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Thoughts on Flash

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Re: Thoughts on Flash

#451

Post by csmeder »

barrkel wrote: post #322
gfunk911 wrote: post #6

I love this. Apple clearly laid out their reasoning, using facts and persuasive argument. The world needs more of this. Obviously, there is some spin in the post, and I don't completely agree with 100% of it, but I love the level of discourse.

I think it's almost entirely bullshit and misdirection. 3.3.1 doesn't apply to specifically to Flash. "Open" is irrelevant. Apple is certainly no more open than Adobe. The Full Web - whatever. Don't support it in the browser, don't support browser plugins, fine. Safari on iPhone still crashes all the time. Reliability, security, performance - these are all things that apply to native apps built for the App Store, so…

He addressed 3.3.1 here

"Sixth, the most important reason.

Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform."

Agree with him or not this is his view. And I think its a valid view. The first macs with a mouse didn't have arrow keys. And the early generation touch devices don't allow intermediate steps.

This is not stopping anyone from compiling from lisp to html5. Apple is fine with this. Buy native apps on their platform, for the time being, wont have intermediate layers.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#452

Post by ekiru »

zefhous wrote: post #312
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 develo…

Building iPhone OS apps is free if you have a Mac and don't want to test or use those apps on an actual iPhone OS device.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#453

Post by jacquesm »

It's simple: Power To The User.

If there is a choice to be made it should be up to the user. If they want to use flash, let them, if not allow them to disable it.

If they want to watch tiny movies on a tiny screen for only five hours instead of 10 hours at a stretch, let them.

Realize that when you make hardware it will be used for purposes other than the ones you intend, that's the whole idea of the power of the computer, it is a universal device.

To try to artificially limit what users can and can not do is a short term strategy, and a long term loss.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#454

Post by jacquesm »

Qz wrote: post #66
NickPollard wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately in legal situations, it's often the letter of the law not the spirit of the law that carries weight. It's been pretty obvious from the beginning that Apple wanted to block Flash, but not, say, Unity. I think they'll find it hard to only enforce it against certain infringers though. Imagine if a government introduced a law that said no-one was allowed out on the streets after dark, but then only actually…

That's really a terrible analogy.

Maybe, but it unfortunately is the way life is in many places, and it serves to make the point pretty good. Selective enforcement of this policy is a real risk.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#455

Post by jacquesm »

betageek wrote: post #109
betageek wrote: post #32

I don't buy this at all, although some of the reasoning is sound there's some jaw-dropping rubbish in this statement. esp. around 'openess'. This is one big red herring - Adobe pissed Jobs off, this is his revenge, end of story.

Wow, when did HN become all Apple fanboys, all the time? - I thought this was supposed to be a rational argument but it seems as long as Jobs is destroying Flash he's ok with everyone, even while he's locking down the rest of his platform.

> Wow, when did HN become all Apple fanboys, all the time?

Not all the time, but I think it's quite telling that a gushing 'I love this, with a slight reservation' gets 150 upvotes and you are sitting here at the maximum downvotes for simply stating your opinion.

Yuck.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#456

Post by jacquesm »

ashishbharthi wrote: post #362

I have never seen any thread earning this many up-votes and comments on HN!!

there was this one

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1048800

And before that:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=639976

Given the karma inflation dfrankes is corrected for that probably still (justly) king.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#457

Post by doki_pen »

pg wrote: post #252

What he describes as the "most important reason" is also the big mistake here. If using certain libraries or cross-platform development tools truly did result in worse apps, then the market would take care of that. He also doesn't seem to understand that such tools do not all totally hide the underlying APIs. They fall along a continuum in that respect. And in trying to ban extreme cases like Flash, Apple has also ba…

Stevil is the best thing I've heard all week!

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#459

Post by slantyyz »

maximilian wrote: post #346
wallflower wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Gruber remains independent from Apple. It would be too conspiracy theory for Gruber/Daring Fireball to be a secret PR mouthpiece for Apple. More likely Apple reaches out to him because he is by far the most influential Apple website outside of Apple (MacRumors is a distant 2nd in my opinion). They don't have to pay Gruber anything; the increased ad revenue from being a member of the elite The Deck should more…

More likely Apple reaches out to him because he is by far the most influential Apple website outside of Apple I also think he is one of the most levelheaded apple-centric websites out there. Gruber talks a lot about premium products (not just apple) and their success in various markets -- DF is like a premium tech/apple/good taste blogzine and I imagine that his style appeals to a lot of people at Apple, whether they…

Gruber is fantastic when he's not in "scandal" mode.

The site quality degrades significantly, however, when he latches onto a "scandal", whether it be about stolen iphones or illegitimate wi-fi security claims.

With his recent ad nauseum stolen phone coverage, DF has felt more like an overwrought Entertainment Tonight scandal episode.

I've found the best Gruber reading algorithm is:

if (post < 2 paragraphs) { worth bookmarking } else { mark as read }

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#460

Post by slantyyz »

kevinh wrote: post #338
danudey wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But we're not saying Steve Jobs is neutral are we?" I would argue that that's a reasonable point to make. Steve Jobs doesn't have a vested interest in seeing Flash die, he has a vested interest in seeing the iPhone platform succeed. If he saw any way Flash could help that, I'm sure he'd be all for it, but he's seen how Adobe's behaved in the past (late with PPC versions, late with OS X versions, late with Intel vers…

The very moment flash was not included in the iPhone, Steve Jobs had a vested interest in seeing Flash fail. If Flash expands, user satisfaction with the iPhone goes down. If Flash fails completely, one of the strongest negative components of the iPhone disappears.

I would argue that it was even sooner that that. The Steve has probably hated Flash for a long, long time.
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