The Surprising Statistics Behind Flash and Apple

Barence writes "PC Pro's Tom Arah has dug up some statistics that cast severe doubt over Steve Jobs' assertion that Flash is the technology of the past, and Apple's iOS is the platform of the future. He quibbles with Net Applications' assertion that iOS growth is 'massive,' considering that mobile accounts for only 2.6% of web views, and the iOS share stands at only 1.1%. By comparison, Silverlight penetration now stands at 51% while 97% of web surfers have Flash installed, according to Stat Owl. 'At least when Bill Gates held the web to ransom he had the decency to first establish a dominant position,' Arah claims. 'In Steve Jobs' case, with only 1.1% market share, the would-be emperor isn't even wearing any clothes.'"

Comments

Oh thank god

[jewishbaconzombies]

Because Firefox users have no need for flash or Ad blockers do they.

Re:Oh thank god

[nmb3000]

Because Firefox users have no need for flash or Ad blockers do they.

I presume you are implying that the reason people use Flash blocking tools is because all Flash content inherently needs to be blocked. This isn't true.

The overly-prevalent mindset on Slashdot that "Flash is evil", "Flash needs to die", and "Flash is only used for bad things" is just plain wrong and broken. Flash is used in many places to greatly enhance things beyond what browsers are normally capable of. Games are an obvious example, but other applications such as Google Finance and Amazon's song previews are simple but effective examples. As is usually the case, the technology itself isn't really good or bad, but what people do with it can be. And people, as a rule, are decidedly good at making technology do bad things.

This then leaves the question: Why do people block flash? Almost entirely it falls into two categories:

- Flash is used in the most perverse and annoying advertisements that contain video and audio and which load the CPU unnecessarily
- Flash has security concerns

Consider these. People champion HTML5 as some kind of messiah which will bring the end to Flash's evil reign. Okay, what would that result in? I'll give you a hint: HTML5 blockers. Why? Because soon we'll transition to:

- HTML5 is used in the most perverse and annoying advertisements that contain video and audio and which load the CPU unnecessarily
- HTML5 has security concerns

Personally, Flash doesn't really bother me, but that's largely because it can be controlled. I use NoScript, partially to block Flash, and that tamed beast can do useful work. I think most people who yearn for its demise either don't understand that the void Flash leaves behind will be filled with something (at least as "bad" as Flash, if not worse), or they're just mindless zealots regurgitating Jobs' claims.

Re:Oh thank god

[mark72005]

I use a Flash blocking tool that allows me to selectively block.

No, not all Flash on the web needs to be blocked, but I would say I am not interested in seeing 9 out of 10 uses of it.

Re:Oh thank god

[sexconker]

No, no. You have it all wrong.
HTML5 is going to save the internet from bloat and security problems.

Also, with HTML5, videos might play in webages if you have the appropriate codec the site's content was encoded with, and your browser can tap into it properly.

It's just like the tag which worked decades ago, but it's new and therefore magically better.

Re:Oh thank god

[h00manist]

Flash is useful, but the implementation is not very good. There is no need to use 100% of CPU to animate a couple of little squares on a screen. Yes, maybe the flash content author sucks. But he is using Adobe stuff.

Re:Oh thank god

[sjames]

Flash does have it's place. I use flash blocker to kill off most of the bad uses and just click the play button for the few good ones. Now if people would just avoid those tasteless flash pages for their websites. Usually I just hit the back button and try another site when I get one of those.

Re:Oh thank god

[catmistake]

Then play Microsoft's amd Apple's game. Petition Adobe for a dedicated Flash device, a tablet or netbook that only does Flash, and forbids ObjC and the like, and prevent Flash from appearing on any other makers device. Problem solved.

Apple isn't forcing the whole web to use ObjC, yet Adobe and and Flashophiles think that just because they love Flash, it has to be allowed everywhere. Subsequent poster is in the next thread is right... how do you mod a summary -1 Flamebait ?

Re:Oh thank god

[jedidiah]

Parlour tricks are far less relevant than whether or not there is an ipad version of the websit to begin with. Like all compatability issues , the big prominent things are low hanging fruit.

Re:Oh thank god

[ekhben]

Not too worried about HTML5 'filling the void' myself. NoScript covers a large number of the potentially obnoxious uses already. The same techniques used for blocking Flash object/embed elements can be trivially extended to canvas, video and audio elements. CSS animations can be manipulated in the DOM (or at load time) to either strip them out completely, remove unconstrained animations, or toggle them on and off.

Better yet, though, video and audio elements can just have autoplay disabled. The asset can begin to download, so you don't need to wait, but there's no way for some fuckface web designer to decide their choice about when the video plays trumps yours; no more videos starting up in two or three tabs at once. Very hard to do with Flash, very easy to do with a video element.

Re:Oh thank god

[avatar139]

Because Firefox users have no need for flash or Ad blockers do they.

I presume you are implying that the reason people use Flash blocking tools is because all Flash content inherently needs to be blocked. This isn't true.

The overly-prevalent mindset on Slashdot that "Flash is evil", "Flash needs to die", and "Flash is only used for bad things" is just plain wrong and broken. Flash is used in many places to greatly enhance things beyond what browsers are normally capable of. Games are an obvious example, but other applications such as Google Finance and Amazon's song previews are simple but effective examples. As is usually the case, the technology itself isn't really good or bad, but what people do with it can be. And people, as a rule, are decidedly good at making technology do bad things.

This then leaves the question: Why do people block flash? Almost entirely it falls into two categories:

- Flash is used in the most perverse and annoying advertisements that contain video and audio and which load the CPU unnecessarily
- Flash has security concerns

Consider these. People champion HTML5 as some kind of messiah which will bring the end to Flash's evil reign. Okay, what would that result in? I'll give you a hint: HTML5 blockers. Why? Because soon we'll transition to:

- HTML5 is used in the most perverse and annoying advertisements that contain video and audio and which load the CPU unnecessarily
- HTML5 has security concerns

Personally, Flash doesn't really bother me, but that's largely because it can be controlled. I use NoScript, partially to block Flash, and that tamed beast can do useful work. I think most people who yearn for its demise either don't understand that the void Flash leaves behind will be filled with something (at least as "bad" as Flash, if not worse), or they're just mindless zealots regurgitating Jobs' claims.

At the risk of being called a mindless zealot I'd like to respond to your points above,

The problem with your argument is that you are making the assumption that whatever replaces Flash, be it HTML 5, or some other new standard is going to be worse immediately.

The point that Steve Jobs has repeatedly stated is that "Flash was good in it's day," but because Adobe has let development of it lapse (particularly in never producing a version of Flash for a mobile device that would run effectively not just for iOS devices but for desktop machines as well) and continually failing to close security holes in a timely fashion, I think the point he was making was that Apple is trying to move (and encourage others to move as well) to a newer standard that is starting to emerge rather than sticking to a platform that has pretty much stagnated.

When whatever standard that replaces Flash starts to stagnate then you can expect them to switch again...

Re:Oh thank god

[StuartHankins]

I agree especially since there was technology decades ago which allowed very primitive CPU's to animate little blocks in real-time... I'm not sure why it doesn't exist in more "modern" systems. http://www.c64-wiki.com/index.php/Sprite

Re:Oh thank god

[mjwx]

The overly-prevalent mindset on Slashdot that "Flash is evil", "Flash needs to die", and "Flash is only used for bad things" is just plain wrong and broken. Flash is used in many places to greatly enhance things beyond what browsers are normally capable of

Finally, the voice of reason.

I use Flashblock because I want to use Flash services on the web.

The problem isn't flash, it's how certain organisations use flash. This isn't the fault of flash but it is something I have to deal with (have dealt with). If Flash died tomorrow, I guarantee you by Friday (+8 GMT) all the punch the monkey ad's on the web would have been converted to HTML5. Apple and Apple fanboys are benefiting from the same thing that they've always benefited from, lack of negative interest. HTML 5 is better right now because there's no money in writing HTML 5 ad's at the moment, this does not scale. If HTML5 becomes dominant it will become just as unusable as an un-flashblocked browser because Flash is not the motivation for all the Flash annoyances on the web.

Put simply, blame the ad producers, not the conduit they use to display ads.

Re:Oh thank god

[buzzn]

Wait, so a programmer who uses a polling loop instead of an event listener is blameless, but Flash is responsible for all of the CPU usage? Puhleez. Flash is just a tool, and can be very efficient when used properly.

Re:Oh thank god

[nomel]

What about when website authors get to the point where they use nothing but a big canvas?

I have a feeling this is where it's headed...so you'll need something like a javascript spy trying to figure out of the square just drawn is part of an ad or part of the ui.

For this reason alone I assume that companies will flock to a canvas only html5 sites: more control over what is and isn't displayed.

Re:Oh thank god

[Totenglocke]

I've only ever heard this "100% cpu" claim from people who run OS X......I've certainly never seen it on a Window system or on any of my linux systems. Perhaps the problem isn't Flash, but with how OS X interacts with Flash?

Re:Oh thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, so a programmer who uses a polling loop instead of an event listener is blameless, but Flash is responsible for all of the CPU usage?

Blameless? Not when the programmer is the one that wrote the Flash plugin. Yes, Adobe's early infamous CPU hogging was caused by that: Flash using a loop rather than polling. Look it up.

Another thing to keep in mind: Flash is owned wholly by Adobe. They set the standards and implementation for it; not any standards body or the web at large.

Re:Oh thank god

[Vancorps]

huh? News flash, Flash is everywhere, everywhere except IOS... Apple wants the whole world to change just because they have a grudge against Flash which is odd given the close relationship Apple and Adobe have had over the years.

Re:Oh thank god

[greymond]

I don't really care about the excessive ads, it's more so that people use it excessively. Take any fashion designers website which so often is 100% flash, so every page is really part of a flash app that doesn't allow a user to simply go "back" to a previous page. Not to mention it's annoying having a solid cable connection and yet the site takes 30 seconds to load because the creators wanted to have a 1920x1600 screen full of 24 different flash animations comprising the page.

Re:Oh thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash doesn't really bother me, but that's largely because it can be controlled

Yeah. It's controlled by Adobe, and the best that you can do is install it anyway and then try to corral it into behaving itself by using external controls. No choice. No redress.

It is true that both HTML5 and Flash can be flawed and annoying, but the point is that HTML5 is an open standard available from multiple vendors. Don't like Steve Jobs' HTML5? Use Firefox, or Chrome, or IE, or roll your own browser (lots of browsers are open source now!)

Find or make one that gives you control over the features you want.

Find or make one that's secure and updated quickly.

Find or make one that runs efficiently and degrades gracefully on limited hardware.

Re:Oh thank god

[Vidar Leathershod]

Windows XP here. Latest flash plugin with Chrome, Firefox, IE or Safari, all latest stable versions available (well, I just changed to chrome 7 beta for kicks). Flash sites can easily cause 100% CPU for me. Nevermind massive memory usage. Luckily, I have 3GB of memory, but really, a couple of flash sites like playlist and things are spiking. If one of my kids goes on an online flash game, CPU maxes out at times. Flash is a pig, and no amount of Adobe's campaigning will change that. Maybe if they spent less energy whining about *only* 1.1% of the web enabled devices, or whatever the story's claim is, and more time optimizing their bloat, we wouldn't be hearing the debate.

If I can play a 3D game at high res full screen without issue, but flash makes the computer beg for mercy, there is a problem.

Re:Oh thank god

[ekhben]

They're the same authors who use nothing but a big Flash object.

In any case, a canvas element is not opaque. If you do your own obnoxious advertising, it's an easy decision to avoid your site. If you pull it in from a partner, it's easy to filter out that scripting resource request based on domain.

Re:Oh thank god

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh...I really hate to use one of the classic explanations, but maybe ur doin it wrong? Because I'm typing this on a 1.8Ghz Sempron with XP from 2005 with just 1.5Gb of RAM, no GPU acceleration, and SD flash runs just swell. Have you tried cleaning out the registry and hard drive, with something like CCleaner or WinUtilities? Because I've found here at the shop when folks usually complain of something being slow on decent hardware there is usually a software or hardware glitch that is causing problems. But the only time I've seen flash spike this meager CPU is on a single badly coded strip Texas Hold'em app. But from what I've seen CPU spikes tend to be from badly coded apps, no matter which language you use. Hell I knew a guy who could bring a mighty PC to a crawl thanks to his awful VB 6 code, but I wouldn't blame MSFT because he was a shitty coder.

Oh and since i know somebody is gonna say "Strip Texas Hold'em, where?" here it is, but something about the way they have the table able to float around causes CPU spikes in anything less than a P4 3GHz, as the very similar strip blackjack doesn't spike the CPU, so I'm guess it has to be the table design.

Re:Oh thank god

[ClosedSource]

Perhaps because they didn't include the Internet as part of their graphics pipeline.

Re:Oh thank god

[ClosedSource]

"They set the standards and implementation for it; not any standards body or the web at large."

Flash may suck, but there's little evidence that standards bodies do any better. Perhaps HTML 5 can wait until the DOM is cleaned up.

Re:Oh thank god

[hairyfeet]

Which is why I have been curious about something, and maybe someone here that knows more can fill me in: Why doesn't Adobe tell Jobs to stick it and simply refuse to sell or support adobe products on Apple OSes anymore? There are a hell of a lot more Windows users than OSX users, and losing Photoshop and Dreamweaver would hurt Apple a hell of a lot more than it would hurt Adobe.

So I honestly don't get it, if Steve wants to be a jerk (which when he blocked cross compilation I believe it crossed from being about performance and into jerkhood) why doesn't adobe do the same? as Jack Tramiel said years ago "business is war" and if someone takes a shot at you you shoot back. so why hasn't Adobe?

Re:Oh thank god

[N Monkey]

I agree especially since there was technology decades ago which allowed very primitive CPU's to animate little blocks in real-time... I'm not sure why it doesn't exist in more "modern" systems. http://www.c64-wiki.com/index.php/Sprite

C64 sprites, IIRC, used dedicated hardware. That doesn't sound quite like the right solution to me.

Obviously, modern PCs and smart phones have graphics hardware too, but one problem is that Flash's rendering model doesn't fit modern GPUs all that well.

Re:Oh thank god

[exomondo]

There is no need to use 100% of CPU to animate a couple of little squares on a screen. Yes, maybe the flash content author sucks. But he is using Adobe stuff.

How is that going to be any different in HTML5?

Re:Oh thank god

[exomondo]

The problem with your argument is that you are making the assumption that whatever replaces Flash, be it HTML 5, or some other new standard is going to be worse immediately.

I think he's making the assumption that HTML5 isn't necessarily going to be better, not that it's going to be worse. It would be nice if re-writing a flash website in html5 made it perform better, but there's nothing that i've seen to support such a thing.

Re:Oh thank god

[BlueStraggler]

Uhhh...I really hate to use one of the classic explanations, but maybe ur doin it wrong? ... Have you tried cleaning out the registry and hard drive, with something like CCleaner or WinUtilities?

Don't these guys make fun of us Linux geeks when we bullshit like this?

Re:Oh thank god

[exomondo]

Not to mention it's annoying having a solid cable connection and yet the site takes 30 seconds to load because the creators wanted to have a 1920x1600 screen full of 24 different flash animations comprising the page.

But how HTML5 change this? To me Flash is annoying because of it's closed nature, HTML5 will solve this, but it won't solve the problems that most people have with Flash, in fact if Flash was released as a totally open spec so anyone could implement it I don't see how it would be much different to HTML5.

Re:Oh thank god

[BlueStraggler]

OS X punches way above its weight in Flash *developers*, so it would be a very bad idea without even considering the anti-trust implications.

Also, the whole iOS Flash ban is a shitstorm in a teacup. There isn't yet a decent Flash implementation on *any* mobile OS, so it's just a stupid media circus, not a real issue. The actual iOS ban of interest is not Flash, but cross-compiling Flash to ObjC. And didn't Apple relax that ban, now that Flash is proving that it's pretty much useless on all mobile platforms?

Re:Oh thank god

[mikael_j]

Why doesn't Adobe tell Jobs to stick it and simply refuse to sell or support adobe products on Apple OSes anymore? There are a hell of a lot more Windows users than OSX users, and losing Photoshop and Dreamweaver would hurt Apple a hell of a lot more than it would hurt Adobe.

Well, OS X is a pretty huge market for Adobe's Creative Suite and Apple has already eaten Adobe's lunch once before with Final Cut Pro. I'm guessing Adobe suspects pulling out of the OS X market would just motivate Apple to come up with a few more apps (they already have fairly successful competitors to Premiere (FCP) and Lightroom (Aperture)).

There's also the matter of the PR nightmare this would create for Adobe, even if Apple's "Photoshop killer" wasn't quite as good as Photoshop a lot of users would probably jump ship just because they were pissed with Adobe. Also, Dreamweaver? really? People still use Dreamweaver? (No, not teenage boys or the "webmaster" for small websites, real web developers and designers, do they really still use Dreamweaver? I haven't even heard anyone in the business mention Dreamweaver in years)

So I honestly don't get it, if Steve wants to be a jerk (which when he blocked cross compilation I believe it crossed from being about performance and into jerkhood) why doesn't adobe do the same? as Jack Tramiel said years ago "business is war" and if someone takes a shot at you you shoot back. so why hasn't Adobe?

Well, Apple has a bit of a hardon when it comes to open standards, even if it's their own open standard they do like open standards (despite the Apple haters claiming otherwise) and Flash is about as closed as a standard can be. Remember that part about PR? Yeah, trying to force your own closed and despised standard on the world while the guys who are known for being good when it comes to usability say it sucks is probably not a good idea, Adobe caught a lot of flack for their anti-Apple statements during their last squabble with Apple (not their first, they threw a majro hissyfit when Apple announced that they would stop supporting Carbon applications, just as they had stated all along).

Also, Adobe has more to lose than Apple (well technically I think Apple has more to lose, it's just that Adobe's executives most likely know they'd be the ones who lost out in the end), they'd be the bad guys and lose a huge chunk of their customers.

Re:Oh thank god

[somersault]

Well, browsers are starting to make use of hardware acceleration now, and according to a few posts I've read here, it's difficult to use hardware acceleration with Flash because of the way it renders things.

The HTML5 version of YouTube performs much, much better on my netbook than the Flash version by the way.

Re:Oh thank god

[lxs]

Dedicated hardware? For graphics? That's like having a dedicated multicore processor in your PC just to draw some 3D polygons on a 2D screen. Madness!

Re:Oh thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

uh, what. Yeah, love my Flash on NetBSD, and FreeBSD! If you want to look at it that way, it's everywhere but BSD, and those that love UNIX wish to keep it that way. You want flash? Don't use an iOS product. What is the problem? Malware is everywhere too, should Apple be crucified because it doesn't want that on iOS either? Flash has even made it to Linux, for the determined. But Linux really exists to be everything Windows is without NT or Microsoft, so it sort of makes sense, but it's more proof of concept than anything... I seriously doubt most Linux users live and die by flash... it's there so they can convert people like you that do. Get over it... get a Windows 7 tablet and STFU.

Re:Oh thank god

[catmistake]

The only reason Flash is everywhere is Adobe leveraged it successfully as a wrapper for video. It's not necessary. Video lives on fine without the Flash wrapper. Soon enough, site developers will line up behind Google to eliminate it. With html5 and Ajax, there is precious little that can't be duplicated, and function and form is duplicated without massively coopting the users' processor the way Flash does, and without introducing yet another insecure platform to their machines. WHY IS FLASH NECESSARY? Oh, it is not.

Re:Oh thank god

[JohnBailey]

Because they are a business. The childish pissing matches only play out in the press. Not in reality.

Re:Oh thank god

[juasko]

No, I hate flash when it's used for good thins too. Flash based hompages, they nasty to navigate, never complete and they are in Flash.

In fact if I want to view a product's hompage to learn about it, and it's only flash based I leave that page and wont buy the product. Not in America where test and return if not good is the paradigm. Where I live the sentence not good enough for me isn't a legal reson to return a product. They vill refuse taking it back, if good they give me the option to buy an other product from them for the same money, refound is non existing.

I have developed a quality tool for my self. If online product sheet is only availabe in flash, the product will suck in 9 out of 9.1 cases. "Pun inteded".

I've also have had problems with flash on such a simple flash page as Google maps. Number one reason to buy an iPhone over an Andriod is that by buying iPhone I'm part of creating a market that is flash free. If that market is attraktive market for content creators, including advertising, that market will one day kill Flash.

I support that fully, got my iphone 4, had nokia with flash block earlier, my wife had bothe 3g and 3gs before i had an iphone. Well it turns out I doo more with an non flash phone like iPhone than on a flash enabled.

It's a win win situation. I get more, I have a flash free experiece, and I'm actively part of killing Flash. I'm happy.

Re:Oh thank god

[DarkXale]

This is on similar quality output? Because thus far all HTML5 versions of videos I have seen have had appalling quality (video and sound) requiring the lowest equivalent flash setting to match, and draining similar resources by then, not to mention lots of issues with controlling playback; contrast to flash which even obeys my keyboards media keys (Play, Pause, Stop), and actually puts out decent quality.

Re:Oh thank god

[juasko]

Well, it will probably not save u from security issues. But save you from adobe sloppy coding security issues.

Re:Oh thank god

[zakkie]

The problem *is* Flash. Not that it does glitzy animations or can be used to achieve horrible UI experiences; but that it isn't open. That Adobe pick and choose the platforms that get the latest binaries for it; that Adobe can opt to leave an entire platform out of a release or update cycle; that essentially, Adobe has been holding these people to ransom forever. Many people have come up with useful technologies and have allowed interoperability and cross-platform support by opening the specification via any one of a number of bodies that publish these specs. Adobe refuses to do this, and therefore Flash *is* and will remain evil until this changes.

Re:Oh thank god

[ByOhTek]

Flash is run by one company, with at best, a shoddy reputation for security concerns. HTML 5 will have many implementors.

So, yeah, I think it's reasonable that HTML 5 will be more secure after the first year or two.

Re:Oh thank god

[ByOhTek]

So, the security holes in flash, and the single implementer (at least, single successful/tolerable quality implementer) isn't a problem of flash?

Re:Oh thank god

[John Betonschaar]

Well at the very least HTML5 content will integrate with the rest of the DOM, instead of running in a closed black-box plugin. In other words the animated content is not *embedded* in the document, it *is* the document. I'd expect that this would at the very least make navigation, history and bookmarking much more predictable.

Anyway, I'm still amazed by the way this whole discussion goes everywhere. As if replacing Flash for all things that don't need Flash automatically implies Flash should die completely. Personally, as a software engineer and as a Linux and OS X user, I despise Flash from the bottom of my heart, for various reasons: it's inefficiently coded, full of bugs and security issues, and it runs like shit on anything except Windows. I really don't have a single good thing to say about it. But then again, I don't play web games or go to 'fashion websites' (since when did they become an important part of the internet?), and most of the time I blacklist companies or sites that think making their websites animate and play sounds make the content better, or the site more enjoyable to use (it *never*, *ever* does, literally). But hey, if someone else likes that kind of stuff, go ahead and use Flash, I don't see a problem with that. Just don't use Flash for useful stuff like playing video or implementing a navigation bar with onmouseovers, since there are much better alternatives for that.

The world isn't black and white, and the fact that Flash content doesn't play on iOS doesn't mean it doesn't have it's use on desktops. Apple never said it didn't want Flash on OS X, even though there it is also one big piece of inefficient crap.

Re:Oh thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't JUST blame the producers. Blame Adobe for marketing Flash as a way to avoid having to develop real web sites by making it a 'Web Designer' tool. Blame Adobe for, even now, claiming such ubiquity of playback capability on the client, that producers, incorrectly, assume they don't have to provide the core content in HTML as, at least, a fallback. Consider that, when *any* company, Apple, Adobe, or Microsoft, controls the core technology necessary to access a significant portion of total content, the web can't be what the was intended to be.

Flash, as a technology, has many valid uses. It's ONLY when Apple, Google etc, hammer on the importance of an open standards based foundation that we can hope Flash will become ONE of several tools producers use and then only after considering the strength of the tool, the value of the content and the functionality necessary, not 'easy', but necessary, to deliver a good user experience.

Re:Oh thank god

[gabebear]

Flash really only exists on Windows, Mac, and x86 Linux...

Flash is kinda-sorta on Android, the PS3, ARM Linux, and some Nokia phones, but that's very hit and miss.

Flash is a huge battery/cpu drain and there just isn't a good implementation except on desktop computers.

Re:Oh thank god

[Ash Vince]

Flash may suck, but there's little evidence that standards bodies do any better. Perhaps HTML 5 can wait until the DOM is cleaned up.

HTML5 will only become as ubiquitous as flash is when some completely non-technical but very arty designer can sit in front of a WYSIWYG Gui and move pixels about until he gets what he wants. This is the thing that most techies miss, the worst uses of Flash are often dreamt up by graphic designers who like it because they can produce stuff without having to pay anyone with technical ability. I am not saying this is a good thing, far from it.

When the next version of DreamWeaver comes out with HTML5 support and will spit out animations without anyone ever having to use code view we will start to see all the bloat problems that plague Flash also plague HTML5.

The only long term solution is for Graphic Designers to recognise the work that highly skilled technical staff do and the value we bring to their companies. The problem though is that they work on a very visual basis and have trouble understanding anything they cannot see visually. They do however generally recognise that we eat into their profit margins.

The time taken for a site to load is always the best angle of attack in this regard but if they have web caching enabled this can be just hard to explain as they do not pay attention the first time a site loads and then say thing like "but that only happens on the first page"

Some graphic designers are very different to this description but in my experience they are definitely in the minority in my experience (3 years of fulltime technical services to numerous design agencies).

Re:Oh thank god

[h00manist]

How is that going to be any different in HTML5?

Indeed I haven't seen any comparison of flash-like functionality with Flash and html5 versions placed side by side.

Re:Oh thank god

[somersault]

Yes, on similar quality, ie generally the lowest quality on my netbook. HTML5 rendering gets me much better framerates, and I can even put it to fullscreen without it turning into a slideshow, it's very similar to viewing normal offline video files.

Have you tried the YouTube HTML5 beta to ensure that you're directly comparing equivalent videos when you see "HTML5 versions"? Or maybe you need to update your video codecs or try a different browser? I've been using Chrome.

Re:Oh thank god

[h00manist]

To be fair several javascript-intensive, "web 2.0" like sites are cpu hogs also. Gmail is one of them. Not nearly as terrible as flash but it does become rather heavy on older computers, which typically schools, libraries, NGO's and much of the not-so-wealthy world have. Any website was supposed to render fine on any terminal, I don't know what happened to that idea.

Re:Oh thank god

[jedidiah]

There is a big difference between phones being generally piss-poor at doing Flash and the vendor banning it entirely.

In the first case, the individual can choose to avoid bad technology. In the latter, the individual has no choice.

Steve is acting like every caricature of Bill Gates ever created. THAT is not a "tempest in a teacup".

If Flash were really that bad, then Steve could simply allow Adobe to hoist itself on it's own petard.

Re:Oh thank god

[jedidiah]

HTML5 appears that it will be better than Flash assuming that it is ever really a replacement for Flash.

However, this fact is no excuse to force feed it down everyone's throats now.

If any other platform pulled this shenanigan it would be condemned as monopoly abuse or laughed at as a weak excuse from a poorly supported also-ran. No one would try to elevate it as a good decision in any respect.

Re:Oh thank god

[DrXym]

As is usually the case, the technology itself isn't really good or bad, but what people do with it can be. And people, as a rule, are decidedly good at making technology do bad things.

Exactly. People complain that Flash performance sucks, probably while having 10 tabs open each with 2 or 3 flash plugin. The plugin is a victim of its own success. When an ad blocker is employed to cut down the amount of crap (surprise) Flash performance is a lot better.

Another weird thing is when people complain of Flash they usually follow up with some comment of how HTML 5 is going to save us all. There is an implied assumption that HTML 5 + JS somehow offers better performance than Flash in the same role. Boy are people going to be disappointed.

It won't be better since it will be faced with the same technical issues faced by Flash, such as software vs hardware acceleration for decoding, converting video to RGB, timing critical animation, tweening etc. When the tools invariably appear that spit out the HTML 5 equivalent of today's Flash content, performance is going to go down the toilet. At least with Flash, the plugin has the option to run in a separate thread, or only disturb the browser when it's done rendering. With HTML 5 virtually everything in the page runs in a single thread (with the exception of web workers) so a couple of inserted JS animations could easily bring a browser to its knees.

Re:Oh thank god

[JesseDegenerate]

isn't at least some form of modern linux usage a pre rec for posting here? (hint, it's farking terrible there too) after you diaf, please open up your browser window with activity monitor. if you think a postage sized video should make your cpu go even 40% your crack is better than mine. a ipad, should not feel more responsive playing videos on a web page than a laptop. It is currently this way.

Re:Oh thank god

[oh_my_080980980]

You don't read your own posts do you? You are blocking flash! Good God man.

Big difference between HTML 5 and Adobe's Flash, HTML 5 is an standard specification. Flash is proprietary.

Flash fills no voids. Games? Seriously that's your excuse? HTML 5 has a version of Doom.

Moron.

Re:Oh thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, maybe the flash content author sucks. But he is using Adobe stuff.

Exactly! If you hit yourself in the thumb with a hammer, blame the guy that made the hammer! Brilliant!

Re:Oh thank god

[StuartHankins]

We use dedicated hardware for sound input and output, for network communications, for phone-line communications, for wireless communications, for video input and output, for generic input devices (think USB / FireWire / etc)... and you're worried about another $0.50 component to enable us to overlay sprites without redrawing the screen behind them?

And this isn't just about Flash, it's about anytime you need animation of "sprite-like" objects. Your OS could benefit from it with the mouse cursor for instance. I can use up 2-5% CPU on most machines just by wildly flailing the mouse around. That's an extreme example of course.

Re:Oh thank god

[DinDaddy]

Why doesn't Adobe tell Jobs to stick it and simply refuse to sell or support adobe products on Apple OSes anymore? There are a hell of a lot more Windows users than OSX users, and losing Photoshop and Dreamweaver would hurt Apple a hell of a lot more than it would hurt Adobe.

Not sure about that. I think a more significant chunk of Adobe's revenue comes from OS X users than if Apple were to see lower sales of MBPs and Mac Pros. Apple's making most of their cash off their consumer devices now.

Re:Oh thank god

[Vidar Leathershod]

Certainly some flash apps are worse than others. However, these are not out of the ordinary apps.

As an example, something that doesn't even have constant animation, Mafia Wars, causes trouble for my customers. I check these systems up and down for malware, I set all the performance options for their systems. Still crawls. Now that's a major flash developer. Is it just that they aren't hiring competent developers? Or are they working with a tool that does not allow for optimizations for what appears to be a turn based type of game (meaning, nothing really happens unless you click something).

Speaking of HD, I can play extremely high quality video on this system without stuttering, h264 or the like. But even 720p on youtube will drag this puppy to a halt. Also, if there were issues regarding optimization on my system, why would I not experience these issues with far more complex 3D games?

At some point, reason must trump some insane hatred of Apple, flash critics, etc, and reveal that Flash is a very inefficient beast. BTW, Firefox never crashes on me anymore, now that they separated the plugins. Flash crashes quite often. As much as I don't like seeing a separate plugin-container process on systems, it has improved reliability of the browser.

Re:Oh thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

And the massive problem you have with NoScript? You have to enable it quite a bit to have some sites work at all, yes? I use noScript on my virtual machines and low end computers to block everything to save some CPU cycles. Some sites degrade nicely. God knows how many sites just die, some sites go really limp with a lot of functionality broken or just refuse to work because particular scripts are blocked.

You want to manually fudge around with CSS and DOM for every site you go to? Knock yourself out. I've got better things to do.

One click of a Flash object to enable takes far less time then trying to figure out which script is causing the site not to work -- especially for the less technically inclined. Also, I've not seen any major sites autoplay videos for content (I've flash enable by default on this rig)... Example? I just want to see what you're talking about.

Re:Oh thank god

[avatar139]

The problem with your argument is that you are making the assumption that whatever replaces Flash, be it HTML 5, or some other new standard is going to be worse immediately.

I think he's making the assumption that HTML5 isn't necessarily going to be better, not that it's going to be worse. It would be nice if re-writing a flash website in html5 made it perform better, but there's nothing that i've seen to support such a thing.

The security issues aside (which is really the main reason I would argue for cross platform HTML 5 implementation), let me say that clearly you've never tried to use a Mac browser on several flash sites.

Despite the fact that Apple has provided support for developers for several years now to utilize the GPU via Core frameworks Adobe has never updated Flash and as a result it continues to literally bring Macs to a freezing halt due to excessive CPU use, which quite frankly makes it entirely understandable that Apple really doesn't want it on the iPhone as well.

