Is Apple's Attack On Flash Really About Video?

jamiegau writes "Here we have a long and in-depth blog post analyzing the faults in Steve Jobs's Letter about Flash. The writer concludes with an interesting idea that it is all about online video."

Comments

Games too

[sopssa]

It also makes sense with Flash games. Apple has tons of games it sells in the market place. If people could just play free Flash games (and there would be a lot more of them created), Apple wouldn't get so much $$$$$.

I know someone comes to say that most Flash games require mouse and keyboard, but that doesn't make any sense. Obviously the games would be created specially for iPhone and iPad. Just like theres such Flash games for Wii.

Re:Games too

[bill_mcgonigle]

I think the primary complaint (at least for me) for most flash games is the on hover effect. How do you replicate that with a touch interface? Now we have all sorts of wild gestures, so it reduces the simplicity.

So Apple hasn't already solved this for the billion or so webpages that use hover effects? That must suck.

Re:Games too

[Pojut]

This argument fails because Apple makes barely any profit on the App market itself.

To paraphrase Dr. Seuss (and subsequently send him spinning in his grave), a profit is a profit no matter how small.

Re:Games too

[WrongSizeGlass]

They can claim security and stability (which are valid points), but it all comes down to money.

And maybe a touch of sour grapes. Adobe treated Apple like a second class platform back in the 90's when Apple was at its weakest. Now that Apple is on top of this market I think Steve Jobs is handing out a little payback. Loyalty, or the lack of it, is hard to forget.

Re:Games too

[Skuld-Chan]

So why not sell the apps without a cut?

http://gorumors.com/crunchies/how-much-money-does-apple-make-from-app-store/ - suggests they make anywhere between 240-440 million dollars a year off the app store. Vs. Zero if people just played games on Flash websites.

Many app-store games are former flash website games too...

Re:Games too

[siloko]

If Adobe can't build Flash to fit within the constraints of the device, then too bad.

Given the constraints aren't technical but political then the chances that Flash could jump through the requisite hoops are zero.

Re:Games too

[ray-auch]

> If Adobe can't build Flash to fit within the constraints of the device, then too bad.

They can and they have - at least the technical constraints.

Legal constraints are the issue - Apple have banned any other programming languages like flash from the platform. Adobe were working round that with a pre-processor / converter but Apple have changed the licence to demand that all apps be written directly in Apple-approved programming languages - no pre-processors allowed.

Emacs for iPhone - not allowed (before). Now, if you even use Bison / Yacc or anything similar to create your app, it's not allowed.

Re:Games too

[jedidiah]

Apple benefits from lock-in.

The more you buy from them that's Apple-only, the more you will be forced to by another Apple product.

Vendor-lock in games, video and books prop up future iSales.

Old DRM Music files probably help do the same since many people probably don't care to pay the ransom.

The less tied my Apple experience is to Apple-only elements, the more free I am to dump them when it's time to upgrade.

Re:Games too

[ircmaxell]

Why is it Apple's job to modify their platform to accommodate Flash?

Well, it's not. However, it's a straw argument to not provide the APIs to let Flash use the GPU, and then complain that it doesn't use the GPU. That's the problem... Not that Flash is programmed bad, but that it doesn't take advantage of something that Apple's software does when Apple doesn't make it available.

If Adobe can't build Flash to fit within the constraints of the device, then too bad.

Correct. If it was Adobe complaining about Flash performance on Apple products, you'd have a point. Heck, even if it was a third party complaining, you'd have a point. But it's Apple that's complaining. They are not giving Adobe the tools to be able to make it better, and then slamming them publicly for not making it better...

It would be like Balmer saying that PowerPC sucks because it can't run Windows, even though it's MS's fault that they don't compile Windows for PowerPC... It would be like you complaining that I can't drive your car, after you removed the engine from it. It would be like a conference denying you entry, and then complaining that you never showed up... It would be like your company revoking your computer access, and then complaining that you don't do any work...

Most of Jobs' complaints are straw arguments (and some are blatant lies). That's what TFA was talking about. Sure, there is a decent thought or two in Jobs' letter. But the vast majority of it is pure FUD.

Re:Games too

[nomadic]

And maybe a touch of sour grapes. Adobe treated Apple like a second class platform back in the 90's when Apple was at its weakest.

You mean, back when it WAS a second class platform?

Now that Apple is on top of this market I think Steve Jobs is handing out a little payback. Loyalty, or the lack of it, is hard to forget.

Apple owes a tremendous amount to Adobe; without Photoshop Apple would even today be in a weaker position.

Re:Games too

[Anonymous Coward]

If Adobe can't build Flash to fit within the constraints of the device, then too bad.

But Adobe did that! A major feature of the latest version of Adobe's Flash tools is that they can compile Flash directly for the iPhone so the Flash player isn't required. Apple responded by changing their developer rules so that only applications originally written in ObjC, C, and C++ are allowed.

Adobe's been bending over backwards to make this work, and Apple keeps inventing more obstacles. We're well past the point where Apple can use the platform as an excuse. It's about obsessive control at all costs.

