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Facebook Is Transcoding Video For iPad
Stoobalou sounds another death knell for Flash video. He says "Another heavy user of Adobe's video streaming software Flash is now pandering to the all-powerful iPad. Everybody's favourite waste of time, social notworking monster Facebook, is now streaming user videos to Apple's second coming of the portable computer with no sign of Flash in sight."
"Death gong?" "No sign of Flash in sight?" I don't quite see how this news equates to any such hyperbole.
I just checked videos my friend put of me drunk out of my mind "singing" karaoke Killers songs (no, I will not provide a link) and sure enough they're in Flash player 10 through my Firefox browser. Since it's allegedly transcoding this real time from Flash to MP4 when it detects the mobile Safari browser, I would claim that Flash is not only very much in sight but it is the default encoding on Facebook -- keeping it very much alive. At least that's what I gather from my experience in my browser.
The decision to keep Flash off of some Apple mobile products was Apple's decision and Apple's alone. Do you think Facebook enjoys this overhead transcoding cost of its videos? I highly doubt it. I think this is a case of Facebook trying to building a unified cross platform experience for users (and I don't often speak kindly of Facebook) not their agreement to obsolete Flash video. I impatiently await HTML5 and more open video and audio codecs in all senses of the word 'open.'
My work here is dung.
The Flash video used on Facebook is already H.264 video and AAC audio, just in a FLV container. All they really need to do with these is remux everything. I'm assuming they'll just remux into an MP4 or MOV container.
I only recently purchased an iPhone (for overseas travel)--and am completely sick and tired of the Apple bashing, primarily for reasons that it doesn't work "for me" and therefore must not be good for anyone else.
I'd also note that if it wasn't for Apple, there would be a lot less pressure on Motorola, Nokia and Samsung to produce phones with a better user experience.
Apple is not the end-all, be-all of technology--but I personally have much to be grateful for.
Apple is responsible for ALL progress in PC's. Whether it is the Intel CPU, the Windows logo, or the Linux kernel. Apple invented them all.
Simple. The iMac shipped with USB everything. No floppy disk. No legacy ports (ADB, RS232, etc). Hell, I don't think the original ones came with a CD burner!
Back then yes you had USB. But you had two measly ports that pretty much sat empty because all the peripherals you could get were cheaper and easier to get in other connection formats. A keyboard and mouse were PS/2 because you could get both cheaply (a cheapass USB one would run you $50, a PS2 version of same for $20 or less). Printers used the parallel port. Modems either plugged into a serial port or inside your PC. And hard drives you had to install 'em yourself. You could get external Zips and Jaz drives, but unless you used SCSI, you put up with parallel ports. You transferred data via sneakernet.
And hell, USB had been around for 3+ years and peripherals were hard to come by. They were expensive and no one wanted them. OS support was iffy, too. Windows 95 OSR2 had basic keyboard/mouse support. Windows 98 same, but you could get drivers for mass storage. Basically non-existent until Windows 2000.
The Apple releases the iMac and gets you USB only. All of a sudden, a flood of peripherals started coming out for USB, and prices plunged. USB floppies, USB printers, keyboards and mice under $10. USB didn't mean overpriced anymore. And I scoffed at USB devices because they were overpriced - the USB versions were always much more expensive.
And Apple did like Firewire, because well, you could stick a hard disk on it and not have ot wait all day to transfer files like USB. (Remember, the iPod used Firewire purely because USB 1.1 was pathetically slow, and USB2.0 was on the horizon but would take a few more years to become popular and standard on every PC)
A website implemented some UI changes to accommodate a popular mobile device. Stop the presses!
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Even if you give Apple credit for any of the above, how does one rule out the possibility that soon after another player wouldn't have stepped up to fill the vacuum with another tool or technology that would better suit us today in openness, quality or usability?
One cannot rule out that possibility, but you seem to imply that innovators don't deserve some modicum of respect.
I guess Newton wasn't all that cool since "someone else would have discovered gravity," and Einstein is a yawner because "the theory of General Relativity would have eventually been worked out."
The Apple bashing comes from Apple users being on their high-horse about their Apple products that they use... i.e., "you're still using windoze? why don't you just see the light and get a mac?"
"the iPad is going to be the biggest innovation of the decade!!1"
... and other examples of that sort of mentality. The iPad isn't particularly innovative, IMO; it's just likely well designed, well manufactured, well marketed, and has an extremely famous brand associated with it. Brand is an incredible motivator... and I think that is primarily what Apple-bashers dislike; brand loyalty. This or that is cool because it's Apple and this or that is not as cool because it's not Apple.