Despite everyone's whining about HTML 5 performance issues every HTML 5 page I've loaded doesn't cause my machines or my user's machines to grind to a freaking halt!

As for not seeing anything to support superior performance, personally the pages that I've used with HTML 5 (including the much maligned Google bouncing logo page) have loaded and worked with far superior performance to Flash and really made me impressed with the potential development future.

Frankly I think the real question here isn't why has Apple not supported Flash, but rather why haven't they gotten rid of it sooner...

Re:Oh thank god

[exomondo]

oh absolutely, and i understand the benefits of HTML5 over flash, it's just that many HTML5 proponents are touting flash's issues as reasons that it should die and be replaced by HTML5 even though HTML5 doesn't necessarily solve those particular issues, like the one I quoted.

You are absolutely correct that flash doesn't have to die but i think it not being available on some popular devices will push it to significant decline.

Re:Oh thank god

[exomondo]

The security issues aside (which is really the main reason I would argue for cross platform HTML 5 implementation), let me say that clearly you've never tried to use a Mac browser on several flash sites.

Despite the fact that Apple has provided support for developers for several years now to utilize the GPU via Core frameworks Adobe has never updated Flash and as a result it continues to literally bring Macs to a freezing halt due to excessive CPU use, which quite frankly makes it entirely understandable that Apple really doesn't want it on the iPhone as well.

You are right, i can't recall ever using flash on my mac. However on Windows, Linux, Android and Maemo (the latter 2 both on my N900) I haven't really had any issues with it. Of course every now and then you come across a badly coded site, just as you come across badly coded applications and HTML5 won't solve that. I know access to GPU-accelerated functionality was not made available by Apple for quite some time - it was only quite recently - and with the rift between Adobe and Apple I guess that may have played some part in the delay but I thought the new version of flash introduced hardware acceleration for the mac?

Re:Oh thank god

[avatar139]

The security issues aside (which is really the main reason I would argue for cross platform HTML 5 implementation), let me say that clearly you've never tried to use a Mac browser on several flash sites.

Despite the fact that Apple has provided support for developers for several years now to utilize the GPU via Core frameworks Adobe has never updated Flash and as a result it continues to literally bring Macs to a freezing halt due to excessive CPU use, which quite frankly makes it entirely understandable that Apple really doesn't want it on the iPhone as well.

You are right, i can't recall ever using flash on my mac. However on Windows, Linux, Android and Maemo (the latter 2 both on my N900) I haven't really had any issues with it. Of course every now and then you come across a badly coded site, just as you come across badly coded applications and HTML5 won't solve that. I know access to GPU-accelerated functionality was not made available by Apple for quite some time - it was only quite recently - and with the rift between Adobe and Apple I guess that may have played some part in the delay but I thought the new version of flash introduced hardware acceleration for the mac?

I agree with your point regarding performance issues being dependent on how HMTL 5 is implemented on various websites and that's actually why I find the opinions of the open source community that I have read regarding finally putting pressure on people to discard Flash so frustrating.

The real gripe I have with Flash is Adobe's continuing revisions of the Creative Suite (name Flash) have not translated into improvements, but rather have caused the platform to become bloatware.

In addition to creating more complexity which often times prevents correct implementation of it on websites the added complexity really makes it that much harder to ensure security and roll out patches which is one of the reasons I suspect the security issues are only going to be compounded as time goes on.

While I freely admit I don't remember exactly when the GPU acceleration was added I know it's been around for at least the last two versions of OS X (which is at least 4 years) and given how Adobe has been releasing new versions of CS to the point where I suspect they may start looking at new revisions yearly and have only with the most recent release finally fully redone the CS applications into Cocoa I'm not holding my breath to start adding the necessary revisions into the paid CS versions let alone the freebie players.

I know open source users tend to automatically discount anything Apple says but for all the points I've stated above, while I can't speak for Steve Job's reasons, personally I'd much rather see even a (I'm not familiar with the exact terms of use for HTML so I'll call it semi-open) standard take the place of Adobe's rapidly degrading closed platform, wouldn't you?

Re:Oh thank god

[exomondo]

I know open source users tend to automatically discount anything Apple says but for all the points I've stated above, while I can't speak for Steve Job's reasons, personally I'd much rather see even a (I'm not familiar with the exact terms of use for HTML so I'll call it semi-open) standard take the place of Adobe's rapidly degrading closed platform, wouldn't you?

Yes, i certainly would. It looks like we're 2 sides going for the same conclusion. I think people need to consider HTML5 as an 'open' Flash.

So for example, security issues don't go away, they simply move from a single runtime to each browser's implementation. Is this beneficial? Probably, you can choose the most secure implementation.

Performance and stability is a different matter, instead of one runtime for each platform (windows, linux, osx, android, etc...) each browser has its own implementation. So certain parts of the standard may perform better or worse and be more or less stable in certain browsers on certain platforms. While this does complicate things but it also means browsers will have to be more competitive.

The annoying, buggy and resource-hog arguments against flash aren't magically going away with HTML5, that's my main point. HTML5 is just as likely to be no better in this regard, however the potential to be better is there though it comes at the cost of possible fragmentation. With such a large standard and such broad functionality it's hard to imagine all the implementors are going to be able to produce viable and conforming implementations. That's really the only benefit i see in flash, it's consistent ( don't read as far as performance ;) ) in its implementation of the features across platforms.

Re:Oh thank god

[exomondo]

If I can play a 3D game at high res full screen without issue, but flash makes the computer beg for mercy, there is a problem.

That's probably using 100% CPU too.

Re:Oh thank god

[DarkXale]

I've been using Chrome.

Chrome, Opera, and recently IE9 as well. None really upholds my personal expectations. HTML5 videos are a bit tough to find, particularly amongst 'normal' stuff - but I've done my fair share of comparisons around; and I just can't get HTML5 to really come out anything more than slightly ahead at best, performance wise... and I'm sorry to say, that tiny performance advantage is severely hurt by its poor reliability and functionality loss. And I should point out, things run very smooth despite the systems limited resources... the comparison becomes pointless on the more regular machines; the work laptop - and the gaming desktop.

Re:Oh thank god

[somersault]

HTML5 videos are a bit tough to find, particularly amongst 'normal' stuff

Like I said, YouTube has a HTML5 viewer that works with all their videos, that's about as normal and not hard to find as you can get :P

Even a small increase in performance is worth it on my netbook for videos in the browser, but the increase isn't small for me, it's very noticeable. This is with a single core Atom and onboard graphics. Fine for playing video files offline unless they're in HD, but atrocious for watching Flash videos with a lot of fast movement in them (most of the videos I watch are Parkour compilations and tutorials).

Re:Oh thank god

[avatar139]

I know open source users tend to automatically discount anything Apple says but for all the points I've stated above, while I can't speak for Steve Job's reasons, personally I'd much rather see even a (I'm not familiar with the exact terms of use for HTML so I'll call it semi-open) standard take the place of Adobe's rapidly degrading closed platform, wouldn't you?

Yes, i certainly would. It looks like we're 2 sides going for the same conclusion. I think people need to consider HTML5 as an 'open' Flash.

So for example, security issues don't go away, they simply move from a single runtime to each browser's implementation. Is this beneficial? Probably, you can choose the most secure implementation.

Performance and stability is a different matter, instead of one runtime for each platform (windows, linux, osx, android, etc...) each browser has its own implementation. So certain parts of the standard may perform better or worse and be more or less stable in certain browsers on certain platforms. While this does complicate things but it also means browsers will have to be more competitive.

The annoying, buggy and resource-hog arguments against flash aren't magically going away with HTML5, that's my main point. HTML5 is just as likely to be no better in this regard, however the potential to be better is there though it comes at the cost of possible fragmentation. With such a large standard and such broad functionality it's hard to imagine all the implementors are going to be able to produce viable and conforming implementations. That's really the only benefit i see in flash, it's consistent ( don't read as far as performance ;) ) in its implementation of the features across platforms.

I'm glad to see we're finding some common ground here, if our implementation of solutions is a bit different... ;)

Ironically most of what you said I'd actually view as arguments towards embracing HTML 5, namely the points regarding on how the competitive nature of browser development would encourage better performance.

That leads us to the key point which I feel you haven't really acknowledged here, which is that because Flash is proprietary everyone is at the mercy of Adobe to provide the platform plug-in development and design (which as I have stated in my posts above I firmly believe they are failing to do).

So if you contrast that to the multiple browser scenario which you laid out above, given the multitude of browsers out there now then surely that will provide a much better solution for me as a user as the competitive nature of browser development will drive browser and web developers towards providing a better experience for me as a user of said technologies?

Not to mention the fact that various niche browsers developed specifically for different Hardware/OS platforms would have the resources to provide development support for implementing HTML 5 on said devices, so wouldn't you agree that rather than having Adobe continue to be overreaching their available resources on development and testing of patches as they need to try to keep the plug-in versions consistent on all devices which impairs their ability to release said patches in a timely manner, it would seem to make more sense to use an open standard to allow development to shift towards web developers that are specifically motivated to develop for said platforms thereby opening the door for a better user experience?

One other point I would also pose to you, is that I know you also claim in your previous post that annoying, buggy and resource-hog arguments against Flash aren't going to go away with HTML 5, but as I said in a post earlier all the issues I experienced HAVE magically gone away whenever I navigate so to the (albeit few but growing) websites that have started implementing HTML 5 so that's really not a rhetorical point for me, that's actually been my experience...;)

Re:Oh thank god

[N Monkey]

And this isn't just about Flash, it's about anytime you need animation of "sprite-like" objects. Your OS could benefit from it with the mouse cursor for instance. I can use up 2-5% CPU on most machines just by wildly flailing the mouse around. That's an extreme example of course.

What hardware/OS are you using?! AFAIK, hardware cursors are pretty standard in graphics chips/DACs.

Re:Oh thank god

[N Monkey]

Dedicated hardware? For graphics? That's like having a dedicated multicore processor in your PC just to draw some 3D polygons on a 2D screen. Madness!

I appreciate you are being facetious, but I didn't mean not having any graphics hardware. What I meant is having "yet another" bit of dedicated hardware (i.e. sprites) for something that is rather trivial to do with the GPU.

Re:Oh thank god

[dwightk]

Put simply, blame the ad producers, not the conduit they use to display ads.

You have part of a point, but the conduit also really sucks: Browser crashing/freezing and CPU overuse

Re:Oh thank god

[exomondo]

That leads us to the key point which I feel you haven't really acknowledged here, which is that because Flash is proprietary everyone is at the mercy of Adobe to provide the platform plug-in development and design (which as I have stated in my posts above I firmly believe they are failing to do).

Yes that's absolutely correct, in fact i view that as one of the major reasons for flash's possible decline. The end user doesn't really care about whether they are at the mercy of adobe so long as adobe delivers, which, as you pointed out, they have failed to do far too often.

One other point I would also pose to you, is that I know you also claim in your previous post that annoying, buggy and resource-hog arguments against Flash aren't going to go away with HTML 5, but as I said in a post earlier all the issues I experienced HAVE magically gone away whenever I navigate so to the (albeit few but growing) websites that have started implementing HTML 5 so that's really not a rhetorical point for me, that's actually been my experience...;)

Yes the navigation issues are gone, that's definitely a good point. But i don't see HTML5 being any different from flash in terms of the ability of developers to write bad, buggy and under-performing code. The resource-hog arguments really won't stand up - or at least they won't on platforms outside of OSX - and i haven't seen any examples showing HTML5 performing better than Flash in the same scenario. HTML5 has a lot of positives and overall im confident it will be better, but i think there are people out there that see it as solving problems that it really can't.

Re:Oh thank god

[rjstanford]

Perhaps the problem isn't Flash, but with how OS X interacts with Flash?

Or more how Flash interacts with OSX, seeing as how the OS came first (by definition), and how many other browser plugins can play video and perform other similar tasks using the same APIs that Adobe has access to without taking up 100% of a core?

Oh dear...

[grub]

How to we mark an entire story as -1, Flamebait?

Re:Oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

How to we mark an entire story as -1, Flamebait?

I don't know, I suppose the same way we mark you as -1, Fanboy

Re:Oh dear...

[Monkeedude1212]

Change the Posted editor from CmdrTaco to kdawson.

Re:Oh dear...

[wilsonthecat]

It's rubbishing Steve Jobs, why would you want to do that?

Re:Oh dear...

[interkin3tic]

There's an app for that.

Re:Oh dear...

[evil9000]

I agree.

Jobs' position is one where key technologies, such as playing video, should be done by the web browser and not held for randsom by 3rd party plugin developers who'se best interest is to put their app on every device out there. Posting articles like this only pushes the debate back afew steps.

Flash + silverlight = can play video = browser plugins = win for particular corporations with vested interests to win at any cost
HTML5 (ie iOS, firefox 4) = can play video = html5 inside webbrowser = open standards = win for all

Re:Oh dear...

[stephanruby]

How to we mark an entire story as -1, Flamebait?

I'm not even a fan of Steve Jobs, and yet I was thinking of implementing a more permanent marking myself.

127.0.0.1 pcpro.co.uk # Linkbait
127.0.0.1 slashdot.org # Linkbait

Re:Oh dear...

[blair1q]

It doesn't matter.

They aren't the real kdawson and CmdrTaco any more.

They've been replaced by a Python script.

The script cruises the firehose every 25 minutes and takes the top-scoring article no matter how stupid, stale, or binspam it is.

Every few hours it to the next name in the Poster-bot list, to give the impression that management is keeping the staff levels up.

Re:Oh dear...

[blair1q]

If we'd waited for Mozilla to come up with a video player for Netscape, we'd still be waiting, or else there'd be multi-gigabyte HD-quality animated GIF files all over the web...

Re:Oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this is definitely CmdrTaco.

If it were kdawson, the headline and summary would be completely made up and completely opposite of what the linked story is about.

Re:Oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, an article proclaims Steve Jobs to be "holding the web to ransom" because he didn't approve of using Flash on his mobile devices, and further says he is not justified because mobile devices only account for 0.xyz% of web traffic?

How is it possible to say someone is holding something for ransom, yet is not in a dominant position?

You don't need to be a fanboy of any sort to see through this troll piece.

Re:Oh dear...

[WeatherGod]

ah, but we all know that python doesn't exist in the land of slashdot. No, they have been replaced by perl scripts. And nobody can figure out how to make it stop!

Re:Oh dear...

[ukyoCE]

It doesn't take a fanboy to know IOS and Flash aren't competing technologies, nor that "Steve Jobs held the web hostage" is so much flamebaiting hot air (seriously, wtf?).

Re:Oh dear...

[Rozine]

What are you talking about? 1. Mozilla never developed Netscape. 2. Netscape supported videos through the native operating system - a sensible, sane, fast way to play videos. If only WMP hadn't been such a target for malware, and slow to start up, it would have taken off, too.

Re:Oh dear...

[MrCrassic]

You do realize that many of the stupid, stale and "binspam" stories that generate the most publicity on and for the site, right?

Re:Oh dear...

[wealthychef]

I personally cannot believe the implication that Steve Jobs occasionally exaggerates his tecnology's usefulness! How dare they!

Re:Oh dear...

[Alien Being]

Just as you did. Well done!

Re:Oh dear...

[wealthychef]

I don't know, I suppose the same way we mark you as -1, Fanboy

Thus you make his point for him nicely. There is no way to express an opinion on this subject without pissing people off, and it's mostly due to the tone of this article.

Re:Oh dear...

[dubbreak]

Flash + silverlight = can play video = browser plugins = win for particular corporations with vested interests to win at any cost HTML5 (ie iOS, firefox 4) = can play video = html5 inside webbrowser = open standards = win for all

Exactly.

What point was missed in the stats was that while 97% of people may have flash installed and 51% have silverlight 100% of "web surfers" (hate that term) have a web browser installed.

Rather than 3rd party extensions to get the functionality needed for media doesn't it make a lot more sense to have open standards so that all browsers can display the media by implementing the standard? It becomes platform agnostic when you don't have to rely on a single vendor to release a binary for your particular platform (in this case platform being OS and browser combination).

Re:Oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds like Mozilla's position, but last I heard Jobs' wants you to use H.264 for video, which is *gasp* proprietary.

How about
HTML5 + Flash + Silverlight = open web = more choices = more awesome = win for all.

I'm all for HTML5, and having video in the standard (and canvas!), but I'm far from convinced that the next awesome browser technology will start as an open standard.

Re:Oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash + silverlight != video playback.

Re:Oh dear...

[failedlogic]

Well, Apple also has a 'vested' interest not only in H.264 and 'open standards'. The Mac platform has always been "Think (or do) Different(ly)". I've added to the expression obviously. But the point is, when Macs didn't have games (now Steam, etc), didn't have Office, didn't have music player (now iTunes which Windows users use too)..... and so on.

Its at a point where people aren't thinking, I'm not going to buy a Mac because I can't do x on it. Their decision might be I won't buy a Mac because YouTube runs in Flash. Flash sucks on Mac, I use YouTube a lot but its slow my Mac. So PC it is.

If Jobs manages to make Flash disappear (or give himself the credit for it) even though it comes from his small market share influence and HTML 5 was coming anyways, it just makes Jobs' Mac platform more appealing to new buyers.

Re:Oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or alternatively, Jobs position is that 3rd party apps should only be tech enablers if HE CONTROLS THEM.
ie: He cannot control the flash type marketplace now, so he wants to make sure no one else can.

Holding Jobs up as a supporter of open standards is like... well.. its hard to imagine something that stupid.

Re:Oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is choice, not which is better though.

Sure, even if Roast Chicken is better for you then Deep Fried Chicken does not mean Deep Fried Chicken should be banned.

Re:Oh dear...

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh...sorry, but...are you high? "Not held for ransom" with HTML5, did Steve come out in support of OGG Theora while I wasn't looking? Might I remind you that Steve is backing H.264, which is probably THE most patented video codec on the planet and you seriously talk about open standards and a win for all? Are you serious?

Re:Oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong... Open Standards isn't a win for all. One of the major benefits of HTML 5 is webGL.
3d acceleration in the browser is awesome except for the nature of HTML5 is open-source period.
Have you ever heard of an open-source game, the only industry which will use webGL to its full potential.
Applets and plugins make code much easier to hide and obscure, no 13 year old's can just download a copy of your game and play with the source then redistribute.

Re:Oh dear...

[jean-guy69]

Of course Steve Jobs is all for open standards, he would NEVER use content to force us to install apple software when html5 so nicely fits the bill...

It's why http://trailers.apple.com/ is full html5, and you don't need to install quicktime to watch videos... Oh wait !

At least the Apple HTML5 showcase page access isn't limited to Safari anymore..

Re:Oh dear...

[spongman]

dream on

Re:Oh dear...

[kikito]

HTML5 video playback is limited compared to what flash can do.

Not only on the implementation; on the (yet to be implemented completely on any browser) standard. Youtube flash player allows you to go to a specific part of a video, even if you have not pre-downloaded it. HTML 5 (the standard) lacks such mechanism.

Maybe in 5-7 years we'll have something worth it on the HTML5 field.

The HTML5 vs Flash, at least in the video section, is to me a "existing technology that works" vs "possible technology that might work in the future. Stress on 'might'". For now, I'll stick with what works.

Re:Oh dear...

[mikael_j]

So you're pro-Flash in some posts (Yay for super-closed standards controlled by Adobe!) and in others you're bashing Apple for claiming to be more pro-openness since they're not open enough (Boo! I want my technically inferior format that may or may not be patent-encumbered!)?

Can you please make up your mind?

Re:Oh dear...

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

"Jobs' position is one where key technologies, such as playing video, should be done by the web browser and not held for randsom by 3rd party plugin developers who'se best interest is to put their app on every device out there."

Exactly. They should be held ransom by the person who knows whats best for you .. His Jobness and his High Council of the Apple.

Re:Oh dear...

[mr_gorkajuice]

What exactly is the contradiction? You don't have to be pro-open to realize that using openness to advocate a closed product is nonsense.

Re:Oh dear...

[mikael_j]

He's arguing that Adobe's proprietary solution is good and that lack of openness is not a good argument against it and at the same time arguing that Apple is bad for not being open enough. The common element being "Apple is the bad one here, mmmkay.". Also,

Also, it could be argued that h.264 is quite open (although there are various licensing requirements the standard is "open" in the sense that it's not a locked-up format like .doc or flash where a single company changes the format as they feel like and everyone else has to constantly reverse engineer it since there is either no documentation or the documentation omits information necessary to build a working implementation).

Re:Oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

>> html5 inside webbrowser

AHAHAHAH ROTFLMAO!!!

except, you know, that Apple is pushing for H264 (which is patent protected and licenses cost €€€$$$) and is actively trying to find patents to undermine Ogg Theora.

So HTML5 would be open as in "open to lawsuits".

Re:Oh dear...

[horigath]

Vimeo's html5 player supports seeking in un-downloaded videos. I don't know exactly how it works or why Youtube doesn't support it, but it's out there.

Re:Oh dear...

[hairyfeet]

Wow, way to put some words in my mouth, and didn't even get close to what I was saying! I'm saying that claiming ANY standard that will cause a troll hammer of patents to fall down upon you is "open" is like claiming MSFT is open because you can write Windows programs, okay?

Not that hard to follow, and claiming ANYTHING involving H.264 is open is total bullshit. I think everyone here follows the GPL style standard of standard of open, as in everyone is free to use it, whereas H.264 may be open to those like Apple and MSFT who have nice patent warchests and big checkbooks, everyone else? not so much.

So I'm sorry, and while I have nothing against Steve and will give the man credit for taking a company on life support and making them a powerhouse, anyone trying to claim the most heavily patented codec in world history is "open" is drinking some serious iKoolaid. And can you show me ANYWHERE where I said lack of openness is not a good argument? even one? if you are gonna debate, at least don't make straw men.

I personally would have preferred WebM become the standard, but if given a choice between the patent minefield that is H.264 or flash where I only have to deal with a single company vs 2000+ patent holders, and possible submarines on top of that? You bet your last buck I'm gonna pick dealing with a single company, especially since MPEG-LA has already proven to be asshats with their nasty licensing, whereas I haven't seen adobe say boo about Gnash or any other emulation of their product.

Re:Oh dear...

[LaRainette]

When Apple relies on an open source video Codec instead of h.264 I'll agree with you.
Meanwhile they just try to block real open solution from replacing Microsoft and Adobe...

Apple is part of MPEG-LA who owns h.264 and I have great difficulties in believing their intention are so good...

Re:Oh dear...

[LaRainette]

No he is Pro HTML 5 + open video codec (being ogg theora or VP8 or another one).

He is against the stupid and dishonest argument from steve Jobs that we all should support HIS solution (HTML5 + h.264) because Flash and Silverlight are proprietary because if you change the framework but keep the closed video codec then you've achieved nothing except making Apple stronger.

Apple's solution is not worse than Flash or Silverlight, it's actually probably better, it's just that it is a dishonest and inconsistent strategy.

Re:Oh dear...

[kangsterizer]

there's a +- next to the story actually for that sort of things :P

Re:Oh dear...

[kangsterizer]

Funny how you've been modded informative:P

Re:Oh dear...

[kangsterizer]

Seem you already forgot that the reason for Apple to push HTML5 is not "open standard" but in fact pushing H264.

Re:Oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with Flash is that it still uses video in various "external" formats, and h.264 is one of the more popular ones (h.263 used to be quite popular just a couple of years ago).

So you're still dealing with h.264 even if you're using Flash video, you're just wrapping Flash around it.

Re:Oh dear...

[Vectormatic]

127.0.0.1 slashdot.org # Linkbait

you need a host file to stop yourself from reading slashdot? grow a backbone...

Re:Oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash + silverlight = can play video = browser plugins = win for particular corporations with vested interests to win at any cost
HTML5 (ie iOS, firefox 4) = can play video = html5 inside webbrowser = open standards = win for all

Not so much a win for the developers who now have to cater to differences in implementation/interpretation of a "standard" that won't be finalized (i.e. a w3c recommendation) for many years (Ian Hickson predicts this won't happen until 2022 or later) rather than for a single platform. Flash buffers you from cross browser compatibility issues. Already there are differences in built in codec support in the video element for chrome/firefox/ie9... Developers have to write messy code and include multiple versions of videos on their website in order for html 5 to work... and then regress to flash for ie8 and other platforms that don't yet support it.

Matt

Re:Oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it was +4 Funny. Picturing now bloated Stevey Jobs with no clothes is a howl that could only be topped by having an enema bag in use in the picture.
I guess you could call it Jobs version of "flash".
Sweeping statements like his are in vogue amongst the internet/computer savvy like Prince, recently quoted as saying "The internet is so over". Of course internet inventor Al Gore disagrees, but then he lives in fantasy land where he actually matters and drives a Macintosh anyway.

Re:Oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Occasionally? My my...

Re:Oh dear...

[Vetruvet]

That's because nobody can read/decipher it!

Re:Oh dear...

[jedidiah]

Web browsers and HTML have had the means to display video since the very beginning.

The only thing at issue here is whether or not uptight megacorps can do so in a manner that includes DRM and obfuscation.

An "open standard" is not going to satisfy the current corporate requirements for web video.

Re:Oh dear...

[Pharmboy]

Have you ever heard of an open-source game

Yes. There are plenty of them.

Re:Oh dear...

[oh_my_080980980]

-1 Flash apologist.

Re:Oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it is you that makes his point.

Also, whatever you say he is, that's what you are.

Re:Oh dear...

[oh_my_080980980]

The problem this author fails to understand is the argument is about mobile devices accessing the web and not having an flash client to access all those flash gizmos!

So..WHAT THE HELL IS HE COMPARING???

Most mobile devices have not been able to access flash content until this year!

And we all know how bad flash can be on the desktop. But since there was nothing to challenge flash we grinned and bore it. Now new technologies are emerging that changes that.

So why protect an antiquate and proprietary technology like Flash?

Re:Oh dear...

[zeroshade]

Clearly flash has no documentation. Granted it's only recently that they've released the entire file format specification, but still. They did.

Re:Oh dear...

[h4rr4r]

That is why itunes video works so well through the web browser?

Jobs just wants to make sure he gets the lock-in, not fight it in general.

Re:Oh dear...

[hazydave]

Indeed.

I worked up a web site (sorry, not public) using HTML5 video with Flash fallback, and a separate flash-only version of the site. The HTML5 site has MP4/AVC and VP8/WebM versions of one video, MP4/AVC and Ogg Theora versions the other, as well as the Flash. IE8 just falls back properly to Flash. Google Chrome on the PC correctly plays the HTML5 MP4. Safari (5.0) and Firefox (3.6) both puke on the HTML5, rather than fall back to Flash. Opera (10.62) is good with the VP8, but pukes on the Ogg Theora, again with no fallback.. all on Windows. HTML5 also fails on Android Froyo on the Droid, no play, no flash fallback for video the browser can't play.

They all work on the flash-only site, including the Droid.

This is not supposed to be rocket science, folks... you create the assets, upload them, link 'em within a tag, and it should work. There are still big issues that need to be fixed here. Far as I can see, flash is still the de-facto universal standard, like it or not. Encoding problems? Nope.. they're all correctly encoded. Web optimized... no ideas... there's no HTML5 knowledge yet in commonly available AVC encoders, and of course, the WebM and Ogg stuff are pretty much single sourced encoders, so they ought to just work. eh?

Re:Oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does it matter flash and silverlight are given away free to end users. They make their money off selling the development tools. Guess what even using open standards, wont change much with the development tools. I guarantee people aren't going to hand code HTML5 just like most dont hand code web pages today, Adobe will still be making a killing off development and video editing software. Im pretty sure most of the open source alternative development tools are nowhere near as powerful or complete as adobe's or apple's FCP for video creation

Re:Oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally cannot believe the implication that Steve Jobs occasionally exaggerates his tecnology's usefulness! How dare they!

That is Steve Jobs singular.

Re:Oh dear...

[blair1q]

Funnier considering this was my most slanderous post on this article, and two simple factual posts got modded to 0 or -1.

Re:Oh dear...

[blair1q]

1. Despite what they say, the mozilla folks are and always were Netscape folks, up until the time they ran away.

2. Exactly. Netscape did its best not to have to do the work of rendering things if it could avoid it, by embedding the output of other programs. It was the best exemplar of the point of object-oriented programming. Having video render in the browser software itself would be a repudiation of about 25 years of progress, to not much benefit to the user.

Re:Oh dear...

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Yeah, exactly, he should support THE most unused codec on the planet instead!

Re:Oh dear...

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

I personally would have preferred WebM become the standard, but if given a choice between the patent minefield that is H.264 or flash where I only have to deal with a single company vs 2000+ patent holders, and possible submarines on top of that? You bet your last buck I'm gonna pick dealing with a single company, especially since MPEG-LA has already proven to be asshats with their nasty licensing, whereas I haven't seen adobe say boo about Gnash or any other emulation of their product.

Errm, you are aware that most but the oldest "Flash videos" are in fact H.264 encoded? No? Tough luck then.

Re:Oh dear...

[kangsterizer]

It's just a python script modding people, based on rand().

Re:Oh dear...

[Ractive]

Dude, Jobs position is whatever fills his wallet the most at a given moment, if he could buy Adobe today, tomorrow he will be praising flash and every iPhone sold will have it pre-installed.

Re:Oh dear...

[Eskarel]

Come on, let's be serious here for a second. HTML 5 will replace a lot of flash video players, as it should, it's a lot simpler for everyone.

It will not however ever replace all web video, simply because it doesn't allow any kind of DRM to be implemented. Now you and I know that DRM doesn't work, and to be honest, most web media companies know it too, but their shareholders don't seem to, and so it has to be implemented. You're never going to see things like film trailers, music videos etc using straight HTML 5, because it's too easy to just download the video.

The other side of the coin is that, while Adobe Air was pretty much a bust, silver light is not just about playing videos, but about providing some sort of functionality to deliver rich web applications without the horror that is modern javascript. It, like a lot of Microsoft's good ideas is tainted by the fact they can't seem to ever work out any way to generate revenue aside from selling OS, Office, and to a lesser extend Visual Studio licenses, and that's a lot of the reason it's sitting at 51% instead of much higher, but it's actually a surprisingly useful product.

Personally I predict silverlight on the iPhone within the next few years, probably not until Microsoft has had a tilt at apple with Windows Mobile 7, but still within the next few years. I think the Adobe/Apple relationship is too damaged to be salvaged at this point, even if a lot of Steve Job's tirades about Flash didn't have an element of truth to them, and Apple and Google are getting increasingly antagonistic as Google pushes further into the smart phone market. Apple and Microsoft on the other hand seem to be a lot less hostile. Despite their rather tacky advertisements the two don't really play in the same field on desktops, and Lord Steve seems to be a bit more forgiving of people who have the gall to challenge him in markets if they were already there when he got in.

Re:Oh dear...

[hairyfeet]

The point is flash gives me the choice whereas Steve will take any choice away and force us to pay the H.264 toll. With flash I can use, and still often see, VP6 or WebM, or hell even Ogg Theora if I want, since it is only a container. With H.264 you better know the licensing rules like the back of your hand, or MPEG-LA WILL sue your ass. So I'm sorry "Mac Fanboy", because even though I'm the first to admit that like your UID that Macs are nice and Steve makes some good kit, having the web locked behind an H.264 paywall is a step backward to the days of "IE6 only" and NOT to a "free and open web" which is what we should be striving for. while flash isn't the best solution, at least it leaves the choice of codec in the hands of developers. And if Steve really cared about open he would have supported WebM so that everyone, INCLUDING FOSS, could use it royalty free.

Re:Oh dear...

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

The point is flash gives me the choice

Errm, what? You babble endlessly how H.264 is evil and Flash is free of it, and when I point out you are wrong you give me an even longer diatribe starting with that gem?

Re:Oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly is Flash any less of a paywall? If you want to do anything remotely serious with Flash you pretty much have to buy Adobe's software.

Re:Oh dear...

[hairyfeet]

And what exactly are you saying is wrong? I can use Gnash, I can use one of the 50 bazillion tools other than Adobe to make flash videos, so Tell me oh wise one, how may I use H264 without ANY risks of running afoul of MPEG-LA? How can FF and any other FOSS developer package H264 without cutting a check? Adobe doesn't care if you package flash, in fact they'll be happy to help you.

So show me where a SINGLE thing I said was wrong, Mac fanboy. The simple fact is if Steve actually cared about open standards we wouldn't even be having this conversation, as he would have backed Theora or WebM. By backing H264 he just made sure FOSS isn't allowed to play in the sandbox he and Ballmer share, because you have to cut a check to MPEG-LA to distribute it. I may be a windows guy but I do NOT want Safari and IE to be my only choices for enjoying accelerated video on the web, and that is EXACTLY what we get if H264 wins over flash.

Re:Oh dear...

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

So show me where a SINGLE thing I said was wrong, Mac fanboy.

