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- Open source: Nobody restricts where you can install the application, and you get the source code too -- the best situation.

You either need a new level of "open source" here or some RMS style ranting to really understand what I assume you mean when you say "open source." A lot of this is specific to the license, of course, but just to scratch the surface of what some people expect:

• You are free to fork the code at anytime and run with it so long as it remains open source.
• The direction of the code and feature set has at least some amount of community influence. I'm not saying you're required to implement it but if someone hacks together a new encoding for Flash video and everyone in the community is using it, it's your responsibility to at least investigate merging the decoder into the trunk. This is regulated by the function of my first point.
• Whatever open source code you release cannot ever be proprietary. No backsies.

Again, these are just a few caveats to consider. If you don't consider the above then (by your definition) the Flex SDK is actually open source and Steve Jobs would be wrong in saying that Flash isn't open source. Of course, Job's veil of concern is that the standards are not community driven and Adobe holds that in a tight grip. A valid concern but when something is truly "open" (like in my second point) then you can either try to convince Adobe or (as in my first point) just say "screw 'em" and run with your own implementation of the standard and ask the members of the community to come with you.

Tacky that his first point is that Flash is proprietary, when Apple restricts the apps that can be installed on the phone. Pot, meet kettle.

And of course, he knows this. Which is why he spends one paragraph railing against Adobe and the next paragraph justifying Apple as distinctively different products and then even another paragraph praising Apple for their WebKit work. From the original press release:

Apple has many proprietary products too. 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. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple's mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash). HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member.

Apple even creates open standards for the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the Safari web browser used in all our products. WebKit has been widely adopted. Google uses it for Android's browser, Palm uses it, Nokia uses it, and RIM (Blackberry) has announced they will use it too. Almost every smartphone web browser other than Microsoft's uses WebKit. By making its WebKit technology open, Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers.

Of course, he spends more time and words making sure that Apple's version of proprietary is justified while they have even been a leader in open web standards.

My opinion, if you care to hear it, is that it's really easy to jump on someone for not being open when it's not your bread and butter that's at stake. I don't like Adobe and I don't like Apple but what I see here is Adobe scrambling to maintain control and authority over Flash because they perceive (possibly correctly) that to be their lifeline in a turbulent marketplace. Essentially I feel like Jobs said "Adobe's not open and we're not open in our core business but there are auxiliary/complimentary efforts we've been instrumental with that are actually open." While he completely overlooks similar "good will" efforts by Adobe to release the source code of the Flex 3 SDK (I don't find it to be truly open source like they market it though). And he's being disingenuous towards his users in order to make more money which requires reduced functionality of his device. He's a businessman. They are known to not only make decisions like this but their stockholders often require it with threat of litigation.

Which is why I prefixed it with "if" -- I would agree Photoshop is better, but it also costs money.

Sure it costs money. The computer also costs money. You wouldn't go very far with no money at all, correct? Also this version of Photoshop is $70 dollars. Enjoy.

If you need Photoshop, it's available for US $700 via capitalist methods, or you can get a hold of it in a more Communist way if you prefer.

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/whatsnew/?sdid=FPVCB&

If you need an image manipulation tool that is functionally similar to Photoshop, there's GIMP. It fills the needs of people who don't need Photoshop specifically, but do need advanced image editing. And GIMP fills that need for free, which is a nice bonus. You can likewise arrange to purchase it if you'd like, or obtain it through more communist methods if you prefer.

So not really sure what your point was, but if everyone needed Photoshop the situation would be a lot different.

all they need to worry about is the relatively small windowing, audio, and input code which shouldn't take a seasoned developer more than a week to hack up.

yeah try to tell that to the linux flash maintainer ... http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/

If they'd been doing this, Apple might not have objected. Unfortunately, they're just bundling the Flash VM in an app with the bytecode for the app.

Actually, that's not what they're doing at all. They're actually compiling ActionScript to LLVM, and from there to native machine code. Ironic, given that LLVM is itself an Apple project, which is expressedly targeting portability.

no 64 bit for macs, only windows

Nope.

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/04/photoshop_cs5_64-bit_benchmarks.html

Unfortunately, they're just bundling the Flash VM in an app with the bytecode for the app.

Do you have a cite for that? While this isn't necessarily incompatible with Adobe's statements that "CS5 build[s] applications for iPhone that are then installed as native applications", this isn't the word on the street (which is that the bytecode doesn't run on a VM but is actually targeted to native code).

