Why Flash Is Fundamentally Flawed On Touchscreen Devices

An anonymous reader passes along this excerpt from Roughly Drafted: "I'm a full-time Flash developer and I'd love to get paid to make Flash sites for the iPad. I want that to make sense — but it doesn't. Flash on the iPad will not (and should not) happen — and the main reason, as I see it, is one that never gets talked about: current Flash sites could never be made to work well on any touchscreen device, and this cannot be solved by Apple, Adobe, or magical new hardware. That's not because of slow mobile performance, battery drain or crashes. It's because of the hover or mouseover problem. ... All that Apple and Adobe could ever do is make current Flash content visible. It would be seen, but very often would not work."

Comments

It's possibly worse with javascript ...

[oneiros27]

... as the different touch-enabled browsers treat touches a little bit differently:

http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2010/02/do_we_need_touc.html#more

Re:It's possibly worse with javascript ...

[TheLink]

I tested the desktop script ( http://www.quirksmode.org/m/tests/scrollayer2.html ) on google chrome and firefox, and it's weird. Say I hold down and drag and then _stop_, even if the mouse pointer is complete stationary when I release the mouse button, the stuff still moves. If I leave the mouse stationary and just press and release the mouse button it jumps...

Does the actual problem he's complaining about show up when you use a touchscreen or when you use a mouse?

My initial impression is it's when you use a mouse since he says "I added the mousedown event to touchdown, mousemove to touchmove, and mouseup to touchup. Try it in a normal desktop browser. You'll find that, although the script works, the interaction just doesn't make sense. The mouse events aren't quite the same as the touch events, even though they're pretty similar.".

But other than the glitch I mentioned, I see no problems when using the mouse to move stuff about.

What am I missing?

Re:Not to defend Flash, but...

[hitmark]

give the guy a +1. Hover issues exist, even without flash. I have seen several pages that use html, css or something similar to trigger drop down menus on hover. The better ones allow access to similar resources via a sub page accessed by clicking the trigger spot, the bad ones do nothing...

Re:Eat my balls!

[SausageOfDoom]

I really wish I had mod points, you're exactly right there.

The reason that inability to hover "never gets talked about" is that everybody competent knows that if something is important, don't hide it behind hover - it's almost always bad for usability and accessibility. Any website or web application that relies on hover effects is, quite frankly, broken. Sure, it may look nice and be convenient, but there should always be an alternative accessible way to navigate through an application.

If my 3 year old N95 runs Flash and can display content reasonably, there's no technical reason that the iphone/ipad can't too. Apple's decision to miss out Flash has nothing to do with performance or usability, and everything to do with money. Anyone who claims differently is a deluded apologist Apple fanboy.

Re:Not entirely true

[ink]

Google maps breaks your proposition; as you pointed out, it's using drag to scroll.

That's not why iDevices don't support flash

[Spykk]

Apple does not allow any software on these devices that could be used to develop an application. They would not even allow a basic interpreter. If flash worked people would be able to develop applications for the iPhone without Apple's blessing. Chances are they won't support things like the Canvas element in HTML5 either. Expect your browsing experience to become more limited in the future.

Re:That's not why iDevices don't support flash

[jo_ham]

Apple are in support of HTML5, even as an app development market. Flash is off the iPhone/iPad purely for licensing cost reasons and secondarily due to the UI issues - it's got little to do with competing with the app store itself. They make the bulk of the money on hardware sales, the app store breaks even/has small profit.

Flawed Logic in OP

[GrantRobertson]

I agree. With the OP's logic, half of the internet should be banned from the entire i* line of products. However, there are two hardware solutions that could solve the problem for all touch screen devices.

1) Add proximity sensing. Not just for your whole face, but to sense when a finger is held near the screen. It is capacitive touch after all.

2) Add active stylus input. The main thing I miss on my Droid vs my old Palm Handheld is the fine grain control afforded by a stylus. I know Palms were just pressure touch sensitive and so had the same hover issues. But I also have a Table PC and I can hover the stylus over the screen to move the pointer without ever touching the screen. Then a tap on the screen is the same as a click. I don't care what Steve Jobs says, I like having a stylus.

Re:Flawed Logic in OP

[GrantRobertson]

I looked into the styluses for capacitive touch screens. They are just as big as the end of my pinky finger. I want something with a point about the size of a regular pencil. Just like I have on my Tablet PC and had on my Palm.

As to touch sensitive regular screens. I used to retrofit regular monitors for touch-screens as part of a job I once had. That worked for the environment where they were to be used but I would never use a touch screen on my regular desktop. I have so much more control with a mouse. I also have a graphics tablet for when I am using, well, graphics software but I don't use it for regular activity. Again, a mouse is more versatile.

But, back to my phone, or a small tablet style pc, I would definitely want a stylus so I could write on it like a piece of paper. I do it every day in class on my Tablet PC and it is so handy I would find it pretty hard to live without it.

As to the hovering aspect in the OP: I liked oji-sama's idea.