How about everything you said here. Go take your freedom to choose whatever Adobe rams down your throat and choke on it. Like the fact that H.264 is locked into Flash and Ogg isn't.

hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who funded this study?

Re:hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

PC-Pro(in the UK) is well known to be very pro Microsoft.
If you read (hands up, I was once a subscriber back in the days when it was aimed at IT Pros) the mag all you get is MS this, MS That, reviews of app that only run on MS crapware.
Linux & (god forbid) OS-X are relegated to the back of the mag.

Slitherlight everywhere? Now I'd like something of what this guy is smoking. This is a shame as Tom Arah is normally one of the more balanced writers on that esteemed rag.

Flash is bad enough but Slitherlight? More Windows lock-in stuff.

So, IMHO this is a troll or someone gave him a big fat jolly a MS's expense.

emperor isn't wearing any clothes OR

[Mike Da. Kristopeit]

or statistician misrepresents the truth?

If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Brannon]

How is SJ holding the web at ransom if he is in such a weak position?

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Monkeedude1212]

Exactly.

It's like saying "At least the local sports team had the decency to score more points than it's opponent before winning the game!" ... Doesn't winning (or holding ransom) require points (dominant positon) in the first place?

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is SJ holding the web at ransom if he is in such a weak position?

He isn't, SJ is just trying to make it sound like he is able to hold the web ransom and making the same BS claims about Flash in an effort to hold it ransom to his whims. SJ hopes to spout enough lies about Flash so everyone will adopt his version of HTML5 (not the so far agreed upon version since nothing is completely official), and if he can make his version of HTML5 the standard it will give him a lot of power on the web that he wants to use to leverage things like the iOS to his standards to keep more competition out of the game (similar to how IE was the 'standard' in the late 90's and helped lock out others like Netscape with sites "recommending IE only").

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[mysidia]

He's not holding the web at ransom, he's holding iPhone and iPad users at ransom, because they are the only people this really hurts (or helps).

Except it's Stevie, so he's not making any compromises.

There is some merit to his position, by the way, but it may be at Apple's expense (depending on how much $$$ Adobe wants to license Flash)

It's not a question of how great cool or widespread the Flash technology is in general.... its a question more of cost and how suitable the implementations are available for the iOS devices.

If most Flash apps won't work anyways, there's no point in allowing a broken framework, instead of pushing the next greatest standard.

It's risky, but if Flash is not suitable for mobile platforms it WILL be a thing of the past.

The question I would have is --- why is the article presenting skewed numbers, and including PC and Netbook users?

Netbook users may be more comparable to iPad users; but it's totally ridiculous to pit PC users against iOS users, and say a technology used on the web for PC users is suitable for mobile browsing

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[quanticle]

He's not. In his (and therefore Apple Computer Inc.'s) opinion, Flash is outdated and is inappropriate for mobile platforms. There's no force that's pushing people to use (or not use) Flash. The only thing is the same fanboy-ism and bandwagon following that you see everywhere else in this industry.

That said, I still disagree with the article. You can't justify claims about the future by pointing to snapshot figures. Sure, Flash has 97%+ market share *right* *now*. But, then again, Internet Explorer had 90% of the browser market share when IE5 was riding high. Microsoft's inattention (to the point of dissolving the IE team) led to that lead being erased in a matter of a few years. If Flash doesn't improve its performance on mobile devices, it could find itself in the same position as IE.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have not read the article, but I suspect he means that Jobs expects the web to move away from flash because it doesn't work with the doodads he puts out. Like, apple's mind-share is bigger than its market share.

Personally, I couldn't really give a flying eff-you-see-kay either way.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because PHBs believe him. I'm fucking not kidding: people at my company are saying, "We need our website to be an iPhone store app!" even though hardly any of our users are using iPhones. (in fact, who are those iPhones users? Oh right, they themselves are a third of the iPhone traffic!)

Saying stupid shit matters if people believe it.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[mark72005]

I'm confused by your sports analogy. Can I get a car analogy?

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[icebraining]

Are there any major differences between Google's or Mozilla's HTML5 proposals and Apple's, besides video? And how can Apple leverage that? You need a dominant position already to pull that kind of stunt - no webdev, even the very incompetent ones, will write HTML that only works for less than 10% of viewers. IE had already a dominant position because of OS integration.

If someone holds the Web at ransom is Adobe itself with Flash - although less than before.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[tomhudson]

It's the echo chamber effect. Same as the FBI hears about some subversive activity on campus. and puts 10 agents undercover, and so does the CIA, and so does DHS. Sure enough, they each separately report back that - wow - there seems to be some subversives on campus, so they each get 100 agents undercover. "The place is CRAWLING with subversives!" Next thing you know, "You can't walk 5 feet without seeing someone or something suspicious - people who don't fit in, blah blah blah".

All these people who got iPads so they can review them, or they can develop the "next big thing" ... and they're going to be obsolete in 3 months because everything we said about them was true.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[icebraining]

The question is whether the real reason for them to disallow Flash is really being "outdated" and "slow" or the fact that it would bypass the AppStore and take away their 30% cut.

In fact, their recent change in policy (allowing any tool as long as it doesn't download code) seems to back up that assertion - it's fine for Flash apps to be developed for the iPhone as long as Apple gets their cut.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jo_ham]

[citation needed]

Can you show me how Apple's HTML5 implementation differs from anyone elses with some actual proof, or is this just biased anti-Apple ranting, just like the entire article?

I am betting on the former, but I am willing to listen to anyone who can actually back this claim up - a fragmented HTML5 serves no one.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Archangel Michael]

RDF affects everyone, didn't you know???

Google is the counter to the RDF, trying to entice me with shiny Chome and geek toys like Androids (wheres my girl robot??). But still, the effects of the RDF affect even these. You'll know when Google succumbs to the RDF and embraces HTML 5 over Flash

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's more like the local sports team declaring their recruiting and on-field strategy superior to everyone else's, and claiming all the current ways of doing those things will become obsolete.... long before the team has shown that it can win a single game with those strategies.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jo_ham]

Flash is dog, dog slow on OS X right now, even with a lot of CPU grunt, and it has nothing to do with Apple "blocking access to necessary APIs" or the lack of hardware accelerated h.264 that Adobe (or others) will try to claim. It really is woeful at all animation, even when H.264 video is not involved at all. An iPhone version would just be even worse, since there just isn't the CPU grunt to cover up how poor it is. You can get away with it on a desktop machine - you have a 2GHz cpu mostly idle that can help you out with your simple flash page, but on a mobile device you actually have to make the code decent.

The biggest reason there is no Flash on iOS is performance. The HTML5 and open web are secondary concerns.

The 10.1 release of flash is much better on OS X, but it is still a terrible resource hog for no good reason. Even the Mac Silverlight player is much better. I assume MS has the same "access" to the core of OS X as Adobe do.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[dgatwood]

And the statistic is highly misleading anyway. Saying that 97% of computers can run Flash doesn't tell the whole story.

First, a lot of us use tools like click2flash that report themselves AS Flash, but are NOT Flash. Why do we do this? Because we got fed up with all the idiotic Flash-based adds that make buzzing sounds at random in background windows and make us jump straight out of our chairs. These people have Flash and put up with it when necessary, but generally avoid it. Those folks are difficult to distinguish from actual Flash "users", yet they suffer a degraded experience on Flash-heavy sites, and are less likely to come back.

Second, people have Flash largely because it came preinstalled. I don't know of anyone who has actually gone out of their way to install Flash. This means that those statistics could change on a dime.

Third, it assumes that all people use the web equally. For some sites, iOS-based devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) make up as much as 11% of their traffic by volume. When it comes to ad revenue, the ratings don't matter. The share matters. It doesn't matter if they make up only 1% of the total number of Internet-equipped devices. What matters is their percentage of the traffic.

Fourth, it ignores the assumption that people buying iPads and iPhones are more likely to have disposable income than people buying a random Windows PC. Thus, for many advertisers, one iPhone user is equivalent to several netbook users. Once you understand that, suddenly even a 1% share becomes much more significant, and a 10% share becomes a showstopper.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jo_ham]

But you can already make a web app on iOS that bypasses the store - it was the original way apps were going to be on the iPhone in the first place, and that method of delivery has never gone away. I don;t think it has anything to do with the store and profit margins - the profit on app sales is pretty slim anyway; the store exists to sell iOS devices, not as a cash cow for Apple indirectly. The devices are where the money is.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm confused by your sports analogy. Can I get a car analogy?

Why would anyone want to use this newfangled automobile when everyone has horses.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing you missed that whole "HTML5 webpage showcase" that only worked on Safari and many of the functions weren't part of the normal sections of HTML5, and in fact needed OSX parts. These weren't the real HTML5 standards being discussed, but Apples version, right down to the fact it needed OSX to run properly (which happened to be proprietary)

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash already outperforms HTML5 canvas on Android, which also outperforms the iPhone 4 even more. Of course, YMWV.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[bhcompy]

Except people are even less inclined to click on ads on mobile platforms than they are on PCs simply because mobile platforms are not conducive to concurrent browsing, fast latency, etc. So that 1% and 10% reverts back to being negligible. Not to mention that good mobile browsers don't even show ads in their zoomed in states because they zoom in on the necessary part of the screen smartly rather than forcing you to scroll around past ads.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[socsoc]

I don't want Flash on my iPhone. There's no content that I'm missing out on and I use iOS way more than my desktop for general browsing.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not since GWB was appointed to the Presidency after having failed to win both of the electoral college and the popular vote.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[ukyoCE]

/facepalm

Are you serious?

They made a tech demo of pre-release HTML5 and you consider that "trying to take over the interwebs with proprietary Apple-only tech"?

That is seriously reaching.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Tharsman]

How is SJ holding the web at ransom if he is in such a weak position?

He isn't, SJ is just trying to make it sound like he is able to hold the web ransom and making the same BS claims about Flash in an effort to hold it ransom to his whims. SJ hopes to spout enough lies about Flash so everyone will adopt his version of HTML5 (not the so far agreed upon version since nothing is completely official), and if he can make his version of HTML5 the standard it will give him a lot of power on the web that he wants to use to leverage things like the iOS to his standards to keep more competition out of the game (similar to how IE was the 'standard' in the late 90's and helped lock out others like Netscape with sites "recommending IE only").

Actually, Steve Jobs has made it very clear he does not care about "holding the web ransom". They already are allowing flash wrapping applications. But they will not support flash within their browser. It is their choice, not a ransom. Adobe is the one that makes it sound as if they were being held hostage for not being accepted into the iOS Safari club. The irony is that most people that complain about the lack of Flash in the iPhone are people that either don't have an iOS device (and will never get one even if there was flash) or work for Adobe.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that HTML5 isn't due to be finalized until 2022 anything goes and EVERYTHING is pre-release. Thats why they are pushing such tech like that site, because in the end, SJ wants his specs to become the standard.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Osgeld]

not when its apple, their entire history is based around a propitiatory closed dome, it would tickle Steve pink to have his own little internet for his children. Heck it took some serious nipple twisting to get iTunes off of "apple only"

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

A rather ridiculous argument, as Apple allows developers to put free apps in the store, and those numbers are hardly small. They actually make up a pretty large percentage of the apps in the store. There is no difference to offering a free app in the store then there is to using a flash web app as far as profit is concerned.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[bill_mcgonigle]

There's no content that I'm missing out on

Well, *of course* there is. You may not value that content, and that's fine.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[chaboud]

In case you haven't noticed, the licensing battle for video has been heating up. If Steve can get an early H.264 foothold for HTML5 video service, a select few are going to make a lot of money.

I think that the assertion is essentially that Steve is doing a bunch of posturing about having a dominant position in order to get one (or at least improve on his current one).

Actually seems pretty smart to me.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[the_humeister]

I don't want Flash on my iPhone. There's no content that I'm missing out on and I use iOS way more than my desktop for general browsing.

Except it should be you making the decision, not Steve! I have an Android phone (HTC Aria) and I can use or not use Flash as I please since there's a browser setting for that (javascript too).

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[chaboud]

The irony is that most people that complain about the lack of Flash in the iPhone are people that either don't have an iOS device (and will never get one even if there was flash) or work for Adobe.

Now there's a blind assertion. I have two iOS devices and two Android devices, and I've bitched about the closed-off nature of things in iOS, Flash included (and I think Flash sucks). Count me as one chink in your pulled-from-thin-air armor.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[chaboud]

Considering that Flash runs passably (not great, but not horridly) on Android devices (which run on the same cores as iOS devices), I'm having a hard time buying this argument.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Nyeerrmm]

I, another iOS user, did make that decision. I decided to buy an iOS device (multiple in fact,) knowing full well that it didn't support flash, because I decided I didn't need or want it. Steve Jobs didn't choose it for me, he just made a device (both hardware and software) that suited my needs, just as HTC made a device that suits yours.

Steve Jobs doesn't decide things for me. As an informed buyer, I've found that our ideas of what make a good user experience are pretty well in line.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[chaboud]

So there are people who do. Don't fall prey to the single-minority-myth. We're all part of some minority (or minorities, more likely), and it's fair to want options.

It's as easy as can be to selectively use Flash in Android.

First it was precision pointer support vs. touch, then it was performance, then it was stability, then it was "Flash sucks," then it was "why would anyone want it?"

When the arguments keep changing, the arguments just sucked.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Tharsman]

I'm guessing you missed that whole "HTML5 webpage showcase" that only worked on Safari and many of the functions weren't part of the normal sections of HTML5, and in fact needed OSX parts. These weren't the real HTML5 standards being discussed, but Apples version, right down to the fact it needed OSX to run properly (which happened to be proprietary)

You mean the HTML5 showcase that I just ran in Google Chrome and worked perfectly fine for the exception of the VR, however this same VR demo runs perfectly fine in the Chrome Canary build, meaning it's something that is indeed in the HTML5 definition.

Also, you may want to read this from the showcase: The demos below show how the latest version of Apple’s Safari web browser, new Macs, and new Apple mobile devices all support the capabilities of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. Not all browsers offer this support. But soon other modern browsers will take advantage of these same web standards — and the amazing things they enable web designers to do.

In other words: the whole point was bragging how they incorporated all that defined HTML5 goodness already. I doubt Google added the support to Chrome Canary just because Apple forced them to. Google is much more suborn than that.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[quanticle]

Second, people have Flash largely because it came preinstalled. I don't know of anyone who has actually gone out of their way to install Flash. This means that those statistics could change on a dime.

I don't know that Flash comes "pre-installed" per se, but most mainstream browsers (like IE and Firefox) make it very easy and unobtrusive to install Flash. So in practice, there's not a lot of difference between the person that installs Flash and the person who has it pre-installed.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[socsoc]

Then go buy a device that supports Flash if you feel so strongly. I felt strongly and made that decision. All of my non-slashdot reading friends knew full well that it didn't support Flash and made a decision too. Most of them chose iOS.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[mysidia]

You proceed with the assumption giving the user another choice is better, but that is not always so, and in particular, it's not great to offer the user options that will result in frustrations. See: The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less -- Barry Schwartz or This Google TechTalks video

In the case of 'Flash' the choice to include it means a crappy experience viewing Flash-enabled web sites in the device, VERSUS being a little upset about not being able to view the site on the mobile device, and having to go to the PC later.

Thus... not having the crappy browsing experience with the mobile device (sluggishnes and crashing) is better, even though it also means there are fewer sites the user can pick to visit.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[illumin8]

What I'm hearing is "SJ wants to do this, SJ wants to do that, SJ wants to promote a version of HTML5 that is the Apple approved version that nobody else can run, similar to IE in the MS days."

I'm gonna give you a big fat "Citation Needed" for this one - Anonymous Coward.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[illumin8]

Sure enough, they each separately report back that - wow - there seems to be some subversives on campus, so they each get 100 agents undercover. "The place is CRAWLING with subversives!" Next thing you know, "You can't walk 5 feet without seeing someone or something suspicious - people who don't fit in, blah blah blah".
All these people who got iPads so they can review them, or they can develop the "next big thing" ... and they're going to be obsolete in 3 months because everything we said about them was true.

Uh yeah.... because iPads are exactly like FBI agents... They're kinda subversive... or whatever.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jo_ham]

"entire history" eh?

That's why Darwin, Webkit, GCC and so on are closed source and proprietary, right? (to name just three things off the top of my head).

It's why they use closed standards like .ics and .mbox, and documented human-readable XML.

iTunes was produced for Windows because the iPod was released for Windows - before that, it was a music player that no one using Windows wanted ("some silly little Mac thing that no one uses"). It didn't come to Windows because it wasn't needed on Windows before then (and Apple aren;t really in the market for writing software for other platforms, and iTunes itself only exists to sell iPods and iPhones).

The first iPod to be Windows compatible was the second gen iPod, which came out 8 months after the original one, in July 2002 - hardly "serious nipple twisting" when the second generation of your product adds Windows compatibility.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[RocketRabbit]

Yeah, the millions upon millions of people who bought iPads in the past few months did so because they wanted to "review" them. Sure.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[BitZtream]

MyI recently came into some money and offered to buy wife a new Macbook Air to replace her several 7 year old laptop.

Her response?

Why, I don't use my laptop anymore, I just do everything I need on my iPhone.

Of course, she was never a 'computer user', she was a person who used computers to get a job done. I.E. she's normal, not a geek.

My job revolves entirely around computers so thats in no way my stand, but unless I want to game, I don't bother to take my laptop anywhere unless its needed to work, I can stay in contact well enough with my iPhone, more than I want too actually.

Your experience certainly isn't unique and my guess would be its probably going to be the typical way people compute who aren't in the 'computer guys' in the relatively near future. I'm sure it won't be just iPhones, and I don't think the desktop will die. It'll probably be more like 'the good tv in the livingroom' and individuals with their own smaller, less capable devices.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Fahrvergnuugen]

So how is your satisfaction with Flash on Android then?

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Karlt1]

Considering that Flash runs passably (not great, but not horridly) on Android devices (which run on the same cores as iOS devices), I'm having a hard time buying this argument.

That will sure make a great ad. Buy a new iPhone! Flash runs passably but not great

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like if GM made shitty cars that nobody wanted to buy and then the federal government gave them billions of dollars in taxpayer money.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[mjwx]

He isn't, SJ is just trying to make it sound like he is able to hold the web ransom and making the same BS claims about Flash in an effort to hold it ransom to his whims.

I know someone like Steve, always complaining that no-one respects him and once he gets into the Air Force people will have to give him the respect he deserves (he's failed to get in 5 years in a row, he just cant see that he's got some critical personality issues).

Bill I could almost like, all he wanted was your money and once he got it you were left alone. Steve seems to want my unquestioning loyalty as well as my wallet.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[ukyoCE]

As long as it ends up a standard though, who cares? There's nothing nefarious about that.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

... There's no force that's pushing people to use (or not use) Flash. ...

If you mean create sites that not only use Flash, but often can't function at all for people who don't have it, you're wrong. The PHB insisted on it a lot of the time. Paychecks can be a very powerful force indeed, especially in these perilous times.

If you mean site visitors who think Flash is just too cool, well, there's just no helping some people.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jo_ham]

Well, the software is different, even if the hardware is the same.

Flash runs ok on my iMac if I reboot it into Windows XP, running on literally identical hardware, but is a hog under OS X.

The argument isn't at all silly.

Adobe's Mac version of Flash is just really poor, although better with the 10.1 release. Given how much iOS and OS X have in common under the hood (at least as common as Android and Linux, for example), it is not hard to see why Flash on the iPhone is a non starter, even if Apple wanted it.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Tharsman]

I don't want Flash on my iPhone. There's no content that I'm missing out on and I use iOS way more than my desktop for general browsing.

This is something I want to put emphasis on. IF Steve Jobs decides to allow the clumsy Flash to make it into iOS safari, or if Adobe comes up with a version of Flash that is accepted by Steve, I still want an option not to have it at all. I want it to be a down-loadable app or perhaps a flash-enabled browser I'll have to download. I want to be the one to at the end decide if the thing goes into MY iPhone (hint, it wont be going into my iPhone if I have a choice.)

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[dgatwood]

Clicking on ads is not necessarily a good indictor of an ad's impact. Indeed, most clicks on ads are accidental. The more important question is whether the ad produces mindshare. Fair point about zooming. On the other hand, users can ignore ads on a desktop by not looking at them, so I'm not sure how different it really is....

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Tharsman]

I don't want Flash on my iPhone. There's no content that I'm missing out on and I use iOS way more than my desktop for general browsing.

Except it should be you making the decision, not Steve! I have an Android phone (HTC Aria) and I can use or not use Flash as I please since there's a browser setting for that (javascript too).

Steve Jobs claims to say he is not against Flash. He has stated this a few times. He is just not going to approve a clumsy implementation, and he claims Adobe has not shown up with something that worked decently. From what I understand, the baby Android Flash is extremely clumsy on all but the fastest Android Phones, making Job's assertions sound realistic as the new iPhone 4 is the first to have a 1ghz chip.

As of the most recent news, btw, Apple is now accepting apps that wrap flash software. They are just not adding flash to their browser. I do ponder if they will eventually allow 3rd party browsers that implement flash themselves (BTW: there are multiple browsers in the app store.)

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jedidiah]

It's not reaching at all.

They are already treating HTML5 as an Apple-only playground and they are still trying to convince other people to follow them off the cliff.

They even went so far as to artificially disable other browsers.

If this is the sort of "open standards" web that Apple has in mind, forget it.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[westlake]

First, a lot of us use tools like click2flash that report themselves AS Flash, but are NOT Flash
Second, people have Flash largely because it came preinstalled. I don't know of anyone who has actually gone out of their way to install Flash

I don't know what you mean by a "lot of us."

But I do have some idea of how many people seek out and install Flash itself.

Download.com. Stats For Adobe Flash Player v. 10.1

Windows 20,850,459 [From June 10]
117,697 Last Week.
Mac 934,313 [From August 10]
2,744 Last Week

21 million requests for Flash 10.1 rooted through a single source.

Adobe Flash Player (Windows)
  Adobe Flash Player (Mac)

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jedidiah]

The idea that I even need iTunes is an afront.

It should be completely unecessary and totally optional.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[ukyoCE]

An Apple only playground? A cliff? It's a tech demo for heaven's sake. They could not get away with pushing HTML5 proprietary Apple-only with their pitiful marketshare. To suggest otherwise is frankly ludicrous.

There's nothing remotely strange about a company pushing for certain features to be included in a standard to restrict their tech demo to browsers that (shock!) implement that functionality.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

How can you tell what content you aren't missing out on if you can't even access it to tell?

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jo_ham]

Indeed, if that's your opinion you are free to not purchase an iPod. No one is forcing you.

I find it an affront that I need to purchase an Xbox 360 to play the new Halo game. It should work on my PC or Mac, since they are both computers, right? The Xbox 360 should be optional - I already have a computer with enough horsepower to run it!

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[IntlHarvester]

Are there any major differences between Google's or Mozilla's HTML5 proposals and Apple's, besides video?

No real major differences, but a load of minor proprietary webkit extensions to CSS.

no webdev, even the very incompetent ones, will write HTML that only works for less than 10% of viewers.

O rly? There's a ton of stuff which target the iPad and nothing but the iPad. It kinda feels like the good old days of IE6.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[LodCrappo]

I get that you feel Flash is not needed on your phone. But where does the "I don't want the option to use it" come from? It's something I've seen stated on in a few places, usually from people that seem pretty committed to the Apple platform. Why is having Flash available to you a bad thing, even if you don't need it? And how do you know that you'll never, ever need it? New things happen on the web at a rapid pace, a person's interests change. Personally, I quite often find myself visiting web sites that I haven't visited in the past. I'd be hard pressed to state any global rules about what I do or don't, will or won't need to pursue my interests today and into the future.

I have an Android device, and I don't use Flash very often at all. However, it's nice to know that I can use it once in a while if I decide to. It certainly doesn't bother me to have the option. Why does the idea of having that option seem to offend Apple types?

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[dgatwood]

Thanks for the numbers. There are about two billion computer users out there on the Internet. (Source: Internet World Stats) So barely one in a hundred computer users have downloaded Flash 10 deliberately. Although one percent is a huge percentage of computer users, it's still almost two orders of magnitude smaller than the installed base....

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Voyager529]

As long as it ends up a standard though, who cares? There's nothing nefarious about that.

Which kind of standard? the official, written down by the standards bodies type of standard, or the de facto standard? What the GP is saying is that it's easy for two types of standards to exist - the one that is on paper, and the one that the majority of people can use. Ideally, these coincide. MP3 is a great example. Sure there are different encoders, and a handful of flavors (MP3Pro being the most notable), but ultimately any program that conforms to MP3 decoding standards can read any encoder. Sometimes they don't though, and the one that comes to mind (keep in mind it's late for me right now) is the ODF format for Excel that left formula storage/calculation/rendering up to the software implementation. There was a heated article about this nearly a year ago, and the skeptics basically argued along a similar line - Microsoft was yes, implementing the standard, but in a way that wasn't seamlessly shareable with ODF editors at large.

If SJ gets to say what the internet looks like, it's a matter of time before he *does* get nefarious. Nefarious at lower levels is both avoidable and humorous. It is dangerous beyond that.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[socsoc]

I see your point, but it's not really the "I don't want the option," it's more of "I chose a system while completely comfortable knowing what it can do" I use different OSes at both home and work and they all have their strengths and weaknesses. Your choice of Android and mine of iOS is akin to us debating over the best OS for a firewall. Perhaps I say OpenBSD and you say Slackware. That's fine and both have their advantages as long as you know the limitations of the platform. In this case, I don't count the lack of Flash as a weakness but you may, to each their own.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[socsoc]

Thank you, now help me go convince ad agencies. If you want reporting on click throughs, you're both doing it wrong and setting yourself up for disappointment.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[TrancePhreak]

Another angle to this... Apple is approving Flash translated and sold through them, where they take a cut of the profits, but is not approving Flash that exists out on the web for free or otherwise.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Tom]

The question I would have is --- why is the article presenting skewed numbers, and including PC and Netbook users?

Follow the money? Who is going to be a big loser if Flash is demoted from its de-facto standard?

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

So how is your satisfaction with Flash on Android then?

*crickets*

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

It's also worth noting that we're not completely in the dark. I watch Netflix and Hulu on my iPhone using their custom app. I don't have to wait for pages to load so I'm
  getting to the point much more quickly. The IMDB app is far more responsive than it is on Safari. I do not look forward to the idea of trying to play everything through the browser when the apps are so much more efficient. Screw Flash.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Tharsman]

Another angle to this... Apple is approving Flash translated and sold through them, where they take a cut of the profits, but is not approving Flash that exists out on the web for free or otherwise.

Now there is a horrendously weak conspiracy theory.

If it's out in the open it's free. These devs can put these in the app store for free. Apple gets nothing. You can even make it have google ads that may yield you money but not a penny going to Apple.

Apple only gets a cut if you decide to charge for your app (up to you) or use iAd as your ad provider.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[mark72005]

What a flippin' nightmare that would be. ::attempts to wake himself::

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[TrancePhreak]

But if you sell access to it from the web, then Apple would not get a cut either.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[ClosedSource]

The GP was talking about downloads from one site, not all sites. I don't get what your point is anyway. People don't download Flash as if they are endorsing its quality, they just want to view the content. Likewise the majority of those who in the future download a new browser that supports HTML5 won't be doing it because they think that HTML5 is god's gift either.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[gmhowell]

The idea that I even need iTunes is an afront.

It should be completely unecessary and totally optional.

Kinda like your commentary in any Apple article?

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[moronoxyd]

That's why Darwin, Webkit, GCC and so on are closed source and proprietary, right?

You do know that all of these existed as open source before Jobs got his hands on them, right?
Darwin = *BSD, WebKit = KHTML, and the G in GCC stands for GNU...
So he basically had to keep Apples versions thereof open.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Care to name any of these extensions? Isn't Webkit under the GPL or LGPL, so proprietary extensions would be breaking the terms of the license?

Care to name any sites - not just subsections or subdomains - that target nothing but the iPad?

The lack of cited material in your post leads me to wonder how you got +4 insightful, but then I realize this is Slashdot.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[twidarkling]

If it requires things specific to OS X, yeah, there IS stuff nefarious about that. The things about standards are they're supposed to be a set of specs anyone can use and be compliant, so that anyone's able to access it. If, all of a sudden, that standard mandates technology that must, due to patents, be obtained from Apple, and only Apple, that gives them an unfair advantage far beyond even Microsoft's IE stranglehold, since Apple would actually be able to say "No, you're not allowed access to our stuff" and shut people out of the market completely.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[dgatwood]

I somehow misread the post as being Adobe's direct download stats. Download.com's stats are pretty uninteresting since most people who do download it do so in response to a browser dialog box and would presumably thus get it straight from Adobe. In that case, we don't know much more than we did before. *sigh*

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[twidarkling]

Nice strawman that completely misrepresents the situation. iTunes is a completely artificial limitation placed upon the hardware. There is absolutely nothing stopping you from being able to use the iPod like a mass storage device that then just reads the tags on the files. Nothing except Apple said "We want everyone to use our shitty software."

X Box 360s, Playstation 3s, Windows computers, and OS X computers all have fundamental hardware/software differences and instruction sets that mean they require different code-sets to function. In this case, it would require extra effort to make compatibility. In the case of the iPod, it would take *less* effort to make it compatible, since it'd just need to be a generic USB interface.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize it's performance is poor on the Mac because Steve Jobs purposely kept APIs required for hardware acceleration away from Flash, right? Flash runs well on Windows because Adobe can use hardware acceleration for 2D graphics and sound. They can't under Mac OS X, because Steve Jobs won't let them.

The recent newly added video decoding APIs allow half-assed hardware acceleration of H.264 video, but even so, it's still slower than QuickTime. Because nothing is allowed to be faster at video than QuickTime on a Mac.

And the new APIs are still completely useless for vector graphics. There are no APIs for accelerated 2D graphics under Mac OS X. This isn't a unique problem to Flash either - Firefox won't be hardware accelerated under Mac OS X for the same reason. There's just no way to do it.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[twidarkling]

What I fail to understand is why you'd want to deprive someone of the choice of iOS WITH Flash, if they so desired. If, knowing the potential issues, they still decide that they want iOS, but they want Flash as well, why can't they have that choice? You say "Then go buy a device that supports Flash," but seriously, why shouldn't there be an option? "Flash or iOS" is an artificial dichotomy, imposed purely through hearsay and posturing by both parties.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[twidarkling]

. I want it to be a down-loadable app or perhaps a flash-enabled browser I'll have to download. I want to be the one to at the end decide if the thing goes into MY iPhone (hint, it wont be going into my iPhone if I have a choice.)

This is the best I've heard. Flash should be like any other feature-enabling application on a mobile device. Downloadable by users who want it, and selectively enabled by the users who do want it when they want it. Even if it's not up to Jobs' "standards," people should have the choice on their own. I'll save my personal rant about iOS app standards for another thread.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[twidarkling]

Legitimate question: How many of those free apps have ads? And how many more of those are going to use Apple's specific iAd platform? That'd be a significant change in profit between free app store offerings, and web apps.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

It also does not count those of us with ad block or use other mechanisms to prevent detection / running of scripts / plugins, but actually do have flash installed. Like me for example. :)

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[chaboud]

It's fine. I don't bother with it, and it doesn't bother me. On occasions when it matters, it's there. Think of it like a spare tire for your car.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Pentium100]

Because we got fed up with all the idiotic Flash-based adds that make buzzing sounds at random in background windows and make us jump straight out of our chairs.

Yes, but if Flash disappeared tomorrow, a few hours later we would have the same ads running in HTML5, which will be remedies by html5block.

Yes, I use flashblock. I do it because I do not want the ads to consume the CPU cycles, also so I have a choice which, if any, of the flash files to run. I also like flash games and video will be on flash for a long time (since Mozilla wants me to have freedom to either not go to any h264 sites or use flash).

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[master_p]

There's no content that I'm missing out on

So you don't visit news sites with your iPhone, do you?

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[10Ghz]

I don't want Flash on my iPhone. There's no content that I'm missing out on and I use iOS way more than my desktop for general browsing.

Except it should be you making the decision, not Steve!

We can make that decision. We can decide not to buy iPhones and buy Androids instead. No-one is being forced to buy iPhones. Every product we buy is a collection of pluses and minuses and compromises. We need to select the product that has such a combination of those that suits us the best. And if that products happens to be iPhone, then so be it.

Hey, what if you want to make the decision of running Skyhook location-service on Android? Whoops, you can't!

[quote]I have an Android phone (HTC Aria)[/quote]

Does it still run Android 2.1? What if you want to make the decision of running 2.2 on it? There are lots of Android-users who are stuck with old versions of the OS because the carrier/OEM has decided that they do not have to be upgraded.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[10Ghz]

And Apple does not get a cut if you give it away for free in the App Store, so what's your point?

