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

[drachenstern]

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.

If you can resolve that, I might reconsider my personal stance.

Re:Games too

[Pojut]

Not sure why you got modded down...games are a huge part of why Apple won't allow it. Places like Newgrounds, Kongregate, etc...they would be filled with games that worked on the iPad and iPhone, yet would be free...meaning Apple wouldn't get their cut.

They don't want you gardening outside of their walls, especially if the plants are "given" to you for nothing. They can claim security and stability (which are valid points), but it all comes down to money.

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

[TheKidWho]

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

They make all of their profit on selling the Devices themselves.

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

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Doesn't seem to be a problem for most sites I encounter. Any decent web dev should be developing sites that still work without hover, the same way they should work as much as possible without CSS or JS.

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

[medcalf]

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

Platform vendors are under no obligation to build a platform that works just like all other platforms so that a particular software vendor doesn't have to rework something that makes money for them (the software vendor). If Adobe can't build Flash to fit within the constraints of the device, then too bad.

You as a consumer can decide to not buy the platform if it doesn't run the applications you want, of course. And if enough people agree with you, I am willing to bet that the platform vendor would either accommodate the application, or be rendered irrelevant in the market.

Re:Games too

[dogzilla]

This argument makes no sense to me. HTML5 can already replicate pretty much anything these Flash games do and is also outside of Apple's control. Are you suggesting that Apple somehow doesn't realize this?

You should really take some time to look over what's currently possible with HTML5. Quake2 has been ported as a proof of concept, and the first level or so of Out Of This World.

http://web.appstorm.net/roundups/browsers/10-html5-games-paving-the-way/

Re:Games too

[Jaxim]

There are many HTML/JS only sites that do not work for these new touch devices because the developers are still stuck in the mouse click/hover mindset. Same holds true for Flash sites/games. Like HTML/JS developers, Flash Developers also need to be mindful to ensure that their creations work on these new touch devices. Developers need to make tweeks to existing code. There shouldn't be a need to rewrite a site/game from scratch just because one individual deems it so.

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

[rolfwind]

That doesn't make sense on several levels.

-Apple said that it was still breaking even on music in the Itunes store. (Not sure if to take their word for it, but still.)
-There are plenty of free games in the app store
-pushing HTML5 is opposite of the walled garden people argue. There is a hulu, Netflix, pandora and Rhapsody apps where people can get videos and music outside of Apple's itunes.

I don't think this is about making money directly. My guess is that Apple's real money will come from selling them new and shiny iPhones every 2 years that perform better and better and have that perpetual upgrade path.

I think the whole flash thing is because is for the reasons Apple says, basically on a 3 inch screen without mouse, you can't offer a satisfactory flash experience and having to rely on Adobe and flash developers to consider mobile devices in their coding -- basically a losing gamble.

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

[medcalf]

Hardly. In order for a company to stay in business, they have to make enough profit to invest back into their business to create new products. I mean, look at all the stuff Apple has done that is new and innovative, particularly in the last five years. It takes a lot of money to do that, particularly since for every successful concept that you sink billions into developing, there are dozens of other concepts that you also sink money into but that fail. For a business, unless you are providing a commodity, a small profit margin may as well be a loss.

I can buy a lot of arguments about what Apple is doing being bad for consumers, though consumers don't seem to mind. 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. But I don't see the meagre profits from the app store, or from video rentals, or similar low-margin operations (possibly, in fact probably, including their music sales) as being reasonable; they strike me as ignorant of how businesses think. Yes, it's all about money with Apple (and every other successful corporation), but for Apple, the money is in the device sales.

Let me expand that a bit. 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. If Apple could sell enough more music players to pay for the costs of hosting the songs just by giving away the songs, they would probably do it. The problem is that if the songs are all free, then Apple's costs go up (both hosting/bandwidth costs and the costs of royalties to the music companies) astronomically, so it's probably not possible to make more profit on music players from giving away music than from selling it at a nominal cost. If Apple could make more money giving away videos than selling them, they probably would for the same reason. And so on.

So why does Apple so tightly control the app store? Why is it that they want to ensure that apps are not crashing, or even worse crashing the device? Why is it that they want to ensure that applications are not poor performers, or that they don't drain the battery of the device? Why were they so long in allowing multi-tasking, and even then only allowing it in very restricted contexts? Quite simply, if apps for the platform were to do these things, then the ordinary, unsophisticated user would blame the platform rather than the software vendor for the crashes and performance problems they experience. This already happens on PCs: Microsoft gets blamed for badly written third party device drivers, poor third party software and the like. And if users start seeing the platform as poorly performing and underpowered and crash-prone, Apple would sell fewer of those devices and would make less money.

And honestly, this has been borne out by many platforms. Quick, name successful tablets with high volume sales. As far as I can tell, that's just Apple. Quick, name successful smart phone vendors with high volume sales. Discounting Microsoft (though this may change with Windows Phone 7), Nokia, and Palm, all of which are flailing about and unable to adapt to the current market, there are basically Apple and RIM (which both tightly control their platforms) and Google (which doesn't). But note that Apple and RIM are hardware vendors, and Google is a software vendor: they have different priorities. We will see which philosophy is preferred by users, but my long-term bet is that Apple and RIM will survive, and any other smart phone vendors will be basically niche market vendors at best.

So I can't really blame Apple for a lot of the decisions they've made, even the ones I disagree with. They are just trying to represent the interests of their shareholders by making a profit, which is their job after all.