Re:Games too

[Bazar]

Why is it Apple's job to modify their platform to accommodate Flash?

I'm not sure where that question came out of.
The real debate is how apple changed the developer EULA to effectively deny any possibility of a flash developed app running.

History lesson:
The first developer EULA prevented any apps from interperting code. So no emulators, or on the fly compliers. This meant that everything had to run as a native executable.
This denied flash or java from running on the system, in addition to preventing a potential backdoor to the apple shop. (Otherwise you could download a compiler type app (ie: java), and run any program you wished, instead of having your choices controled/taxed by apple's iStore)

Adobe worked around this EULA limitation, by allowing flash developers to create a native executable for the iphone. It was written using flash, but was an actual native execuitable for the iphone.
Apple still controled the iStore, but flash developers could now develop for the iPhone.

Lo and behold, our saviours of the internet, Apple, got around and changed the developer EULA, to explicitly fix that "loophole". Making it against the EULA to write a program that wasn't in objective C (or whatever language apple now demands, i forget)

The ONLY reason i can comprehend for that change to the EULA was to ban the native flash executables. Theres no other practical reason for it.

Adobe went out of their way to support the iPhone, and in return Apple pulled the rug out from under them and banned any use of their application for development/use on the iphone/ipad.
Thats a dick move by apple, the likes of which i haven't seen since Microsoft in the 90's

And to top it off, now they come out telling us how they are only doing whats best for the ipod/iphone. Well that's bloody obvious. Apple want to force as much vendor lockin as possible, and cross-platform tools are the bane to any company trying to force an OS lock-in. Lock-in is great for apple, the iphone, and ipad.
Its terrible for everyone and everything else, including the actual iphone consumers!

Re:Games too

[UnknowingFool]

I can buy a lot of arguments about what Apple is doing being bad for developers, though developers still seem to be developing for the platform.

One argument I hear again and again is that this restriction by Apple will make it hard for developers to develop cross platform apps. This is a valid point. But I disagree with the characterization that this is a new kind of evil that Apple is creating for developers. This situation already exists. If a developer wants to develop a game for the Wii, Xbox, PS3, and PC, it will require lots of work. There is no magical button you can press that allows a developer to compile a game for all platforms. Flash is the closest thing however each platform will require the developer to tweak each version of the game. Otherwise the game has to conform to the lowest denominator and not be able to use platform specific features like motion control, force feedback, etc. Developing any cross platform app on the iPhone is the same. It won't take advantage of multi-touch gestures, acceleronmeter, etc without tweaking.

The other complaint is that Apple is forcing developers to use Apple tools rather than their own. Not technically true. These restriction state that C or Objective-C must be used. A developer familiar with any text editor and gcc can use them to build; however, using XCode makes things easier.

I think forcing developers to learn Objective C is the true intent of Apple. If a developer only uses Flash and then exports it to iPhone code that developer never has to learn Objective-C. This makes it easier for Flash developers to write code; it makes it hard for everyone to debug code. Remember Apple has to approve apps so they are invovled. If there was some bug in the app, it makes hard to determine where it is. It could be in the Flash code, the Flash API, the translation, or the iPhone API. A Flash developer never learning Objective C would not be able to determine whether the translation had the bug or it is in Apple's API. All that developer would know is that Apple is not approving their app because of bugs they can't find. If the app has already been approved then the developer can't issue patches to his/her customers. Apple would rather not have this situation at all. No porting; learn Objective-C.

Re:Games too

[nine-times]

Apple sells digital music because an easy source of high-quality music that requires little thought to access leads to more sales of music which leads to more sales of music players, which Apple manufactures and gets a high margin on.

It's also worth noting that when Apple opened the iTunes store, there weren't really other decent online stores out there. This meant that you had to go to the store, buy a CD, and then rip it into iTunes. Or pirate. And my point isn't, "Look at how Apple pioneered a new market," (though they did) but rather that they needed an online store to market their product decently. If the record labels had gotten off their asses and done a good job of it themselves, Apple might have simply built iTunes to use one of the existing stores. If Amazon's MP3 store had existed back then, I think it's possible that Apple wouldn't have bothered setting up their own store. However, Amazon's MP3 store was only allowed to exist because Apple set up shop first.

I think Apple must have learned something from that experience: if you want high-quality content delivered to your content-consumption devices, and you want the experience of delivering that content to be good, then you should just do it yourself.

Re:Games too

[cowscows]

The solution that they have is that the first tap reads as a hover, and the second tap reads as a click. And yes it does suck. It's a pain, but it's just barely useable for browsing through menus or whatever. But as for a low latency input such that a game might require, it would not work at all.

This isn't just a problem inherent to Apple, it's inherent in the differences between a touch interface and a mouse driven interface. The reality is that websites/applications/whatever that want to work on both types of interfaces are going to have to come up with a design that doesn't rely on the hover effect, or settle for the fact that it'll be cumbersome and crappy on a touch screen.

Hard to take him seriously

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Advice from someone who requires horizontal scrolling to read the text they're quoting? I don't think so.