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[10Ghz]

The question is whether the real reason for them to disallow Flash is really being "outdated" and "slow" or the fact that it would bypass the AppStore and take away their 30% cut.

In fact, their recent change in policy (allowing any tool as long as it doesn't download code) seems to back up that assertion - it's fine for Flash apps to be developed for the iPhone as long as Apple gets their cut.

There is no "cut" if the app is free.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[kangsterizer]

I'd just point out flash very damn smooth on my Android phone and doesn't seem to eat up battery or things like that more than playing a regular video.. in fact the video from flash is usually higher quality than the "mobile video version" (basically the video iOS users get, mind you), with few exceptions like youtube.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

first, even if you have click2flash, flash block, or whatever, you "can" run flash. you're just choosing to block it for now. ios (for now) has absolutely no capability for playing flash.

second, i had to install flash. it didn't come as part of the browser. it's just when my browser detected a 'flash file' it suggest i download the flash plugin. which i did (and yes, i subsequently downloaded flash block)

third, given most 'apps' on those devices make calls to port 80 making any number of micro calls to the website, there's a skew to how much "traffic" those devices account for (like, i dunno, poorly designed wordpress apps that constantly update from wordpress.com then subsequently throw away most of the data they retrieved)

fourth, when you "assume" it makes you an ass (i forget how it goes but it sounds about right).

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ladies & gentlemen I give you tharsman, the man with an apple shaped hole in his heart!

watch and wonder as this pitiful little creep demonstrates his devotion to steve jobs by taking his member into his mouth once again, and going at it like there is no tomorrow.

on second thoughts you'd probably rather not =(

i guess this story makes you and all the other apple fanboys look like the delusional fucking arseholes that you are

never mind. just keep your mind focused on the lovely web 2.0 icons on your iDevice (you tasteless little cunt you!!!!)

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Aceticon]

I, another iOS user, did make that decision. I decided to buy an iOS device (multiple in fact,) knowing full well that it didn't support flash, because I decided I didn't need or want it. Steve Jobs didn't choose it for me, he just made a device (both hardware and software) that suited my needs, just as HTC made a device that suits yours.

And that's how it should be: people should be doing informed buying decisions.

Just like those developing software and websites should be doing informed decisions with regards to the technologies they use.

In that sense, this article and other Apple iWidget articles serve the purpose of informing us a potential buyers and/or developers of the potential downsides of Apple technology (while Apple's adverts take care of showing us the benefits of their technology).

If after knowing this somebody chooses to go with Apple products, that's perfectly good: they've had the chance of doing an informed decision and will not be disapointed.

Personally I welcome any kind of reality-check, myth-busting articles about technology - there's way too much blind fashion-following and fanboyism around in the technology community. I just wish mainstream media was also more prone to taking a skeptic point of view in their technology news.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Kagetsuki]

Somebody needs to put your comment in the article summary because it is ridiculously accurate. It's also a shame you posted as AC, and it's also a shame you can't be modded above 5. Thank you, please comment more.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Missing.Matter]

I don't have to wait for pages to load so I'm getting to the point much more quickly.

The netflix app, at least on iPad, is pretty much just their website in a UIWebview element. Personally I think it's awfully slow and a pain in the ass.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Kagetsuki]

You are confusing Open Standards and Open Source. Futhermore you are seriously uneducated about what Apple is pushing in the W3C and how self-serving their proposals are. They also blocked similar proposals in the past so they could get their versions in - like their version of their own patent riddled multi-touch. Just imagine if that went through, people would have to pay Apple in order to fulfill and Open Standard.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Kagetsuki]

Look at the source dipshit, the CSS3 extensions are in the Apple name space and they aren't anything more than proposals, they aren't near standards. They are the equivalent of ActiveX components in JavaScript.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Kagetsuki]

Significantly more satisfied with Flash on Android than on the iPhone - you know because it's actually there. We've had Flash mobile on cell phones here in Japan for years now, and it works great. Your making the assumption Flash will run like sludge on mobile devices but the reality is Adobe has been doing mobile devices long before Apple made a phone and the Flash offerings on mobiles now works very well.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Kagetsuki]

Read the W3C proposals by Apple. Any of them.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[MouseR]

The entire article is flame bait. As most tongue-in-cheek arguments you will find here.

SJ was not saying iOS is a better alternative, or "the future" of the web. But rather that Flash is a piece of crap not worth bothering it's platform with. That open standards such as HTML5 offers better performances, runs native on whatever platform and can do everything Flash can.

Tieing iOS to the Flash argument is iodtic. So is market penetration of iOS. SJ is talking about the overall web. There is no need or future for Flash.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't work with Firefox 4.0 Beta 6 on Linux. It asks to download and install Safari. I'm not saying that your point is wrong, just that the site seems to only allow webkit based browsers. I do not know if Beta 6 has all the required html5 capabilities though.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Zixia]

There's no content that I'm missing out on

Well, *of course* there is. You may not value that content, and that's fine.

It's a figure of speech, sir, and quite comprehensible given the context.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Dreadrik]

So he basically had to keep Apples versions thereof open.

In the case of GCC, yes, but they could have kept WebKit, Darwin, LLVM, OpenSSH/SSL and lots of other source modifications to themselves if they wanted to.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[talesin]

tl;dr:

I dont care.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Patient: I feel so calm, so relaxed.
Doctor: For the last time, please open your eyes.
Patient: But I like it this way, I am not "missing out on anything".
Doctor: Open your eyes and see what you were missing on.
Patient: Nope! I like it this way... who knows what germs might get into my eyes if I open them.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Keebler71]

I just had a great idea... can slashdot become dependent on flash so that it will act as a natural filter against iSheep?

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[samkass]

If Steve can get an early H.264 foothold for HTML5 video service, a select few are going to make a lot of money.

...but not Steve. Apple barely has any skin in the h.264 game. He just chose it because it was the best.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jedidiah]

> It's a tech demo for heaven's sake.

It was demonstration of how Apple intends to interact with this technology.

In the "it's an open standard" department, THEY FAILED MISERABLY.

All of the fanboy excuses don't alter this. "They didn't really mean it" simply isn't good enough.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jedidiah]

In truth, this "open standards" tech demo was much like many websites that checked to see if you were running IE regardless of whether any IE-specific things were being done.

Nonsense like this is why there are many web client extensions that spoof the identity of the browser.

The fact that this tech demo was mostly functional assuming you spoofied your browser ID just demonstrates how self-centered Apple really is.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jedidiah]

While it is true that Steve chose to exclude things like VAAPI and PureVideo from his platform, Flash still sucks more than it should even on Windows.

Flash sucks in general. Even the new version on hardware that offers full acceleration of h264 still uses way more CPU than it should.

Adobe and Apple both suck. Neither one should be in a position to dictate basic platform features.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jedidiah]

> Of course, she was never a 'computer user', she was a person who used computers to get a job done. I.E. she's normal, not a geek.

My wife is like that.

She still despises the lack of Flash on the iPad, dislikes the iPad for serious typing and would not use the iPad if it weren't jailbroken.

There is a very wide gap between Geek and total Sheep.

For many "non geeks", Apple devices simply don't get the job done.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jo_ham]

Yes, everyone says that. "They were *forced* to keep them open" - why can't their motives be "we like open"?

If it was purely a forced thing then it doesn't explain things like libdispatch, or LLVM, or other projects that they have open sourced without being forced to do so.

They didn;t have to pick a GPL project for their HTML engine either - they could have written one from scratch, or adapted one with a more favourable (to closed source) licence, but they went with KHTML deliberately, and have been a major force (among others) in turning it into a serious competitor to Gecko and Trident.

Apple has a very positive view on open source and is one of the large companies that really "gets it" - their position is one of mutual benefit for all concerned. As much as people like to bitch about their closed source, walled garden, evil empire stuff; Apple contributes an enormous amount to open source projects, including projects they have started themselves.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[zeroshade]

I personally am very satisfied with Flash on my Android device. It's a little bit of a battery hog, but the ability to disable it and only use it when I want to makes it just like anything else on the phone. I really enjoy having my smooth flash video on my phone. :)

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jedidiah]

This all sounds very much like the corresponding situation on the Mac.

You are free to choose the bundled shovelware, or not. You can get replacement software from anyone. You don't have to worry about Apple arbitrarily or maliciously killing off your favorite app or prevent it from being sold to begin with. You don't have to "hack your Mac" just to get open access to apps or your own data.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jedidiah]

Another thing to consider is the fact that by modern PC standards, the hardware on the iPad is slow and outdated.

If you try to play a random movie on an iPad this becomes readily apparent.

Gnarly web apps written in Flash more than anything else would make the iPad look bad.

It would destroy the illusion created by taking a normal PC and restricting what you can do to the point where the whole "just works" thing is doable.

You can be seen failing to run a marathon or be seen succeeding at sitting down in a soft couch.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jo_ham]

No, you are missing the point - the iPod is a product sold by Apple and they can set it up however they want. It's not like it's a secret or they changed the rules on you after purchase.

It's no different to an obligatory car analogy - Ford will sell you a car, and sell you parts to fit it, and if you choose to buy third party parts and fit them (and no one is stopping you) then Ford don't care, but don;t expect them to support you. (read: installing a different firmware on your iPod).

It doesn't matter that it's an artificial limitation, and that it would take less effort to make it as a generic USB mass storage device - that's just how Apple chooses to do it, and you are free not to purchase it. Just because they went out of their way to do it that way and tie it to iTunes doesn't mean that it's wrong for them to run their business model that way. It may deter some people, but the same could be said for Xbox 360 games. It's an arbitrary restriction that you can't play your 360 games on your computer - early 360 dev machines were actually Apple PowerMac G5s - why can't they play Xbox 360 games? They have the PPC hardware, and the GPU and plenty of RAM, and USB ports that would support the controllers... then you could just play using the developer tools. Clearly MS wrote software to allow the games to run on those machines, so why can't I do that? Because that's not the business model - if I want the game, buy a 360 and be exposed to the Live system, and the online store etc. It doesn't make it wrong, even though the limitations are arbitrary.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[swb]

It's funny, but I'd swear when I first got my iPhone 3G I felt like I ran into more sites that used Flash or didn't render right on my iPhone.

Since I've gotten an iPad and do even more browsing on Safari than ever, it seems like I seldom run into sites that use Flash or require it.

I don't know if it's part of a general trend towards site simplicity, ajax-type functionality, or a desire to ride the iPhone/iPad trend.

Either way, I don't miss it.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jo_ham]

Total rubbish.

That falsehood has been spun as an excuse for poor performance and it might hold water if On2's version of the flash player that runs inside their own software was also terrible, but it's really not - it is way better than the actual flash client provided by Adobe.

This isn't even an H.264 thing. Even with non-h.264 content (so ignoring the whole hardware acceleration issue, not to mention that the windows version of flash that is being compared also lacked hardware accel at the time) the performance is terrible.

It has *nothing* to do with hidden APIs - the core of OS X is well documented, with extensive information about the necessary graphics subsystems. Hell, the core of OS X's window drawing system is based on PDF which Adobe should know a little bit about!

If this is about "hidden APIs" then why is the Silverlight player much better than the flash player? You think Steve is "holding back" from Adobe but not from Microsoft? What about On2's flash implementation - did they not "hold back" from them?

Your paranoid rants about Quicktime are just silly.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jo_ham]

I was using both as an counterpoint to "based around a propitiatory closed dome" - which can't be true when they push open source and base many of their formats on open standards like mbox and aac, etc.

Whether you agree with patents or not, plenty of people pay to use open standards - for example, Nokia's patents on the open GSM standard, or the Mpeg LA's aac, h.264 etc. Just because it's an open standard doesn't mean it can't have a licencing fee attached to recoup R&D costs - which is why we have the cellular market as it is, due to huge investment now being recouped via licencing.

It may be broken and in need of change, but you can't cut it both ways - if it's fine for Nokia to do it, expect Apple (and MS, and Sony and [$company] to do so.

Although, the segue from the W3C (which Apple does not control) into patent issues over multitouch was a bit of a non-sequitur.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Tharsman]

Unless you are managing web access sales yourself, manually processing every transaction, some one is always getting a cut.

You can even do that with the app store, setting up a "free" client for a paid service, just like Netflix does.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[ukyoCE]

Didn't mean what? To demonstrate what HTML5 can be capable of? I really don't understand what you think they did wrong here.

Do you understand that HTML5 isn't a standard yet?

Do you understand that this is how standards are created? Companies develop technologies, demonstrate them, and request they become part of the open standard.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

flash runs great on android, just as it does on pc.

how is your satisfaction with having steve jobs' pecker in your mouth...?

its ok if you want to be an ignorant consumerist - just don't get the marketing crap you swallow confused with reality - you'll end up looking like a fool, just as you do here.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[BlkPanther]

Not that I completely disagree, but I have to say I actually have run across people who intentionally gone out of their way to have Flash installed. Guess who? Linux users. In the last 60 days, I've moved 7 people over to Ubuntu, SuSE and other varying distros, as their home, primary use PC (which has been overwhelmingly successful thus far, BTW, minimal support and headaches).

One of the things I always forget, as I disdain Flash, is to launch Firefox and ensure Flash has been installed. But as these people are using their PCs as home machines for FaceBook (aka Farmville) Flash is a necessary and deliberate installation. One thing I have not thought of: I do typically install Chromium (I personally dislike Firefox) as a browser option and allow the user to choose which to use, I'm not sure if Chromium auto-installs Flash or not...

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[hazydave]

I tried the video part of that site. Works great in Chrome, as most things do. Curiously, though, the video failed not just on IE8, Opera 10.6 and Firefox 3.6 (all rejected by the site entirely), but it didn't play on Safari 5.0 either (on Windows 7 64-bit here). There are definitely issues with HTML5 yet. And Safari...

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Tharsman]

Look at the source dipshit, the CSS3 extensions are in the Apple name space and they aren't anything more than proposals, they aren't near standards. They are the equivalent of ActiveX components in JavaScript.

Before you even try to call people names you could avoid portraying yourself as a complete retard (too late now though) by doing a quick visit to http://www.css3.info/modules/

Once there, do go down to 3D Transformations and you will notice it's a Working Draft.

You already showed you wont bother reading so let me explain what a working draft is (or just quote the site on it):

Working Draft (WD)

A Working Draft is a document that W3C has published for review by the community, including W3C Members, the public, and other technical organizations. Some, but not all, Working Drafts are meant to advance to Recommendation.

Finalized standard? No. But just like a wedding, unless you have some drunk guy stand up and object to the two soul-mates marriage, it's very likely it will end up in the final specification. This applies to most of the HTML5 definition, though.

Oh and for your amusement I did look through the code. I am no CSS expert but the only thing that resembled a namespace was labeled -webkit, not -apple. So it's not Apple's namespace, but the engine that happens to be co-developed by Apple, Google, KDE, Rim, Samsung and many others.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[hazydave]

Adobe isn't trying to get Apple to buy Flash. They give the plug-ins away, and would be happy to deliver a free plug-in for iOS. They make money on the tools. And yeah, they're moving the tools to support HTML5 stuff, too.

If Apple was really out to destroy Flash, they'd take a different tactic. Imagine if Google wanted to kill Flash for some reason. Leaving it out of the browser might hurt Flash, or it might hurt your browser. They'd kill Flash by delivering web authoring tools that are better than Adobe's Flash (and other tools), but free. In short, they'd eliminate the reason people use Flash, which is simple: it allows Webmasters and other content people to create things that would otherwise take programmers hacking raw Javascript.

Apple just makes up stories about performance and other issues. And as with most tall tales, they're easily replaced by the truth.

Which, in this case, is that Flash is pretty good on Android, on hardware no faster than Apple's 2009 products. Yeah, I have a Droid and use Flash on Android 2.2. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. If the video's in MP4/AVC, it's no different than MP4/AVC in HTML5 or the dedicated YouTube player, other than it being more likely to work than most of the HTML5 sites I've visited so far.

I now have access to a fairly large number of sites that were previously off-limits to my mobile browser. Some of that's video... I can see MS-NBC videos now, which were previously invisible (as was just about anything that didn't host video on YouTube). But much of it's just plain silly stuff ... like the JC Penney online catalog, or more than a few Semiconductor vendors' sites, which for whatever reasons, are authored in Flash. These work pretty much as well as they would on a PC. No performance problems.

The bottom line for a user is that my Android device is now pretty much a first-class web client, where before it wasn't. Maybe Apple thinks their customers are fine with only part of the web being accessible (and for whatever reasons, even before this, my kids' iPod Touch devices failed on a number of sites that worked just dandy on the Droid... don't know what that's all about). I'm glad Google thinks the mobile device should work as well as a desktop, and is pushing the technology THEY ACTUALLY CONTROL to make that happen, rather than simply expecting the world to revolve about their axis.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[hazydave]

And it is very true that Apple didn't offer video acceleration APIs on MacOS until a pretty recent update (end of Spring or so). Microsoft had video acceleration APIs back in XP, and they improved them considerably in Vista. iOS still doesn't offer these APIs.

Of course, one has to wonder, with Apple working so hard against Adobe, how much time they've spent optimizing Flash for MacOS anyway. That's only 5% of the client PC market, and Apple's making it difficult for them. How long would you put up with that crap? With modern Mac systems, it's quite evident that Flash, particularly versions from before late Spring, run much faster on Windows, on the same hardware. That demonstrates that neither Flash nor the hardware are the real problem.

So while you may fault Adobe for performance, it certainly was not entirely their fault. Playback in software vs. hardware is a huge hit on any system, but on a portable device, it's make or break. But even on the desktop. I have a four processor Intel Core2 desktop here at 2.83GHz. Without GPU acceleration, a fairly high-end video file (1920x1080/60p) will just barely play without glitches. Use MS's own AVC CODEC and plain old ugly Windows Media Player on Windows 7, and I'm getting perfect playback and only 12% CPU use.

The more recent cellphone/tablet class chips can play at least 1080/24p at full HD resolution via hardware acceleration (dedicated AVC units, not general purpose GPUs -- PC graphics chips have some of both resources). And not just play it, but play it a fairly low power. It doesn't matter one iota if the AVC comes in via HTML5, Flash, or MP4 files stored on the device, the result is the same... as long as whatever player you're using has access to the video acceleration APIs. Which they do in Android, don't in iOS. Nuff said.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Tharsman]

That's odd, I just ran the video in Safari 5.0.1. The perspective on/off worked too.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[hazydave]

The other broswers in the App Store are not full browsers. They're still using elements of Apple's browser, such as the Javascript engine, or they would not be allowed in the App Store. For the same reason, no, Apple will not currently allow another brower with Flash in the App Store. In either case, that would be "application with interpreter"... whether its Javascript or Actionscript, Apple won't have one they don't control. At least not yet.

As for Flash, it's just dandy on my 550MHz Droid. That's a moderate-speed Android device by today's standards. Obviously, there may be some flash heavy sites are a bit much... then again, that's potentially true of any site on any mobile device. I didn't really find any iPhone all that usable as a web browser, simply due to the poor resolution. Once I got the Droid (854x480, plus no need for on-screen keyboard), it was a significant threshold -- I do more actual "browsing" on the device than the PC these days. I'm sure the same is true of the iPhone4, at least until you need to type.

I mean, consider the fact that these modern smartphones are already significantly faster than PCs were not all that long ago. Or even still... the Cortex A8 used in most current devices is only a bit slower per MHz than the Intel Atoms used in Netbooks... and on most devices, they have only 1/2-1/4 of the screen real estate to draw. The new Cortex A9 ARMs are closer still, dual core, faster clocked, lower power, and coming Real Soon Now. Saying "it's just a phone" is increasingly a cop-out.

When Flash came out in 1996, the "hot new" PC processors were the original 150MHz and 166MHz Pentiums. In 1999-2000, I was part of a set-top box development project. Our web browser ran Shockwave quite nicely... on a 90MHz or 144MHz Coldfire CPU, and at 640x576, considerably more resolution than all but the top-end smartphones today. Sure, Flash has evolved, but you don't need a 2GHz CPU to run Flash.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[hazydave]

There are two things Flash does. One is that it allows the App Store bypass for simple games. You're not going to find Flash ideal for all applications, but it's decent for some. Apple's now just dandy with Flash + AIR on the iPhone, as long as they're getting their share through the iTunes store... so no more arguments of performance or reliability need apply. Cash, on the other hand, has been Apple's prime motive for quite some time, and this is just part of that.

The other thing Flash offers is DRMed video, which can only otherwise show up via the iTunes store, or specifically allowed applications (Netflix or whatever). This is even more in direct competition with Apple -- if I can watch last week's episode of the TV show I missed, free online, why would I pay the couple of bucks for a download from the iTunes store? Most television content providers want you to see the show free if you'd like, but they have to protect their future sales of this media (DVD, etc) so they are not going to offer it unprotected -- eg, in HTML5. Apple's known this all along, thus their push for HTML5, the format that's not competitive to any revenue source.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jo_ham]

It's not just a hardware decode vs software decode here - I'm talking software decoding on Windows too here, for comparison.

The hardware acceleration features weren't even in Quicktime until very recently either, and even then it was only on certain chipsets. The sucky performance is not entirely Apple working against Adobe - Adobe just don't seem to care about the platform (long before any of this iOS debacle and Apple actually biting the bullet and saying "well screw you then, no flash on iPhone" which did more to get the 10.1 flash release out on the Mac than anything else (they were pushing the beta pretty hard in an effort to not look like they were ignoring the "one swf file, anywhere" mantra).

From what I understand of the Flash situation on Android, it's not up to much in the performance stakes which is starting to validate the whole reason it was left off the iPhone in the first place - it's just too resource hungry, even with acceleration.

Even today, with the hardware-accelerated 10.1 flash, I can easily use 60-70% CPU watching a HD stream in flash on OS X. I can watch that same stream using XBMC running on OS X for considerably less CPU power, so whatever they've done in XBMC is what Adobe should have done. On2 did it too - their flash implementation was excellent. I used to use it all the time after cranking out .flv videos for clients at my old job, testing the player software and features etc before handing it off. That was much better than Adobe's actual flash client.

Adobe can't lay all the blame at Apple's door when other plugin makers are doing just fine on OS X - even silverlight, and the XBMC developers who have nowhere near the resources, and don't even have OS X as a primary target platform.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Tharsman]

The other broswers in the App Store are not full browsers. They're still using elements of Apple's browser, such as the Javascript engine, or they would not be allowed in the App Store.

Opera for iPhone

In either case, that would be "application with interpreter"... whether its Javascript or Actionscript, Apple won't have one they don't control. At least not yet.

You may have missed the story about apple relaxing it's rules. Apps with interpreters are starting to show up (like the return of BASIC to the C64 Emulator)

I didn't really find any iPhone all that usable as a web browser, simply due to the poor resolution. Once I got the Droid (854x480, plus no need for on-screen keyboard), it was a significant threshold -- I do more actual "browsing" on the device than the PC these days. I'm sure the same is true of the iPhone4, at least until you need to type.

The iPhone and iPods have depended heavily on the smart zoom feature that allows you to tap on paragraphs and page blocks to zoom it. That aside, the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4 have higher resolution than the Droid at 960x640. The keyboard has never been an issue for me, since I just bring it up to type and hide it once I'm done.

When Flash came out in 1996, the "hot new" PC processors were the original 150MHz and 166MHz Pentiums. In 1999-2000, I was part of a set-top box development project. Our web browser ran Shockwave quite nicely... on a 90MHz or 144MHz Coldfire CPU, and at 640x576, considerably more resolution than all but the top-end smartphones today. Sure, Flash has evolved, but you don't need a 2GHz CPU to run Flash.

Flash performance has gone south since it was acquired by Adobe. They have bloated the thing beyond recognition. You would be horribly hard pressed to get current Flash running on a 2000 machine. Flash has not really evolved as much as it has bloated. They keep adding stuff (and security holes that take forever to patch) but they don't seem to be improving the performance.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Err... Chrome is the worst possible example you can use, since Chrome is based on Webkit. So yes, APL could have added something to Webkit and "forced" Chrome to have it.

The key is: does it work in IE9, FF4, or Opera (whatever the most recent version is, even if it's only in beta atm)?

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[dgatwood]

first, even if you have click2flash, flash block, or whatever, you "can" run flash. you're just choosing to block it for now. ios (for now) has absolutely no capability for playing flash.

The point was that if you've taken the time to install that, you've made a conscious decision to avoid Flash most of the time, and many of those folks won't be too happy about having to load Flash just to get basic navigation on your site. It's an annoyance that tends to drive away such visitors. The reason I have it installed is that nearly every single browser crash I experienced had Flash somewhere in the backtrace. Now, with click2flash, my browser doesn't crash two or three times per day (and more to the point, hasn't crashed in months). If I get to a site that requires Flash, usually, I just close the window. I can't imagine I'm alone in this.

second, i had to install flash. it didn't come as part of the browser. it's just when my browser detected a 'flash file' it suggest i download the flash plugin. which i did (and yes, i subsequently downloaded flash block)

*shrugs* It came preinstalled in Mac OS X. I assumed it came preinstalled with most Windows OEMs as well. Either way, it's not something people think about downloading. It's just a couple of clicks in a plug-in dialog, which means that their market penetration is due largely to sites like YouTube that used to require it. People don't wake up one morning and think, "I really ought to have Flash installed on my computer." Give it a couple of years with HTML5-capable browsers and we'll see how many non-Farmville users still have Flash installed. My guess is that those numbers will drop significantly as fewer people hit pages that need it.

third, given most 'apps' on those devices make calls to port 80 making any number of micro calls to the website, there's a skew to how much "traffic" those devices account for (like, i dunno, poorly designed wordpress apps that constantly update from wordpress.com then subsequently throw away most of the data they retrieved)

Unless you are using the WebKit viewer bits on iOS, though, the browser string will not be that of WebKit on iOS, and as such, those poorly designed apps won't typically even show up as being iOS-based devices in any browser stats. If you are seeing bogus network accesses, it's likely that you're going to see them on the desktop, too. With the exception of calling JavaScript functions, UIWebView doesn't really provide much opportunity to inflate statistics. There's no cache control, no injection of arbitrary JavaScript, and normally people would not construct a web view just to capture data, tear it down, and then display part of the data in a local-origin web view. That's what the various NSURL and CFURL bits are for, which again, don't send a user agent string unless you explicitly set one, AFAIK.

fourth, when you "assume" it makes you an ass (i forget how it goes but it sounds about right).

Pot, kettle, black.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[flabordec]

First, a lot of us use tools like click2flash

Do you mean a lot of us geeks in slashdot or do you mean a significant percentage of a population sized close to the 160 million population they used to gather their information? If it is the former, based on the anecdotal evidence of a person who is surrounded with computer savvy people, then I guess your first point is not as strong as you would like to believe.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it requires things specific to OS X, yeah, there IS stuff nefarious about that.

The only sense in which Apple's demo was OS X specific is that the demos checked for Safari and used extensions named things like "webkit-foobar".

OMG PROPRIETARY!!!!!!!!11one

well, maybe not. See, if you look up how W3C handles new stuff, it turns out that until a proposed feature for a new version of HTML (or whatever) is implemented in more than one browser, it has to use a "proprietary" name like webkit-foobar so that the new things are clearly marked as being implemented only in that one experimental browser, and other browsers can simply reject the markup out of hand.

Guess which company is making a lot of HTML5 standards proposals and implementing the first versions of same in WebKit? Guess which demos were very bleeding edge in terms of HTML5 feature usage?

Leaping to the worst conclusion and spreading hysteria based on oddities in early preview versions of things is never a good idea.

The things about standards are they're supposed to be a set of specs anyone can use and be compliant, so that anyone's able to access it. If, all of a sudden, that standard mandates technology that must, due to patents, be obtained from Apple, and only Apple, that gives them an unfair advantage far beyond even Microsoft's IE stranglehold, since Apple would actually be able to say "No, you're not allowed access to our stuff" and shut people out of the market completely.

Good thing that's not happening then.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally am very satisfied with Flash on my Android device. It's a little bit of a battery hog, but the ability to disable it and only use it when I want to makes it just like anything else on the phone.

You didn't intend to, but you just highlighted the very reason why Apple is not allowing the Flash plugin on iOS devices.

Apple's success is based in large part on their pursuit of users whose heads hurt when you try to tell them things like "using Flash will drain your battery like crazy so if you want to be able to talk on your phone later tonight, you have to turn Flash off". And then, if you actually get them to do that, their heads explode when they go somewhere on the web which used to work because they had Flash turned on and it doesn't anymore. These are people who don't have a clear idea what Flash is, have at best the vaguest notion of what a web plugin is, and don't want to be bothered with any of it. If you've ever been asked to do tech support for a relative, you know what I'm talking about. They're not any dumber than you or I, they're just not interested in tech for its own sake. They just want what tech can add to their lives with a minimum of fuss.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the W3C proposals by Apple. Any of them.

Submission of proposals to a committee is how standards bodies work. You're supposed to be proving that Steve Jobs wants to promote an Apple-proprietary HTML5, not proving that they work to get their ideas out in the open and in a standard so anybody can implement them.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[chaboud]

Apple has IP in the AVC patent pool, and they, like other AVC IP rightsholders, stand to make out from H.264 adoption.

Additionally, if you've made your bet on H.264, it makes sense to stick to it, as there are annual royalty caps per corporation ($5 Million for 2008-2010, last I looked). That makes it a zero-incremental-expense per unit for you if you've broken that barrier, but a non-zero expense for anyone else to play along.

The statement "He just chose it because it was the best" is neither confirmed nor even indicated by evidence readily available to the public.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[TrancePhreak]

Apple gets money because you used Apple products to make the app, the only "certified" methods of creating such apps. Plus the $100 per year required to post your App to their store. So yes, they do get a cut.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[mysidia]

You think Android has any similarity whatsoever to MacOS' rendering system?

Perhaps Adobe did not do such a great job of porting Flash to MacOS.

Being able to run passably is not something good enough to be worth betting the business on. Apple wants to create a certain user experience on their platform, running passably would detract from that experience, be a mood killer, and make the iOS no better than the Android platform.

As compared to today, where iPhone as a platform, its users get a superior experience doing what they can do on it, compared to when Android users do what they can do on their platform.

Yes, the iOS cannot do as much as Android, and users will sometimes be inconvenienced, but it works better, faster, more reliably, for what it does do.

For example, if you want to watch a Youtube video on an iPhone, you don't have to load a browser and sit through ridiculous hanging, Flash lag, or other distracting occurences. Everything that works at all is seamless.

If a website requires flash, you get to immediately see it's not going to work, so you can avoid wasting your time with a crappy slow choppy site, and save that for later to visit on your laptop or desktop.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Pentium100]

For you, it may be like this, but I'd rather be able to visit any site using my mobile device, even if it crashes or is sluggish. The reason is that there may be a time when I need to visit that site and I only have the mobile device. In other times, since I know that the device does not like the site, I can just not go there using it.

Oh, and the guy in the video is right, but only about the choice he talks about - the kind where it is difficult (or costly) to take the choice back. I bought a car, but then decided I don't like it. I can sell it and buy another one, but realistically I won't get all the money I paid for the car back. Same thing with jam - I bought it, now I have to eat it, otherwise I'll be throwing away money.

His example with the Greek restaurant was very good - they have recommendations, but if I don't like them, I can still read the menu and find something I like. If the restaurant only had the 5 recommended options and I didn't like them, I would just go to another restaurant.

However, there are choices that do not have the negative aspects. I can change the tape deck in my car easily. So, it means that I am not stuck with the original radio that came with the car. If in the future I decide that I don't like cassettes anymore, I can replace the tape deck with a CD or MP3 player.

I have a lot of options for my desktop wallpaper. I can find a lot of wallpapers on the internet and there are some built-in ones. I think in this case the more options I have the better it is. I have a large tape and record collection, so when I want to listen to music, I can find the artist/album that I want. If I only had 10 tapes and records instead of 230 (or however many there are, I haven't counted), would it really be better?

Opera has a very customizable UI and that is one of the reasons I keep it updates, since I can always have the UI back to how it was in version 7 (though not exactly, I have modified the layout a bit, but it's mostly from versions 7 and 8). I don't see how it would be better if I didn't have that option. If Firefox 4 only has the chrome type UI and no way of changing it back then I'll stay with whatever the last 3.x version will be, though I'll try to use Resource Hacker on FF4.

One of the reasons I do not like Windows 7 is that I haven't figured out which files to edit with Resource Hacker to make Windows Explorer look more like XP Windows Explorer (address bar below menu bar and tool bar). Yet.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[rtechie]

I'm not sure how pointing out that the proprietary iPod/iTunes relationship is similar to the proprietary XBOX/Halo relationship supports your argument that Apple is "open".