Seeing one closed off, 'play by our rules or gtfo' company, whining about another closed off 'play by our rules or gtfo' company is golden.

Flash has some particularly closed bits (client-server communication protocols and Sorenson codecs, IIRC), but in general, it's relatively open. SWF has a published (though arguably incomplete) format.

You could theoretically implement your own version of their runtime, though that's proven difficult, but implementing other tools which target Adobe's runtime is not only allowed, it's been done with MTASC and Ming and a handful of others. And the basic Flex SDK is open source.

Not to mention that Adobe doesn't insert itself between developers and deployment, and they've done plenty to signal that when the HTML 5 revolution arrives, they're happy to target that as well.

All in all, they're doing pretty well on the "openness." And they're almost inarguably doing more to reassure the world they're committed to a growing platforms where developers have options than Apple is.

Seeing one closed off, 'play by our rules or gtfo' company, whining about another closed off 'play by our rules or gtfo' company is golden.

Flash has some particularly closed bits (client-server communication protocols and Sorenson codecs, IIRC), but in general, it's relatively open. SWF has a published (though arguably incomplete) format.

You could theoretically implement your own version of their runtime, though that's proven difficult, but implementing other tools which target Adobe's runtime is not only allowed, it's been done with MTASC and Ming and a handful of others. And the basic Flex SDK is open source.

Not to mention that Adobe doesn't insert itself between developers and deployment, and they've done plenty to signal that when the HTML 5 revolution arrives, they're happy to target that as well.

All in all, they're doing pretty well on the "openness." And they're almost inarguably doing more to reassure the world they're committed to a growing platforms where developers have options than Apple is.

No one has ever ported an application the size of Photoshop from Carbon to Cocoa (as I mentioned earlier, after 9 years as an Apple product Final Cut Pro remains Carbon-based), so we’re dealing with unknown territory.

...

1) Writers gin up controversy about Apple vs. Adobe, portraying this as a case of some tit-for-tat ("This one time, Steve wouldn't play golf with Shantanu, so Adobe is sulking!"). Oh, come on. This is why Lightroom x64 is a such a nice counterpoint: Adobe's decisions are pragmatic, not ideological. Look, Apple and Adobe share the goal of maximizing Photoshop performance on Mac hardware, and we're working together on all aspects of that story--64-bit included.

"If it bleeds, it leads," however, and writers looking to drive ad impressions will try to fabricate a grudge match. Please don't let them.

2) Adobe gets castigated for "dragging its feet" on Cocoa/x64. This charge will be inevitable, I suppose, but I want you to know that we started work on the problem immediately after WWDC '07. We started peeling senior engineers off the CS4 effort, and we'll keep pouring on the muscle in the next cycle. This work comes at the expense of other priorities, but so be it.

3) We start hearing all about "Cocoa Über Alles"--about how Adobe should have known that Cocoa is the One True Way and should have started the move years ago. Most Mac users don't know Cocoa from Ovaltine, and nor should they: it's just an implementation detail, not a measure of quality. I think Brent Simmons, creator of wonderful Cocoa apps like NetNewsWire, put it most elegantly: "Finder + Cocoa = Finder." That is, rewriting one's app in Cocoa doesn't somehow automatically improve its speed, usability, or feature set.

I'll also note that Apple's Carbon Web site says, "Carbon is a set of APIs for developing full-featured, high-performance, and reliable applications for Mac OS X... The Carbon APIs are also well-suited to cross-platform development." I don't mention it to detract from Cocoa; I mention it to point out that each approach has its pros and cons, and in hopes that we don't hear all about how Cocoa is clearly the only way to write "real" Mac software.

Read more here: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/04/photoshop_lr_64.html

This whole cocoa vs carbon drama is stupid. It seems only to suffice as some PR dig from Apple fanboys against Adobe. Or some shit-stirring controversy for tech blogs to get hits or slashdotters to whore karma. Anyone who has used Adobe apps professionally on mac in the past ten years knows at no time were they ever not available on Macs.

Nobody screwed anybody. It's just what happens when platforms change.

No one has ever ported an application the size of Photoshop from Carbon to Cocoa (as I mentioned earlier, after 9 years as an Apple product Final Cut Pro remains Carbon-based), so we’re dealing with unknown territory.