Re:Games too

[Anonymous Coward]

But Adobe did find a way to make Flash work on Apple's devices - they added the ability to export Flash as native iPhone code.

Apple responded by changing their rules to require all iPhone apps to be orginally developed with Apple tools.

That's not about the constraints of the device - that's about artificial constraints created for business reasons.

Re:Games too

[twistedsymphony]

It's apple's job to accommodate Flash in so far as they want their platform to support the features and functionality that their consumers are sold and expecting from the platform.

Why should apple support HTML or Javascript? or JPGs or any other form of web-media... they support it because it gives their product additional functionality that is desirable to their consumers and expected from the type of product they're selling. It doesn't matter if Flash is the biggest bloated POS closed source platform on the planet... customers want it, and expect it to be supported. And that means Apple should have an interest in making it work and work well with their device. That doesn't mean Adobe shouldn't have a similar interest. but an open Dear John to Adobe from Jobs hardly makes up for the fact that their product still lacks that ability.

Would you have accepted as much if things were reversed and the iPhone supported flash but no-name company would not... how well do you think sales would be going for the iPhones competitor?

With serious competition from Google and HTC Apple doesn't have as strong of a foothold in being able to bully around 3rd parties as they once did.

Re:Games too

[DiademBedfordshire]

but the 30% that Apple is getting from them is mostly covering the cost to provide those apps in the first place and to provide the development environment.

$440 Million for the development environment and cost of serving the apps? I doubt it.

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

[jonbryce]

Problem is that you aren't going to develop your website for HTML 5, when the browsers accounting for about 60% - 70% of the market don't support it at all, and you have to support two different video codecs for the browers that do support it.

Remember the days when online video meant installing plugins from Real Player, Microsoft and Quicktime, and there were different types of Java plugin? HTML 5 at the moment seems to be a return to those days.

Re:Games too

[nine-times]

Apple still needs to run the app store. That requires a datacenter for the servers and a lot of bandwidth. It requires an IT staff to maintain those servers, and designers and software engineers to maintain the store itself. It requires customer service reps to answer complaints, another team to analyze and approve apps and service developers, and a legal team to analyze all the legal implications of all of those things. Then it requires some management time to keep all of those people working together.

You're asking why Apple doesn't just do all that for free? Hmmm.... let me think.

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

[medcalf]

So let's say that I create a new, awesome format for video playback that just blows everything else out of the water. Does every platform vendor have an obligation to support my format? If your answer is dependent on the prevalence of the format, how prevalent does it have to be? It seems to me that it's within Apple's rights to refuse to support Flash, and it is within customers' rights to decide whether or not they will then buy the devices.

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

[pcolaman]

The sad thing is how obvious this all is to those of us who don't have our heads shoved deeply up Steve Jobs' ass, and how all of the fanboys keep defending his strawman argument.

Re:Games too

[Altus]

If customers want it so much, why are they still buying the iPhone when it is well known that flash doesn't work on the iPhone?

What you want may not be what everyone else wants.

Re:Games too

[Cyberax]

"This argument makes no sense to me. HTML5 can already replicate pretty much anything these Flash games do and is also outside of Apple's control."

Not. Even. Close.

Adobe Flash is right now one of the fastest implementations of vector graphics animation. HTML5 has NOTHING close in capability to SWF format - canvas is a frigging joke.

Sure, you can run Quake2 with software rendering in JS drawing on canvas. But the same Quake2 in Flash would require many times less of CPU time per frame.

Re:Games too

[mounthood]

> 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. ...

The iPhone isn't done until Flash won't run.

Re:Games too

[drerwk]

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

I am not seeing any phone that currently supports the whole flash experience: http://www.adobe.com/mobile/supported_devices/ Just the Flash Lite option.

Re:Games too

[uglyduckling]

Can you explain how that's any different from the other smartphones, or indeed any general-purpose OS? I bought a bunch of apps for my Palm TX, guess what - they don't work on my new (non-Palm) phone. Very few software companies support free cross-grading of apps from one OS to another - about the only large company I ever remember supporting that were Macromedia who usually put Windows and Mac executables on the same CD, but that's stopped since Adobe bought them up.

Re:Games too

[kimvette]

Consider that this is not a technical issue but an anti-competitive stance (and I want flash on my iPhone, bloat and all thankyouverymuchstevejobsyoumegalomaniac), along with no bash shell, no multitasking (funny, works very, very well on my jailbroken phone via backgrounder and sbsettings!), no ssh client, unable to use it as a mass storage device, the complications introduced in corporate deployments. Unfortunately, even Windows Mobile/WinCE, the OS from the king of anticompetitive tactics (Microsoft) is much more "open" and easier to deploy and manage, or even simply use.

Jobs comes across similar to one of those looney treehuggers who wants to stop all use of fossil fuels NOW because it's possible to build wind farms, solar farms, and in 20+ years, Mr. Fusion reactors. In the meantime, if we kill all fossil fuel use, we'll be limited to cars with a 200 mile range or less (so a cross-country drive, or even a cross-state drive in most states, would be a multi-day trip due to 8+hour charge times), the economy would collapse hard, and there would be little to no way to manufacture the "green" technologies. Jobs is putting the cart before the horse here. If HTML5 were fully supported by the major browsers TODAY and there were mainstream HTML5 sites TODAY he would have a legitimate point. But it isn't, there aren't, and he doesn't. It is purely an anti-competitive tactic.

I want to be able to use my iPhone as a mass storage device so I can manage the phone from Linux, and so I can carry one less device (no more jump drive or external drive to carry to a client site for examp;e).