I'd also argue that this is unfair to Microsoft. Microsoft's comparable product, the Zune, doesn't force users to use the Zune software or web store. You don't have to do so on the XBOX 360 either.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[rtechie]

I don't see how having the capability limits your choice. If you know sites with Flash are crashing on your device you can choose not to visit those sites. Or you can disable Flash and view those sites. I really fail to see how having the option could possibly harm the user.

Also: Do you really try to apply this argument more generally? For example, if one downloaded application crashes on your iPhone do you never download and install an app again? Even if you don't want to install apps (which might crash your phone), how does having the capability to download apps harm the user? (excluding troyjan and virus risks)

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[rtechie]

[quote]If I get to a site that requires Flash, usually, I just close the window. I can't imagine I'm alone in this.[/quote]

Well, either your position of refusing to use Flash is not widely held OR there is a massive conspiracy involving all world media and most of the world's population to make it APPEAR that Flash sites are really popular. I think the former is more likely.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Kagetsuki]

I was using "proposal" and "working draft" loosely, sorry! And if you have actually followed any of the W3C work you'll note some things have been "working drafts" for close to 10 years now. Last time I looked at the code was when Apple took flack for making "HTML5" demos that only ran in Safari on OSX and on the iPhone/iPad (about the time the iPad was released). At that point in time the namespace had "Apple" in it. Seeing as to how it can be run in Chrome now I guess they changed it, but to tell you the truth I could care less at this point.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Kagetsuki]

I agree with some patents, and I agree with the patents concerning GSM, AAC, and h.264. And the reason I agree with them is that nobody is forcing me to use them and I have alternatives. The W3C is putting out a single unified standard to which all browser makers should adhere, and if adhering to that standard involves paying licensing fees to one very concerned party there is a very big problem. That's part of why the h.264 vs Theora argument ended up in neither being chosen.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[mysidia]

I don't see how having the capability limits your choice.

Not having the capability removes you from having a choice between something good and something bad.

Also: Do you really try to apply this argument more generally? For example, if one downloaded application crashes on your iPhone do you never download and install an app again?

Apple has an App store approval process to reduce your choice in this regard. The idea is buggy/unstable apps can be removed from the app store or not approved in the first place.

The app store approval process hurts developers, but it does help users (somewhat) in this regard.

It would just be nice if Apple didn't reject apps because they re-implemented iPhone functionality in a superior way, or did something cool that threaten corporate profits (tethering, VoIP, Google Voice, for example).

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Dr.Syshalt]

Still this is not an OS fault? Funny, but I'm sure - if Flash would run faster on Mac OS X, Apple fans would instantly claim superiority of their platform. I love that hypocrisy. Apple could just press the Adobe to open the Flash Player source if they want to improve the situation. They've chosen a path of hiding their head in the sand instead.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jo_ham]

Why does it need to be an exclusive thing? A company is quite capable of having different products and areas, some of which are open, some of which are not.

The iPod and iTunes are open in the sense that the formats they support as standard are so - AAC audio files (as well as mp3, obviously) so you can take your music anywhere that you have a player that supports AAC, which anyone can do as an open format (although licensing issues may arise, yes it has patents, etc etc).

You're not forced to use the iTunes store either - you can buy your music from any store that supplies it in a format the iPod will play.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[jo_ham]

The core of the OS is open source. The graphics subsystems that OS X uses are well documented. There are hundreds and hundreds of pages of documentation and examples on developing for OS X.

Perhaps they could start here: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#referencelibrary/GettingStarted/GS_GraphicsImaging/ which features documentation, examples and a good overview of the core of OS X's graphics system.

Many companies and developers make superb software that performs great on OS X that require access to the graphics system and display technology (the XBMC team is one of them, Microsoft is another). The graphics system is well documented and understood, and parts of it *heavily* use display postscript and PDF, which Adobe really should know something about. It also heavily relies on OpenGL.

In that environment for Flash to be the stand-out poor performer, you have to look somewhere else other than the OS.

What could possibly be difficult or hidden about open source technologies like OpenGL? Or about a window drawing system based on technology *that Adobe developed in the first place*

Even if we concede that somehow the OS is hard to program for (like the original Playstation 2 was for game developers), or its performance sucks or some other such hypothetical; if that is so, why is it only Flash that sucks so badly on it?

Apple also aren't "hiding their head in the sand", they have simply stated that Flash is no good on iOS devices and thus do not include it. If Adobe come back with some actual working code, maybe they will reconsider. They have to get the version running on OS X to work better first (which they have made big strides with in the 10.1 version, although it is still an order of magnitude worse than XBMC playing the same content on the same OS).

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[dgatwood]

Just wanted to be clear about the sort of sites I'm talking about. I don't hate sites like YouTube or Flash games that use Flash because the alternative isn't really practical. I'm talking about sites like some car companies that think that their entire website should be nothing but one big pile of Flash. Such designs invariably translate into much longer page load times, clumsy interfaces with lots of unnecessary flashiness that gets in the way of usability, etc. If you're using Flash for what can and should reasonably be done with basic HTML elements, your site is a big, steaming pile of fail. More to the point, if I can't even navigate your site without loading Flash, you're doing it wrong.

BTW, it's <blockquote>...</blockquote>. You've been using BBCode too long.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[mysidia]

For you, it may be like this, but I'd rather be able to visit any site using my mobile device, even if it crashes or is sluggish.

Then it seems like Android might be the perfect one for you to choose.

Of course there are some tradeoffs involved, see: you can still choose to have Flash on your mobile device, you just have to pick a different device -- and the tradeoff is you might have to give up unique benefits you see of the iPhone in order to take that path.

And a disadvantage that you may have more crashing or sluggishness on sites you visit that use flash, that would be completely usable if your device did not support flash.

The average person (not web-savvy computer user) is not going to be happy having to figure out how to disable or enable flash on a per-site basis, or as they are browsing, or have to jump through hoops.

And if their device is slow or crashing, it's not "Flash", as far as the user is concerned, these feelings are that it is the device is responsible.

See, we already get this with computers -- they say things like 'my Dell is running slowly', 'this computer is slow'; when it's really the Windows OS installation that is slow.

Ultimately: the hardware gets blamed for everything, but moreso for smart phones than other types of devices.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[Pentium100]

'this computer is slow'

I sometimes say that too, because it is faster than saying Windows OS on my computer is slow, but I know, that the speed of the hardware does not change much. A 15 year old PC, if it works, works as fast as it did 15 years ago, when it was brand new. Windows can slow down over time, because various junk accumulates.

Then it seems like Android might be the perfect one for you to choose.

When my Nokia N93 breaks down, I'll probably buy a phone with Android or some Nokia phone (depending on what will be available at the time). I value partial functionality over no functionality, so buggy Flash is better than no Flash (of course, flashblock or similar plugins are needed).
For example, my current phone does not have a lot of memory (about 22MB free when idle) and Opera Mobile 10 (which was designed for newer phones but still kinda works on mine) sometimes complains that there is not enough memory (when viewing large pages), but still somehow downloads and opens the page. So, I can still open the page if I really need it, but, since I know that this problem exists, I tend not to open large pages. This is better than Opera simply refusing to open the page at all.

I wouldn't buy an iPhone anyway, since I don't really like the fact that I would have to hack my own phone to have complete control over it. Also, AFAIK, you cannot replace the battery on the iPhone. I like devices that can be modified and customized to my liking (one of the reasons I build my own PCs), since it's unlikely that I'll come across a device that some telepath designed after reading my thoughts about how I would like it.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[IntlHarvester]

I hope you got about 75% the way through that post, realized that you could google "webkit css extensions" and then wisely clicked the AC button.

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[rjstanford]

If it requires things specific to OS X, yeah, there IS stuff nefarious about that.

That's true. It doesn't, of course, and there's no whisperings anywhere of any plan for it to do so, but don't let that get in the way of a good diatribe...

Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care?

[rjstanford]

Apple's now just dandy with Flash + AIR on the iPhone, as long as they're getting their share through the iTunes store... so no more arguments of performance or reliability need apply.

Of course, if your app is free (like most Flash webpages are), Apple will distribute it for free and pay all of the hosting and distribution fees while providing a convenient upgrade framework.

Those money grubbing bastards!

Wait a sec...

Decency?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to win an argument on its merits as opposed to by leveraging your monopoly position seems like a very decent thing to do.

Flash is dying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Very simple.
Proprietary (yes comment on my spelling, I'm drunk) is not the way to go.

Open source Flash or move on to other technologies, sure +/- 4 years. We'll survive.

GO HITLER.

Re:Flash is dying.

[Concerned Onlooker]

"Proprietary (yes comment on my spelling..."

Very well. Nice job with the spelling.

Re:Flash is dying.

[CptNerd]

Wow. Praising with damned feints. Impressive.

100m facebook users are iPhone based

[wilsonthecat]

I've read a recent statistic that has said that of the 500m Facebook users, 100m visit via the iPhone. So 2% of web views depends entirely on the sites you count, and whether those sites actually make money from their web presence.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Conception]

Probably more correctly, iphone users use apps and not mobile safari for a lot of normal web tasks. Movies, News, Social Networking, Media, Navagation... these are all done by apps.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Anonymous Coward]

by that measure that would mean 99% or more of all iPhone owners use facebook, not very likely.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[compro01]

I find that figure remarkable being as there have only been about 50 million iPhones (counting all generations) sold worldwide, according to Apple's quarterly reports.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[wilsonthecat]

Here is the source:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/25/facebook-mobile-app-stats-shocker-104-million-iphone-users-12/

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Anonymous Coward]

iPod Touches and iPads can run the facebook app and aren't iPhones.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Anonymous Coward]

I call bullshit.

iPhone sales:
By Apr 8: 50M (Official)
By Aug 31: 67M (Estimate)

Also...

"Apple has seen strong growth in sales this year, however, a significant part of new iOS device purchases are expected to have been made by people who already own one or more iOS devices. In other words, the number of active iOS users should be well below 100 million on a worldwide scale, which basically means that Apple's reach may not have increased dramatically this year."

source

In other words, 100 million unique logins is impossible for iphones (unless each iphone has an average of 1.5 users and _all_ of them use it w/ FB), and a hell of a stretch even for all iOS devices. I'd say it's more likely that they're counting IPs, which would make more sense because mobile devices are probably connecting to many different LANs over time.

That said, it is true that Flash performs terribly on everything but Windows PCs. Just from my own experience, Flash on a CD 1.83 Ghz Mac is comparable to a 1.3 Ghz Celeron with XP, and you can forget about almost any portable device under .9-1 Ghz. Even so, I'm not sure the solution is to lock down your platform and act like a pompous ass about it by pretending you're doing your users some huge favor.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[sexconker]

I find that figure remarkable being as there have only been about 50 million iPhones (counting all generations) sold worldwide, according to Apple's quarterly reports.

Is that it?
And Stevie thinks he can contend with Nintendo in the gaming space?

I just assumed it was in the hundreds of millions.
EL OH EL.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[exomondo]

Here is the source:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/25/facebook-mobile-app-stats-shocker-104-million-iphone-users-12/

Even they admit something's not right:

Interestingly, the last reported number of iOS users was 100 million; that's the number announced at WWDC, just back in July -- but Facebook lists more than that amount of active monthly users, so we're not sure how these numbers are being calculated.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Anonymous Coward]

Or simply one user has logged into multiple accounts.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[compro01]

Here are mine. Add up all the iphone figures mentioned and you get 51 million and a bit.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/10/22results.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/01/22results.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/04/23results.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/07/21results.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/10/21results.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/01/21results.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/04/22results.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/07/21results.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/10/19results.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/01/25results.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/04/20results.html

They do say iOS users, but even if you add in iPod touch (45 million estimated sales) and iPad (5 million estimated sales) users, you still fall short of 104 million, even if every single device owner uses the facebook app. Something is funny with their numbers.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people might share* iOS devices perhaps?

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[socsoc]

That's an excellent point. Browser usage differs greatly by target market and in this case probably also whether the site has an app or even a mobile(or touch) site.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Raffaello]

The total number of iPhones is a proper subset of the total number of iOS mobile devices, which also includes iPod Touches and iPads. So the figure is not impossible - it just means that nearly everyone who owns an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad uses the Facebook app.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Anonymous Coward]

I've read a recent statistic that has said that of the 500m Facebook users, 100m visit via the iPhone. So 2% of web views depends entirely on the sites you count, and whether those sites actually make money from their web presence.

Um....

http://www.numberof.net/number-of-iphones-sold-2/

A quick Google shows that there might be HALF that number of iPhones even sold. Assuming that 200% of iPhone users use their iPhone to access Facebook (exclusively from their iPhone? As you seem to be implying) is absurd.

Oh, and it's probably much higher than 200% since many iPhone users have bought more than one iPhone I'm sure, since they come out with new versions so often.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Anonymous Coward]

For the record, OP said "iPhone", as did the engadget headline. Later they say iOS devices, but that isn't the same thing. You're right that all iPhones are iOS devices, but not all iOS devices are iPhones.

Consider:
Roses are flowers.
Daisies are flowers.
Therefore, roses are daisies.

Pedantry aside, the numbers still look fishy. We're talking about a number of uniques that is >80% of the number of _all_ iOS devices _ever_ sold, with no account of broken/upgraded/offline units. The only way I can see this being accurate is if people are sharing their devices.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[idontusenumbers]

Facebook makes money from ads on their website, but their mobile site and mobile apps don't have ads.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[recoiledsnake]

Nah, they recanted. http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/26/facebook-actually-there-are-44-million-active-monthly-users-of/

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet the figure's BS(or at least exagerated), but don't forget the iPod touches out there too.(iPad technically too I guess?)

Honestly not sure how many there are out there, but I don't think 50 million is out of the question.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that I'm the typical user, but my wife and I share an iPhone. We both use Facebook from one phone.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[bloodhawk]

that is an awesome achievement considering there are less than 100 million iphones and probably less than half would even use facebook. So at a guess every one of these iphone users has 4 or 5 facebook accounts??? something doesn't smell right.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Anonymous Coward]

I've read a recent statistic that has said that of the 500m Facebook users, 100m visit via the iPhone. So 2% of web views depends entirely on the sites you count, and whether those sites actually make money from their web presence.

I find that figure remarkable being as there have only been about 50 million iPhones (counting all generations) sold worldwide, according to Apple's quarterly reports.

Quite simple really. All 50 million iPhones have two people checking their face-book account using the phone. Or maybe one phone is shared among 40+million facebook users.

Some quick googling shows the 50 million number quite solid (How many iPhones have been sold since launch - although for whatever reason slashdot won't let me post the link).

This seems the origin for the other statistic, and also addresses somewhat the issue of the mis-matched numbers. e.g. 50M iPhones, but the app is also on iPad and iTouch, which wouldn't be in that number. Also the facebook number may be inflated somewhat due to how it is calculated.

http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2010/08/22/facebook-for-iphone-now-has-102-million-users/

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[BitZtream]

Considering the number of people with BS accounts for getting farmville friends or whatever, it wouldn't suprise me that there are more 'facebook users using iPhones' than iPhones themselves.

Also, I'm fairly certain that nothing that has ever come out of that company was actually true.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Fahrvergnuugen]

You forgot about the iPad & iPod. There are 120 million iOS devices in the wild. That still doesn't make 1/5th statistic right.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[UnknowingFool]

Facebook says that there are 104 million iOS users not 104 million iPhone users. According to wikipedia: "At the September 9, 2009 keynote presentation at the Apple Event, Phil Schiller announced total cumulative sales of iPods exceeded 220 million" With 50 million iPhones sold, 104 million iOS devices isn't out of the question.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Anonymous Coward]

iPod touches are outselling iPhones so the statistic probably means something more along the lines of everyone with an iphone/ipod has used facebook on it at least once.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Anonymous Coward]

I have IOS devices, though I do most of my web browsing from a laptop. To maintain a consistent experience, the sites I visit can't rely on flash. Sure they could use it, but not for delivering their core content. If they do, they'll probably lose me as a consumer/customer. Businesses don't want to alienate IOS device owners, since they have the cash to pay Apple.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Anonymous Coward]

iPod touches, and iPads both are counted by Facebook as iPhones, because they all use the same App. So the real statistic should be " 100m iOS devices connected to facebook"

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Anonymous Coward]

I use an iPod Touch and use the facebook app.

I'm probably counted with the iPhone users despite not owning one.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[beelsebob]

Partly because their initial figure was wrong, partly because your figure is wrong (it was 60 million iPhones in June, rising by about 9 million a month), and partly because the iPhone isn't the only iOS device out there, there's a similar number of iPod touches, and a good 10 million iPads out there.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't seen the stats lately, but the number of iPod Touches vastly outnumbered iPhones in all previous official numbers I've seen.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Anonymous Coward]

and all of that because Steve Jobs disabled flash, so that he could control (get his cut) of the downloads. However, no ipad for me, even though it's otherwise perfect, because it doesn't play flash games (yes, I spend too much time in airports and hotel rooms) and it won't edit google docs. Well, shit. Wish I could; it'd make traveling much easier. However, I'm still tied to the laptop because I just want to play a game and edit some documents.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[DarkXale]

I think you're quoting a statistic that was revoked a few hours later... It was on Slashdot too. Rather what was concluded was that the statistic indicated that 100m users had, AT SOME POINT visited their profile via an iOS device (since facebook does not seem to differentiate iPods and iPhones). Note the specifics here. It only requires a user to have logged in once. They could've done this years ago, and it could have been done on a friends device as well. All of a sudden that 100m number becomes a lot less impressive..

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[E IS mC(Square)]

But if an apple fanbois says there are 100M users, who are you to prove it wrong with mere facts?

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Khue]

I've read that 50% of all statistics are made up.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[Anonymous Coward]

They may visit via the iPhone Facebook App, but it's not their only access point, almost all 100m iPhone users are also using a PC or Mac to access Facebook as well for the full experience. No one's playing full blown Facebook games on the iPhone because they can't. They have to use their PC's for that.

Re:100m facebook users are iPhone based

[hazydave]

So if EVERY iPhone owner is on Facebook, and every iPhone ever sold was still in use, that would still mean that not quite half of users who regularly visit Facebook via the iPhone are using someone else's iPhone to do so (eg, there have only been a bit over 50 million iPhones sold since the very beginning, and it's a certainty they are not all still in use).

Floppy drives anyone?

[ThorGod]

Back when Apple stopped shipping floppy drives with their computers just about 99% of 'manufactured' computers shipped with floppy drives. People said Apple was moving too fast. Now, a decade or so later, floppies have gone the way of the dinosaur.

There's probably quite a lot to make that analogy faulty. But I think Apple isn't holding anything randsom. They're just knowingly not supporting (what they see to be) old software.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[iammani]

Apple did not provide the mouse right click button either. Has the right click button disappeared too? Apple just wanted (and still wants) to be different and cares about the aesthetics more than the functionality.

And eventually the right click button will be replaced by something better. And some fanbois will claim that this was exactly why Apple did not ship the button at all.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[blackraven14250]

Although, you have to admit the situation was different. When talking about the era of the floppy, CDs had already gained a huge amount of traction. They stopped shipping floppy drives in 1998; by then, every computer had a CD drive, and high end models were even shipping with DVD drives, two generations ahead of the floppy.

By contrast, when talking about Flash, there's nothing currently sitting with widespread adoption to usurp it. HTML5 isn't implemented fully, and nothing other than Sliverlight provides the same "total package" as Flash at the moment. It's hard to see them both ditching a technology when there's no replacement that is widespread in adoption, and that decision being good in the medium timeframe.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[AnonymousClown]

Back when Apple stopped shipping floppy drives with their computers just about 99% of 'manufactured' computers shipped with floppy drives. People said Apple was moving too fast. Now, a decade or so later, floppies have gone the way of the dinosaur.

There's probably quite a lot to make that analogy faulty. But I think Apple isn't holding anything randsom. They're just knowingly not supporting (what they see to be) old software.

Good God man!

Are your services for sale?! You have a gift!

There's some people in Washington DC that really could use your gift for spi...explaining things.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Yaa 101]

Um, Floppies disapeared on the PC due to USB sticks, not because of Steve Jobs.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[blair1q]

I can't see my right mouse button, so it can't be an aesthetic thing.

I can see several fingers that are totally useless on top of an Apple mouse, which can be operated by a stump.

So unless Apple's primary goal is accessibility for amputees, the only explanation is that Steve Jobs still clings to haptic studies done in the 80s that showed that Apple users are less confused when prevented with fewer ways to control things, while he's ignored a couple of decades' worth of feedback that Apple would sell more computers if they gave the user more control.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was replaced by something better, a touch sensitive mouse top that can be configured in varrious configurations and used as a touch interface at the same time.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Less confused the first five minutes, less efficient the rest of their lives.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, noone said Steve Jobs was the cause of floppies going away, Apple is just ahead of the curve foregoing old technology.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[jo_ham]

Apple has always provided right click, since way back in OS 8.6 or earlier (it was very definitely in OS9). Just because the mouse didn't have two buttons didn't mean you couldn't use context menus, either via control+click or via a two button mouse that you just plugged in.

The point of a single click interface (and the one button mouse) was to force a UI where everything that the computer could do *could* be done with only left click, but that didn't mean that context sensitive menus were not included, they were just optional. This is compared to a system where some menus could *only* be accessed via right click, which Apple wanted to avoid.

The dropping of a floppy drive as an obsolete component is nothing like leaving out a second mouse button.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[jo_ham]

The OS has always supported right click, since at least OS 8.6 - just plug in a 2 button mouse, or use control+click. The single button was all about lack of confusion, but it was not "enforced" if you wanted to be able to right click. So, they listened to the feedback way back when OS 8 was the new thing (in 1997) and provided right click for those that wanted it. The only way this could possibly affect Mac sales if if people didn't actually do any research before purchase and just assumed. Perhaps this is why, in 2010, people still think you cannot right click on a Mac (not that you do think that, but I have seen it on slashdot).

All current Apple mice have right click. They haven't shipped a single button mouse for some time now. The wireless ones are multitouch too.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Midnight Thunder]

Um, Floppies disapeared on the PC due to USB sticks, not because of Steve Jobs.

The Mac was the first main stream computer to use the 3.5" disk, as opposed to the 5.25" disk.
The Mac was the first main stream computer to drop the floppy and also have USB as the only device connector. At the time the iMac came out most USB devices were Mac centric.

There are many things that Apple didn't get right (such as the Pippin), but there are things it did get right and things it partially got right, but needed to evolve first (ADB and NUBUS).

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Nemyst]

That Apple removed floppies and they disappeared in the end only means they were 10 years too early. If I remove my DVD drive from my computer now, am I a visionary or just stupid?

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[jo_ham]

Yes, and the reason USB is so ubiquitous, was in part because Apple shipped a computer that had USB as the only interface for small/basic devices like keyboards, mice, printers etc that helped to spawn the explosion and growth of the USB peripheral market. They were not the only ones to do this; PC makers were doing it too, but they were shipping boards that had USB and the older connectors like 9 pin serial and the 4 pin kb and mouse connectors that didn't help to push USB as the hot new thing as much as the iMac did - why bother when you can just use the older connectors.

The floppy didn't die directly because of Steve Jobs, but the rise of USB sticks was partially to do with Apple as the USB connector became the de facto low bandwidth peripheral connector in the wake of the iMac (and all subsequent Macs) and the inclusion of the new port alongside the old connectors on new PC boards.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Skuld-Chan]

Not everything Apple championed has become standard - localtalk, ADB, the literally dozens of video plugs they have invented, USB speakers (G4 cube - I curse you), the dozens of system buses (many of which the same, just different form factors) they have come up with etc etc. Having had a lot of macs - most of these standards are annoyances. I like choice :). I didn't like the fact that my Mac had to have a special video card (has a voltage rail to power the screen/usb plugs) - despite being based on AGP at 4x the cost.

Anyhow if you think people would still be using floppies if Apple didn't say so - whatever I guess... (I personally think the market decided this - based on the fact that floppies are slow, unreliable and have little storage compared to alternatives) The point is - if I want Dell to put a floppy drive in my PC - they will at extra cost and its my choice. Apple said fuck you - no choice you're using CD's (the iMac came out long before usb memory sticks were around, and before people had wide access to personal file servers or the internet).

Yeah it panned out, but I personally know a few people who had to buy a USB floppy drive/ZIP drive to do work.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[semiotec]

Yeah, I remember! Just like back when Apple stopped using PowerPC in their computers and switched to Intel, when just about 99% of 'manufactured' computers were still shipping with ... oh, wait...

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't see my right mouse button, so it can't be an aesthetic thing.

I can see several fingers that are totally useless on top of an Apple mouse, which can be operated by a stump.

You should be embarrassed for not knowing this. Right mouse button in Windows amounts to a control left click, and is a subset of all the other keyboard modifiers & shortcuts available on a Mac. On the other hand the last two generations of Apple mice have had multiple logical buttons if you want them.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[PayPaI]

I can see several fingers that are totally useless on top of an Apple mouse, which can be operated by a stump.

Apple hasn't shipped a mouse with only a single button in 5 years. Troll harder next time.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[jedidiah]

USB is ubiqutous because intel put it on all their motherboards, not because apple forced the issue. What apple does is leave people in the lurch with no recourse. That isn't vision or inivation or design. It's simple asshattery.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[ThorGod]

There's probably a couple different camps on why they didn't ship with two mice buttons from the start. I've always bought more into the "simplicity is best" camp. You'll have a hard time convincing me they skipped the second mouse button for purely aesthetic reasons. At the end of the day, we're just arguing over the intention of some mega-corporation, and what's it really matter.

Some interesting points:
1.) How often do you *need* to right click on a web page to do something the keyboard or another UI element can't do?
2.) HTML5 (AFAIK) can replace Flash. Making that argument with one, two, or 9 button mice requires user discomfort.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Raffaello]

Mac OS X recently turned 10 years old. The right click has been available in Mac OS X from the the beginning, so for a decade now. Not all Macs came with right mouse buttons, but you could always plug in a two (or more) button usb mouse and have it just work.

Mac laptops and desktops have shipped with right click capable mice and trackpads for quite a while now (e.g., on the MacBook Pro I'm typing this on, tapping the trackpad with two fingers instead of one yields a right-click; iMacs ship with an Apple Magic Mouse or trackpad, both of which work the same way - two finger tap = right click).

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

DUDE, THEY GAVE US A COMMAND LINE.

I have an 86 key input device I can use to control my Apple computer.

You can't give a user more control than that.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[bill_mcgonigle]

I can see several fingers that are totally useless on top of an Apple mouse, which can be operated by a stump.

Yeah, that's the point. Large muscles = no RSI.

I wish my Linux UI worked well with one mouse button. Shocker that it's actually possible with good UI engineering, huh?

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah..... but Steve Jobs helped the adoption of USB by making the original iMac with USB as the only connection for peripherals (no SCSI, no ADB, no RSx32 serial, and definitely no parallel port!).

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[mjwx]

Yes, and the reason USB is so ubiquitous, was in part because Apple shipped a computer that had USB as the only interface for small/basic devices like keyboards,

No it isn't.

Sorry to interrupt your revisionist history but USB became so ubiquitous because both Intel and Microsoft supported it. Apple had nothing to do with it and PC's were shipping with USB earlier then Macs were.

Firewire has effectively failed because no industry giant has given it significant support. I cant load up Windows XP SP2 and expect a firewire disk to work without any additional drivers and yes, Apple did want to kill USB in favour of firewire.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[mjwx]

USB is ubiqutous because intel put it on all their motherboards,

Yep, Intel put it on their mobo's as standard, Micorosft built the driver into XP as standard. USB prevailed.

In the late 90's Apple was pushing it's own proprietary Firewire, now days only the most expensive mainboards have firewire where as the cheapest have at least six USB (and still have one PS2 port). Firewire is dead in the water.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[trapnest]

From what I've seen, they avoided having the right click because they wanted people to use keyboard shortcuts when possible. How many Windows users know that alt-enter brings up the properties dialog? How many Mac OS users know that command-i brings up the get info dialog? imo, the keyboard is more efficient anyways.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[bill_mcgonigle]

back when Apple stopped shipping floppy drives with their computers just about 99% of 'manufactured' computers shipped with floppy drives

Yeah, and Intel Inside stickers, but both were nearly useless - anyone who was seriously using that mode of transport had a ZIP disk in his computer. And USB ZIP drives in iMac colors sold by the palette.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and the reason USB is so ubiquitous, was in part because Apple shipped a computer that had USB as the only interface ...

Let me point you to FireWire - see Apple's name on the creators?

Now lets hop over to USB
The manufacturers do NOT include Apple. In fact, USB came out after FireWire and became so ubiquitous that Apple knew FireWire was pretty much dead.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[PitaBred]

Just like the PS/2 ports died because Apple had ADB, and the way USB died when Apple introduced Firewire... oh, wait.

The fact that Apple had USB had jack and shit to do with its prominence. The fact that USB was liberally licensed and cheaply added to machines, as well as being massively useful for new devices like webcams and digital cameras was the reason USB succeeded. Note how many PC models from the mid-90s had both USB and PS/2 ports.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[jo_ham]

Apple *still* has Firewire - it was never a replacement or competitor to USB for peripherals, it was *as well as*.

USB was conceived for things like home printers, scanners, keyboards, mice and so on that didn;t need major bandwidth and IO. Firewire was designed for things that did, like hard drives and video cameras and high-end soundcards and so on - a market it still serves today because it does it very well.

Apple were one of the first to push USB keyboards and mice, alongside the firewire port as well.

It was NEVER Apple's goal to push firewire in spite of USB, until the whole USB2 issue came along, where Intel were trying to shoehorn the high speed, high bandwidth stuff onto it too, which it was never designed for. This is why it theoretically has a higher bandwidth than firewire, but is rarely seen in practice - firewire (and now eSata) is king for that sort of task.

Even then, when USB2 was attempting to kill off firewire (and it did, in all but Macs and for people who needed decent high bandwidth external support), Apple were still going with "USB for low speed stuff, firewire for high speed stuff", although obviously also supported the new USB2 specs.

Firewire is only dead if you have never worked in the pro-video industry, where it is still a major connection component for many cameras and decks for source capture, where SDI or other more esoteric connection systems aren't being used (not all cameras and decks feature SDI, but 95% will support firewire).

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[RocketRabbit]

And yet, since the very beginning of my Mac using days, my good old MS Intellimouse Optical has been able to use all 5 of its buttons without issue on any Mac.

Of course, the Microsoft and Linux Fanbois just can't see straight when you point this out.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're using a decade after Apple did something as evidence that they were the prime mover of getting rid of the tech? Not the cheaper CD-ROMs, not that optical drives became prevalent because of larger installs,not boot options in BIOSs, not the huge increase in storage capacity needed and used that a 1.4mb floppy couldn't handle? Not the massive increase in bandwidth, even wireless bandwidth, that has gone mainstream, or the shrinking of devices such that some are getting to the size of a floppy themselves?

The floppy is ancient take--in storage media, physical size, physical rotation, storage size, etc. Look at your USB thumbdrives.

While people often credit Apple for getting rid of the floppy, the floppy prevailed YEARS after Apple stopped using it. It seems to me that when PC BIOS makers started putting in multiple boot options such as CD-ROM and floppy, and better image mounting tools became prevalent, and most notably USB was accepted (to me, Apple's adoption of USB had more to do with it) that people got rid of the floppy. Were some of these pushed by Apple's move? Certainly, but the move was coming anyways;

Apple simply got rid of the floppy drive to make a cheap iMac box, not because they were doing people favors. I was in college when the imac came out; ALL the people I know who had an iMac then bought a floppy usb drive, or those larger optical imation drives (what were they called, magic drives or something, handled some specialty format and floppies).

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[BitZtream]

No, Apple didn't not provide a multibutton mouse out of the box, however right click, which is has the key equivilent of control-left click has been around since before OS X and you can use multi-button mice just fine with Macs. They just didn't ship with one ... and no one cared enough to buy one ... you do realize 99.9% of the windows users out there don't know what right click does ... right?

As for replacing it with something better ... well they already tried, and we fanboys hated it because it fucking sucked. And now the magic mouse, which may actually be better but its brand new and I haven't tried one.

You're bitching about something that hasn't actually been an issue for at least 10 years (since OSX just turned 10) and a few years before that since it was in previous versions.

Just go ahead and start whining about it not being upgradable too while you're at it, on and that the monitor is built in to ever modal. I mean, if you're going to talk out your ass about things that haven't been true for probably longer than you've actaully used computers in general then you might as well go all the way.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[fermion]

I think the assumption is that The One technology in fashion is the One and Only Best Solution. When Apple left Floppies, I was already using magneto-optical drives. I already had replaced the drive in my Powerbook 5300 with an MO drive. I bought a similar unit for my Power Mac that shipped without removable media(CD were, and still are primarily WORM). Floppy drives were useless because of they did no have the storage space one needed, particularly as we entered the late 90's, and networks still did not allow fast remote storage(itools was 2000, and it was useful in that regard).