...

1) Writers gin up controversy about Apple vs. Adobe, portraying this as a case of some tit-for-tat ("This one time, Steve wouldn't play golf with Shantanu, so Adobe is sulking!"). Oh, come on. This is why Lightroom x64 is a such a nice counterpoint: Adobe's decisions are pragmatic, not ideological. Look, Apple and Adobe share the goal of maximizing Photoshop performance on Mac hardware, and we're working together on all aspects of that story--64-bit included.

"If it bleeds, it leads," however, and writers looking to drive ad impressions will try to fabricate a grudge match. Please don't let them.

2) Adobe gets castigated for "dragging its feet" on Cocoa/x64. This charge will be inevitable, I suppose, but I want you to know that we started work on the problem immediately after WWDC '07. We started peeling senior engineers off the CS4 effort, and we'll keep pouring on the muscle in the next cycle. This work comes at the expense of other priorities, but so be it.

3) We start hearing all about "Cocoa Über Alles"--about how Adobe should have known that Cocoa is the One True Way and should have started the move years ago. Most Mac users don't know Cocoa from Ovaltine, and nor should they: it's just an implementation detail, not a measure of quality. I think Brent Simmons, creator of wonderful Cocoa apps like NetNewsWire, put it most elegantly: "Finder + Cocoa = Finder." That is, rewriting one's app in Cocoa doesn't somehow automatically improve its speed, usability, or feature set.

I'll also note that Apple's Carbon Web site says, "Carbon is a set of APIs for developing full-featured, high-performance, and reliable applications for Mac OS X... The Carbon APIs are also well-suited to cross-platform development." I don't mention it to detract from Cocoa; I mention it to point out that each approach has its pros and cons, and in hopes that we don't hear all about how Cocoa is clearly the only way to write "real" Mac software.

Read more here: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/04/photoshop_lr_64.html

This whole cocoa vs carbon drama is stupid. It seems only to suffice as some PR dig from Apple fanboys against Adobe. Or some shit-stirring controversy for tech blogs to get hits or slashdotters to whore karma. Anyone who has used Adobe apps professionally on mac in the past ten years knows at no time were they ever not available on Macs.

Nobody screwed anybody. It's just what happens when platforms change.

And the SWF Specs are available freely:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/pdf/swf_file_format_spec_v10.pdf

I poked around Adobe's web site about Flash CS5 trying to find out just how it works - it is very non-obvious, as they just say they "produce native iPhone applications", without going into detail even in the so-called "developer's FAQ". Finally, I found this blog post, which shows that you are indeed correct:

We enabled this by using the Low Level Virtual Machine (LLVM) compiler infrastructure. LLVM is a modular, flexible compiler system that is used widely in a variety of projects. The key reason we choose LLVM is its flexibility and applicability to iPhone development.

We created a new compiler front end that allowed LLVM to understand ActionScript 3 and used its existing ARM back end to output native ARM assembly code.

So they do AS->LLVM->assembly, no Obj-C (or any other high-level language) in the chain. That nails them right down. I apologize for incorrect statements to the effect that it's the "translation" clause that affects them - it does not (for now, at least).

Even so, the licensing agreement does ban the use "translation tools". This is pretty absurd on its face because it is a very broad category (e.g. are code beautifiers banned, too?), but nonetheless that's what they wrote, so it is what it is. I wonder if the wording is intentionally broad to counter the obvious course of action for Adobe that you've mentioned - that is, switch to targeting C or Obj-C. It should be fairly trivial to do so. In fact, at some point there was an LLVM backend that output C - I don't think it's maintained these days, but it probably wouldn't be hard to resurrect it.

The question of enforcement is an interesting one. No matter how they do it, they will still have to link the supporting Flash runtime to the resulting binary, even if statically. The strings within that can be grepped for. Furthermore, if said runtime is written in Obj-C, it will contain selector names as plain strings - those, too, can be grepped against a compiled sample empty Flash CS5 application to determine a typical pattern for them, and then used in an automated detector tool.

For Java, here's a quick link to see what version you have installed, and if there's a new version available or not:

www.java.com/en/download/installed.jsp?detect=jre&try=1

Here's one for Adobe Flash Player:

http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/

What other plugins are there links for like this?