Roughly Drafted - The Lunatic Fringe of OSX Fandom

[meehawl]

Seriously people, this is Roughly Drafted we are talking about here. Sure the zealot in charge has now toned down the abusive comments and graphics on the page and made it look somewhat sanitised, but this is a site that is the Apple equivalent of Little Green Footballs in its heyday. Memorably referred to as the "lunatic fringe of Mac fandom". Pretty much any article on that website is guaranteed to be slanted so much in favour of the Apple Party Line that to expect rational, even analysis is pointless. Flash has worked on dozens of touchscreen devices for years now. Many of these devices have come up with UI and/or gesture cues to invoke the rollover/mouseover state that Flash and Javascript like using (often involving a "pointer mode"). Because of Adobe's new push, Flash will soon be working on hundreds of new devices. As a result, I am sure that both the workarounds and new gestures to replace and to augment rollover will become both more usable and more common.

Opinion of a UI Game Developer who leverages Flash

[Tronster]

This entire story is FUD; I took the bite though...

I'm a user interface lead at a game studio which is leveraging a Flash-based solution that could target consoles. I already did this once before on CnC3:Kane's Wrath (a title with PC and 360 SKUs), and have done contract work creating a Flash Lite application for the Sony Mylo 2 (touch screen.) Besides all this I also teach Introduction to Interactive Media at a local college which has a successful curriculum based around Flash, and yet touches on aspects of touch-devices and alternate input (non-browser) environments.

All that said about my qualifications I make this statement:
Flash works in it's existing form on these devices.

Its my professional opinion that it would work fine on an iPad or iPhone and the non-technical agenda Apple has is what's preventing it from manifesting itself on those platforms.

Re:Not entirely true

[Ihmhi]

Drag your finger over the button and then remove your finger from the touchscreen?

Re:Not entirely true

[c_forq]

Touch pressure is not a solution. It creates inconstancy. Moreover on appliances like these I would HATE if touch pressure was an issue. Do you remember how hard it was get people to understand a double click when personal computers started becoming commonplace?

Ignore RoughlyDrafted

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

RoughlyDrafted is nothing but an Apple apologist site. This is the same site that told us why we didn't want apps on the original iPhone (never mind that apps have now made the iPhone a huge success), how Android was doomed to fail (despite the fact that it's taken a significant share of the smartphone market in under two years), and how the iPad doesn't need HDMI (apparently a VGA output that does 1024x768 is a good substitute).

To RoughlyDrafted, any problem with an Apple product is a problem with us, not with the product. No apps? We don't really want them. No HDMI? We didn't really need that anyway. No real multitasking? We didn't want that either because it opens the door to "viruses and spyware that run in the background".

What a bunch of crap. Not even Mossberg is that bad.

Roughly Drafted

[jpmorgan]

Exactly. And it's important to bear in mind the source of this editorial: Roughly Drafted.

If Steve Jobs said all Apple users should throw themselves off a cliff, Roughly Drafted would provide a semi-spirited defense of suicide.

Someone better tell the CA Lottery Commission

[Red_Chaos1]

The lottery terminals are all Flash on top of Linux, and they're all touch screen only. At worst they stop responding for a moment while processing a large transaction.

Re:Flash only?

[jedwidz]

Problem is, touch-and-drag scrolls on the iPhone, and that's fundamental to the iPhone interface.

I'd rather see touch-and-hold switch to a mouse movement interface with a magnifying glass and a cross-hair, similar to the way text field editing works already. Tapping with a second finger during the hold would click the mouse. Releasing the hold without moving the cross-hair would bring up a select all/copy menu.

Re:Eat my balls!

[koiransuklaa]

We all know Apple bans Flash because it would allow third party apps that don't have to forfeit 30% of revenue to Apple. Plain and simple. All other explanations are just someone's absurd mental gymnastics to justify Apple's stupid and shortsighted iPhone OS policies.

People keep talking like the appstore is hugely profitable for Apple: Do the math, it's quite likely not. I'm not saying it's irrelevant but hardware sales dwarf the appstore revenue by such a wide margin that the appstore just cannot be anything but an additional business for Apple.

I might accept your argument if you exchange profit for the lock-in angle: Apple wants native apps so people "can't" move to other platforms.

Re:Eat my balls!

[mad.frog]

Apple bans Flash because they are tired of dealing with Adobe. Only now is performance suddenly important to them, over half a decade after buying Macromedia.

And the response from the minority party, presented by Tinic Uro of Adobe:

http://www.kaourantin.net/2010/02/core-animation.html

Re:Eat my balls!

[infinitelink]

Bad reasoning, it's an either-...or; Apple is basically saying, "if you want to make money, we take a cut, but if you want to give it away, go ahead", or "Either we get a piece, or you get no pie". If devs wanted to give something away in the first place there would be no benefit to Apple, and there are many reasons for this, but otherwise commercial software is somethign Apple wants control over on "their" platform customers' [paid-for] devices.