I also see this as a kind of IE only thing. For a long time people developed IE MS Windows only web app front ends. People thought this was the best solution, so getting a Mac was stupid. In reality this situation only lasted a few years, was declining by 2000(the web app I worked on at the time only had one component that was IE only), and by 2005 only the most backwards organizations, particularly government organizations, were IE only. People found equal or better solutions that did not limit their customer base.

Flash is the same way. There are some things for which flash does make a very good solution, but there are many things for which flash is just gratuitous. Given the number of iPads firms depending on using flash to make sales are going to have to make the same decision that firms the previously required IE. Is the solution superior enough to offset the lost sales. Face it, Apple is a small market, but big enough to drive changes to the computer market. It has always been a player. The dropping of Flash from iPad is not so much Apple moving too fast, as much as Apple saying if Adobe does not play nice, it has the power to injure it. Right now Apple has blinked, and Adobe has the opportunity to make a Flash that works, but I think we can read something into the fact that after a year it has not so done.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[BitZtream]

ADB only worked on Apple, it never stood a chance competing with PS/2 because it wasn't intended to, thats a retarded statement.

USB took over because Adaptec wanted retarded license fees for using firewire and USB is more or less free. Adaptec basically wanted $20/device for anything that used firewire. Its really hard to sell a $10 web cam when you have to pay $20 for the connector.

USB succeeded because it was free, otherwise pretty much everything about USB is asstastic. Its a horribly inefficient protocol as anyone who actually has worked with it at the low level knows.

There are plenty of other things Apple failed at. Interestingly enough, it was during the time that Steve Jobs wasn't there that most of these failures occurred. He's had his fair share too, but for fucks sake at least pick the ones that were actually shitty products and failed because Apple's hands were tied (Firewire) or they just didn't care (ADB).

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[m509272]

You're correct. There's a lot wrong with that analogy. Floppies were the cheapest way to deliver relatively small software packages on and backup small amounts of data. You could buy a floppy drive for $10 when CD drives were probably $100 and the media was relatively cheap. It's only when CD readers and later recordable media and burners got cheap enough that floppies went the way of the dodo bird. Apple had zero influence on that.

There are those that will accept Apple decisions regardless they are good or bad just like some will do the same with MS stuff. Funny how Apple iOS is based on what is one of the oldest operating systems out there so the future is the past.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[jo_ham]

No, Apple did not want to kill USB in favour of firewire, it always wanted them to work together, since they are complementary technologies - USB is good for the low speed stuff, firewire was better (and still is) at the high bandwidth, high IO stuff like hard drives and cameras and so on. They were always meant to work together, not to be exclusive.

The USB 1.1 spec came out in September 98, at the same time as the original iMac. While there were possibly some PCs that had ports before then, MS didn't add proper support (read: full) for USB until Win 98. For some versions of Win 95 they had a patch (service release 2.1 or something?) that provided some function in late 1997 or early 98, but it was hardly the huge step forward intel were hoping for - it didn't ship with support until Win98.

Either way, my point was not "who did it first" but more how it was done - the way the iMac was released, there was a guaranteed new market for peripherals, since there were no legacy ports on it at all. If you wanted a printer you either needed a network one, or a USB one (or a USB to serial converter, which was another new market). For the new PCs, they had these new ports, but you weren't forced into using them - you could just buy a printer or modem or whatever with an old connector, that your machine still supported. Much the same as eSATA finds itself today - there's no huge surge in eSATA drives since USB2 and firewire are on pretty much every machine you can buy, and it's enough for most people.

A firewire mouse or keyboard would just be silly and unnecessary there was never any motive to remove USB in favour of firewire - they both shipped on the iMac, and always have on all future Macs.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[mjwx]

Firewire is only dead if you have never worked in the pro-video industry

By the same token, Floppy drives are dead if you've never worked in the Server Administration industry...

Which one is bigger?

Apple *still* has Firewire

But *no one* else does. Contrary to your beliefs, Apple does not define standards, FireWire is dead except in the minds of a few obscure fanboys. eSata has almost completely replaced Firewire in every capacity that USB could not. It's only a matter of time before Firewire joins the LPT port (for most of us, it already has).

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[jo_ham]

Well, partially - the keyboard shortcuts are just another way to speed things up, just like right click.

On every primary menu on the Mac (ie, the top menu bar that has access to all the functions) each item has the shortcut next to it, so you can quickly learn if you go to a specific function many times.

The main reason there was only a single button was exactly as I said - it was to ensure that any function could be accessed via left click and that there would never be (or shouldn't be) any function that *required* a right click or a shortcut combo.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Charliemopps]

No, I think the whole god damned world was wondering why they couldn't get rid of the things 5years before apple ever pulled them. The mystery of why my bios still defaults the floppy drive as the first boot device in 2010 will remain a mystery for the ages.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[jo_ham]

USB and Firewire were introduced at practically same time on the iMac - 1 year apart (1998 and 1999) and Firewire was not included as an attempt to replace USB; it was a complementary technology.

Apple also never used PS/2 ports - they used ADB, and ADB was never used on PCs, so that comparison is just meaningless. It might have been more accurate to talk about how 9 pin serial hasn't died, despite USB coming along.

The mid 90s would be 1995 onwards - USB itself didn't properly come to market until 98. The limited form that came out in 1996 was not widely adopted at all by anyone. (Not to mention that to use USB with Win 95 you needed a download from MS to enable it, so you wouldn't do that unless you actually had one of these new devices. Windows didn;t ship with support until Win98).

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[jo_ham]

Repeat after me: Firewire and USB were never designed to be exclusive technologies; on Apple's computers (to this day) they work side by side.

Apple never wanted to replace USB with Firewire. They introduced firewire a year after USB on the iMac, and kept USB (funny that) for all the things it was good at, and had firewire for all the things USB sucked at (external hard drives, etc) that it still sucks at today.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[jo_ham]

Sony still has it on their laptops, so does Fujitsu and a few others.

Just because you personally haven't run across it doesn't make it "dead" - much like the floppy, or the MO disk.

There are still many firewire peripherals out there that are indispensable to their various users, the video industry being just one of them.

You are correct though - eSATA will be the port that finally kills it off, since it is an actual replacement for the role it fills in external communications, unlike the very sub-par USB2 in the same role.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[IntlHarvester]

The Mac UI was designed for 9-inch screens, and there wasn't much point in having a context menu when the menu bar was always nearby what you were working on.

Afterwards, Apple "avoided" having a right-click mostly because they got lazy and had stopped advancing the UI. They only introduced system support after most major Mac software had already already their own context menus.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[tepples]

Firewire is only dead if you have never worked in the pro-video industry

By the same token, Floppy drives are dead if you've never worked in the Server Administration industry...

Which one is bigger?

Based solely on the ability to buy legislation in the United States Congress, I'd guess that the professional video industry (MAFIAA) is bigger than the computer industry.

Apple *still* has Firewire

But *no one* else does

The original PlayStation 2 console had a FireWire port (labeled S400).

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

"People said Apple was moving too fast."

A.) Apple weren't the first, just the most marketed example.
B.) You only need to look at the sales for USB floppy drives to work out if they moved too fast.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[gmhowell]

IIRC, Win 95 OSR2 shipped with USB support.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Urza9814]

People said they were "moving too fast" as you put it. Not that floppy drives would never go away. A decade is hardly a short time span for technology. Had Apple waited a couple years, I doubt there would have been any complaints.

Everything is going to disappear eventually. Being the first person to get rid of it and then saying "I told you so!" when it eventually goes away is stupid. Floppy drives did not disappear because Apple got rid of them, they disappeared because they were obsolete. Flash, too, will not go away just because Steve Jobs wants it to. As much as I wish it would. It'll go away when something better replaces it. And unfortunately, it doesn't seem like HTML5 is really better. At least not by enough to drive any kind of dramatic shift. Maybe a slow downward spiral if we're lucky.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Waccoon]

I don't recall Apple explicitly putting a ban on the floppy drive.

What did USB floppy drives sell for back then... over $80?

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

wow way to be wrong. it was FireWire that they did this with eg. IEEE 1394 .

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Vidar Leathershod]

Kind of a strange post. USB was around well before the iMac. I remember seeing them on some Magitronic desktops in 96. Too bad nothing used them. The adoption only occurred after Apple forced the issue with the Bondi Blue iMac, which sold over a million units very quickly. All of a sudden, USB devices started popping up left and right, many trying to imitate the color scheme.

Firewire has not gained more traction because it is more expensive to implement. But it *is* faster, has always had better connectors, and a fresh install of Windows XP will easily recognize a 1394 (Firewire) port without any assistance. A drive attached will just work, and it will work faster and better than a USB drive.

On a side note, the FW800 connector is also nicer than the eSATA connector...

As for Apple wanting to kill off USB, I would have been in favor of it had they managed it. Especially early on, USB keyboards would not always operate if the computer was having an issue. For example, forcing a restart with Ctrl-Cmd-Power did not work, whereas it did with ADB. On PCs as recent as the Dell Dimension E series, a USB keyboard other than the Dell standard will not work until drivers are installed. When one comes in the shop, it is a ridiculous exercise to do so, since without a HID device to log in install the sucker (sometimes it even wants to take you through the found new hardware wizard), you are stuck.

USB is a crappy standard, and I am sorry to say that Apple is 99 percent responsible for it's widespread adoption.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[jo_ham]

Go and look at the history of the iMac - the first iMac released was the first computer to *only* ship with USB ports for its low speed peripherals like keyboard and mouse. This was 1 year before the second gen iMac, which introduced a pair of firewire ports alongside the USB ports.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Phroggy]

The OS has always supported right click, since at least OS 8.6 - just plug in a 2 button mouse, or use control+click. The single button was all about lack of confusion, but it was not "enforced" if you wanted to be able to right click.

Correction: the OS has supported contextual menus since Mac OS 8.0 (1997), but right-clicking was not supported natively until Mac OS X (2001, but nobody used 10.0 because it was terrible). Prior to that, right-clicking was only supported through the use of third-party drivers (example) that simulated a control-click.

As of Mac OS X, multiple button mice (with scroll wheels) are natively supported by the operating system.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Tom]

Steve Jobs still clings to haptic studies done in the 80s that showed that Apple users are less confused when prevented with fewer ways to control things, while he's ignored a couple of decades' worth of feedback that Apple would sell more computers if they gave the user more control.

Feedback is noisy, and uncontrolled. It does not usually do a good job at accurately representing a majority opinion. On the contrary, random feedback tends to exaggerate the extreme opinions, as those who are simply happy with how things are do not provide feedback until prompted.

I've given a bundle of speeches and held trainings, one of the things you either learn by yourself over time or they tell you when you train for things like that is that feedback given afterwards while interesting and useful is never representative. You need to actually have people fill out a questionaire or something to get the majority opinion.

So, unless you cite some actual studies done on that subject, I doubt your assertion that Apple would sell more. Heck, I switched to Mac at a time where I could not understand how people can work on windos without the 3rd mouse button. The mouse I currently have on this Mac has 7 buttons and two wheels. The fact that Apple packaged a multi-touch mouse with 1,5 buttons doesn't bother me.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Anubis350]

But *no one* else does. Contrary to your beliefs, Apple does not define standards, FireWire is dead except in the minds of a few obscure fanboys. eSata has almost completely replaced Firewire in every capacity that USB could not.

Doesn't every digital cable box sold in the US have to have firewire, by law? My FiOS (motorola) boxes certainly do...

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Graff]

Correction: the OS has supported contextual menus since Mac OS 8.0 (1997), but right-clicking was not supported natively until Mac OS X (2001, but nobody used 10.0 because it was terrible). Prior to that, right-clicking was only supported through the use of third-party drivers (example) that simulated a control-click.

Mmmm, I'm pretty sure I was using a two-button mouse with the standard Mac drivers in MacOS 8.0. It's too far back to remember exactly when it was put in a while but native support of right-clicking has been in there quite a while, almost definitely before Mac OS X came out.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[houghi]

People said Apple was moving too fast. Now, a decade or so later,

Well, they did not say it was wrong, just that it was too fast. 5 years later or so or even 3 and nobody would have said anything.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[willy_me]

Your example does that and a whole lot more. I remember it being useful for speeding up the mouse. But you are wrong with respect to your correction.

Support for right-clicking was built into the OS when Apple added support USB - well before OSX. I can not remember when Apple added support, but jo_ham was correct in that by OS 8.6 it was standard.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, they haven't shipped a mouse with buttons AT ALL for years!

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[nOw2]

When was the last time you used the DVD drive? We're close to not needing them as it stands today.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[imakemusic]

But *no one* else does.

I do on my PC. A lot of the higher-range audio interfaces use firewire.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they are ALL single button, except there are two switches for l/r clicks

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[burris]

Jobs tried killing the floppy back in 1989 but he was unsuccessful. Now, two decades or so later, floppies have finally gone the way of the dinosaur.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[waferhead]

When was the last time you used the DVD drive? We're close to not needing them as it stands today.

Every time I ri---err... watch a DVD of course ;-)

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[sgtrock]

Added support for it, yes. Actually supplied a laptop configuration with it OOTB? No. Yet another reason that I HATE HATE HATE the Apple UI. Still, a lot of people love it. Thank Ghu for choice in the marketplace! :)

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

You remember a different timeline than I do with USB. Apple put USB keyboards and mice on their computers before anyone else did when the first iMac came along, eschewing their own ADB.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[PitaBred]

I wasn't saying that they failed because they were shitty. I was simply saying that they didn't succeed because of Apple, there were other forces at work. The ones you described.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[nine-times]

Also, I remember reading that the reason Apple discouraged multi-button mice was not because multi-button mice were themselves confusing, but because context menus are confusing.

I don't know if it's true, but supposedly Jobs wasn't a big fan of hiding functionality in invisible menus that change. The contents of a context menu change depending on context, which means you really can't be sure what options will be in the menu until you've clicked. This can be a big UI problem if some application developer decides to put non-obvious functionality in a context menu and nowhere else, especially if that option only shows up under certain circumstances (which is something that Microsoft, for example, used to do).

So rumor is that Jobs opposed the two-button mouse because he didn't want application developers to assume that users would be using context menus. If developers don't assume that users will be checking context menus, then they're not likely to hide important functionality in them.

Honestly, even though I have a multi-button mouse on my Mac, I never really use context menus. I use the right-click for games, and that's about it. I actually use the scroll-click (3rd button) *much* more often than the second button, since it's the button that opens links in new tabs in most browsers.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[jo_ham]

That is exactly why they had single button mice for so long (yet still supported context menus and right clicks).

I don't use them often - I am a keyboard guy for a lot of stuff, but they are occasionally useful.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[RazorSharp]

Floppy drives don't hold enough information to have been useful in the past ten years (consider this -- yesterday I had to give my boss a 10mb Excel spreadsheet. Standard floppy disks held like 2-3mb). That's why we have flash drives. They fit on a key-ring. Hell, most people just use the internet - e-mail, ftp, ect.

It's not like Apple dropped the floppy and ten years later the rest of the industry followed suit. Apple dropped the floppy and within a couple years the industry followed suit.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[ducomputergeek]

Not to mention sound capture. There are a lot of folks using 16 channel audio cards that are firewire based. While USB2 could handle slightly higher bandwidth than firewire 400 in bursts, it couldn't do it in sustained manner like firewire. And when you are dealing with 2TB of HD video, it makes a hell of a lot of difference.

eSata has come along though for most external HDD needs these days to replace firewire. But for most of the last decade, if you were in video production it was Firewire or you waited a long time to transfer video.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[DinDaddy]

You've made a MacBook Air. Not sure if that answers your question.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

USB is ubiquitous because people rejected Firewire.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[jo_ham]

That's like saying passenger air travel is so ubiquitous because people rejected cargo ships - the two are related but non-competing technologies.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[hazydave]

Yup... Intel actually had it on the motherboard a good five years before Microsoft had any proper support for USB. Most Windows 95 machines, shipped in 1995, had USB, even though they didn't always bring it out to a USB connector. Intel's implementation actually worked, once you loaded up Windows 98. Apple introduced the iMac G3 in 1998, with USB as a replacement only for Apple's usual slew of proprietary connectors: ADB, GeoPort, etc. The systems did have built-in modems, Ethernet, and Firewire as a replacement for SCSI... USB was really just the "desktop bus" replacement at the time.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[hazydave]

Firewire is dying in the pro-video world as well... it's lingering only in the world of tape, which is pretty quickly vanishing. Looking for a new tape-based camcorder introduction these days is kind of like looking for a new film-based camera introduction was a few years back -- it's still possible, but the sport is getting rather unrewarding.

And of course, Firewire was never used on high-end pro-gear. It began with the lower-end stuff, DV cameras, and moved only so far upscale. If you're not using a DV (IEC 61834) or MPEG-2 CODEC (or the spinoffs: DVCam, DVCPro, DVCPro50, DVCPro HD, HDV, etc). For any of the more advanced HD formats, it's going to be SDI, not Firewire, for transfers (DigiBeta, HDCam, D5-HD, etc).

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[hazydave]

It didn't help Firewire that Microsoft gave such poor support for it in Windows. Yeah, Windows XP and even Windows 2000 will recognize a Firewire port. But unless you have XP SP3, you're locked at 100Mb/s without doing some registry hacking. So it's good for cameras, and that's about it.

Having recognized the flaws in the Win2K/XP/Vista drivers, MS released a new driver for Windows 7 -- which offered abysmal performance. I actually have a RAID that can run via FW800 or USB 2.0. Under XP, there was no question -- pretty much no force of nature could get a FW800 device going at 800Mb/s, and MS's drivers ran FW400 slower than USB 2.0 with this device.

When I upgraded to Windows 7, I had hopes... but no. The new drivers dropped FW performance to about 1/10th the norm, 2MB/s reads vs. 20MB/s over FW or 25MB/s over USB. They did provide the legacy driver, but it was no better than it had been.

I finally discovered the Unibrain drivers, which, along with only certain Firewire chips, actually support 800Mb/s over Firewire under Windows without crashing. So today, I get 45MB/s from the RAID, though I had to buy a new FW card to get it (Unibrain just BSODed with the PCIe FW card I had been using, but it's stable with a certain 32-bit PCI card).

Next time, SATA or GigE... both faster, both just work. Firewire was nice for awhile, but it needs to die. Of my five HD camcorders (two pro models), only the old ones still bother with Firewire -- both tape-based, HDV models. Even many new consumer HD camcorders (like the Panny TM700 or the Sony CV550) outperform just about any HDV unit, pro or otherwise, from a few years ago.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[hazydave]

USB took over because Apple wanted retarded license fees for using firewire and USB is more or less free. Apple basically wanted $20/device for anything that used firewire. Its really hard to sell a $10 web cam when you have to pay $20 for the connector.

There, fixed that for you. Adaptec may have sold some Firewire cards, but they had nothing to do with the creation of Firewire. It was primarily Apple, though the IEEE1394 working group also included TI, Sony, DEC, SGS Thompson, and IBM.

Apple was demanding $1.00 per port, while Intel had spun USB off to a SIG, which was licensing USB for free. That's around the time they started cooking up USB 2.0, as at least a partial answer for saying "no" to Firewire as a PC industry standard. Apple's always been greedy, Intel's always understood how to introduce an industry standard: largely, you make it free, and grant any patents on it licensed under compliant implementations automatically. As with PCI, as with PCI Express, etc.

Thing is, they were never really competitors. USB started out as an answer to the "ports problem"... serial, parallel, no autoconfiguration, no way to deal with additional low-speed expansion. Firewire started out as a replacement for SCSI, from Apple's point of view, better suited to multiple ports thanks to the small serial connector. When Sony got on board, it became the answer to digital video... USB doesn't work with digital tape, because you need the camera to be bus master.

It was only the video industry that saved Firewire from total obscurity, but even that's fading. It never caught on well as a consumer video interface, though you'll find it on some high-end televisions. Camcorders are going tapeless, rapidly, and won't bother with Firewire, since USB does just as well if the medium is computer-like, rather than videotape.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[jo_ham]

Indeed, if you're shooting in HDCam or Beta you're nowhere near firewire, but it is still king below that - XDCAM is about as high as you go before you are properly away from it (the decks I was using had both SDI and Firewire).

It's really nice for the self contained systems that include the smaller portable cameras based around prosumer HD, on shows where the polish just isn't the main focus. Lots of the BBC's daytime exterior shot stuff like the antique hunting shows, home makeover stuff etc is shot that way, for example. It's easy to keep a firewire-based workflow on specific edit suites for that sort of thing. The big productions are all on HDcam and so on.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[j-beda]

USB is ubiqutous [sic] because intel put it on all their motherboards, not because apple forced the issue. What apple does is leave people in the lurch with no recourse. That isn't vision or inivation [sic] or design. It's simple asshattery.

Intel and Microsoft's participation was certainly necessary for USB to become ubiquitous, however what Apple did was to create a viable market for USB by providing a few million customers who had no other choice for connectivity with the first iMac designs. It made little economic sense to sell USB peripherals to people with Intel machines when you could reach a larger market with the "legacy" connectors. Those manufactures who had previously sold product to the Apple serial and ADB market found their former customers now unable to use the stuff they were manufacturing so they HAD to make USB devices. As a bonus they got to sell to the Intel market for "free" or only the price of a software driver. Witness the glut of Bondi-blue USB devices from that era.

Apple removed the "chicken-or-egg" problem by creating a market for a relatively new and relatively unsupported standard.

From IBM is a pretty similar analysis of the economics and the significant role of the iMac: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-spec7.html

Enter the iMac.

The original "bondi blue" iMac was the first computer to offer USB ports without offering "legacy" ports. That's right -- no serial ports, no ADB. This changes the network effects. Before the iMac showed up, there were many millions of PC users who had no USB ports and perhaps a couple of million who had a USB port and also legacy ports. The biggest market in 1998 was in serial and parallel ports (or joystick ports, PS/2 ports, and so on) -- there was no reason to target the USB market. That would just restrict your audience.

The iMac presented a ready-made market of users who chose the Mac line for its graphics capability. In turn, the iMac offered a captive audience of users who would buy a USB peripheral but would not buy any other kind of peripheral. These users provided a market for USB peripherals that wasn't facing competition from other port choices. The result was a flood of USB devices in white-and-blue plastic. This was a crucial turning point that created a reason (tied to a proven system choice) to prefer USB to non-USB ports.

Once adoption was foist onto this substantial segment of users, the technical merits of the technology won out easily. USB's technical superiority (for most peripherals) to the conglomeration of a half-dozen different port types was unambiguous.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[anarkhos]

I removed mine and haven't missed it.

What, exactly, is a DVD drive good for except installing the OS?

Oh wait. It sucks for that, too.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[anarkhos]

Watch a DVD? You still have some which aren't scratched?

10 years from now the only videos that aren't in my hard drive will be in VHS.

Optical media has always been a joke. I never understood the popularity of the fragile media. I bet my Syquest disks still work.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

USB took over because the Firewire patent pool wanted retarded license fees for using firewire and USB is more or less free. the Firewire patent pool basically wanted $20/device for anything that used firewire. Its really hard to sell a $10 web cam when you have to pay $20 for the connector.

There, fixed that for you. Adaptec may have sold some Firewire cards, but they had nothing to do with the creation of Firewire. It was primarily Apple, though the IEEE1394 working group also included TI, Sony, DEC, SGS Thompson, and IBM.

There, fixed that for you for you.

Apple was demanding $1.00 per port, while Intel had spun USB off to a SIG, which was licensing USB for free.

Firewire license fees were/are collected by the 1394 Trade Association (1394ta.org) on behalf of all the IP owners involved, because as you note, Apple was by no means the sole creator of 1394. I don't know enough to know whether Apple was the only member pushing for high-per-port licensing fees. I do recall that when there was a flap about $1 per port, the 1394 TA quickly dropped it to $0.25, or something like that.

That's around the time they started cooking up USB 2.0, as at least a partial answer for saying "no" to Firewire as a PC industry standard. Apple's always been greedy, Intel's always understood how to introduce an industry standard: largely, you make it free, and grant any patents on it licensed under compliant implementations automatically. As with PCI, as with PCI Express, etc.

But also never, ever forget about the importance of NIH when you're talking about Intel. For example, consider the old UHCI versus OHCI host controller standard split in USB. UHCI was Intel's baby, and they wouldn't accept industry criticism, so industry defined OHCI based on things they wanted improved in UHCI.

It was only the video industry that saved Firewire from total obscurity, but even that's fading. It never caught on well as a consumer video interface, though you'll find it on some high-end televisions.

Actually I'd guess that for the past couple of years Firewire has held on mainly as an external disk interface for Macs. So far as I can tell the transition away from tape (and therefore DVCam, and therefore Firewire) is already a fait accompli. Any camcorder worth buying today almost certainly interfaces with USB2.

As for disks, well, FW800 is a lot better for disks than USB2. Apple is unlikely to ever adopt eSATA since that's a horrible half-assed abomination of a spec with lots of severe usability flaws (*), so it won't be until they adopt USB3, Light Peak, or both that Mac users who care about performance will begin buying non-Firewire external disks. Oxford Semiconductor has made a lot of dough selling embedded ARM microcontrollers designed to interface ATA disks to FW.

* That's not entirely unexpected since eSATA is an unplanned retrofit onto SATA, begun by shady vendors selling very non-standards-compliant cabling kits to take SATA signals outside computer cases. Because eSATA wasn't planned when SATA was designed, SATA doesn't do sensible things one would normally expect on external interfaces such as native support for more than one device per port (requires port multiplier chips which may or may not work with your devices, because they do hackish things to retrofit in multiple-device addressing), require hotplug support at the protocol or device driver level (it does at least always require hotplug support on the electrical interface so you won't kill anything by plugging cables, it just might not work well until you reboot in some cases), support devices other than disks well (if at all), and so forth.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[ALeader71]

Remember, Apple was trending towards the college market. At that time, colleges were wiring dorms with ethernet and porfessor were accepting electronic submissions. The floppy was on the way out. The growth of multimedia finished it off. The CD/DVD is next.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[dwightk]

it wasn't until the third gen that the imac got firewire... Bondi, 5 colors, then the iMacDV

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[jo_ham]

Like a man in orthopaedic shoes, I stand corrected, I think I have compacted the Bondi and 5 colour iMacs into a single generation.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[Phroggy]

Apple did add support via InputSprocket, which enabled games to use multiple buttons (among other things), but InputSprocket was generally used only by games. Right-click support wasn't available in the Finder or most other applications without the use of third-party drivers prior to Mac OS X. Mouse manufacturers usually either provided their own Mac drivers (Logitech did this), or simply offered USB Overdrive (Microsoft did this).

Here's a forum thread with somebody asking about it.

Re:Floppy drives anyone?

[waferhead]

Right, but Netflix sends DVDs, not Syquest discs.

Adobe has its work cut out

[bogaboga]

On the other hand, Steve Jobs was right. This is a bigger problem for Adobe. Let them admit thet they need some help wit Flash...maybe Linus hackers can help out.

Bottom line: Flash sucks on Android big time.

Re:Adobe has its work cut out

[Trufagus]

Why did everyone expect Flash sites to work perfectly on mobile, without any tweaking?

I don't remember HTML+js doing the same. Actually, I still find that using a non-mobile site on my phone is very annoying. I don't remember people concluding that HTML+js was not suitable for phones and should be junked.

But apparently, the fact that some randomly chosen Flash sites are crappy on a phone, proves Steve Jobs right. I'm actually impressed with how well Flash sites work on phones without any tweaking.

To me, this all proves how disparately people want Steve Jobs to be right.

Re:Adobe has its work cut out

[Skuld-Chan]

Flash on Android is interesting. I think that article really misses the fact that it does in fact work, but some sites are really not designed for touch. I found its pretty fun to watch videos on my phone on sites like escapist.com - you can't do that on IOS, but you can on Android and it does work and its not a battery drain.

There are in fact examples of HTML 5 based sites that totally fail on the ipod/iphone/ipad/android as well.

Re:Adobe has its work cut out

[molnarcs]

I don't think you have tried flash on Froyo - I don't care what random author says on the internet, most sites I have ran into work well with flash enabled on my Nexus One. That includes flashgames247, a site I just visited to try out how flash works. Played a game where you had to shoot arrows by dragging backwards and clicking with the mouse. Worked flawlessly with fingers. Then before I bought this phone, I was looking at reviews on youtube. Found a video comparing the Iphone 4 with the Nexus One. By the time the Iphone finished loading the page of one specific site*, the Nexus one has already finished and the flash video was already playing! The slowest site I managed to find was sonystyle, animation is as slow as a slideshow, but so far, the majority of flash heavy sites I visited work very well.

*www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjhF1xZQRQk - browser test is between the 6th and 7th minute

Re:Adobe has its work cut out

[tknd]

Bottom line: Flash sucks on Android big time.

I don't get it. I have a nexus one. I have flash installed and I have it set to load when I ask it to. So here's what happens:

• Go to webpage with flash
• See a flash box
• Tap the flash box if I want to see the flash rendered

Here's what happens on the ipod touch:

• Go to webpage with flash
• See the "you can't see this, no matter what you do, because Jobs-says-so icon"
• Leave website.

So how does this suck?

If you're talking about the user experience, yes, many flash pages were not designed for a touch device because you can't completely emulate the mouse pointer with touch. But many javascript pages don't work well either when they assume a mouse pointer as well.

Re:Adobe has its work cut out

[postmortem]

cake sucks ... said boy without cake to boy with cake.

Re:Adobe has its work cut out

[slaingod]

You are missing the point. The point is that it is entirely possibly to create good-performing, good-ui apps using Flash for mobile. It is also possible to create poor-performing apps for mobile, or try to run apps that weren't designed for mobile with mixed results. (Using apps here generically for flash embeds or app store standalone.) But the same can be said for ANY technology, and certainly 'HTML5' (preumably javascript combined with the canvas tag) fares much worse. But for Steve Jobs to say that even good-performing, good-ui apps should be banned from Apple devices just to prevent the possibility of the bad ones, is hubris.

I have suggested that Apple could have avoided all of this mess (bad PR) by simply adding a warning for apps that use 3rd party toolkits, and possible segregating them in the app store or with a setting to hide them by default.

Re:Adobe has its work cut out

[jbernardo]

On the other hand, Steve Jobs was right. This is a bigger problem for Adobe. Let them admit thet they need some help wit Flash...maybe Linus hackers can help out.

Bottom line: Flash sucks on Android big time.

Actually, flash doesn't suck on android - at least on my N1 running cyanogen's CM6. Even in the article you link they admit "When Flash 10.1 for Android is good, it’s great, but when it’s bad, ...". Then they go on claiming that only videos optimised for mobile phones are smooth on the android, but that hasn't been my experience. I didn't set out to test exactly the same sites as on that article, but on regular usage (Portuguese, Italian and UK news sites, youtube [directly with the browser claiming it is a desktop pc], atdhe, etc.) I never had any of the symptoms described in that article. Some jerkiness from time to time, yes, but that was mostly due to slow net connections or overloaded sources. The games I didn't try - I was never a fan of flash games - but I assume most games make assumptions that won't work on touch screens. I don't see exactly how that is a failure with flash, though.

All in all, I never got the bugs and inconveniences reported in that article. And judging from the comments section there, I wasn't the only one. I know flash bashing is fashionable here at slashdot, but the article you quote is too much against mine and other users real life experience to be trusted. And don't take just my work for it, check this article, for another example of flash working on android, or this one for a take from a iphone user on the same "problem".

Bottom line: Flash doesn't suck on my android phone, or of any of my friends; and I'd rather have it available than having a "benevolent dictator" deciding I can't use it on my phone just because.

Re:Adobe has its work cut out

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand the problem at all. My Nokia N900 plays Flash and Youtube in the maemobrowser without any problem at all..
It's FUD.

Re:Adobe has its work cut out

[kangsterizer]

Maybe you should click the bold "UPDATE" link on their site? You know, with the newest Flash version.. that happens to be a stable release too.

"As our experience illustrates, Flash Player 10.1 for Android works really well on a fair number of sites. In these cases, you feel like you’re getting the full desktop experience on your phone, whether you’re watching video or playing games. And it all happens right in the browser window–no dedicated apps required."

That's my experience as well. There's few sites that don't work "that well" on mobile flash, then again they don't really work all that well on desktop either. In most cases it's a smooth experience now.

Re:Adobe has its work cut out

[oh_my_080980980]

Repeat after THE END USER DOESN'T GIVE A FLYING FIG ABOUT FLASH. If you think they care you are wrong. Flash brings nothing that can't be done in another technology.

This pro flash argument is simple flash developers trying to save their bread and butter. No consumer cares. And not flash does not not well on the android and no you don't need to use flash to view web content.

