The Surprising Statistics Behind Flash and Apple

If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care? by Brannon · 2010-09-21 10:56 · Score: 5, Insightful

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? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-09-21 11:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

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? by icebraining · 2010-09-21 11:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

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Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care? by jo_ham · 2010-09-21 11:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

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? by socsoc · 2010-09-21 12:02 · Score: 3, Insightful

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? by ukyoCE · 2010-09-21 12:19 · Score: 4, Insightful

/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? by bill_mcgonigle · 2010-09-21 12:43 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

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Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care? by the_humeister · 2010-09-21 12:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

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? by chaboud · 2010-09-21 12:50 · Score: 3, Insightful

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? by Nyeerrmm · 2010-09-21 12:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

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? by chaboud · 2010-09-21 12:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

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? by Tharsman · 2010-09-21 13:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

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? by TrancePhreak · 2010-09-21 16:42 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

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Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care? by ClosedSource · 2010-09-21 18:03 · Score: 3, Insightful

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? by twidarkling · 2010-09-21 19:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

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Re:If iOS is a tiny segment, then why do you care? by twidarkling · 2010-09-21 19:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

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Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.

100m facebook users are iPhone based by wilsonthecat · 2010-09-21 11:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

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 by Conception · 2010-09-21 11:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

Floppy drives anyone? by ThorGod · 2010-09-21 11:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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Re:Floppy drives anyone? by blackraven14250 · 2010-09-21 11:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

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? by Nemyst · 2010-09-21 11:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

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? by jo_ham · 2010-09-21 11:59 · Score: 1, Insightful

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? by mjwx · 2010-09-21 12:44 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

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Re:Floppy drives anyone? by Charliemopps · 2010-09-21 13:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

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? by jo_ham · 2010-09-21 14:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

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? by Tom · 2010-09-21 16:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

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Re:Floppy drives anyone? by nOw2 · 2010-09-21 22:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

When was the last time you used the DVD drive? We're close to not needing them as it stands today.

Wrong number by funkatron · 2010-09-21 11:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

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?

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The Big Guns by Miros · 2010-09-21 11:10 · Score: 1, Insightful

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 by FranTaylor · 2010-09-21 11:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

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 by mcrbids · 2010-09-21 11:59 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

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Re:Oh thank god by nmb3000 · 2010-09-21 11:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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Re:Oh dear... by evil9000 · 2010-09-21 11:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

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

My numbers are different by zerosomething · 2010-09-21 11:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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Installed base: Worst. Stat. Ever. by Anonymous Coward · 2010-09-21 11:23 · Score: 1, Insightful

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 by Beardydog · 2010-09-21 11:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

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:Oh thank god by sexconker · 2010-09-21 11:32 · Score: 4, Insightful

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:Lies, damned lies, and web statistics? by blackraven14250 · 2010-09-21 11:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

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:Oh dear... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-09-21 11:53 · Score: 1, Insightful

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.

would-be emporer by nine-times · 2010-09-21 11:56 · Score: 5, Insightful

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:Oh dear... by ukyoCE · 2010-09-21 12:15 · Score: 2, Insightful

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:Adobe has its work cut out by tknd · 2010-09-21 12:26 · Score: 3, Insightful

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:Oh thank god by mjwx · 2010-09-21 13:04 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

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PC "Pro"? by CheerfulMacFanboy · 2010-09-21 13:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

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Re:Oh thank god by buzzn · 2010-09-21 13:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

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Re:Oh dear... by wealthychef · 2010-09-21 14:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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No codecs in common by tepples · 2010-09-21 14:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

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?

Slow script, no WebGL, no mic/camera access by tepples · 2010-09-21 14:27 · Score: 2, Insightful

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?

Re:Oh dear... by dubbreak · 2010-09-21 15:04 · Score: 3, Insightful

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).

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Re:LOL by Just+Some+Guy · 2010-09-21 15:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

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Re:Oh dear... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-09-21 16:30 · Score: 1, Insightful

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:He is correct! by LynnwoodRooster · 2010-09-21 17:06 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

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Re:Oh dear... by hairyfeet · 2010-09-21 17:46 · Score: 2, Insightful

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?

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Re:Oh dear... by kikito · 2010-09-21 18:56 · Score: 3, Insightful

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... by hairyfeet · 2010-09-21 21:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

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ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.

Re:Control Your Own Destiny by sosume · 2010-09-21 22:35 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

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