I'd love to have a page set up that I can just click through a set of links to verify each app is current when checking PCs. If the update process is painless enough, just have friends and family run through it every so often, or when they hear of a "java exploit" or "flash bug" or whatever. (I train most of 'em well enough that they can do this, or I automate the system to check regularly)

The major browsers (except IE, that's tied to Windows) update themselves on Windows boxes - what links are useful to ensure the rest of the browser-accessible ecosystem is current?

But which other phone did?

300 models, in Feb. 2007; http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200702/0212073GSM.html
In the US, Verizon had some phones with it.

My E65 came with Flash Lite, but I've only used it once (I don't browse that much with it, I use it mainly for Calendaring, podcasts and internet radio).

So's Adobes Marketing Dept..

As evidenced by this photo:
http://www.adobe.com/education/purchasing/include/marquee/purchasing_marquee_792x230.jpg
Found at:
http://www.adobe.com/education/purchasing/

So's Adobes Marketing Dept..

As evidenced by this photo:
http://www.adobe.com/education/purchasing/include/marquee/purchasing_marquee_792x230.jpg
Found at:
http://www.adobe.com/education/purchasing/

Check out KB article from Adobe. Maybe it will answer your question?

At my work we always get the 24 month upgrade plan with any software we purchase from the Creative Suite. We buy Design Premium for $320 and the upgrade plan only costs an extra $120, although we do get the software at educational pricing so I'm not sure how much it would be for others.

They also blame all bugs on Apple or in the case of not being able to save file error "Could not save (file name) because the file is already in use or left open" ...

Seriously. Check out this thread. The only app on any Mac or Windows computer I use (and that's a handful) which gives this kind of error and Adobe blames the OS vendors. All those other apps which save files never report this problem, EVER!

What is Adobe's reply? It's outside of Photoshop, it's NOT ADOBE's problem.
Check out the thread at Adobe forums:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2712066

Also required reading for this thread:
http://innerdaemon.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/sorry-adobe-you-screwed-yourself/

Adobe has become quite arrogant and unfocused IMO. The problem is for me the lack of a Photoshop competitor. I use Illustrator less than a long time ago so the various replacements work well in this space.

He probably read the specs. SWF really is pretty compact to begin with, then everything after the first eight bytes is zipped.

Adobe was pro web standards until it bought Macromedia. It was the leading supporter of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) for the first half of last decade, publishing and distributing an SVG plugin for Internet Explorer and supporting SVG in Illustrator and GoLive. Adobe lost its moral compass when it bought Macromedia, After failing to halt the popularity of web standards and standing at the edge of a precipice, Adobe is now seeking forgiveness from developers.

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2010/01/solving_different_problems.html

NVIDIA has released the vdpau and API for linux a couple years ago and the Adobe flash player for 64 bit linux is still in the alpha state and has NO hardware acceleration. Are you really going to take Adobe seriously with this argument when they haven't taken advantage of publicly available hardware acceleration other systems?

Apple made a business decision... just like Adobe did when they bought Macromedia (and with it, Flash) and gave up on SVG.

holding different platform specific implementations: http://blogs.adobe.com/cantrell/images/ireverse/FB_projects.jpg
That's doesn't seem all that impressive...

All of the betas worked in linux until the final was released. Its just an eclipse plugin and should be cross platform. To show your support for a linux version go to http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FB-19053 and vote it up.

See, I never got that complaint (the name change).

Flex Builder and Flash Professional both create flash files (SWFs). The only difference is that, in general, people that use Flex Builder, also use MXML and the Flex framework.

But, you can still create Actionscript-only projects in Flex Builder that don't use the Flex framwork, and you can easily integrate Flash Professional into your workflow if you need to include timeline animations and so forth by publishing out assets from your FLA as an SWC that you can include in Flash Builder.

I really like Flash Builder but I don't use the Flex framework or MXML at all. The fact that Adobe is still continuing to give it away through their "broke and unemployed developers" program is icing on the cake.

They are developing a separate 'Mobile' Flex framework. It will share a lot in common with Flex 4, but some heavier parts that don't make sense on mobile platforms will be stripped out, and it will have a few extra features to make it easier to interact with on the specific types of input (eg touchscreens). Info about Flex Mobile

Apart from that, there will be a separate compiler which can compile a Flex Mobile or any Flash app really into an iPhone/iPad app. This will probably be released around the same time as CS5, or very soon after.