Re:Adobe has its work cut out

[Skuld-Chan]

They don't care about Flash (because they don't know what it is) until they notice a whole in a page that shouldn't be there.

Build a lab of 200 or so Windows machines and don't install any plugins - trust me on this (this is my job) you will get complaints that stuff doesn't work.

Flash: irksome, slow, unnecessary

[kaplong!]

'Installed' doesn't mean 'enabled'. Plus, 87% of all statistics are made up.

Re:Flash: irksome, slow, unnecessary

[fidget42]

You know, you are right. I remember reading that here

Get "Flash"!

[Anonymous Coward]

Will this be remembered as the "Get a horse!" mis-statement of years past?

Wrong number

[funkatron]

This:

mobile accounts for only 2.6% of web views, and the iOS share stands at only 1.1%.

is presumably measured over a single set time period and is not a rate of change. It says nothing about this:

iOS growth is "massive"

I have no idea what the ransom bit is on about tho. Troll?

Re:Wrong number

[blair1q]

A high slope in a very small number doesn't count as a massive anything.

Look at it this way, if you call Apple growing mobile click share from 0.5 to 1.1% = a 120% growth "massive", then do you call Apple decreasing its competing technologies' click share from 99.5 to 98.9% = a -0.6% descrease "massive" as well, or would you call it "puny" as the rest of us would?

Re:Wrong number

[Shag]

mobile accounts for only 2.6% of web views, and the iOS share stands at only 1.1%.

Okay, and... what percent of web views do mobile devices running Flash account for?

How many significant digits do you have to go to before it's zero? :)

If you believe mobile in general is "the future" then you probably also believe Flash is the past. If not, then you don't.

Market share != quality online experience.

[Reeses]

Just because hundreds of millions of people have it installed, doesn't mean they like it.

Silverlight is probably closer to what Flash's market penetration would be if Flash hadn't become a compulsory install. If it weren't installed by default. SIlverlight is only installed because it blocks the path to content that people want to see. There's no SilverlightTube (yet). Few Silverlight webgames. It's only there because people want access to what it blocks.

When the day comes where it isn't assumed you need Flash player in order to be a good Internet consumer, you can expect to see it's market share plummet.

The numbers also don't account for the amount of frustration Flash causes people who have to use it. It's only been recently (version 10.1.18xxxxxx) that I can run Flash on my MacBook and not have it cripple the performance.

I think they should give it a few years and see what happens. It smells a lot like the same argument that used to be thrown against Firefox when it had only been out a little while versus. IE's market share.

Look where that wound up.

Re:Market share != quality online experience.

[Rogerborg]

Dude. Dude.

It's only been recently (version 10.1.18xxxxxx) that I can run Flash on my MacBook and not have it cripple the performance.

If you're going to try to make a point about how Flash is on the way out, it's best not to talk about how you just adopted it yourself.

Re:Market share != quality online experience.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only been recently (version 10.1.18xxxxxx) that I can run Flash on my MacBook and not have it cripple the performance.

You do realize that this is because Steve Jobs has purposely crippled Flash on the Mac? It's only recently that he's decided to allow Adobe access to hardware acceleration, and even then, if you're using Safari, it still arbitrarily slows Flash down by throwing it into an unnecessary subprocess.

Try Flash under Windows to get an idea of what performance is like when the system isn't completely controlled by a megalomaniac. (Yeah, yeah, "any more" - point is, Windows is and always has been more open than Mac.)

You might be surprised at how much better Flash works when the operating system isn't explicitly programmed to prevent it from working.

Interestingly enough, this is why Firefox 4 won't be doing hardware acceleration on Macs either, Apple won't allow them.

Didnt' steve say "give me a flash that works", not

[Anonymous Coward]

"it won't work" ?

and adobe never could come up with a flash that doesn't blow chunks (And eat mad battery)....
 

The Big Guns

[Miros]

At the end of the day it's going to be the FCC settling this debate. Limiting consumer choice is never a good idea when you have a strong market position (like Apple's with mobile devices). The US government tends to frown on that in the long run.

Re:The Big Guns

[geekoid]

Well, if they had any where near market majority, you may be correct. Even if Steve likes to say they ahve market dominance, that doesn't make it so.

Re:The Big Guns

[FranTaylor]

strong market position.

"strong" is not the criterion. "dominant" is more like it.

You can hardly claim Apple has "dominant" market position.

Re:The Big Guns

[blair1q]

I don't thik the FCC has a thing to say about video players.

The FTC, maybe, but Apple's position is hardly so dominant that it can be said to control the market for mobile computing.

Android seems to be flooding in without much interference from Apple devices. Of course, part of that is because Jobs stupidly tied his smartphones to the worst-deployed 3G network in the USA...

Re:The Big Guns

[Anonymous Coward]

when you have a strong market position (like Apple's with mobile devices).

Are they up to 5% of mobile phones yet? Not to say 5% isn't a shitload of money (good for you, Apple) but "strong position" kind of overstates it.

Re:The Big Guns

[mcrbids]

At the end of the day it's going to be the FCC settling this debate. Limiting consumer choice is never a good idea when you have a strong market position (like Apple's with mobile devices). The US government tends to frown on that in the long run.

Imply much, say little. That's often a cheap trick to appearing insightful while being difficult to prove wrong. A common strategy to appease the slashbots and win cheap karma points. Unfortunately, your implications are just simply wrong.

1) Why would the FCC get involved? What possible business would they have in deciding whether or not Apple supports Flash? You know that the FCC is the Federal Communications Commission - they oversee Telecom and radio/TV, mostly. Did you mean the FTC?

2) Why would the FTC get involved? There's nowhere NEAR a monopoly - Android devices currently outsell iPhones, and iPhones aren't likely to explode and kill little babies, nor is there any particular misrepresentation about what the iPhone is and does. It's a smart phone that looks nice, and that's what Apple is selling.

3) Apple doesn't have a particularly commanding lead on mobile devices, see previous point - iPhones are only about 35% of the market depending on what survey you look at and when it was taken.

4) Since when does the gubbmint frown on limiting choice? Perhaps if there's a monopoly, (which there isn't) and even then, it's not limiting choice, even as a monopoly, but using your ability to distort the marketplace to prevent competition, a process called "dumping".

You'd do well to look up dumping, because even what you are implying is simply dead wrong.

Re:The Big Guns

[BitZtream]

First off, the FCC wouldn't jump on them, thats not their job. You're thinking DOJ or something. But lets pretend you got the right 3 letter acronym.

While there technically was a 'mobile market' before the iPhone, the reality of it is, no one outside of geeks owned a real smart phone before the iPhone. If anyone says that RIM makes a smart phone, you're fired. There certainly WERE smartphones out there (owned one myself) but not enough to matter.

Apple more or less created the smartphone market from a CONSUMER stand point when it released the iPhone. It took two devices everyone already had anyway, and made one that did both. Argue over if they did it good or not all you want, thats not my point. My point is that ignoring WHAT smart phones people own now, now EVERYONE owns a smart phone almost.

So considering Apple more or less created the market from a practical perspective, the DOJ isn't going to jump up and start an antitrust investigation tomorrow, even if they owned the market, which ... they don't, not anywhere near being able to call the shots.

Point of reference: If they had the power to control the market, AT&T wouldn't charge tethering and would still have unlimited data plans because Apple said so.

Re:The Big Guns

[gmhowell]

FCC? At least Blutarsky had a point when he referenced the German bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Re:The Big Guns

[gmhowell]

It's hard to tell the morons and the trolls apart when the anti-Apple rants get started.

Lies, damned lies, and web statistics?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm really curious how Silverlight got to 51% unless it's a default install for Windows 7 or something of the sort. So far I've only seen it in the wild three times: Photosynth, the Feynmann Lectures (posted by MS...), and some random video at MSNBC or similar news site. I don't even really know what it does, so how is it at 51%? I'm really not trolling; I'm genuinely curious.

And to generalize a bit, what do statistics like this actually say? I promise you my parents don't know what Flash is, although they've probably seen plenty of irritating animated ads. The numbers they quote for Apple and Flash are on opposite ends of the spectrum, but based on their numbers for Silverlight versus the apparent usage of Silverlight, I'm having a tough time deciding what to take away from this article.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and web statistics?

[keytoe]

So far I've only seen it in the wild three times: Photosynth, the Feynmann Lectures (posted by MS...), and some random video at MSNBC or similar news site.

You need it for Netflix streaming. I know that's the only reason I have it installed on two of my computers, and that's the only thing it's used for.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and web statistics?

[blackraven14250]

Netflix uses Silverlight. That's a rather large chunk of the intentional deployment, beyond the "Oh, it's here on Windows Update, I better install it" crowd, I would imagine.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and web statistics?

[jo_ham]

SkyPlayer uses Silverlight, which is Sky's web-based streaming service for subscribers of Sky's satellite TV service in the UK. Sky has quite a large user base, although I'm sure the percentage of its customers who use SkyPlayer is probably quite small.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and web statistics?

[SideshowBob]

I have the Netflix client on my iPod Touch, iPad, and PS3, none of which have or require Silverlight.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and web statistics?

[mjwx]

I'm really curious how Silverlight got to 51%

2 methods, both part of the standard Microsoft MO.

1. Make parts of Microsoft.com use silverlight, forcing people to install that plugin if they need to access those parts.

2. Get partners to push it. I was an employee of a die hard MS ISV when Silverlight came out. It was pushed like there was no tomorrow. Everything had to be developed in silverlight despite the fact Flash or even basic HTML performed the function better but the command came down from on high and I had to install Silverlight via group policy. The CxO's said that "Silverlight was the future" and that "Flash was dead" so I take it with a very large grain of salt when Steve declares "HTML is the future" and "Flash is dead".

I'd be quite confident in saying, 90% of web users actually want flash, 50% of web users were forced to install silverlight. I dislike flash ad's as much as the next guy but with Flashblock they dont bother me and I get all the Flash content I do want. Android is the same as I've set all plugins to be "on demand".

Re:Lies, damned lies, and web statistics?

[keytoe]

I have the Netflix client on my iPod Touch, iPad, and PS3, none of which have or require Silverlight.

That's cool. I tried to install the Netflix app from the app store on my home theatre system, but it wouldn't run. Go figure.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and web statistics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Silverlight appears as an update in Windows update manager.
Can't remember if it shows as an "important" one or a "recomended" one but I imagine lots of people pick the option that installs "all the updates".
I guess most of them don't even know what Silverlight is, they just think they are keeping their computer as secure as possible.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and web statistics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Xbox Live is one thing - you can't see a lot of content unless you have Silverlight installed.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and web statistics?

[Sprouticus]

I disagree. I think users only use flash for the exact same reasons they use silverlight. They go to a website and it says 'to see this page you need Flashplayer X.X. click here to install'

And I can tell you that 100% of IT departments would not want to have to deal with either flash OR silverlight given the chance.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and web statistics?

[sp0tter]

So far I've only seen it in the wild three times: Photosynth, the Feynmann Lectures (posted by MS...), and some random video at MSNBC or similar news site.

just wanted to add my number-one reason for having a vested interest in Silverlight, NetFlix. It is required for any of their streaming services.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and web statistics?

[mjwx]

I disagree. I think users only use flash for the exact same reasons they use silverlight.

Whilst this is true to some extent, a lot of the time it's because they go to a service that is delivered via flash because they want to use that service (such as YouTube). This is a little bit different to MS trying to force you to install Silverlight to access the XP powertools.

And I can tell you that 100% of IT departments would not want to have to deal with either flash OR silverlight given the chance.

As a sysadmin I agree, as a regular (home) user I'd like to use flash based services. The problem is that End Users will squeal very loudly if they dont get flash and the ever popular cry of "IT Nazi" is bandied about, if I could nullify that I'd get rid of flash in an instant on my network.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and web statistics?

[dwightk]

and while it is a little buggy, it is definitely MUCH better than flash. I'd probably cancel my netflix subscription if they switched.

Never again

[seanonymous]

"In Steve Jobs' case, with only 1.1% market share, the would-be emperor isn't even wearing any clothes."

Dear Slashdot,
Please do not ever make me picture Steve Jobs naked again.

Thank you.

Re:Never again

[funkatron]

Please don't put the idea of picturing people naked into my head, I've got QI on the TV in the background.

Re:Never again

[actionbastard]

Mmmm, naked Steve Jobs.

Re:Never again

[Anonymous Coward]

remember the simpsons episode where marge painted mr. burns?

Re:Never again

[Anonymous Coward]

whisper jeff is that you...?

Adobe and Apple management ethically suck

[Anonymous Coward]

Over-paid, pretentious, power-mad executives who think they can cheat, deceive and manipulate the market seem to be in charge of way too much. Isn't there a cure for megalomania yet? Can't they support the community through open standards? I'm so tired of proprietary schemes that as soon as I see one, I leave.

Mr. Jobs. you're way overpaid in my opinion.

Re:Adobe and Apple management ethically suck

[mkiwi]

Steve Jobs does have stock options from a long time ago, but he also only gets paid $1.00 a year by Apple (since 2003, at least).

Why $1.00, you ask?
So he could use the same company insurance plans that Apple's salaried workers have. (interesting factoid)

My numbers are different

[zerosomething]

The university I work for has over 25 to 30 percent (5000 +) of it's staff using iOS devices. We gathered this info from our Exchange system. Students don't use Exchange so these are mostly well established professors and staff not a bunch of upstart kids. We have reason the believe the percentage of students using iOS is well over 30% if not closer to 50%. It's important to note that if you own an iOS device you also own a computer of some kind. People aren't using one device to access all content and iOS is by far the primary mobile platform if you are talking about small form factor or phones. You just can't produce stats that say otherwise. And yes Android is moving fast up the stats and they don't like Flash on it. Just think of all the Flash adds you are missing.

Re:My numbers are different

[Anonymous Coward]

The university I work for

of it's staff

We have reason the believe the

all the Flash adds

Yup, you read it right, folks. Even working at a University doesn't help.. sigh.

Re:My numbers are different

[the_humeister]

I have an Android phone (HTC Aria), and I can enable or disable Flash as I please.

Re:My numbers are different

[valkraider]

To be fair, they didn't say they worked in the English department...

Re:My numbers are different

[grimdawg]

Do graduate students use the system? At my university, roughly 20-30 percent of 'staff' are actually postgrads and a hig percentage of those use Apple stuff and smartphones. The dusty old crones in the permanent staff do not.

Re:My numbers are different

[Anonymous Coward]

Wherever someone mentions Flash on Android there will be someone shouting "oh won't you think of the ads".

Fact is that even if Flash disappeared there would be something else to replace it as an ad delivery mechanism, as advertisers will want to tap into the market.
Oh and by the way, how's iAd working for you? /smirk

Re:My numbers are different

[zippthorne]

Students can't afford the 2-year lock-in data plan upgrade. At least, not if they want to be responsible.

And come to think about it, they can't afford it if they want to be irresponsible either....

It would be interesting to see whether they're buying them in greater or lesser percentages than their professors anyway.

Re:My numbers are different

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly your one university is indicative of world wide usage.

You know, most markets (especially those without contracts) those devices don't sell very well... I can see why, since the phone costs $1,000 or more new ( http://www.expansys.ca/mobile-phones/ ). "Thankfully", most people don't see this due to the contracts spreading the cost over 2-3 years in North America, and don't realize that certain phones actually cost (a lot) more.

I like having the option of having Flash. I have it on-demand, so it doesn't render anything I don't want it to.

Re:My numbers are different

[rtechie]

I'm sure your upscale American university is completely representative of the streets of Mumbai.

Installed base: Worst. Stat. Ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet if I go through my installed applications list, there's a ton of crap I don't use.

Silverlight? Yeah sure, huge installed base. I've never installed it. When I hit a site that requires it, I say "no thanks". I have yet to hit a site that was so good it broke down my resistance to installing that. I'd uninstall Flash too, but YouTube requires it. That's it. YouTube is my killer app for Flash. Whatever YouTube requires, I will probably use, unless it requires something I so despise that I decide to pull the plug on YouTube.

So to reiterate. Installed base: Worst. Stat. Ever.

You can't automaticly detect user base without being a bit more intrusive. It's user base that matters.

Note, I'm not really defending Apple's position here. I'm just saying that installed base is a flawed counter-argument.

Silverlight : p

[Beardydog]

Silverlight would be dead if it weren't for Netflix. I really wish they'd use something else ( although, honestly, it seems to outperform every Flash-based video service on my lower end computers ).

Re:Silverlight : p

[blair1q]

I've seen silverlight pop up in a few other places. Microsoft may be a bit dopey, but they'll get it close-enough soon enough to crack Flash's total ownership of online content, and it will be about as clunky as Flash so people really won't know much of a difference.

Re:Silverlight : p

[diegocg]

Well, I'm not a Netflix user, so Silverlight is certainly dead for me. I still have to find a web site that uses it. Microsoft is being succesful in getting it installed in most Windows computers (something they can't do by default because of legal concerns), but they aren't being very succesful in getting web sites to actually use it.

Re:Silverlight : p

[jo_ham]

Silverlight may be a Microsoft product, but it is way better than Flash on my OS X machine. MS may be some sort of boogyman, but they managed to do with Silverlight what Adobe has failed or can't be bothered to do with Flash - make it work well on something other than Windows, which is amusing since I didn't think MS would care about making it work well on the Mac. Certainly less than Adobe should care about decent flash performance.

Re:Silverlight : p

[Anonymous Coward]

I really wish netflix would use something other than silverblight. It pains me that I have to put it on computers at work. Didn't mlb.com use it for a while and then ditch it?

Re:Silverlight : p

[Anonymous Coward]

@AnonymousCoward u watch #netflix at work? ru hiring?!?!?!?!

Quite a lot of people use meth, too

[scromp]

Flash sucks even on real computers, I don't get why people get so worked up about this. Flash can die in a fire. A *poo* fire.

Re:Quite a lot of people use meth, too

[BitZtream]

My laptop has been sitting here on this article for a while, and I had some other pages open in the background and a VM running windows downloading some games to play.

I pick it up and its piping hot ... like it gets after running some hard core games. Gah, that stupid VM is roasting CPU, freaking Windows ... start top to see whats going on and cofirm ... what? The VM isn't even on the screen its so far down the process list?

Whats eating CPU? WebKitPlugin ... i.e. FREAKING FLASH.

Close the one web page with flash on it, and the CPU load drops down to nothing.

THATS WHY I FUCKING HATE FLASH.

I have a request, will someone please make a Safari plugin that will enable flash only when private browsing is enabled? I know that sounds backwards, but the only reason I turn flash on is to view porn, seems like if it would switch on and off automatically then I wouldn't mind nearly as much. I might even switch to Chrome if there was a plugin like that, hrm, maybe I can port one to Safari if its already there.

Re:Quite a lot of people use meth, too

[gmhowell]

Flash sucks even on real computers, I don't get why people get so worked up about this. Flash can die in a fire. A *poo* fire.

A burning meth-lab/trailer home would have fit in more with your subject line.

Re:Quite a lot of people use meth, too

[scromp]

That's a damn good point.

Re:Quite a lot of people use meth, too

[jcupitt65]

You need click2flash: http://github.com/rentzsch/clicktoflash

Re:Quite a lot of people use meth, too

[Anonymous Coward]

ClickToFlash works pretty well. http://clicktoflash.com/

Re:Quite a lot of people use meth, too

[Andreas Mayer]

If you are using a current version of Safari, there's also an extension:

http://hoyois.github.com/safariextensions/clicktoflash/

I no longer have Flash installed

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason I had Flash installed was to watch video on the web. With HTML5 video support in Firefox 4 I increasingly don't need Flash. Sure, WebM support has a ways to go even on sites like YouTube but it's making sure and steady progress.

The article is seriously flawed

[microbee]

1.1%? He didn't factor in the 100x Reality Distortion Field.

Candlesticks

[frnic]

Who needs those pesky light bulbs Mr. Edison - over 99% of the homes and offices already have either gas lights or candles.

would-be emporer

[nine-times]

the would-be emperor isn't even wearing any clothes.

Maybe I'm being pedantic, but it seems like a failed attempt to be clever. "It's like the emperor's new clothes, except this time... HE ISN'T EVEN WEARING ANY CLOTHES!" He's not wearing clothes in the original story.

Re:would-be emporer

[Anonymous Coward]

More like pedantry fail. Bill Gates was the emperor to which the writer was referring, and Bill was presumably wearing clothes.

Re:would-be emporer

[gmhowell]

Wish I could be paid that much to fail like that.

Re:would-be emporer

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a bit mangled, isn't it?

Still, I think the point is not that Steve Jobs is taking off his clothes, but instead that Bill Gates generally wore clothes.

Thank god.

All I can tell you is...

[PhantomHarlock]

Last night I watched the Atlas V launch from Vandenberg from 100 miles away. it was GREAT to be able to see the video of the first moments of the launch on my Android phone and then listen to the radio chatter as I watched it come up over the horizon and soar up through the sky with my own eyes. All of this because my phone supports flash and thus the flash video on spaceflightnow. It played smoothly and without issue as a sat out in the middle of the desert with a good 3G signal on Verizon.

If I had still had my iPhone, which I had until May of this year, I wouldn't have been able to do that. I am so happy to be away from Apple's walled garden I can't begin to describe it.

Re:All I can tell you is...

[Jaime2]

I can watch Flash video on my iPhone. I can't play Flash games, but a jailbroken iPhone can watch most Flash media content.

SilverLight IS "compulsory" (read: default)...

[Anonymous Coward]

...on the Mac, perversely.

It piggy-backs on Flip4Mac's WMV codecs. It can be de-selected during install, but a) how many users know to do that, and b) how many do it EVERY SINGLE UPDATE?

Re:SilverLight IS "compulsory" (read: default)...

[Anonymous Coward]

MS:silverlight::apple:quicktime

Ahem...

[damn_registrars]

Bottom line: Flash sucks ... big time.

There, fixed that for 'ya

the obvious question

[Anonymous Coward]

how can Jobs achieve further penetration with such a small penis?

install Flashblocker and count

[Anonymous Coward]

Step 1: Install flash blocker on firefox or ClickktoFlash on Safari ( I'm sure there are other similar solutions for other browsers )
Step 2: keep a tally of the number of times you have to click to activate a flash object you wanted to see
Step 3: realize this is so very very low, with the possible exception of Hulu, youtube, etc, but each of those sites have an HTML5 or H.264 direct feed
Step 4: never care about flash again

face it Adobe blew it. They had 15 years to propose flash as a real internet standard and they got greedy and didn't do it.
HTML5 is indeed the future... flash is old tech. We won't be talking about it at all in 5 years. Do you talk about GIF animations anymore?

Re:install Flashblocker and count

[smash]

Exactly. Adobe also knows this, hence they are starting to push out HTML5 + Javascript development tools.

Eventually, flash will die, and Adobe's customers will more than likely simply migrate their development tools from flash to the new HTML5 suite.

In terms of paying customer base, the death of flash should be quite manageable by Adobe.

Re:install Flashblocker and count

[DarkXale]

For flash to die, it needs a full replacement. Even after standing HTML5 issues are fixed - there are still many reasons remaining to use Flash. At best (and very likely to occur), Flash will be used more sparingly than currently. (e.g. not for adds) The only thing that can -kill- flash is Silverlight.

Correction

[Anonymous Coward]

I've made up a recent statistic that has said that of the 500m Facebook users, 100m visit via the iPhone.

Naah...

[damn_registrars]

Please do not ever make me picture Steve Jobs naked again.

I've heard that even when Steve Jobs takes off all his clothes, he still has a turtleneck and jeans on. So you really don't have anything to fear...

More like (-1, Redundant)

[bill_mcgonigle]

How to we mark an entire story as -1, Flamebait?

Let's see, Steve Jobs says a technology is complete crap and nobody would ever want to use it. So, that means in a year and a half, Jobs will be having a Flash love-in on stage somewhere.

Re:More like (-1, Redundant)

[kangsterizer]

iFlash
flash done right!
if you don't do flash the way Apple does it, you blew it!

and so on..

Re:More like (-1, Redundant)

[drinkypoo]

Let's see, Steve Jobs says a technology is complete crap and nobody would ever want to use it. So, that means in a year and a half, Jobs will be having a Flash love-in on stage somewhere.

Perhaps that's his goal, he's using reverse psychology on The Jobs. If it works we'll know Steve's ready for the second diaper-wearing phase of his life.

Flashblock

[valkraider]

I was blocking flash before there ever was such a thing as iPhone or iOS. Between my household and office computers I have it blocked in 7 browsers. But all 7 of my browsers are counted in that "97% of web surfers have Flash installed" statistic.

Re:Flashblock

[gmhowell]

Because you still occasionally use it. If you honestly never use it, uninstall it. Duh.

I don't buy the analysis.

[seebs]

I have an iphone. I use it for, oh, a good five or ten percent of my browsing. If that. ... But if a site doesn't work on it, I tend to stop going to that site even when I'm on a different browser. Because I had a bad experience and I didn't like it.

It doesn't matter how many page hits are iOS; it matters how many page hits are from users who use iOS enough of the time to notice that your page didn't work from their mobile browser.

Re:I don't buy the analysis.

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel the same way, after a site doesn't load on my iPhone because the entire thing is in flash - in my mind the site is now "broken" and I pretty much stop going there.

Re:I don't buy the analysis.

[tepples]

if a site doesn't work on [my iPhone], I tend to stop going to that site even when I'm on a different browser.

So when did you quit going to Wikipedia? Video from Wikimedia Commons doesn't work on an iPhone because the <video> element in Safari for iOS supports only patented codecs, not Theora or VP8, and Wikimedia Foundation has a blanket rule against patented codecs.

Re:I don't buy the analysis.

[smash]

Video from Wikimedia Commons doesn't work on an iPhone because the element in Safari for iOS supports only patented codecs, not Theora or VP8, and Wikimedia Foundation has a blanket rule against patented codecs.

Strawman much? Becuase obviously this is such a major problem that I have never encountered it - didn't even realize wikipedia HAD video (to be honest, video is not what i use an encyclopedia for, but fair enough there is maybe some video content there somewhere).

The OPs point was that if a site was UNUSABLE he would stop visiting. There is plenty of available content on wikipedia for the iphone, and they even have mobile optimized, iphone compatible site.

Re:I don't buy the analysis.

[tepples]

How would you recommend that a non-"broken" site run vector animation a la Homestar Runner? By converting it to H.264 and expanding it by a factor of ten?

Re:I don't buy the analysis.

[seebs]

I don't care about whatever their video is. I use wikipedia from my iphone all the time, and it works fine.

Note that I don't watch the videos from ANY browser. :)

PC "Pro"?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Well it would explain a lot that he gets paid to say this. Why he feels the need to drag actual computers into something that is strictly about small portable devices. Gee, next hell tell us that everybody making cell phones is a dickhead, because 99% of PCs have a DVD or at least a CD-ROM drive, so not having one must mean you are taking the silvery disk buying community at ransom.

LOL

[MrCrassic]

It's super easy to have 97% installation base when the IT guys behind MOST of the Fortune 500 bundle them in their Windows desktop builds and some of the most highly-visited web sites out there (YouTube, a few news sites, a couple of amazing porn sites, etc) still require Flash. Same goes for Silverlight (though Microsoft bundled that in Windows Update, so its numbers should be higher).

HTML5 video isn't there yet. For starters, Firefox doesn't support H.264, which is the de facto video streaming codec at the moment. Even if it wasn't, Theora doesn't hold a candle to it and seems to be in the middle of growing pains. VP8 is coming, but it isn't here yet. HTML5 YouTube doesn't work all the way yet. Worse still, differences in CPU performance with HTML5 when compared to Flash have been shown to be negligible. (In fact, some of the stats on that page show that Flash 10.1 is more efficient with its CPU utilization.) Worst, and most importantly, of all, tons upon tons of people are still on IE6, which doesn't support HTML5.

I think we all agree that, on paper, HTML5 is a great idea and will do more to unite a powerful web experience with the convenience of mobile computing. In practice, however, it's still very nascent and will take a while before it supplants Flash, et. al. And I guarantee you that Adobe will be on top of that (unless they're stupid and become a numb bystander to their own death).

Re:LOL

[BitZtream]

While I'm not actually challenging the 'stats' you linked to, you can't link to gizmodo.com and pretend you're linking to a reputable news organization or a site that can be trusted in the last.

They have a track record that reads like a criminal record. Theft, public disruption, you name something childish, they do it.

So I won't argue the validity of those stats, simply because I refuse to visit such a disreputable organization, can't believe anyone would take them at their word for anything.

Re:LOL

[MrCrassic]

That's actually a pretty good point. However, those stats came from this benchmark test, which has a good explanation of how those results came to be.

In short, HTML5 under OS X Safari uses less CPU than Flash because of Safari's built-in acceleration. Notice that HTML5 under OS X Chrome barely fares better than its Flash counterpart, and neither browser plays HTML5 video as efficiently under Windows. Firefox 4 will be getting hardware graphics acceleration too, but it (ironically) only works on Windows at this point. (I guess I can understand why now, since Mac users at least have Safari if they want hardware-accelerated video whereas Windows users have no options.)

Re:LOL

[Just Some Guy]

Worse still, differences in CPU performance with HTML5 when compared to Flash have been shown to be negligible. (In fact, some of the stats on that page show that Flash 10.1 is more efficient with its CPU utilization.)

And in other studies, spaghetti is faster than purple. HTML5 is a standard, not an implementation. Flash may or may not be faster than a given browser's HTML5 video codec, but I'd be willing to bet you can find a different browser that would demonstrate the opposite results.

Re:LOL

[Phroggy]

Worse still, differences in CPU performance with HTML5 when compared to Flash have been shown to be negligible.

This may be true on Windows, but is absolutely not true on Mac OS X. Flash for Mac is a pile of crap. Before YouTube added HTML 5 support, I used a third-party hack that blocked Flash and played (most) YouTube videos using the QuickTime plugin. The performance improvement was quite dramatic. HTML5 video performs similarly. Unfortunately some videos are Flash-only, and this hack doesn't work with any other web sites.

Re:LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

That's actually a pretty good point. However, those stats came from this benchmark test, which has a good explanation of how those results came to be.

I wouldn't quote Jan Ozer. See comments 69 and 70 at http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=292 (a x264 developer's blog). Choice quote: "We talked about that on IRC, both with x264 and Theora people: all considered it one of the worst articles they had ever seen."

Jan Ozer routinely qualifies everything he does with words to the effect of "I'm not a technical person". StreamingMedia.com bills him as a "video codec expert" but it's rather clear that he isn't.

Re:LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Well those users on IE6 arent officially supported by YouTube anymore either. Ever tried to browse youtube from IE6 in the last 9 months or so? YouTube goes out of their way to warn that IE6 isnt supported anymore

if apple users are stupid enough to buy it...

[Anonymous Coward]

if apple users are stupid enough to buy it... Then I say you get what you deserve.

what a crock

[Trailer Trash]

iOS' market share is huge. Their market isn't the PC market - it's the touch screen market. Last I saw iOS owned more than 50% of the market. If you think it's just part of the larger "PC" market, you're not getting it.

Re:what a crock

[black3d]

Except we're not talking about iOS in the context of either of those markets. It all depends on your frame of reference. For instance, a Taurus may be "2% of the total car market", even though it's "14% of the Ford Market". (NB: Both these figures are made up, the point is illustrative).

In this article, we're talking about the website usage market. This is neither the "PC" market or the "Touchscreen" market. You're probably going to find some semantic point to argue, but you're barking up the wrong tree. This article is NOTHING to do with device market share. You're not getting it.

Reading comprehension fail

[UnknowingFool]

Steve Jobs listed 6 reasons why Flash wasn't going on iOS devices. In the very last sentence of his thoughts on flash he says:"Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind." While you may not agree with any of the six reasons, Jobs said Flash is archaic is being asserted as the only reason. Also I don't know about anybody else but my understanding is that Jobs has always talked about Flash on mobile devices (Reason#4 was battery life). Even if mobile browsing represents 2.6% of web usage, 1.1% represents 42% of mobile devices. That's a rather large percentage of mobile users.

More surprising numbers about iOS, Flash, HTML5

[Colonel Korn]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=19681

Apparently the iPhone4 (yes, the article mentions an iPod Touch 4 which has only 256 megs of RAM, but comments from users on this gen of iPhone affirm the benchmark result) is much slower than phones like the Nexus One in HTML5 tests and uses twice as much battery charge to run the same program at half the framerate. From the comments, it looks like the iPhone 4 is almost identical to the first gen Droid in this benchmark, except for the double battery burn issue. And oddly enough, switching to a Flash version on the Android phones results in much higher performance than was seen with HTML5. Someone with a hacked iPhone should run the Flash version to find out whether Flash>HTML5 in iOS.