It's not all about video

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, since I disabled plug-ins Safari doesn't crash or freeze every day. In fact it's now so rare that I'm actually shocked when it happens. Adobe let all their non-Windows software rot away and can't be bothered to code properly, so screw them.

God save flash!

[__aagbwg300]

Before Apple sunk their teeth into flash, a lot of the posters here also bashed it. It is ironic that as soon as an 800 lb gorilla attacks it, taco and dawson rush to defend it as a superior alternative. Does everyone remember what a pain in the ass it was to get flash support on linux systems? Now that it is available, it is just another user-approved attack vector. H.264 is not perfect, or "free" at all but every criticism Jobs has made of flash is spot on: flawed security, resource pig AND THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR for cross platform development. For God's sake, can we please just flash die for a more modern alternative?

video

[J-1000]

videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is fully drained.

This is really good SPIN. Steve is right in that the very OLD verion of flash before 2007 (3 years in internet time is a VERY LONG TIME.) version 9, did use a CPU based codec. But as stated above, H.264 is now the standard and all sites using flash are now using the same H.264 files in flash as is compatible with the Hardware accelerated decoders. As such, Flash 10.1 is as efficient as that can possibly be on these mobile devices. Steve implies Flash cannot do this. Again deceptive and untrue.

But lets get into the OSX story here. Apple like to blame Adobe for the poor video performance on OSX. Unfortunately, again, Steve has failed to supply the full story. The reason Flash on OSX is so slow and buggy is as follows.

1. Video, Apple has refused to, until recently, supply the API required to implement it. Flash 10.1 for OSX will have Hardware acceleration as, the API has only just been made available. Steve conveniently failed to mention this. (See Adobe will accelerate Flash video using new Apple API)

That's a pretty dang good point.

What it is *really* about...

[CondeZer0]

It is all about control.

Apple's control over users, over developers, over content providers...

Re:What it is *really* about...

[bobmax48]

Do you really believe that it is about control? I am not sure why there is so much animosity on this subject. None of the phones are now using the newest Flash and so why is everyone bitching? I know that every time I go to a Flash site I can watch my laptop battery running out of a charge and the fans on the processor are running at full speed. I use Flash in most of the video work that I do only because the students do not want to upgrade to Quicktime or any other players. Personally I don't care if Flash is used or not although I do know that anything in H.264 is much more efficient then Flash when it comes to the use of the processor.

Pot calls kettle black, kettle complains

[Omnifarious]

But it's just as black.

Flash is a despicable disgrace. Most of the time when I talk to a Flash developer, the thing they're the happiest about is the control they get over my computer. This is directly because the Flash player is a piece of garbage closed source tool that purposely caters to developers over end-users. The Open Source gnash (not ganash) player has an option to pause a Flash program. The Adobe player will never, ever end up with that option, ever. Giving me control over my own computer is against Adobe's best interest. Adobe's Flash player is little more than a widely deployed trojan horse that, IMHO, is little better than spyware (Flash cookies anyone? Where's my control over those?).

I wouldn't complain so bitterly about this if the gnash player were actually a decent drop in replacement for the closed source Flash player, but it isn't. I have to either choose my freedom and Flash that is broken most of the time, or Flash that works while giving up my freedom. I will choose my freedom, thank you very much, but I will be bitter about the stupid choice I'm forced to make.

So, when one maker of a closed, proprietary platform that steals people's freedom purposely does things to the detriment of another closed proprietary platform that steals people's freedom, I can't help but cheer. And I hope Adobe finds a way to play nasty games with Apple too. The more these two companies can find ways to hurt eachother, the more the rest of us benefit.

Adobe Disinformation

[catchblue22]

After reading Steve Job's very logical list of reasons for not supporting Flash, and the tit for tat response of the Adobe executive, I suspect that Adobe is trying to create an astroturfing campaign to "refute" Steve Job's claims. I found the Adobe executive's points were similar to the Monty Python "Argument Sketch", in that they were mostly just contradiction, with little evidence or logic provided.

On my mac, Flash just sucks. It is plain awful. I use ClickToFlash to avoid flash applets, so I am very aware of the effect of opening Flash. When I open a Flash web video, after a short period of time my CPU cooling fan comes on, and gets faster and louder. Even after the video is finished, my CPU fan continues and continues. Only after quitting the browser does the CPU cool back down and the fan stop. My laptop is almost always nearly completely silent. The only other apps that rev my CPU fan up are video editing programs such as Final Cut Pro. And even then, this only happens when I am rendering movies.

Before Safari started separating the browser processes from the Flash processes, I used to have many browser crashes. When I explored the crash reports, I would inevitably see that Flash played a prominent role. And browsing crashes were the only crashes I was getting on my system. Thus Steve Job's assertion that Flash is the main cause of OS X crashes gybes with my personal experience.

For the Adobe executive to assert that Flash's poor performance is due to OS X is a patent absurdity worthy of a global warming denier. And I find it suspicious that after hearing the Adobe executive sound off on his opinions, that we are beginning to see blog postings suddenly appearing that support his assertions. The timing of this makes it seem that a corporate decision has been made to counter Apple by paying or influencing bloggers to tow the Adobe line.