"Work" is probably that you can retrieve the info from it like you would with a mobile version of the website. And then there is the case of how they degrade websites.

WORST: MOVE to- PLEASE DOWNLOAD A SUPPORTED BROWSER
or
BAD: present DOWNLOAD FLASH NOW TO VIEW SITE

OK: Try to show site, if a option is not supported ignore that or show that in a banner.

Better: degrade gracefully to (?mobile?) version.

BEST: support all technologies. (No flash -> html5 , no html 5 -> flash -> no nothing, show images or quicktime)

Problem is that too much sites only go for OK, only support 95% of userbase. I bet the sites listed TEST for safari mobile and act on that fact, not on the missing flash option.

Troubleshooting tips here: http://blogs.adobe.com/jd/2010/02/troubleshooting_player_stabili.html jd/adobe PS: Thanks, Stan!

If you're really a nerd, you'll want to scroll through the PDF Reference section 8.5 ("Actions"). Be careful though, as it may hurt a little.

Instead of simply jumping to a destination in the document, an annotation or outline item can specify an action (PDF 1.1) for the viewer application to perform, such as launching an application, playing a sound, or changing an annotation's appearance state. [...] In addition, the optional OpenAction entry in a document's catalog (Section 3.6.1, "Document Catalog") may specify an action to be performed when the document is opened.

It's actually very well-defined, and creating a document that implements this part of the specification should be trivial.

I love made-up, exaggerated statistics.

Wow, if you feel that strongly about made up statistics, you must really blow a load when you see real statistics then. And before you shoot the messenger (Adobe) as the source for information about their own products, note that Shockwave is listed at 52%.

Look, I know there are people who don't install Flash -- both of them are quite vocal here on Slashdot -- but for everyone else it's one of the first Add-Ons downloaded. As the above poster stated, those who care can and will figure out how to disable it. Although frankly, since there's no Flash for Lynx, I'm surprised they even care at all.

Adobe says its true:

http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/

Since 99% of people end up installing Flash...

Yes, according to Adobe. Somehow methinks that number is a bit skewed in Adobe's favor.

Widespread adoption of HTML 5 means that their product can now be used to create content for even more devices, including several, like the iPhone, from which they have previously been locked out.

They probably won't need HTML5 for that since they've almost solved the problem with the iPhone packager in the upcoming release of Flash CS5. Once Apple sees that people can still get Flash apps on their iPhones without violating the TOS, they might loosen their stance on blocking it from being embedded in web pages viewed with Safari.

Also, browser inconsistencies are plentiful and there's no guarantee that HTML5 API's will ever be rendered/supported exactly the same in all of them. One of the great things about Flash is that you get a consistent experience across all platforms. I highly doubt that Adobe would want to dilute the quality of their brand by providing an "export" tool that gives inconsistent results. Like converting documents from MS Office to/from OO.org -- It should work fine, but in practice you always end up losing some quality.

Actually Flash is an open standard: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/

It just so happens that the only company to provide a complete implementation of it is Adobe. They also provide the only meaningful development tools.

Flash supports the mouse wheel, since Flash 6. We'll see how well the Flash Player will work on touch screens when it's out for Android.

Argh, my link about the P2P streaming is missing.

So they work in 99% of browsers (source).

Not only is this no where near the penetration rates of HTML5, it's only true for those HTML4 features which exist in the venn intersection of all features between IE8 + IE7 + IE6 + Firefox + Chrome + Safari + Opera (source).

but it could eventually encompass all of it (or, gasp- exceed Flash functionality)

I welcome that day - please don't get me wrong. I'm just saying it's too early to sound the death knell.

will do so in all HTML5 browsers

Do you really think that's true? How has that worked out for HTML4 so far? Major differences between browsers and browser versions. Some of these browsers in their most modern form still can't pass CSS ACID tests.

Flash offers ubiquity and consistency that has so far simply not existed in the HTML arena, and HTML5 has not offered any sort of standards verification. If HTML5 wants to do that, it should create a set of ACID tests for HTML5 features, and any browser which wishes to claim HTML5 compatibility needs to score 100% on them.

Silverlight is aimed at creating Rich Internet Applications. It's more of an alternative to AJAX than to Flash because, while Flash can be used to create RIAs, no one does.

