Slashdot Mirror
How the iPad Is Already Reshaping the Internet (Sans Flash)
The Internet's already starting to look different, says Gizmodo, in a piece of interest not only to everyone with an iPad floating around the UPS system, but also those of us thinking about some other kind of tablet in the medium-term future. As they put it, "The iPad doesn't run Flash. If your website uses Flash, it won't play well on the iPad. Turns out, a lot of people want their sites to look pretty on the iPad."
And an anonymous reader adds this snippet from Webmonkey: "In anticipation of Saturday's release of the iPad — which doesn't run Flash — Apple has published a list of 'iPad Ready' websites. The sites are all big league sluggers like CNN, The New York Times, People Magazine and MLB.com. Surprisingly, there are also a few video-heavy sites in the mix (Vimeo, Flickr, and TED) which would traditionally rely on Flash Player for video playback."
It's stupid to do this just for the iPad, but if it helps to move more towards web standards then I don't care about the means to the end..
which is totally what she said
Wouldn't the iPad buyers be more like johns than hookers? Five-diamond girlfriend experience...
I am scientifically inaccurate.
s/Apple/Adobe/;
Burns: We're building a casino!
McAllister: Arrr. Give me 5 minutes.
If the iPad does actually kill off Flash, Steve Jobs will finally have given something worthwhile to the world of computing.
... reshaping the ipad.
Let's face it, aside from the hype this device is merely another tablet. So far none have made any sort of impression on the internet and I would fully expect that in a few months time, when all the buzz has died back all these ipads will be languishing in desk drawers and cupboards somewhere - when people discover that their old laptops are much more capable and less of a pain to use.
*Looks closer* Oh yeah! Some of the pixels.... no wait that's just a bit of dust.
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
The first thing I did to make my site more iPad-friendly was to use nothing but different shades of pink. The green I used before is gone, along with the black. It's all pink.
The second thing I did was put penises all over the place. My site is actually about mobile homes, but erect penises are what really attract the iPad crowd.
The third thing I did was use words like "fabulous" and "super duper" all over the place.
The fourth thing I did was replace all 's's with 'th'. So now my site has text like, "This is the motht fabuloth mobile home you'll thee on the market today!"
The fifth thing I did was made my site navigable with nothing more than a flick of the wrist.
I'm sure with these changes that my site will become the premiere site for iPad-using mobile home enthusiasts.
This has nothing to do with the iPad. Once again, Apple is getting the credit for something that was already happening in the industry.
Flash started to get dropped when ad blocking systems became so popular which meant more people were blocking it by default. Also AJAX became the next big buzzword, which meant that a lot of things that people (necessarily) used Flash for could be done using standard Javascript. There just isn't the need for it anymore.
I'm not saying that having more systems that don't support Flash will not be a factor in the decision regarding what technology will be used on a website. But the writing has been on the wall for Flash for quite some time, at least for general website interfaces. Obviously it will still have a use for games (which is why Apple will never support Flash - it bypasses their strict controls).
The opposite will happen. They'll find their laptops and computer languishing in disuse, and their iPads carried with them around the house all the time. The era of the heavy, stationary computer needing a desk for hours-long use (whether you mean desktop or laptop) is over.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
If that's what it takes to ban Flash from the net forever, I'd buy one, just to sponsor that effort.
On the other hand, I'd be buying from the evil lords of quicktime, so now I have to decide which is worse: Apple or Adobe.
Can't we just put them in an arena, let them slug it out, and then cut the victor's throat and get rid of both evils and have some fun?
Musicians don't die. They just decompose.
It is yet again a marketing ploy by Apple to make it look like the iPad is much bigger "player" than it is, while presenting its weakness as a strength.
Websites on the list are not bending over backwards to appease the mighty iPad.
They are either offering a "alternative solution" for portable devices that don't run Flash, while still keeping the Flash version running - OR simply trying to move away from Flash on their own.
It is not like they got together and said: "Hey, this new_thingyTM is coming out - we better change everything so that those couple of thousand users can use our site so that the new_thingyTM sells better and doesn't flop. Quick! To the HTML5-mobile!".
It is simply a list of "compatible sites" that will actually work with the new bigger iPod - unlike every other video site on the internets.
You know... It is not a bug that it doesn't run Flash. It is a feature. See - here is the list of sites that work just fine on it.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Slashdot's record on understanding technology and society is embarrassingly bad and getting worse.
Linux is going to storm the desktop and Dean Kamen is a genius so Segway will revolutionize society, just wait, but the iPod is a lame device that nobody will buy, the iPhone is an undesirable, locked down, me-too phone with no important features and a lousy touchscreen, and iPad is just another crappy tablet that nobody will buy.