I use crond, the bash shell and ssh for monitoring servers.

I use backgrounder and have had ZERO problems with performance, nor with apps "randomly" closing when memory gets low.

I jailbroke my phone, and figured out the method to "downgrade"[sic] from 3.1.3 to 3.1.2 to get my jailbreak back, and I do not have so much as a single pirated app on my iPhone. In fact I've probably spent $250 on apps via the apple store, and probably $15.00 on music (why do I need to buy music when I've ripped my entire CD collection to MP3? Be glad I bought ANY music from you Apple). All the other software I've installed (via cydia, or compiling/installing via bash, etc.) has been either open source or freeware. And yet, zero stability problems, and I keep sshd turned off when I am not actively using it.

Now, Flash may increase the memory footprint of some web sites, but I don't give a crap while watching videos via hulu or crackle; it's not like I'd want to run a game at the same time. Give me flash! Preaching HTML5 is fine and dandy, but right now 99% of sites that would run the more advanced HTML5 features are now running flash (or silverlight *gag*).

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

[uglyduckling]

WinAmp - OK, where do you get those mp3's from - you know you can use those with iTunes too, so you wouldn't be locked-in if you used iTunes. Even if you used the iTunes store, that's now DRM-free for music. For movie downloads that might be a problem, but I'm not aware of any source of DRM-free mainstream movie rental or purchase so no disadvantage with Apple here.

iPod - OK, you're semi-right with that, although there are third-party utilities to sync the iPod, if you're keen to be completely hassle and lock-in free then the iPod probably isn't the best choice.

BlackBerry - OK, right, so RIM will freely provide you with equivalent apps for the Android or iPhone if you decide to jump ship? Thought not.

iMac / Mac Desktop - OK, you know you can install Ubuntu and/or XP if you want to. Again - I'm sure Dell or Microsoft won't supply you with equivalents of the commercial apps that you've bought if you choose to switch to another platform, so you're no worse with Dell/XP than you are with iMac/OSX. If you want FOSS then most popular packages are available for Windows, Linux and OSX so no disadvantage there.

So pretty much, the only valid argument you make is to steer clear of the iPod, but only on the basis that you might not want to use iTunes, but since you can use iTunes in a non-lockin manner for music that's not really a firm argument either. So I can't really understand why you would be more locked-in using Apple products compared to Microsoft, RIM and Canonical. I really would like to understand - can you explain?

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

[ThrowAwaySociety]

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?

Actually, you're both a little off base. Adobe through the '90s treated Apple as its first-class platform. Illustrator, for example, didn't get a syncronized port for Windows until 1997. Adobe had no problem making the technically backward Classic Mac OS a first-class platform for its software.

It's only more recently that Adobe has been neglecting OS X. Starting, I suppose, with the decision (later reversed) to discontinue the Mac OS version of Premiere, but continuing with the latest versions of the Creative Suite, which seem to get worse and worse on OS X with every release, despite increasing OS X market share.

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.

Don't be silly. Businesses like Apple and Adobe don't feel obligation. Adobe supports the Mac because there are still a buttload of designers that use the Mac. With regular software, it''s 95/5, 90/10 if you're lucky. With graphic designers and photographers, it's 67/33, maybe 60/40. Adobe's not willing to cut off that limb just yet. It's certainly sent every signal it can that the Mac enjoys no special status there; it's pure business that keeps Adobe coming back.

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.

Re:Games too

[s73v3r]

Except only Flash Lite has been running on most mobile devices, and so far not very well. They say its coming to Android, but I'll believe it when I see it, and can actually use it.

Re:Games too

[nine-times]

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

Sorry, but I don't think the issue of APIs is sufficient to explain why Flash crashes constantly. If the whole thing were merely an issue of Flash lacking H264 hardware acceleration support, then you might have a point here, but Flash has been crashing browsers for years and years and Adobe has never really fixed it.

Adobe never even pretended that they were going to fix it until Apple refused to support Flash on the iPhone, at which point they started pointing their fingers at Apple's APIs. One of their major complaints was, "We've been using Apple's legacy API and never bothered to move to the new API, and the old API isn't as well maintained as the new one." First, it's not really Apple's fault that Adobe stuck with Carbon for all these years. Second, using Carbon still doesn't quite explain why Flash hangs and crashes all the time.

Re:Games too

[s73v3r]

Adobe could have used the Core Video API to get hardware accelerated video playback. Its been available since 10.4, and its what everyone else uses.

Re:Games too

[Skuld-Chan]

Because its an iPhone? Adobe's flash blog says they get over 7 million hits in several months from iPhone users on their download flash page - where it displays a message says "sorry because of apple we cannot give this to you".

http://www.flashmobileblog.com/2010/02/06/iphone-stats-from-the-flash-player-download-center/

I don't think people in general have any clue really - flash works on their home pc, why not this magical phone I have?

Re:Games too

[Eric Sharkey]

I am not seeing any phone that currently supports the whole flash experience: http://www.adobe.com/mobile/supported_devices/ Just the Flash Lite option.

That list is a little out of date. The Nokia N900 runs the desktop version of Flash 9.

On the other hand, many flash games require more CPU than a mobile device can really provide at the moment.

Re:Games too

[ClosedSource]

The difference is that there is competition in PCs and other devices that run Windows. There isn't any competition in the Apple hardware market.