You probably know all of this but for clarity sake.. While you're right saying that bare Flash isn't used to create RIAs, it is possible to create a RIA with it if one would use Flex, which is a RIA framework built on top of Flash. In my personal experience, I've seen more RIAs created using Flex than Silverlight. That might not be the case (would be interesting to see numbers) but certainly done and rolling. Reading your post, I have the feeling you think that adobe has no support for building a RIA using Flash.

If there's a flash movie I care about, I'll usually pause the browser player and run
vlc /tmp/Flash* ...to open it up fullscreen in VideoLAN with VPDAU hardware acceleration, post-processing, vertical-sync, etc. (stuff they can't even get working nicely on Flash for Windows)

But yeah, intensive flash games like Fantastic Contraption wouldn't be so hot. If it wasn't for that and the hope from the somewhat decent http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/ blog, I wouldn't bother with flash at all. (I already use FlashBlock for most sites... makes the web a much more serene place)

Oh, but nice to run into one of my contemporaries from CSLUG-L every once in a while... how you been? You need a new Homepage, looks like they shut down CUPeople last year :/

Thanks for the idea about the flash uninistaller, I found a link to it here: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html

You're not really looking for full-blown document management. You're looking for electronic approvals (usually called eSignatures).
The simplest way to do it is embed the eSignature (approval) in the word document or in a pdf.

Look at silanis for embedding in word documents
    http://www.silanis.com/solutions/e-signatures-desktop.html
Look toward adobe for embedding in pdf.
    http://www.adobe.com/products/livecycle/digitalsignatures/

I would only use these for the important approvals that legally require signatures. For anything that's just an out-of-date internal process, consider something simpler. (eg. email approval is good enough).

Really? So what do you make of this tech article from Adobe then? It starts off nice and promising:

Flash supports Apple's QuickTime API (which in turns supports many different codecs) and Microsoft's AVI file format and its related codecs. By leveraging these technologies, Flash is able to transcode video to and from Flash Video (FLV) format.

But then goes on to say:

Other limitations:

* Flash cannot import MPEG video streams through QuickTime
* Flash cannot import the audio track of MPEG video through QuickTime.

Clearly Adobe's use of the Quicktime API got 'nobbled', and that was back in 2005.

Then a year later in 2006 Apple delivered it's next knock-out punch. Apple used to support Flash natively in Quicktime until they suddenly and without any warning switched it off in QuickTime 7.1.3 and yanked the rug out from underneath its developers, leaving them no where to go.

The Flash spec is already open: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/

My statement is as true as your's.

The issue is whether the technology prevents sites using that technology from being accessible (NOTE: unlike in the U.K., the ADA does not require websites to be accessible; it is "Section 508", of a different law, which requires website accessibility and that only for U.S. Government websites) or whether individual works produced by user's of that technology are not accessible.

If you've relied on text-to-speech readers for a while then you will be (painfully) aware that even back in the days of HTML 3.x there were (and still are) websites which are not accessible when using speech reading browsers. Know how impossible it is to fill in a freaking form when none of the INPUTs have freaking LABELs?

(side ran: Why The F does the tech support department for JAWS close on weekends?!?)

Websites created in or using Adobe Flash can (http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/) be accessible to screen reader browsing. Lazy website developers can choose to make non-accessible sites using HTML 3.x/4.x, they can choose to make non-accessible sites using Flash and they will sadly continue to choose to make non-accessible sites using HTML5.

The author implies that adobe can't use gpu for flash on mac. Why not?

It's not a crap article because it's true. If you look at the 10.1 public beta release notes it says:

In Flash Player 10.1, H.264 hardware acceleration is not supported under Linux and Mac OS. Linux currently lacks a developed standard API that supports H.264 hardware video decoding, and Mac OS X does not expose access to the required APIs. We will continue to evaluate adding the feature to Linux and Mac OS in future releases.

How Apple react to this will be a good litmus test of how fair Steve J is prepared to be with Adobe. Will he make the APIs available to benefit his customers but risk making HTML5 less attractive, or will he just ignore them and play hard ball.

As for Linux, the historical lack of a unified approach to solving this (that includes all interested parties) is going to leave us out in the cold for some time yet. Let's hope that Gallium3D sticks, gains enough traction and doesn't get dropped for something else a few years down the road. That will make a nice change!

The Flex SDK is free.

Uh $700 = free? http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/