video on day 1, and Hulu is rumored to have one in the works as well.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#312

Post by zefhous »

efsavage wrote: post #155

Flash is closed, Apple is open. Huh? I can build a flash app entirely for free, legally, with zero restrictions, forever, on the tools I used to write it, or where I can deploy it to. Adobe has bent over backwards to make players (also free) backwards compatible. That's pretty open. I must pay to build an iphone app, which I can only do on a computer owned by the same company, running an OS owned by the same company.…

Can you really build flash apps for free? Honest question — I thought you needed to have Flash.

If you do need Flash, you have things backwards. For one, he's talking about web apps, not iPhone OS apps. Web apps are entirely open and Apple is huge on pushing what you can do with the web.

Also, building iPhone OS apps is absolutely free. The entire SDK and documentation is free of charge, you just need a Mac to develop on. You need a $100 membership to sell iPhone apps, which is very different from needing it to try out development.

Flash on the other hand, costs $700.

Flash is entirely closed. Apple is mostly closed and is totally up front about it, but they completely support open web standards.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#313

Post by Psyonic »

qeorge wrote: post #216
richbradshaw wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever website I've ever made has had to avoid new features due to IE incompatibilities. CSS transitions and canvas are obvious examples.

Side point: why is supporting IE6 mandatory? Its been retired since 2005. We support IE6 wherever reasonable, but if you're building something that needs , I'd just do it. What was the feature in this case?

Retired? By Microsoft, perhaps, but not by a large chunk of users. Still large enough to matter, for most sites.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#314

Post by ericb »

jerf wrote: post #241
tjogin wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Gruber has been making these exact points. This could basically be ghost written by Gruber and we wouldn't know the difference.

Gruber is really Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is really Fake Steve Jobs. Fake Steve Jobs is actually Bill Gates.

I'd argue that the real Steve Jobs is Bill Gates, lately. Maybe Monopolies (essentially) do that to people.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#315

Post by blasdel »

not_an_alien wrote: post #124
illumin8 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait a minute, how is comparing H.264 hardware support for decoding (I think you meant decoding, not decompression) vs. software bullshit? Shipping versions of Flash still use software for video decoding. The only versions that use hardware are unreleased beta versions of 10.1. Your post sounds like an Adobe apologist making stuff up.

Hardware decoding of video content has been available since FP version 10, released in October 2008. I'm not making stuff up. I actually have my history of gripes with Adobe, as if I've been working with their software for more than a decade. If anything, I'm just enraged that this article is making stuff up, and I don't like people taking ideology and fundamentalism into a discussion that should be tech-based only.

You are making stuff up.

Hardware acceleration for h.264 decoding was introduced in the Windows betas of Flash 10.1 in October 2009. It hasn't shipped yet, and probably won't for another 6 months.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#316

Post by prodigal_erik »

cabalamat wrote: post #270
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.…

A reference implementation is a good test suite but a poor substitute for a standard. It's huge and you can't just sit down and read it, you have to simulate it in your head to really understand what it would allow or demand. (This is also an awful problem with the HTML5 spec.)

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#317

Post by [deleted] »

potatolicious wrote: post #271
tomlin wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that some of these links are from evangelists. But we're not saying Steve Jobs is neutral are we? Battery Life: It's a bit of hyperbole. We don't watch videos on the iPhone for 10 hours. Would it matter if Flash could play videos for 11 hours? It is a misdirection or a sidestep of an original claim that Flash would kill the iPhone inside of 2 hours. Touch/Scroll: Another sidestep. A Flash issue? With that…

> "We don't watch videos on the iPhone for 10 hours." We do other things on the iPhone. I don't want to make the choice between watching a video and then restricting my own usage just so my phone has enough juice to make a call. I'd rather watch videos and use my phone, and the more power efficient everything is, the more the user can do this. To put it in perspective, if Apple's numbers are to be believed, running F…

[deleted]

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#318

Post by [deleted] »

tomlin wrote: post #289
potatolicious wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "We don't watch videos on the iPhone for 10 hours." We do other things on the iPhone. I don't want to make the choice between watching a video and then restricting my own usage just so my phone has enough juice to make a call. I'd rather watch videos and use my phone, and the more power efficient everything is, the more the user can do this. To put it in perspective, if Apple's numbers are to be believed, running F…

> a:hover is no longer (it certainly used to be) a common tool used for site navigation. Which is to say, rollover dropdown menus are out like parachute pants - it's a non-issue on the web today. Just about every site works with "clicks", which is Apple's primary form of interaction with websites on touch devices. This is precisely what I am talking about. We slice the pear in the middle and somehow end up choosing o…

[deleted]

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#319

Post by Psyonic »

va_coder wrote: post #104

It continues to amaze me that Jobs, as CEO of the 2nd largest company by market cap, is more technical than many of the managers I have had.

I get what you mean, but it shouldn't be that surprising. He started out technical, and most people with that mindset don't just stop thinking that way.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#320

Post by smallblacksun »

mbreese wrote: post #158
cninja wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My head started to spin when trying to reconcile points 1 and 5. Point 1 states Adobe Flash has proprietary features and the standardized open feature sets of HTML5, CSS, and JS should be used instead. Point 5 states 3rd party layers limits development to the standardized features and leaves out the proprietary features that makes Apple unique.

They are talking about two different scenarios that aren't really that related. Point 1 is in reference to the lack of Flash within Safari. Point 5 is in reference to banning applications originally written in Flash.

Or, more cynically,

Point 1 is in reference to a non-Apple product

Point 5 is in reference to an Apple product

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