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Thoughts on Flash

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Re: Thoughts on Flash

#91

Post by patio11 »

revorad wrote: post #61
patio11 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you overestimate the degree to which non-technical users await, with bated breath, a pronouncement about programming languages from high officials at Apple. I love non-technical users. I was trying to explain to one of them yesterday that they can still use my website even after their school wipes their hard disk, and separately, even though the email address (login) is their home email address and not their…

Patrick, you should totally write a book of quotes from your encounters with users. It will be really insightful and such a good laugh.

Tech folks are cynical enough without my help.

Here's all the insight I can muster: non-technical people do not have an accurate mental model of how the computer works. They have a semi-accurate mental model of the steps they take to do routine things on the computer: I click this thing, then I type in this thing, then I click this thing, then the magic happens. Deviations from that routine will almost certainly cause task failure.

Example: you know how Macs have the menu bar at the top of the screen rather than at the top of the window? I have at least one customer whose mental model is that the screen ends where stuff stops getting painted to it, and then that grey gunk above it is scary computer stuff. It took a day to talk her through finding the Help menu -- "It says Help, at the top right of your screen" because she was looking under the grey gunk bar and literally did not notice it until I returned the screenshot she had taken with a big red arrow on it.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#92

Post by ThomPete »

yan wrote: post #54
ThomPete wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The touch argument just isn't valid. What exactly is it that can't be done with flash just because it's a touch environment. Flash don't care about what the input is. It will listen for what you ask it to listen to. Regarding battery life And why couldn't the phone warn you off reduced battery life if you turn on flash? You simply make it an opt in, the first time someone is running flash you overlay a warning saying…

These are all problems that could be solved, this isn't the argument. The argument here is solving them is not in everyone's best interest and is artificially keeping the platform in the past. edit: why are you so angry? Apple are providing a beautiful product at a great price to the public. If it doesn't have a feature you want, buy another product that supports it. I never understood being angry at a company becaus…

What do you mean with in everyone's best interest?

Everyone includes the millions of flash sites and flash developers out there that do fantastic work.

Flash isn't a feature it's as ingrained a part of the web as HTML is and surely much more than HTML5.

I like apples products I fully accept that they don't want to put flash on there even though I disagree.

But his answer isn't an answer, it's not a counter argument as many of those problems he states aren't really problems that are flash related.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#93

Post by gstar »

tjogin wrote: post #49
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.

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

I've often wondered if Gruber's reliable contact at Apple was some guy with turtlenecks and no numberplates.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#94

Post by ptomato »

not_an_alien wrote: post #76
ptomato wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* "Objective+C++ is not open." Yeah? http://gcc.gnu.org/ * "Adobe only wants cross-platform apps, not good apps; generic subjective bullshit." Alright, so point to a single Adobe Air app, for example, that looks & behaves natively. * "Comparing video decompression versus hardware decompression battery gains and claiming that's an advantage over Flash: bullshit, since Flash uses video decompression in most cases." Did…

* If the compiler being open means Objective-C is open, then Flash is open as well: http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Flex+SDK * We're talking about mobile applications like games being good enough, not desktop applications using native components. Please don't stray the conversation. Otherwise it's as dumb as me coming and saying iTunes should not be running on Windows. * "Comparing video decompressio…

* Well, I'm not sure what other part of Objective-C that's not "open" you would be talking about, exactly...

* "We're talking about mobile applications like games being good enough, not applications using native components." Except we're not. That whole section was discussing specifically 3.3.1 and why they aren't going to allow cross-compiled apps to run on the iPhone.

* "Comparing video decompression" Oh, that's not gonna have an effect on battery life, nooooo. And so what, you're saying Apple should have included something that isn't even released yet in the iPhone?

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#95

Post by city41 »

He just claimed Apple created WebKit, noted it's being used everywhere, and gave no nod whatsoever to the KDE team. Classy, Jobs, classy.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#96

Post by dhimes »

tumult wrote: post #75
greendestiny wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well 3.3.1 is worded poorly then, you'd think their legal team could do better if they just wanted to stop Adobe. Its pretty explicit about banning other languages.