Yes, this is just one particular benchmark, and it says nothing conclusive about hardware or platform. It does make for an interesting early comparison, though, doesn't it?

on Mac OS X it is a steaming pile of shit

[sribe]

As is usually the case, the technology itself isn't really good or bad, but what people do with it can be.

No, on Mac OS the technology is bad. It crashes, and it crashes, and it crashes again.

Almost entirely it falls into two categories:

- Flash is used in the most perverse and annoying advertisements that contain video and audio and which load the CPU unnecessarily
- Flash has security concerns

No, on Mac OS it crashes, and it crashes, and it crashes again.

Re:on Mac OS X it is a steaming pile of shit

[Anonymous Coward]

As is usually the case, the technology itself isn't really good or bad, but what people do with it can be.

No, on Mac OS the technology is bad. It crashes, and it crashes, and it crashes again.

Almost entirely it falls into two categories:

- Flash is used in the most perverse and annoying advertisements that contain video and audio and which load the CPU unnecessarily
- Flash has security concerns

No, on Mac OS it crashes, and it crashes, and it crashes again.

Just like Quicktime

No codecs in common

[tepples]

Flash + silverlight = can play video = browser plugins = win for particular corporations with vested interests to win at any cost
HTML5 (ie iOS, firefox 4) = can play video = html5 inside webbrowser = open standards = win for all

The "particular corporations with vested interests" being the MPEG-LA members, I take it? There are two kinds of video codecs: those that work in Safari for iOS and don't work in Firefox 4, and those that work in Firefox 4 and don't work in Safari for iOS. Apple has chosen not to implement any permissively licensed audio or video codec in Safari for iOS, not Vorbis, not Theora, and not VP8. How is this any improvement over the QuickTime vs. Windows Media Player war that existed before FLV?

Re:No codecs in common

[juasko]

You know though that MPEG4 has roots in QuickTime4. Not that it's based on quicktime but Quicktime4 was the moddel they used as inspiration.

I don't know what priviegies Apple has due to that in the MPEG-LA group, but I'm quite sure they have some priviledges due to that relation ship.

Re:No codecs in common

[Carewolf]

Ehmm.. The MPEG-4 container format IS Quicktime, it has nothing to do the video encoding though. It is just the container format of choice, so it is not "like Quicktime", it is "Quicktime", and this has nothing to do with H.264, you could embed VP8 into Quicktime if you so desired.

Re:No codecs in common

[rjstanford]

There are two kinds of video codecs: those that work in Safari for iOS and don't work in Firefox 4, and those that work in Firefox 4 and don't work in Safari for iOS.

Let's try a different statement:

There are two kinds of video codecs, those that are installed at the OS level and those that are overwritten by an application.

Or:

There are two kinds of video codecs, those that work in every major currently released graphical OS but which Firefox 4 will not allow to play even when the underlying OS framework supports them natively, and those that work in Firefox 4 and don't work, by default, anywhere else whatsoever.

If FF4 wants to provide its own codecs, fine. But why not defer to the OS otherwise? Safari on Windows gets no end of (well-deserved) abuse for providing its own font rendering framework, after all - and woe betide the application that tries to change the focus behavior that most Linux users have selected - but somehow FF4 gets a pass for providing its own (frequently inferior) codecs and blocking the other ones that the user has chosen to install (whether they came with the OS or were installed afterwards by choice)?

C'mon...

Re:No codecs in common

[tepples]

There are two kinds of video codecs, those that are installed at the OS level and those that are overwritten by an application.

If Apple refuses to install a free codec into iOS, then how do you recommend that the end user install a free codec into iOS?

If FF4 wants to provide its own codecs, fine. But why not defer to the OS otherwise?

Because Mozilla doesn't want to be held responsible for A. security compromises resulting from defects in codecs that it does not control, or B. inconsistent web page behavior due to codecs present on some platforms but not others. Windows 6.x and Mac OS X have H.264, but Windows XP and Linux don't, and the answer to "how do I get the site to work?" philosophically shouldn't be "switch to Windows."

Vector animation

[tepples]

I don't want Flash on my iPhone. There's no content that I'm missing out on

If not SWF, then what format do you recommend for vector animations with synchronized audio, such as Homestar Runner or Weebl and Bob?

Control Your Own Destiny

[StylusEater]

I find it hilarious that people choose to complain over something they can actually control. If you don't like it, then stop using your iPhone. If you like your iPhone (and applications) enough then quit your bit$hin and stop thinking you should have a say in the closed platform because you don't and never will...

Re:Control Your Own Destiny

[flimflammer]

I find it equally if not more hilarious that people actually make stupid comments like this, and pathetic if they actually believe what they're saying. There is no good reason why people should not bring perceived problems to the attention of those in power. Your arrogance is sickening.

Re:Control Your Own Destiny

[sosume]

Nope. The issue is that a lot of countries are now spending taxpayer money to create IOS applications, which then end up on a closed, even walled platform. All this because those in charge believe the Apple hype and think that 90% of the people are using an iPoney. And this is not a Good Thing (tm). Reality Distortion at its finest. I will never switch to an Iponey due to its closed nature, however this won't stop my government and many government funded organisations to throw money at Apple oriented products.

Re:Control Your Own Destiny

[StylusEater]

I find it equally if not more hilarious that people actually make stupid comments like this, and pathetic if they actually believe what they're saying.

Really? How can one not realize you have no control over them other than through your wallet? It is naive to think differently...

There is no good reason why people should not bring perceived problems to the attention of those in power. Your arrogance is sickening.

Of course there is a reason...those in power will only seek to maintain or maximize that power. Why should they care about you if you're already paying for something, you've already voted! If you don't like it, see my sentence above... vote by wallet or shut up.

Slow script, no WebGL, no mic/camera access

[tepples]

But you can already make a web app on iOS that bypasses the store

Of course you can in theory. It'll just run dog slow because the JavaScript engine reportedly isn't a JIT compiler, and it won't be able to use any feature of the hardware that the Safari DOM doesn't expose. For example, how well does WebGL run? Can web apps prompt the user to turn on the mic or camera?

What competes with iPod touch?

[tepples]

You can hardly claim Apple has "dominant" market position.

In the U.S. market for PDAs, or MP3 players that run apps from an online repository, what significant players are there other than iPod touch? Other MP3 player brands seem content to match iPod shuffle or iPod nano. Archos tries to make a competitor to iPod touch that runs Android, but Google apparently won't officially let any device that isn't a cell phone access the Market.

Re:What competes with iPod touch?

[gmhowell]

There are no barriers to entry. Anyone can create an Android Touch and open a marketplace.

If the FTC (not the FCC as stated in the summary, sigh) really does spend any kind of money investigating Apple's 'abusive' market position, perhaps the teabaggers and libertarians are right about government's overreach.

The first iMac didn't have a burner

[tepples]

They stopped shipping floppy drives in 1998; by then, every computer had a CD drive

The CD drives in the first iMac were read-only and thus couldn't be used for backing up documents from the HDD.

Statistical Cluster Fuck

[alcmaeon]

FTFS: mobile devices account for 2.6% of web traffic, but the iOS accounts for only 1.1% so it doesn't have a dominant position. However, if those figures are correct, then the iOS has roughly 47% of the mobile market, which is probably the biggest single slice of that pie.

To throw in another wrinkle, Android supposedly has 17% of the smartphone market while iOS has 24% and RIM has 39%. Do Blackberry users, not surf the web?

Re:Statistical Cluster Fuck

[smash]

Quite possibly not as much. Don't forget iOS counts the iPad, and prior to Mobile Safari on the iPhone most web browsers on phones were shit. Be it due to the display not being big enough, the interface being clunky, etc.

I presume most of the touchscreen devices are in the same ballpark these days, but as far as that goes, apple has the biggest share of THAT market by far at the moment.

Re:Statistical Cluster Fuck

[rgviza]

>then the iOS has roughly 47% of the mobile market, which is probably the biggest single slice of that pie.
web traffic is not indicative of mobile market penetration. It's only indicative of mobile web traffic.

There are a lot of smartphone users that only use their phones for email. A lot of older folks and non technical people fit into this category.

For market penetration you need to look at sales of mobile devices, not web traffic. The numbers may or may not add up to be the same.

I can say that there are 3 blackberry users sitting within 20 feet of me here at the office. They only use their phones for SMS and email. They've told me as much. They don't even know how to open the web browser. I am a programmer that has an iPhone. I open web sites on it no less than 20 times a day.

Re:Statistical Cluster Fuck

[Chuckstar]

Blackberry's browser sucks.

And I don't mean it is "not that good". It is barely useable.

Blackberry 6.0 will use WebKit, so should pretty much catch up, but any version below that is an excercise in frustration.

Apple(s) to Oranges!

[Dahamma]

mobile accounts for only 2.6% of web views, and the iOS share stands at only 1.1%. By comparison, Silverlight penetration now stands at 51% while 97% of web surfers have Flash installed

What do "web views" have to do with "installed apps"? Those aren't measuring the same thing at all.

Besides, as some have already pointed out, mobile devices like the iPhone tend to have dedicated apps (Facebook, Twitter, NY Times, AP News, Yelp, dictionaries, maps. email, weather, you name it) rather than just using the web browser.

nice troll (the article)

[smash]

If you don't want to abandon flash, then don't support the iDevices. There's only a tiny market you're ignoring, right?

Personally, i see no flash as a win. Yes, there are uses for it, but virtually anything flash can do, can be done in Javascript + HTML. Both of which are open and have freely available development tools. Flash no longer has a reason to exist, and is a huge lock-in to Adobe.

You'd think that the /. crowd would be in full support of this given the abysmal support linux has "enjoyed" from Adobe for the past decade or so, but it seems that a lot of them can't be pleased.

If you fall into the Linux fanboy camp, why does it matter to you what apple does? Buy an android device instead.

The reason the apple hardware/software combo is usually so slick is BECAUSE of restrictions like this. If this does not interest you, then you are not apple's target market.

bah

[Tom]

What a series of ridiculous assertions.

Silverlight penetration now stands at 51%

What a surprise. Anything bundled with windos and IE will reach numbers like that quickly and easily. If they were to add a cooking recipe to IE, they would reach those numbers with it. In fact, given the de-facto monopoly especially in companies, and that it was lobbied/bought as the only choice if you wanted streaming videos of the last two Olympics, that is a surprisingly low number

while 97% of web surfers have Flash installed

Flash was introduced in 1996. That was 14 years ago. And for many of those years it was a de-facto standard for the loud and colourful parts of the web (games, movie sites, anything that wanted "more interactivity").

And then he compares two plugin technologies to an operating system. Because, you know, 27% of elephants have one leg slightly shorter than the other, which clearly proves that the 32% of plane flights that are delayed is a much too high number!

Re:bah

[Paradigma11]

What a series of ridiculous assertions.

Silverlight penetration now stands at 51%

What a surprise. Anything bundled with windos and IE will reach numbers like that quickly and easily. If they were to add a cooking recipe to IE, they would reach those numbers with it. In fact, given the de-facto monopoly especially in companies, and that it was lobbied/bought as the only choice if you wanted streaming videos of the last two Olympics, that is a surprisingly low number

[...]

Only Silverlight is NOT bundled with windows or IE.

As opposed to Flash...

[Brannon]

...which is blisteringly fast on the Mobile devices it is allowed on and has perfect integration with the onboard accessories of those devices.

I think this is a hilarious justification from Flash-boys -- Flash is better than HTML5 because it isn't standardized, and thus its single reckless proprietary vendor will use it as a vehicle for sloppily exposing internal APIs on whatever platforms it runs on. And this is more free and democratic or something.

Re:As opposed to Flash...

[ClosedSource]

Flash is a de facto proprietary standard and HTML5 is a partially completed standard that will probably be approved some day. At present it looks like Flash has a slight edge in the standard category.

That's old-school stupid, just classic nuts

[Brannon]

In what way is Apple trying to lockout competitors from HTML5? There's absolutely zero evidence of that. They have probably the most standards compliant browser ever on a mobile device and they've put in the hands of tens of millions of people.

Their relentless obsession of standards-compliant browsing is exactly what this is about. They are trying to shoot down a 'single-vendor controlled proprietary de-facto standard' replace it with the industry standard HTML5.

Do you know anything at all about computers?

This website used to have smart people on it.

Re:That's old-school stupid, just classic nuts

[Draek]

In what way is Apple trying to lockout competitors from HTML5?

By attempting to force a patented format they hold a large influence over onto the web, greatly raising the cost of entry to the web browser market.

If Steve cared about standards, he wouldn't have bitched and moaned to get Theora off the HTML5 standard, and in fact would've gladly supported it in both OSX and iOS. History, however, shows otherwise.

Re:That's old-school stupid, just classic nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

If Steve cared about standards, he wouldn't have bitched and moaned to get Theora off the HTML5 standard

You're just making stuff up now. Since when did Steve (actually, the Apple employees who contribute to HTML5... it's dumb to assume absolutely everything Apple does is by SJ's personal order) make a serious (or any) push to remove Theora from HTML5?

Apple pushed to require h.264 in the HTML5 video tag spec, which should come as no surprise to anyone who's been paying attention for very long. They've been heavily involved with h.264 for a lot longer than just this recent flurry of stupid over HTML5 and Flash. (IIRC they first shipped a h.264 codec in MacOS X before they'd even begun shipping Intel Macs, so 5+ years ago.) Pushing for h.264 is not the same as pushing to exclude Theora.

Also, the truly astonishing stupid in your argument is the implicit assumption that if a party pushes for things in a standard which you don't like, they're AGAINST STANDARDS ZOMG. No, they're just against what you would like in that standard. For someone trying to take Steve Jobs to task for being arrogant and dictatorial, you sure have a huge autocratic streak yourself. Apparently, standards are what you think they should be, and anyone else can go hang themselves.

Back in the real world, standards processes involve plenty of back-and-forth between the interested parties, and unless the standards body is dominated by one faction, the end result is usually a compromise which fully satisfies nobody. HTML5 is a perfect example. The HTML5 video tag isn't going to require compliant browsers to implement h.264 any more than it's going to require them to implement Theora. Both are options, neither is required.

and in fact would've gladly supported it in both OSX and iOS. History, however, shows otherwise.

Why would they want to support an inferior codec which their hardware has no native acceleration for, one which is used by essentially nobody at present? One which isn't required by any standard?

Yeah, and why no Ogg Vorbis on my microwave?

[Brannon]

it's an 'affront' I tell you.

waaaaaaah, waaaaaaaaaaah.

He is correct!

[codepunk]

Jobs is correct, IOS owns the mobile smart phone market. He who owns the games will own the market. Android is enjoying a little bit of growth right now due to creative marketing but that is only going to last so long. Google is paying the price in more ways than one already (lawsuits, performance issues, battery life etc) for going with a jvm based system.

Re:He is correct!

[LynnwoodRooster]

Jobs is correct, IOS owns the mobile smart phone market.

Really? When did iOS smartphones outstrip Symbian or RIM? And I guess Android passing iOS for new smartphone sales never happened, either...

iOS barely made it to 3rd place, and is now starting to slip down to 4th, probably to be firmly entrenched there sometime early next year, as Android moves into 2nd behind Symbian.

Jesus, it's like trying to convince my Dad...

[Brannon]

...that the liberal media isn't out to force him to marry a gay dude and have an abortion.

Steve Jobs is not trying to cancel Christmas, he wasn't born in Kenya, and he isn't trying to close the internet.

when did Flash become stable and stop sucking?

[Brannon]

the arguments haven't changes, it is just that there are many.

Take your time.

Re:when did Flash become stable and stop sucking?

[chaboud]

All if those arguments were bogus against the *option* of Flash. Given the typo, is it safe to say that you typed that on iOS?

Comments?

[Me! Me! 42]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/technology/21cookie.html?
Good old Flash!

Yeah, and why no strip clubs in Disneyworld?

[Brannon]

The people who don't like them can just avoid them, right?

I mean, how can adding a degree of freedom ever be a bad thing?

Re:Yeah, and why no strip clubs in Disneyworld?

[LodCrappo]

If you only wanted to use your phone while at disney world and the only thing flash was used for was strip clubs, then that might start to make some kind of sense.

Thank god Flash uses Theora...

[Brannon]

...and not H.264, or else the internet wouldn't work right now.

Re:Thank god Flash uses Theora...

[Draek]

So? what does that have to do with whether Apple cares about standards or not?

OT Cisco

[SpaghettiPattern]

Anyone else around here wondering why Cisco is not suing the shit out of Apple for using the name IOS? I'd expect that.

Re:OT Cisco

[minasoko]

Anyone else around here wondering why Cisco is not suing the shit out of Apple for using the name IOS? I'd expect that.

No. No-one else around here is wondering.

Statistics interpretation..

[Seth Kriticos]

This completely misses the point of what that little percentage that iOS represents: people with money and the notion to spend it. All the craze that is going on about the Apple AppStore is because apps sell there much better than anywhere else.

This has the consequence, that a lot of the web content also adapts to non-flash/silverlight/java content to cater to this audience.

Though I'm personally not a fan of Apple, I like the way things go. HTML5 based apps make the life of browser developers / security maintainers much easier (I'm not in that group either).

I personally welcome this trend, because I hate to be forced to install one or the other, proprietary peace of crap just to see a website. Especially when it drains all resources, brings a bunch of security and stability issues and integrates horribly into the user experience.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against proprietary applications. What I hate with a passion are proprietary infrastructure applications. They are just a crime against the free market and democracy.

Right-click != Context Menu

[ClosedSource]

See title

iPhone is open for Flash

[terminal.dk]

Steve has said that the iPhone is open for Flash. He just said it needs to be not buggy, and not drain batteries.
Adobe has not yet fulfilled those 2. All I hear about flash on Android is, that you are better off without, as it slows the device, eats battery, and crashes.
I don't want my iPhone to be infected by such malware from Adobe.

Double standards

[jean-guy69]

I suggest Steve Jobs to put his money where is mouth is.

Please change http://trailers.apple.com/ so that it doesn't require quicktime plugin for watching video.

Let's go for a JPG plug-in

[roger_pasky]

I miss old good days of WWW (green VT100 screen) and LYNX (in atonishing colour!!!), where all web browsers were text-only UNIX executables...

I guess it was a mistake to embed a GIF viewer in MOSAIC and following browsers. Then there came all the rest: JPG, PNG... It could had been a better approach to let MPEG Consortium to offer a plug-in for every browser, and several others from Compuserve, the creators of GIF.

Nowadays we have at last the good approach from Flash, Silverlight, etc.

Maybe you don't know yet I'm kidding. Maybe you don't remember there was a patent fight about LZW compression between Compuserve and Unisys. Maybe you don't remember both companies. Maybe you think Flash or Silverlight are super-optimized binary code and HTML is a slooow-interpreted language. Maybe you don't know what modern javascript parser/interpreter/jit-compilers do. Maybe it's time to let the web viewer do what it's supposed to do, allow you to view the web content, even video.

Maybe in a few years you won't either remember Flash and Silverlight and, this is the key scary point for them, Maybe you won't remember their creators.

Jobs makes his claims based on reason & foresi

[Qbertino]

What people don't get is that Jobs makes his claims based on reason and foresight, not on current numbers. And what you will have to admit, most of the time he is dead on.

I don't like Apples Content Delivery Lock-In as much as the next guy, but what most people rarely get when talking about Steve Jobs and the things he claims is that this guy actually knows what he is talking about.

He said it time, and time again: Flash got a no-go on the iPhone BECAUSE ADOBE COULDN'T GUARANTEE A MINIMUM PERFORMANCE without hogging the entire iPhone CPU! And given, that is, of course, due to the VM nature of Flash. Ever since the dawn of ActionScript 2, Flash is a plattform, not a mere animation plugin. ... Ok, so this is Slashdot, and most people contiuously ragging on Flash here don't know squat what it actually is all about, but I guess I'll never give up trying.

Get it in to your freaking skull: Steve said it time and time again: NO VMs and no inner frameworks or inner operating systems on the iPhone. Period. End of story. I might emphasise that he was absolutely right with his strategy, hence the bizarly massive return on investment the iPhone line is racking in to this very day. Check out the smooth performance of the iPhone and the third-party apps crutching around on last generation Android Phones to see what I'm talking about.

And I am *not*, I repeat *NOT* an iPhone fanboy - in fact, I am, if at all, most probably going to replace my BlackBerry with an Android Phone whenever the need arises. Given, I might take an iPhone after all, if Android and Ubuntu 10 turn out to be just as prissy as last years versions.

Now go ahead and mod me into oblivion.

Strawman massacre

[porneL]

Of course replacing Adobe lock-in with Apple lock-in would be dumb. HTML has 100% market share and CSS+JS are still ahead of Flash.

Jobs didn't block Flash on desktop, where Flash has high market share, so why quote that statistic? He refused to support it on mobile, where currently iOS has much higher market share than Flash.

One good reason though

[Nerd Flanders]

Flash delays ARM-based netbooks

Sorry for sounding like a mindless zealot, but whatever you do with web technology, please use something that is truly cross-platform. (an open technology would help)

why, oh why

[Anonymous Coward]

...does this article seem biased and paid-for by certain companies...?

To me it seemed the author tried to spin some facts to the point he was trying to make. Sorry mate, not convinced. Try harder and maybe.

They did put flash on Android but I remember reading (I think I saw it on /. as well) that the end user experience is dog-slow and disappointing. So there you have it Adobe. I'm not an Apple fanboy but on this one I'm with Steve 100%.

Did iPad buys not know about flash?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Everyone knew the iPad wouldn't do flash. If you move into my house, you can't claim I abducted you, even if you chain yourself to my railing and refuse to be moved.

and gosh, since the iPad sells millions, maybe a lot of those buyers who knew they wouldn't be able to use flash didn't mind? Maybe the only outrage is with windows lusers who are jealous of the iPad and idiots who buy a petrol car then complain it doesn't run on diesel are complaining and the rest don't care?

The stats are just idiotic by the way. Silverlight is pushed by MS so installed doesn't mean a concious choice and installing flash for youtube hardly means that people want flash. They want youtube. iPad got youtube, so who needs flash?

Some people need to seperate what people WANT from meaningless statistics.

Countless PC's have got malware installed. Conclusion: people want malware. No? Then why do you think flash installs mean people want flash? Most people probably don't care. It is just a popup they auto-accept that they don't get on the iPad.

Adobe vs. Steve Jobs or Vice Versa

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Jobs and Adobe have been at each other's throats ever since Adobe had to be dragged kicking and screaming into supporting Mac OS X. Adobe thought they could hold Apple's OS strategy for ransom and prevent Apple from dumping Classic Mac OS. Adobe finally relented on OS X after they realized how much money they were loosing by not supporting it and that competitors were making similar OS X products.

first we had bill gates

[Anonymous Coward]

now we have stevie wonder jobs. microsoft developed the business model and sold it to the emo's. you either get this or you are willfully ignorant or outright stupid.

Re:Jobs makes his claims based on reason & for

[kangsterizer]

Given, I might take an iPhone after all, if Android and Ubuntu 10 turn out to be just as prissy as last years versions.

You non-fanboi stuff was all nice and well until you decided to let it out right at this sentence. Fairly obvious !

Let me guess: Flash for Blackberry is not yet ready. Quick! Enemies of my enemies are my friends!

Oh the Internet..

Wrong.

[Qbertino]

You non-fanboi stuff was all nice and well until you decided to let it out right at this sentence. Fairly obvious !
Let me guess: Flash for Blackberry is not yet ready. Quick! Enemies of my enemies are my friends!

Wrong. You didn't read my parent post. Flash is a VM. And notably unsuitable for mobile phones, trackball/pad and touch input. ... Goes to show your in with the usual crowd here on /. when it comes to Flash.

To the issue:
I don't use my Phone for surfing. And I certainly wouldn't use it for the things I build and maintain in Flash. However, I do use it for taking notes, as a calendar and for managing my contacts. I might use it for Facebook, Mail or the one or other utility website, like Trainschedules or something. But that's not primary concern for me.

If I get a new phone other than my current BB 8310 I expect it to react less sluggish (BB uses Java too), sync my calendar and contacts without further hassle with desktop applications using open and/or documented formats and have a working, offline-capable navigation as the new plus compared to my current phone. I'll take whatever phone delivers that best. Be it with Android, iOS, Symbian or whatever.

And it might even be that I stay with BB. They've finally got a OS X syncapp by now and the keyboard on the BB8310 and simular BBs is the best there is. I'll be checking the new models when time is due.

Re:Wrong.

[kangsterizer]

You did not understand anything of what I wrote, did you :(

Now you're changing your argument into something else.
Let me tell you, some people appreciate being able to see flash videos on the go while they couldn't previously.
The argument is that flash doesn't work well etc yada yada - the latest flash on latest android proves this to be quite wrong, flash works pretty well. It doesn't mean it's the best thing since sliced bread, but then again it's not like other apps on the phone were miraculous either.

For example, and this might shock you:

e-mail (as set of protocol) is FUBAR, that's why you see so much spam and there's so little good fix. If there was one company being "Email tm" everyone would be bashing it, but that's the not case, it's just a standard that wasn't though out for today's tasks and spam level.

yet it works rather smooth and everyone uses it for good reasons (which I hope I don't need to list..)

The barrier to entry is to attract developers

[tepples]

There are no barriers to entry. Anyone can create an Android Touch and open a marketplace.

The barrier to entry is to attract developers. As of right now, as I understand it, most developers of Android apps who publish on a market publish on Google's market, which is exclusively for phones, and they don't have the time==money to promote their apps elsewhere. This creates a network effect that boosts Google's market at other markets' expense.

Flash: Do not want

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't like the whole iPhone fad (come on, it's about the same size as the brick I used to have back when a cell phone didn't fit in a pocket).

However, GO APPLE on this issue. Why? Because I don't like being forced to have Flash installed. Opening a few tabs, and Firefox slows to a crawl. And recently, even Flashblock doesn't cure it.

Getting a significant userbase with no Flash will force web developers to consider options other than "click here to download flash", thus allowing the rest of us to CHOOSE if we want the HTML+javascript version, or the animated, slow, non-bookmarkable, crappy Flash version.

Ok, stop right there

[Kagetsuki]

Have you ever actually written complex web based applications in JavaScript/HTML5 and ActionScript3? Well I have, and I'll tell you right now ActionScript3 as a language is obscenely superior to JavaScript. Furthermore, you don't need to worry about checking your application on every browser, and you don't need to worry about older browsers when you write in AS3. Oh, and you may want to note the AS3 standard is published and the compiler is free - I write code on a 64bit Ubuntu box using make files. And here's the deal breaker - Flash lets you access web cameras, audio input, game controllers, and more. Furthermore you can manipulate raw (binary) data in Flash whereas doing the same in JavaScript would be obscenely difficult (the only real exception being images, which you access as bitmaps). Dynamically including in JavaScript is near impossible unless you import as objects through AJAX - which is iffy and in then end means you need to make extensive use of evaluation functions and worry about cross domain blocking. Oh, and try using drag features in JavaScript - go on just try it, I dare you. Next go ahead and look at those nifty Apple HTML5/JavaScript demos that make use of CSS3 features----oh wait those aren't standard and won't work on anything but Apple products!?

Seriously, there are some annoying things about Flash and the fact that Adobe controls it completely can be considered a downside - but the reality is it is that control that allows Adobe to progress Flash and ActionScript3 as they see fit without any arguments from anybody else and that has allowed them to progress way past areas that haven't even come up for discussion in HTML5/JS (Camera input, binary handling, plug and play encryption back ends that don't need SSL, various forms of media protection, dynamic stream adjustment, real non-blocking asynchronous asset loading). Furthermore, if people would take the time to look at it they would realize ActionScript3 is a surprisingly capable language, and is significantly more powerful and feature filled than JavaScript with basically none of the bizarre anomalies JavaScript has ("this" context changing randomly, definition of classes, defintion of class methods ("function name(args)" and "name = new function(args)" behave totally differently)). And if you are a business with designers and programmers, programmers can code in AS3 and just hand the source files off to designers who can use CS5 to plug all that code into their framework effortlessly. Before you call me a zealot or whatever take note of this: until I actually had to code an application in AS3 I hated Flash probably much more than you. Actually writing in application in AS3 that could not have been written in JS, and actually realizing how good AS3 is made me realize I was ignoring reality over my love of Open Standard and Open Source... which are also two things Apple abuses to no end and seems to only participate in to leech of others work and throw their weight around in comities for no good but their own (Khronos, W3C - particularly see "multi-touch" extensions and CSS3 proposals from Apple).

Clothes, hell!

[Anonymous Coward]

In this case the emperor not only isn't wearing clothes, he's been shaved bald and the outer layer of his skin abraded off.

silverlight?

[marcobat]

never heard of it, you are telling me I have a fifty fifty chance my computer comes with some kind of light saber?

What the hell?

[Anonymous Coward]

And this bullshit is marked 'insightful'?

Bunch of fucking fools on this site.

Steve forgets words

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Jobs' assertion that Flash is the technology of the past, and Apple's iOS is the platform of the future

Steve sometimes forgets words it seems. iOS is the platform of the future for Apple.

Tis worse with Steve adds words.

Lisa is not my daughter. - a fine example where Steve added a rather hurtful word.

In other news...

[rgviza]

No one gives a shit what steve jobs thinks except steve jobs and his legion of worshippers, aka 1.1% of the population.

To his credit, he is probably right about html5 video. as people's flash licenses expire, and browser support becomes ubiquitous, content providers may switch to html5 video to simply avoid paying adobe, and skip dealing with adobe's security flaws.

For now he needs to add flash to his operating systems. There's no way he'll force adoption by himself, though he may claim he's responsible in steve-o fantasy land after support becomes wide spread, like Algor did with the internet. His worshippers will cheer him.

man the trolls

[rubypossum]

Seriously, you must be new here. Flash is a proprietary closed-source hunk of binary that we're stuck with. This is the reason most people on Slashdot hate it. We can't fix it, and it has regular unfixable problems on every platform I've used it on. It's so bad that most browsers have had to re-engineer their plug-in system to prevent Flash from taking down the browser. Not to mention the regular and horrible security holes, the fact that it bypasses browser cookie policy with it's LSOs (newsflash: not in HTML5.)

Yes, HTML5 might eventually become an advertisers dream but that's what AdBlock is for. At least it will be free, open and standards based. The day that the Flash plug-in is not needed will be a great day. I can't imagine why anyone would champion it. All it is is one less Adobe product you have to buy as a developer.

It's hard to tell if you are stupid or...

[Brannon]

pretending to be stupid. I guess at some point it doesn't matter.

It is entirely reasonable for a group of people to make a single up-front decision (like going to Disneyworld or buying an iPhone) which restricts their ability to make subsequent decisions (like going to a strip club or using a battery-draining flakey Flash implementation) because they don't want those options around where they have to look at them or worry about accidentally stumbling into one. It happens everyday in every industry. Walled gardens are nice.

Silverlight?

[CAIMLAS]

Silverlight? Oh, you mean that thing Netflix uses?

The only interesting thing to infer/extrapolate here is that:

1) maybe Netflix has a very broad subscriber base
2) More people are buying newer computers, and Silverlight has been out long enough to be bundled with the vast majority of new Windows 7 desktops and laptops.

I've yet to see a Silverlight site aside from Netflix. Maybe I'm just not looking, but I've yet to see one.

Shouldn't Jobs be more honest though?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it make more sense to put an asterisk on the box and say "This device does not support adobe flash. Adobe flash is a significant proprietary technology that may affect your web experience" or something similar?

Or is Apple okay with returning iPad/iTouch/iPhone to the store because "it doesn't support flash"?

demographics

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember Apple holds a minority position in the smart phone market but they make more profits from their smart phones than Samsung, LG, and Nokia. The 1.1% share they have may not be much, but the demographics of their users (avg household income, education level, etc.) is probably much higher than average.

Re:Jobs makes his claims based on reason & for

[rtechie]

What people don't get is that Jobs makes his claims based on reason and foresight,

In the sense that he uses reason and foresight to determine what makes himself the most money, you're correct.

Steve said it time and time again: NO VMs and no inner frameworks or inner operating systems on the iPhone.

"Inner operating systems"? I think you're confused. The core problem is that Apple won't allow 3rd parties direct access to hardware or to use their own toolchain, they must use Apple's interfaces. If your application runs sub-optimal using Apple's interfaces (Flash, as one of many examples), it sucks to be you.

Having a plugin installed != use

[aristotle-dude]

Just because many of have at some point installed the Silverlight plugin, that does not translate into a lot of sites with Silverlight or a lot of continuing traffic to such sights. I tried out silverlight out of curiosity on my mac just visiting the demo sites but I have yet to run into a site using it since then. Flash is also something that I only run into as ads and google finance. I hate flash only sites.

DVD

[colds]

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