Re:Games too

[rxan]

Let me expand that a bit. 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. If Apple could sell enough more music players to pay for the costs of hosting the songs just by giving away the songs, they would probably do it. The problem is that if the songs are all free, then Apple's costs go up (both hosting/bandwidth costs and the costs of royalties to the music companies) astronomically, so it's probably not possible to make more profit on music players from giving away music than from selling it at a nominal cost. If Apple could make more money giving away videos than selling them, they probably would for the same reason. And so on.

You could then easily argue that if they were to provide access to free content hosted by others then they would still get the device sales and not have to worry about hosting.

So why does Apple so tightly control the app store? Why is it that they want to ensure that apps are not crashing, or even worse crashing the device? Why is it that they want to ensure that applications are not poor performers, or that they don't drain the battery of the device? Why were they so long in allowing multi-tasking, and even then only allowing it in very restricted contexts? Quite simply, if apps for the platform were to do these things, then the ordinary, unsophisticated user would blame the platform rather than the software vendor for the crashes and performance problems they experience. This already happens on PCs: Microsoft gets blamed for badly written third party device drivers, poor third party software and the like. And if users start seeing the platform as poorly performing and underpowered and crash-prone, Apple would sell fewer of those devices and would make less money.

If Apple really just wanted to ensure quality applications and user experience, then why not offer the best of both worlds? Again your argument doesn't hold up. There's no reason that they couldn't have the "sanctioned" Apple App Store and then the "unsanctioned" wild west.

What it really boils down to is control under the guise of security and quality, neither of which are to be found on the iPhone.

Re:Games too

[Drakino]

*sigh*. Can we please kill the myth that Apple makes tons of money off the App Store? I know it's hard to keep up with accurate info when Apple releases financials 4 times a year that show that the iTunes Store is purely a break even operation.

Apple makes their money ($$$$$) off the hardware. It would actually save Apple money if they allowed Flash, and didn't have to pay for the bandwidth and server hosting costs from delivering apps (including all those free ones) to people.

Apple is heavily pushing HTML5, and even allows it to be used for apps on the iPhone. Google Voice is a perfect example here. Apple hasn't put it on the app store, but that didn't stop Google from releasing it, oh, and it works on the Palm Pre too. Cross phone development. All using open standards that Apple can optimize for, instead of an Adobe proprietary environment.

Re:Games too

[broken_chaos]

I don't think this is really true. Apple has specifically said tools that allow programming in other languages are allowed.

Um, yes it is true. They have a very short list of 'approved' languages.

Specifically, this:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

Emphasis mine. This bans anything not coded in Objective-C, C, or C++ (as far as native code goes -- and only JavaScript in WebKit for interpreted languages), as well as banning any third-party toolkits, frameworks, and most libraries (even if they're written in one of the 'approved' languages). About the only thing they haven't dictated (yet) is what text editors you can use to write the code.

Re:Games too

[GameboyRMH]

In Maemo's MicroB browser you just drag from the left edge of the screen to get a cursor, then you can do pretty much everything you can do with a mouse.

Re:Games too

[s73v3r]

Derp. You're right. CS4 wasn't 64 bit. CS5 is. However, it was known for a while that Carbon wasn't going 64bit. It was also known that Carbon was there simply to help developers move their MacOS Classic stuff over to OS X with a minimum of hastle, so they could get something out the door while working on a native, Cocoa implementation. Adobe also had plenty of time to come out with a Universal Binary version of CS3, but refused to provide Intel Mac support until CS4.

Re:Games too

[Culture20]

Simple.

Adobe needs to write a tool that converts flash source or binary directly to Objective C.
Hint: Compiler is a text transformation tool, hence this compiler emits flash to Objective C code.

Then developers could use Object C "Compiler" from iStore or GNU and create a "Program" that was using apple approved "Source" and generate iPhone executable.

Now apple can not deny it at all.

Sure they can. IIRC, the new EULA says "Nothing not Originally Developed in C, C++, or Objective C" Not much to do about that. Hell, you can't even write your program in pseudocode on a whiteboard.

Re:Games too

[RedK]

You're wrong. Core Video is for manipulating individual video frames, not for hardware accelerated video playback. Apple hadn't made available any hardware acceleration for video decoding until 10.6.3.

Read the doc if you don't believe me : Core Video Programming Guide

Re:Games too

[s73v3r]

Read Apple's financial statements. They barely break even on the App Store. Most apps are either free or 99 cents. They still have to pay hosting and credit card fees on that as well.

Re:Games too

[uglyduckling]

Sure. It depends whether you want the premium hardware/styling of a Mac. Certainly within the MacBook range, if you look for a genuinely equivalent Sony or Dell machine the prices are broadly similar. The point of the discussion was perceived 'lock in' which seems to me to be a myth.

Re:Games too

[mjwx]

The solution that they have is that the first tap reads as a hover, and the second tap reads as a click

No,

Tap and hold counts as hover, tap counts as click. Android has implemented this system from the start and is is quite easy to use. Amongst Android users it's known as "tap and hold" or the "long click" and is often used in lieu of a second mouse button (Android really is a phone sized computer, so it requires a "Windows XP" level of literacy to operate).

Is this level of sophistication beyond the Iphone?

But really, anyone who still claims the war on Flash is anything else then Apple maintaining dictatorial control over what runs on their Iphone is beyond deluded.

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.

Re:Hard to take him seriously

[bwalling]

Oh, please. Your discussion of the scrolling text boxes is what this article's author would call "a very good example of miss direction[sic]."