Yes, it's stupid. But with Apple, I feel I only need to fear their intention, not their wording. The intent here, it seems to me, is to stop Adobe from making crappy commercial middleware for Apple's platforms. The wording is overly broad and stupid, but I'm no longer as afraid of it. If they were intent on getting rid of everything under the sun that isn't straight C, Obj-C or C++, there would already be an App-ocal…

I feel I only need to fear their intention, not their wording

I'm leery of their capriciousness. They obviously have no qualms about changing their terms of service on a whim, giving folks only weeks to comply, and not accepting any compromise. That is simply not the type of folk I like to do business with.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#97

Post by jroes »

We want the web to be open and free while we keep everything we do on our end closed and make tons of money. Oh, and don't let anyone else try to profit from their proprietary stuff either (unless we get a cut).

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#98

Post by not_an_alien »

naner wrote: post #69
not_an_alien wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Flash websites will have to be rewritten because it relies on 'rollovers', which is not part of Apple's 'revolutionary' touch interface: overblown for two reasons - a) few stuff will have to be rewritten (many videos show desktop Flash content working on mobile phones without a problem); and b) this is not a problem with Flash, as any JS/HTML-based interface that relies on rollovers has the same issues. * Flash is…

> H264 is not open. There are multiple implementations and Apple can tweak how it runs. It is open enough for their purposes. > Objective+C++ is not open. He never said it was. He said Apple has several proprietary products but believed the web should be open. > Flash (SWF) has a fully published spec and anyone can write tools to create, or play, SWF content, without royalties, or without having to respond to any ent…

> It is open enough for their purposes. Ok great, so Flash is also "open enough": fully published specs, anyone is allowed to use the format (creating, playing) without royalties. SWF is more open than h264.

> He never said it was True. But if he wants to make this conversation an open-versus-closed conversation, I fully expect to compare the platforms in general instead of just a tiny bit of it.

> There was spin in this article just like his DRM article but I wouldn't qualify anything as FUD. Saying Adobe postponed the release date is a lie. Saying they said it would be released before is also a lie, since Adobe never announced a date for public release (it was available for devs as beta). Maybe it's not your definition of FUD, but it's still a lie. I don't expect the CEO of a company this big to be repeating this bullshit.

http://www.webkitchen.be/2010/04/19/flash-player-10-1-for-an...

Is he going to post a correction? Somehow, I don't think so.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#99

Post by WilliamLP »

The most brilliant part of Apple's marketing here is leveraging infighting and unintended consequences in the free software community. They don't care about open standards - that they would is, on the face of it, absurd. What they do know is that they will evoke much support for championing JS/HTML/CSS as an open plaform, and that it poses no actual threat to their App Store control. This is because of two reasons:

First that there is so much infighting between Mozilla, Microsoft, and Google on the PC browser side, that it will never be possible to deliver video in one way that is accessible to all users, and Flash will remain required on PCs. (Ironically, Mozilla is Adobe's best friend here, as lack of H.264 support for HTML5 in Firefox for the indefinite future - even if your hardware supports it! - ensures that we will never be able to encode once and run on any PC - unless we use Flash!) So HTML5 will never never be a real final solution, because of the PC environment, which makes it safe for Apple to support and champion.

The second reason why HTML is no threat to Apple is that it just is too hard to write real applications in JS and current (or forseeable) browser environments. I get flamed for this a lot, but I think most of the people who flame me have never tried to build and maintain large cross-browser compatible codebases in JS involving a changing team of developers over a long time. People who disagree here always point to nebulous future hopes or technolgies that don't work very well yet, and I think underestimate the difficultly and time this will take, let alone for adoption. And they also, in my opinion, underestimate the problems inherent in Javascript, the language itself, independent of the well known pathologies with browser DOMs.

And, the reason why this marketing strategy is so brilliant is precisely because posts like this one will be viewed as conspiracy theory! This is because people have so many emotional ties to their hopes and their own preferred ways of doing things.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#100

Post by demallien »

zyb09 wrote: post #17

Sounds pretty reasonable, but common, if they needed to prohibit cross-compilers, did they really needed to do that just RIGHT BEFORE CS5 was going to ship? Any developer putting that much resources into something would be pissed. Adobe didn't make it secret, that they were devoloping an iPhone compiler, so Apple could've just told them right away it's a no-go.

And how do you know that Apple didn't tell Adobe well in advance? Adobe pushing to get onto the iPhone platform is every bit as much of a business decision as Apple trying to block them. Adobe may very well have been informed but decided that Jobs was just bluffing (not an unreasonable conclusion, there are very few CEOs with enough arrogance to do what Jobs has done on this particular issue).
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