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

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?

[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?

[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?

[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]

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.

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.

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.

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: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 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

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: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.

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: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 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.

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?