That said, most of the Apple-bashing that takes place is just as silly as the Apple-user mindset that it criticizes. So is most of the Microsoft bashing. And Google bashing. The main issue? People decide to bash the users rather than logically work through the mindset. I use Microsoft products, but that doesn't make me a shill. I use Google products, that doesn't mean I support the One Google Government... etc.
You certainly have a whitewashed view of history... Windows 98 had full USB support for any device built out of the box. First usb header (not even a port) I ever saw was on an ASUS motherboard in the mid 90's long before apple was using them.
Most PC companies are about gradual change - have both options on a board, then one option after the parts arrive - which is what Apple did until the iMac g3. One could easily argue what they did was a bit premature.
Interesting you mention floppies - I recall a lot of mac users being rather upset (this is long before CD-RW, or usb thumb drives were all that common). Many 3rd party companies made a lot of money selling after market USB floppy drives.
Apple did force the issue, but like I said - iMac came out in 1998 (there first all usb machine - no ADB) - by then Windows 98 had full USB support built into the OS. Microsoft's famous bluescreen error while plugging in a USB scanner was demoing Windows 98, and yes that feature worked when it shipped. 95 OS-R2 had the same USB support via a patch, and no it wasn't just keyboard/mice.
In other words - by 1998 - USB was here probably because both Microsoft and Apple promoted it actively, but you have to remember Apple derided USB (even when 2.0 came out) as being too primative for anything hdd/camera/scanner related (yes there were firewire scanners made for the Mac).
The iPad isn't particularly innovative, IMO; it's just likely well designed, well manufactured, well marketed, and has an extremely famous brand associated with it.
I'm no Apple fanboy and I don't own an iPad, but your analysis doesn't seem exactly fair. The iPad isn't purely a product of slick design and branding (though that sure hasn't hurt.) Remember that when the iPhone interface came out it revolutionized the mobile phone UI world. Since then nearly all of the major manufacturers have completely reworked their UIs to mimic the touch-based interface-- Microsoft even scrapped their existing Mobile OS and completely replaced it. Palm is about to go out of business. The idea of a capacitive, multi-touch based interface with software designed from the ground up may not have been strictly novel (i.e., the component pieces were all out there), but Apple's method of integrating them all was really was a huge advance.
Now it may seem reasonable to say that the iPad is just an iPhone scaled up to tablet size, so while the iPhone might count, the iPad is not a huge innovation. What this overlooks is that the iPad is just the second incarnation of the iPhone UI --- i.e., it's mostly the same innovation, but it's one that hasn't fully run its course. Taking that very successful UI approach up to tablet size may be an obvious step, but it's a worthy step that no competitors have been able to do convincingly. The tablet market was very close to zero right pre-iPad, and that's not all due to bad branding on the part of the existing tabletmakers. Mostly it's because the previous generation of tablets were very different animals and nobody wanted them (outside of a handful of specific fields). I'm guessing that if the iPad takes off (and a slew of Android/MS competitors succeed in its footsteps) it's not going to be due to good design and branding.
Apple forces technology to conform itself to humans
(rolling my eyes)
are you kidding? Apple is not "forcing" technology to do anything. They designed a pretty decent phone, but the iPhone is not the be-all-end-all of smart-phone technology. There was a point when the features of the iPhone made it somewhat unique. That moment has passed. Now it is one of a handful of well-designed phones that all do, essentially, the same thing.
Apple's brilliance is in marketing. They are able to market their products in such a way as to convince people, like you, that they have some magical powers that other companies don't have. The iPhone is still coasting on its reputation. The iPad is well on its way to doing the same thing (although the niche it fills is infinitesimal).
Exhibit A is this whole conversation. Apple has been able to spin the fact that its products are inferior (they don't play flash) into some kind of asset. FYI iPhone users really do want to watch video on their devices, just like they do on a regular computer. That the iPhone can't is a design flaw and a weakness of the phone. It's explicitly forcing users to conform to technology.
You want to watch video on a site that doesn't do special encoding for you phone? Apple says "Too f-ing bad. You don't need that anyway."
You want to run apps in the background? Apple says "Too f-ing bad. You don't need that anyway."
You want an app for hardcore pornography? Apple says "Too f-ing bad. You don't need that anyway."
just three examples off the top of my head of Apple technology forcing users to conform to their technology.
It's like car enthusiasts telling everyone that they must drive sticks because they are more powerful and more in line with the nature of the technology
This analogy makes me think you're missing the point. If the iPhone were a car, you wouldn't be allowed to open the hood, change your own oil, pump your own gas, or change the tires. you wouldn't be allowed to drive to certain places and you could only use your car for pre-approved purposes. independent mechanics would be forbidden to touch the car, etc...
so this is like a car enthusiast telling everyone to not buy that car with all those restrictions because when you buy something, you should have control over what you can do with it.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!