Re:Hard to take him seriously

[Yakasha]

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

It is even harder to take him seriously if you actually read his rant.

No it's not

[dc29A]

It's all about keep selling high markup iDevices. To achieve that they need to make sure to have a lock-in. Lock in is achieved by making sure developers only code for your platform. Ballmer's "Developers! Developers! Developers!" might have been funny, but that is exactly what Apple is aiming for. Video lock-in won't work because it's H.264 and other big players can/will just as well sell H.264 format videos.

When 40% or so your profit comes from iDevices, and a fraction of that from AppStore and/or iTunes, you want to protect your iDevice markup. If Apple allows cross compilers, guess what? People won't be 'loyal' to Apple and will migrate to Android, BB or WM7 devices because their apps are on those platforms as well. The iPhone becomes a commodity, and Apple's profits crater. It's about software lock-in and not about content lock in.

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.

Re:It's not all about video

[pjrc]

Adobe's Flash player causes Firefox on Linux to regularly lock up. In fact, playing video from pretty much anywhere but Youtube and Vimeo seems to do it. I installed the flashblock extension, so all flash comes up as a blank box and I can click on it if I really want to see what it is. But I cringe every time, because more often than not, my browser is going to lock up either while that flash object is doing whatever it does, or shortly after.

It's pretty clear Adobe only invests serious effort in quality for Windows. People who only experience Flash on Windows just don't have any idea how horribly buggy it is on other platforms.

It's about the App Store

[Kagato]

Why develop an app with XCode for one platform when you could develop it in Flash and have it run on multiple devices. Flash represents a threat to the App Store. Jobs can say it's about the power and crashes, but he could have set expectations with Adobe when the iPhone first came out. It's all about money and controlling the market place.

Re:It's about the App Store

[Graff]

Why develop an app with XCode for one platform when you could develop it in Flash and have it run on multiple devices.

Because you can develop an app with XCode and have it run on multiple devices. It really isn't that difficult.

Flash is just another layer of middleware which is not necessary and ultimately just gets in the way. It gives quick results but the true headaches are borne by the users and also by developers down the road once you are locked-in to using Flash and want to do something that it doesn't yet support.

Apple's stance helps all of us. It promotes an alternative to Flash which forces Adobe to clean up its act and open and improve Flash even more. Perhaps it will even get them to come up with some nice HTML5 authoring tools and technologies. We all win.

Re:It's about the App Store

[onefriedrice]

Then let the market decide. GP was right. It is all about locking the developers in, making them choose between creating software for Apple, or all of the other platforms. It's a despicable business practice and as a hobbyist developer I will not have my toolset dictated to me so long as the end result runs natively on the device.

The market is deciding. As a player in the market, Apple has decided to try to derail Flash adoption for the reasons Apple listed in Jobs's letter. As much as that may suck to you personally, or anyone else who misses Flash on their Apple devices, you'll have to at least agree with Apple that Flash is a proprietary system that should be avoided in the face of open web standards.

As another player in the market, if you actually disagree with Apple concerning Flash, you have the choice to not only not buy their devices but to also support alternatives. Simple.

Oh, Jamie, oh Jamie

[zeromorph]

Either a strange coincidence or an badly disguised case of self-promotion:

jamiegau writes:"Here we have ... The writer concludes ..."

and the blog's name is "JamieG Analysis".

If you submit your own article why not say it?

Re:Oh, Jamie, oh Jamie

[oh_my_080980980]

And he's a flash developer....hmmm....self promotion....

Look douche bag Steve Job's letter was 100% correct, there's no FUD there as you state. And hey captain obvious, JOBS MENTIONED VIDEO. Wow you act like it's some kind of secret. It's not.

FYI MOST PEOPLE CAN'T STAND FLASH! We just deal with it because of the morons who can't build web sites or videos without flash.

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?

Re:God save flash!

[Skuld-Chan]

For God's sake, can we please just flash die for a more modern alternative?

Which is?

And don't say html 5 - have you played with that? I doesn't really seem ready to deliver RIA's like Java and Flash have been delivering for years because its buggy (what do you know - its an unfinished standard). I think this video illustrates it best:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfmbZkqORX4

My own experience with html 5 video btw was buggy at best - anytime you paused you couldn't resume and had to reload the entire clip. His experience in that video above was it didn't work - because the video he tried to view was Theora/OGG - which the iPad/iPhone don't support.

Re:God save flash!

[Anonymous Coward]

Before Apple sunk their teeth into flash, a lot of the posters here also bashed it.

Yeah, and I think everyone agrees that Flash is a bloated piece of crap and that it would be great if we could replace it with HTML 5.

But that's not why people are complaining about Apple's dickhead move. I can accept them deciding not adding Flash support to Mobile Safari.

But what I won't accept is:

1. Them disallowing a competing browser to be written for their phone that DOES support Flash.
2. Them disallowing Adobe to write a plugin for Mobile Safari to add Flash support.
3. Them disallowing ANYONE from using Flash as the basis for a mobile app on the iPhone.

So, I don't like Flash. But Adobe isn't being the anti-competitive dicks here. Apple is. Adobe wrote a technology that allows a Flash app to be translated to an iPhone app. People who use that will still have to fork up money for the iPhone developer's license and Apple will still get their percentage of sales on the App Store, so why the fuck would they ban that?!

Simple: they're anti-competitive dicks.

Re:God save flash!

[jedidiah]

It is my perogative to be "tasteless".

Of course the blithering Apple fanboys can't tell the difference between the individual choosing to dump a product and a Tyrant imposing that choice.