Forgive me for thinking that all of this iPad hate on Slashdot ought to be heard as "BUY APPLE STOCK."
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
What I've noticed with the iPhone is that there are a number of sites that won't work well on the iPhone (usually due to flash content), and rather than making a general mobile version (or just a site based on HTML+Javascript) the company will release an iPhone-specific app. Case in point: Chipotle. Their site is entirely flash-based. There is also an app for the iPhone. But if you're on any other device that doesn't have flash you're SOL if you want to order a burrito online to carry out.
In the case of Chipotle, this hardly a tragedy, but it seems totally inane that they coded an iPhone-specific app rather than just, say, making a mobile site that every device would be able to use. It seems like it would be more work and worse for their business. Unfortunately, there are plenty of other website that have an iPhone-specific app that duplicates their site functionality rather than just making a website what it ought to be, a nearly universal interface.
As irrational as this seems (to me, at least), it looks like more popular Apple mobile devices could lead to an even less accessible and standards-compliant web.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
NOBODY does "serious content creation."
Literally nobody. A statistically insignificant portion of the global internet-using public.
I completely agree that people doing development, rendering, engineering, physics, authoring, or whatever other kind of creation you want to talk about will not do it on an iPad or other similar device. They will continue to have heavy, cumbersome, hot, unfriendly, complex devices somewhere in their office/workplace/house for accomplishing these tasks.
I concede that point.
And it absolutely nothing to do with mine.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Agreed.
My problem (at least at this point) isn't really with the iPad, but with people who are insisting the iPad is some kind of revolutionary device. It may do what it does very well, but it is hardly original.
Regardless, I still think it's overpriced, considering it's priced like a full-featured device yet only has half the functionality. yes, I'm aware of "small costs money, Apple tax, it's not for you, you just don't understand the device", and every other response. I don't care.
I still think it's overpriced.
Living With a Nerd
Here's DHTML Lemmings written six years ago:
http://www.elizium.nu/scripts/lemmings/
Here's an HTML5 particle system:
http://www.mrspeaker.net/dev/parcycle/
Here's Quake II running in your browser:
http://code.google.com/p/quake2-gwt-port/
nope. They will release iPad nano, which will be a rebranded re-release of iPod Touch.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Years ago, I had a 486. Today, in 2010, my computer has 8 times the processors, nearly 50 times clock speed, 250 times the RAM, and yet it still can't play these goddamn web-based games at a reasonable speed, even when using Chrome. Meanwhile, Quake II runs just fine on my old 486.
Browser-based "apps" are all about doing exactly the same stuff we could do 15 years ago, but doing it slower and shittier, although we have hardware that's literally hundreds to thousands of times more powerful.
the strength of Flash is that it's like Java. you write once and the content will play anywhere with a flash plugin, which is almost every OS and soon to be device. Apple doesn't care about videos, they care about the flash apps and games. if they can lock people into the iTunes system to code for the iphone/ipod/ipad then developers won't code for another platform unless there is money to be made to recoup the investment. Flash makes it easier for a start up device maker to displace Apple's market dominance since it cuts the development time and cost.
Yeah, problem with that? I can happily choose to not run Flash on my computer. With the iPad, I don't get the option.
You can happily choose not to buy the iPad.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
technical criteria. But what is passing over geek sites in waves the last six months is not:
"I really want different features. I wouldn't buy this."
But rather:
"Nobody will want this device. Apple is off base. The iPad will flop."
My point is to suggest that geeks stick to the former, which is justified (certainly it's easy to see how this device might not satisfy the desire for a general-purpose tinker-and-project machine), and steer away from the latter, which tends to increase the all too common marginalization and mockery of said geeks.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
While I agree with you on price apple has just undercut the rest of the market for that type of device by20-30%. It willtake every other company atleast a year to respond with competitive devices. All of which will fail to deliver a decent user experince. Everyone else will treat it as either a notebook or a desktop and add touch instead of creating a complete touch based user interface.
I have said before apple doesn't innovate hardware apples true innovation is a complete user freindly package.
I will not be surprised that if msft currier(spelled wrong) ever ships it will look more like windows 7 than the demos shown. Or as with windows tablet editions only one or two apps will be ported. Remember apple rewrote their office software for a touch based interface. Msft will never do that with ms office. Open source people will do a port of open office for maemo/andriod eventually in a couple of years as only two people will do it. Yet Apple is shipping it today.