Why does it all have to be either pro or anti?

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Apple's post was anti-adobe. This post is Anti-Apple, and pro-Adobe.

How about just putting them where they belong? Apple makes computers. Adobe makes software. We are talking about standards and the web. Any standard on the web should be completely free, period. The best free standard we have so far is HTML5 + Ogg + Theora. Period. The fact that a huge patent troll is saying they've got something against Theora doesn't make Theora any less free. The same thing was said against virtually all Free Software. And to this day, noone has ever been able to remove a Free Software project from us based on patents. Every single patent troll out there has said that they have patents covering everything from drinking water to clicking buttons for 20+ years. And Free Software is still there. Free standards are still there.
The has been cases of Privative software stealing code from GPL projects, where the GPL won and this guys had to either arrange a settlement or release their code to be GPL compliant.
But there has not been A SINGLE CASE of infringing GPL code loosing a legal battle. So, why are we taking MPEG-LA more seriously than we took SCO? It's the same crap, different smell. Just another troll that we need to ignore until it goes away.

So, Apple, Adobe: Sell your shit and STFU. Regardless of how much you pretend that standards, and the whole industry revolves around you, it doesn't. You're just another company trying to succeed in this market. We will buy your stuff, or we'll buy somebody else's stuff. What you say is not important. And what you pretend to be standards, are NOT. In the meanwhile, we will continue developing Free Open standards, and Free Open software that uses them. We will eventually prevail. We always do.

Re:Why does it all have to be either pro or anti?

[pkphilip]

All this discussion about Flash vs HTML5 seems to miss the point that Flash isn't just video - there are tons of apps and interfaces out there written in Flash - not just slideshows and ads. There are games, presentations, demos etc.

There is not a SINGLE content creation tool for HTML5 which can hold a candle to Adobe's flash authoring environment.

Re:Why does it all have to be either pro or anti?

[Altus]

Yes, yes it is. The iPhone is not a global communications network, the iPhone is a device that some people like to use and others don't. The fact that the guy next to you has an iPhone is not hampering your ability to use the internet. Adobe not supporting your platform really does hamper your ability to use the internet.

They are 2 different things, stop acting like they are the same.

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.

Re:video

[BitZtream]

Steve didn't mention it because its bullshit.

I've had HW accelerated video for ... 5 ... 6 years ... I donno, whenever I started writing that particular app.

There were NEW APIs introduced recently to make it so even the Geico cavemen could figure out how to do it, but anyone who hasn't been capable of playing h264 video in a hardware accelerated window in the last 5 years should not be called a developer. Hell, there are freaking xcode examples on Apples website dated 4 years ago.

Like I said ... been playing hardware accelerated video on my mac for years in my own apps.

Re:video

[Just Some Guy]

That's a pretty dang good point.

No, it's not..

Oh, that's right: VLC is developed by a megacorporation with close knowledge of Apple's secret internal APIs, and not a small team of Open Source developers. That's why their software can play back the same MP4 stream with 1/3 the CPU of Adobe's.

Re:video

[ceoyoyo]

I had a GPGPU example running on a web page in Safari (for giggles) about four years ago. If you can get full GPGPU access through a web page writing a little video decoder shouldn't be a big deal.

Hard to Believe

[whisper_jeff]

Is it really so hard for people to believe that Flash on a Mac is so poorly implemented as to suck, Flash on mobile devices is poorly suited (due to touch interface) and is a significant memory drain, and that Apple really does not want to be at the mercy of a 3rd party developer when providing features to their customers. Why are people so intent on find some alternate reason when the reasons that have been outlined are actually valid and true? When Flash doesn't suck on a Mac (including iPhone OS); when Flash isn't a memory drain; when Flash is suited to (multi)touch interfaces; when Adobe actually steps up to the plate and takes development within the Mac ecosystem seriously (how long did it take Adobe to release Creative Suite optimized for OSX?...), then, and only then, can we discuss other reasons that Apple may be interested in keeping Flash off their mobile devices. Until then, however, there are some very significant and glaring reasons that Adobe doesn't deserve to have Flash on the iPhone/iPad.

Translation: Adobe, get your shit together. When half your market uses a Mac, you need to take them a lot more seriously than you currently do.

Re:Bad Grammar, Insightful Point

[the_B0fh]

err, no, according to apple, it's the crazy licensing requirements.

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.

Re:G(a)nash

[Raffaello]

Ganash is a delicious chocolate glaze

You've misspelled it.

Ganache is a delicious chocolate glaze

Ganesh (or Ganesha) is an indian god with an elephant's head

Ganash therefore, is the equivalent of a chocolate Easter Bunny, but for Hindus.

Glad I could clear that up for you ;^)

Re:Bad Grammar, Insightful Point

[Thanshin]

err, no, according to apple, it's the crazy licensing requirements.

It makes no sense to use as counter point that the subject said otherwise.

Obviously Apple wouldn't say "We don't install blurays because we plan to destroy flash and monopolize online video.".

Flash only has three uses

[MBCook]

Flash only has three big uses on the web.

The first is video. Flash is not needed for video. It became the standard because it could do things the object tag couldn't, but it's not needed. The video tag does what most users need, and people will figure out ways to do the rest. For most users (who just want to see Hulu/Vimeo/YouTube/whatever), the video tag will be all they need. Flash isn't necessary here for most users (especially mobile).

The second is animations. There are some very impressive things done in HTML5 and JS, and most of the stuff I see on the web done with flash could be done in HTML5 (or really just needs a redesign). Very few sites do more than make objects show and hide and move around. iPhone users don't need a special plugin to use terrible interfaces, they should be made in HTML5 or have a simplified version available. So Flash isn't necessary here for most users, especially mobile.

Games are the best argument for flash, it's the standard and works well (when the programers know what they're doing and don't code an idle loop to use 100% CPU). Steve Jobs is right that a great many of these wouldn't work on the iPhone because of the keyboard and mouse expectations that can't be translated. Native code would work better, and being able to get to farmville but having a horrible time trying to play it would make iPhone users mad.

Games is the best reason Adobe has, I'd like to be able to play 'em on my iPhone some times. Steve is right that it's better for most users that the games get made for the device instead of trying to rejigger the interface.

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.

Re:Is the opinion of a Flash dev.

[Altus]

Stop swimming in the bullshit.

How many websites have closed their doors in preference to an iPhone application?

Unless the iPhone becomes the primary device that most people use to access information on the internet there is really no risk of that ever happening. Meanwhile trying to use the web without Flash is pretty hit or miss.

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.

Re:Adobe Disinformation

[bhtooefr]

The biggest one is claiming that Flash is a closed standard - Flash as a standard is open, $free, and Free. Anyone can implement a Flash compiler, and anyone can implement a Flash player, using specs provided by Adobe, without having to pay any royalties to Adobe. (Now, the video codecs are another story, but that's still not royalties to Adobe.)

Also, there was the whole, claiming things that are problems with Flash as unique to Flash, when they also apply to H.264 and HTML5, thing.

Couldn't be worse

[nilbog]

I can't imagine someone misunderstanding the issues more than the guy who wrote this. I don't even know where to begin, but I'll point out a few problems with his "in depth analysis." But if you don't read my comment, I recommend familiarizing yourself with the concept of a straw man argument and a red herring before reading the article, because this guy LOVES them.

First, everyone loves to point out that while Jobs claims flash is proprietary, his own app store is the most proprietary thing ever! The flaw with this argument is that we're not talking about Flash vs. the app store. We're talking about Flash vs. HTML 5. There are not any tools, as the author claims, required from Apple to use HTML 5 video on your site. HTML 5 is an open standard (h.264 is not, flash is not, the app store is not.)

Second, the author's arguments about performance and how Flash performs better than HTML 5 are moot. He ignores the fact that Apple includes hardware decoders for h.264 and compares software decoding to software decoding. Ignoring any negative feelings you have towards Apple (I have plenty), it's not hard to argue against H.264 direct to the browser being a better experience that h.264, wrapped in flash, to the browser. Even with hardware acceleration Flash video uses massive amount of CPU on my computer - watching an HD video will almost always kick my fans into high gear. Watching the same video on an iPad or something is a much better experience - no fans, no heat, no lost battery performance (note: battery life is the iPad's killer feature).

The rest of the article accuses Jobs of misdirection while picking out really specific and uncommon examples where he might be wrong. Flash games aren't just bad on the iPad because of mouseovers, they're bad because they were designed from the ground up for keyboards and mice. There is usually some keyboard input required - how are you going to get around that? There are mouse hovers, but also mouse movements, etc. Think of the page itself - how would the browser know if you are trying to scroll down the page or trying to move something in the flash game? The whole experience doesn't make sense. Sure, 1/10 flash games might work well with touch, but it's not worth it. Games are not even a question here - video is the only thing seriously in question.

I have problems with Apple as much as the next guy, but not supporting Flash in their mobile devices is one of the best things they've done in a long time. As a web developer I have been looking forward to newer technologies taking over where Flash has continually failed. Change will not come gradually - it will only come if a big player in the market forces it, and that is what Apple is doing. They're not saying HTML 5 is going to take over tomorrow, but they're willing to make sacrifices to move the transition along.

I hate Apple, but I hate Adobe even more. At least Apple has a vision and gets their vision right. Adobe has been a mess for as long as I can remember.

Technical constraints

[SgtChaireBourne]

The problems with Flash are many and technical. It's so badly designed from a security perspective, that it's almost like a Microsoft product. The giveaway that it is not is that it runs on a handful of linux architectures. Games could just as well be written as Java Applets, which would increase the security and portability of the games. For movies, Flash is just plain wrong and other wrappers should be used, Ogg Theora being the obvious choice after MPEG or QuickTime.

Fixed some typos

[kimvette]

Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole
authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely
available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and
available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.

Here is the corrected version

Apple’s iPhone products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Apple, and Apple has sole
authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, App availability, etc. While Apple’s iPhone products are widely
available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Apple and
available only from Apple. By almost any definition, iPhone is a closed system, and so are iPhone applications because Steve Jobs prohibits open source apps from being offered via the app store.

Re:Fixed some typos

[Drakino]

"because Steve Jobs prohibits open source apps from being offered via the app store."

Odd. Why am I able to download the source code for Doom iPhone version then?

Besides, the point of that part of Steve's letter was because Adobe keeps throwing the open word around, Apple isn't. "Open screen" this, and "open flash" that. Wheres the "open" flash player, and other bits needed to allow someone to play back Flash 10.1 content without any Adobe involvement?

Re:Fixed some typos

[droopycom]

While true, it may not matter.

Why ?

Users dont buy Flash, they buy iPhones. Obviously most users dont care about iPhone being proprietary, and in the end, Apple will do anything to please the majority users enough so that they will buy more phones. That include keeping a tight control on the platform.