So for all the hate apple gets they are still ahead of the competition by a couple of years.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
What geeks call "sexiness" and "slick gloss" are for regular users actually "basic intelligibility" and "the possibility of use."
Geeks routinely dismiss the user interface as epiphenomenal to the computing experience. The computer is real, the user is real, and the user interface is this accidental/interchangeable quantity that may be more or less cumbersome, but that is at the end of the day just a minor detail. No user interface actively prevents or determines use for a geek.
NOT SO for the general public. For the general public, the user interface is the computer, full stop. There are no "features" apart from those they can immediately understand and use. There are no "capabilities" apart from those that they can see how to access.
Contrary to Slashdotian opinion, the user interface is the thing of greatest substance in computing for most people, and that is why Apple has been a wild success since Steve Jobs came back, much to Slashdotters' chagrin.
There has not yet been a tablet PC with this user interface. Despite Slashdotters assertions that the identity of a device is all about "features," the fact is that this is a substantively new device by virtue of its user interface, a user interface that has already been proven to be one of the most successful and highly regarded in all of technology and that will likely be the determining factor in the iPad's success... all while Slashdotters dance around saying "the stoopid public, they've been fooled by teh glossiness!"
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
In hard economic times, the best way to make money is to cater to the wealthy. Often, the easiest way to do that is to simply A) make it pretty, B) jack up the price, and C) build the perception of exclusivity. This fits the Apple model pretty well. In fact, by not including Flash they are actually enhancing that perception of exclusivity. Soon, the web sites will be jumping on the same bandwagon. By promoting themselves as catering to the special needs and desires of those who can afford an iPad they will, as you suggest, attract the visitors who have money to burn. And the funny thing is that so many people who think they are smarter than everyone just because they have money are taking the bait, hook line and sinker.
Well, iPad and for that matter iPhone are more like strippers.
Look pretty, but you can only do what they allow and every lap dance cost 20 bucks.
I owned a smart phone before getting the iPhone, and the iPhone blew it away. That said, I'm not getting an iPad because the only advantage I see is the bigger screen, which is also a disadvantage in terms of portability. For me, the iPhone killed the iPad market.
Jobs and Apple wouldn't be where they are today if they waited around for you to spread your legs. They have a history of throwing the consumer on the ground and mounting them while the consumer cries "No! Please! Not there! I've never done that before! I can't!... Oh! Oh! Yes! Yes! More! Please! More! Oh God! Yes! I never knew it could be so good!"
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Jobs and Apple wouldn't be where they are today if they waited around for you to spread your legs. They have a history of throwing the consumer on the ground and mounting them while the consumer cries "No! Please! Not there! I've never done that before! I can't!... Oh! Oh! Yes! Yes! More! Please! More! Oh God! Yes! I never knew it could be so good!"
You've clearly given this some thought.
Bow-ties are cool.
Stupid dancing badgers almost ate my soul. Pretty colors... they dance. But why do they dance? What are they going to do next? Mushroom? It's red. What is it doing? Oh... badgers... how you torment me so.
SNAKE!
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
I'm getting one mainly for one app: VNC.
I've got one headless mac running my music studio. I've been running it by logging on to it with my laptop, but a laptop is a pain in the neck when you're rehearsing, recording, etc., especially if you're standing up most of the time. It also means I don't need to print up lyric sheets if I'm learning a new song, since I can just read them off the iPad screen as easily as a book.
The studio computer is rack-mounted in a road case with my PA amp. Using an iPad, I can run sound for a full band from anywhere in the club with no need for a cable snake. Just garageband, WiFi, a shared desktop, and any laptop or smartphone running VNC. I've been doing it this way for a while and it's AWESOME, and will be even better using an iPad for the controller.
I also have a mac driving my media center. I don't care to turn on my projection screen just to launch iTunes so I can listen to music, so I remote to it. Doing so with a laptop sucks.
For the rare times when I do want to accomplish something that I would normally do on a laptop. (Photoshop? Web design? Video editing), I can just plug it into the keyboard dock, and remotely run one of my other computers, where the "heavy" apps will actually live from now on.
So there's no need for a "desktop replacement" laptop for me anymore. Just an iPad as a thin client to my "real" computers. I honestly can hardly wait.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
... are variations on the theme of "less capable than my netbook. No flash. Lame."
Dude, the raw quantity of bits moved over the internet by these things is not the most important measure of their influence. Book publishers, game designers, newspaper publishers, etc, etc, are falling all over themselves trying to get their products into the iPad. I'm sort of lukewarm toward the device myself... but I can still see that it's going to be a huge deal.