Users want to buy iPhones and Apps. They dont really care about how the way the apps were programmed, or if its open. They may care about the price and the quality.

Apple will occasionally switch their stance when they think its ultimately beneficial for them. For example, see how they want from only webapps to native apps. They saw how it would benefits the users, and allow them to sell more phones. They gave the users want they want.

For sure they will not make things easy for developers. Their strategy is please the users first, the developers will come. They will only encourage the developers if it eventually make it better for the user.
Microsoft in the past and Android now have the other strategy: please the developers (Who said: "developers! developers! developers!"), they will create great apps and the users will come for the apps, not the phone.

At the start of the PC era, Microsoft picked the right strategy and won against the Apple. Things have changed, PC and Smartphone users are not just geeks anymore, so Apple strategy might work better now....

Time will tell.... But the DOJ might be the wild card here....

It would be really nice...

[Kintar1900]

It would be really nice if it was possible to get an anti-Adobe viewpoint from someone other than an Apple fanboy, and an anti-Apple viewpoint from someone other than an Adobe fanboy. As it stands, most people who have any vested interest in this argument are heavily committed to one side or the other for their livelihood. That tends makes honest debate unlikely.

Horrible "analysis"

[Yakasha]

He links to a Flash Software Evangelist's website as "proof", claims Apple is "just as bad" as Flash in terms of security and performance, says anybody working with HTML5 is "foolish at best"... He is a flash loving Apple hating blogger that doesn't say anything new and uses (imo worse) similar "misleading" and "bad form" tactics that he derides in Jobs.
I think the best part though was right in the middle, where I stopped reading. He showed very clearly that he is completely missing the core of what Jobs is trying to do. Jobs is trying to ensure that the end users of the iPad/iPhone/iPod have the best experience possible. Yes, that makes the lives of developers a little more difficult at the start because they have to change a bit. He even agrees with jobs that Adobe's goal is not the same as Apple's:

“It is their(Adobe) goal to help developers write cross platform” Yes exactly. As a developer, that is exactly what I want.

But that is NOT what the USERS want.

Imagine a tool box with only a Hammer in it. That is what Steve is trying to justify here.

No, Steve is trying to justify a million dollar home. See, the fridge is shiny and cold, foundation solid, rooms large, and its energy efficient. To make sure it is all of the things he thinks the buyer wants, he doesn't let the builders use asbestos. Cancer doesn't sell houses. Crashing, unblockable popups, and buggy interfaces don't sell iPads.

The bullshit in here is so deep it's hard to walk

[Whuffo]

These stories are becoming a daily (or more often) thing here on Bashdot. After reading more than a few of these thinly-disguised anti-Apple pieces I'm starting to see some common themes. They're all using half-truths and outright lies to promote their point - but what point are they trying to prove?

Among the first to get involved were Adobe employees. They started by identifying themselves but they're still at it and working more covertly. Read the messages carefully and you'll see the Adobe party line being espoused. What they're after is to keep people dependent on Flash - it's partly profit motive but more of a control thing. Adobe wants to control the market for web video and other fluff. As long as they're on every machine they can attract developers to target their player. But their control is slipping and they're fighting back in any and every way they can. Here's a tip for the less well informed: Flash plays H.264 video; keep that in mind.

Next we have the so-called developers who can slap together an "application" in Action Script and put it on the web. We've all seen the results of their "efforts" and once again, it's pure self-interest - they can't compete with real programmers and when they're facing that possibility they're kicking and screaming. The iPhone and iPad are a significant deal and there's big money to be made in coding apps - those Flash "codere" are not going to get a piece of that pie and they're pissed off.

Then there's the "big software company" representatives enjoying the furor and tossing in their little barbs to stir things up a little more. If you think there aren't paid shills for this company posting here you're not paying very good attention. Their music player failed - yeah, they sold a few but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really count. And they have been in phone operating systems for several years and - well, they might as well have stayed home. They don't see these market failures as being their fault; they prefer to blame the competition and anything they can do to take the market leader down will improve their fortunes - or so they think. Remember "Plays for sure" and MSN music? What happened there? Consider this carefully before trotting out complaints about lock-in and DRM.

And then there's the usual cast of trolls who delight in mayhem - here's a hot topic, let's jump in and spread some half-truths and lies just for fun.

Let's not forget the open source zealots who hate anything that's proprietary. They make quite a noise but fail to recognize that they represent a very, very small slice of the population. They'd like to control Apple and make them conform to their idea of what the software world should be like. That's a valid opinion - but only an opinion. They can kill a few days trying to get their box to play some audio file and feel it's worth it because it's FREE - but the rest of us just want to listen to a tune and don't want to have to recompile the kernel before we can get the music to play.

Recently, we're hearing about antitrust concerns because Apple insists on certain compilers to compile apps for their mobile devices. Oh noes, that must be a proprietary lock-in, right? Has anyone ever looked at what that requirement actually says? It's not as restrictive as you might think. No, I'm not going to tell you - go look it up and be better informed.

That brings me to the one thing that all of these groups have in common - they've never owned or handled the devices they're talking about. They're having so much fun with their trollish day in the sun that little things like truth or knowing what you're talking about aren't important. I've got to say that my opinion of some people has been readjusted after seeing what's been written over the last month. If you have an opinion - that's valid and every bit as important as anyone else's opinion. But it's not a fact - and this is where so many intellectually dishonest people reveal their true nature: there are opinions, and there are facts. Try not to confuse t