Flash On Android Fails To Impress

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Neil McAllister test-drives Flash Player 10.2 for Android 3.0 and finds its shortcomings too sweeping to be chalked up to beta status. 'The worst part is the player's inconsistent behavior. This gets really frustrating when there's lots of HTML and Flash content mixed on a Web page. The UI turns into a tug-of-war between the browser and the Flash Player, where each touch produces varying effects, seemingly at random,' McAllister writes. 'As far as I could tell, there was one thing and one thing only that the Flash Player for Android 3.0 accomplished successfully. On the stock Android browser, Flash content is invisible, so you don't notice Flash-based advertising. With the Flash Player installed, however, all those ads suddenly appear where once there were none, their animated graphics leaping and scuttling under your fingertips like cockroaches on a dinner tray — some achievement.'"

Comments

i guess

[hoytak]

.... it's just not flashy enough.

Or is that too Flash-y?

Re:i guess

[Anonymous Coward]

'The worst part is the player's inconsistent behavior. This gets really frustrating when there's lots of HTML and Flash content mixed on a Web page. The UI turns into a tug-of-war between the browser and the Flash Player, where each touch produces varying effects, seemingly at random,' McAllister writes. 'As far as I could tell, there was one thing and one thing only that the Flash Player for Android 3.0 accomplished successfully. On the stock Android browser, Flash content is invisible, so you don't notice Flash-based advertising. With the Flash Player installed, however, all those ads suddenly appear where once there were none, their animated graphics leaping and scuttling under your fingertips like cockroaches on a dinner tray â" some achievement.'

Settings > Enable plug-ins > "On demand"

Problem solved.

Re:i guess

[peragrin]

ah but to adjust flash settings themselves you have to go to adobe.com and run the correct flash program that will change settings for you.

Headline should say

[Anonymous Coward]

"Flash On Android Fails To Impress InfoWorld's Neil McAllister"

Re:Headline should say

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Flash On Android Fails To Impress InfoWorld's Neil McAllister"

Tell us how it impressed you!

Re:Headline should say

[Anonymous Coward]

By actually showing content.

Re:Headline should say

[ColdWetDog]

If it manages to make useful annoying sites that insist on implementing basic functionality in Flash, then it will impress quite well enough..

Instead, it takes useful sites and converts them into slow, annoying ads. Not exactly progress, IMHO.

Re:Headline should say

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Windows user. ;)

Re:Headline should say

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why the Android browser has flashblock functionality built-in. This way, I can still load the flash content which is relevant to my interests and not bother with the shitty "punch the monkey" banners. Of course, it would be better if this feature was enabled by default, but at least the option is there.

Captcha: solvable

Re:Headline should say

[CharlyFoxtrot]

If Linux users copped this kind of attitude for Flash, they would be portrayed as RMS worshiping hippies with little grip on reality by the same exact Apple fanboys that get their hate-on for Flash.

It's like Linux users advocating that Microsoft port IE6 to Linux to be able to view websites that need it rather than to demand that webmasters code to standards.
Android users are so desperate for something to differentiate themselves from iOS they are fighting on the wrong side here.

Re:Headline should say

[BatGnat]

I was thinking the exact same thing. Where the adds coming from the infoworld website?

Either way like it or hate it, it is still infinitely better than flash on iOS...

Re:Headline should say

[by (1706743)]

Where the adds coming from...

What I want to know is, where the subtracts coming from? ;)

Re:Headline should say

[Crudely_Indecent]

When every browser supports flash except the browser on iOS devices, who's desperate to differentiate? Android users just want what's always been available to them in every other environment they use.

Personally, I think Flash is lame. Webmasters and designers use it WAY too much. I appreciate video players, but even that should be phased out as html5 gets more traction. When I'm building sites, I avoid flash like the plague. I'll use flash only if there is NO OTHER WAY to accomplish my goal. I can't control other developers though.

If I want to use the web, I need flash on my browser. It's everywhere, including Apple products....except iOS devices.

Re:Headline should say

[BasilBrush]

In the same way that shit on a shoe is infinately better than shit on a shoe that has no shit?

Re:Headline should say

[JonJ]

Where the adds coming from the infoworld website?

Adds will spawn in the late 3d phase of the website, off-tank needs to kite them until DPS can take down the boss.

Re:Headline should say

[UnknowingFool]

When every desktop browser supports flash except the browser on iOS devices, who's desperate to differentiate?

Fixed that for you. Maybe the problem is more complex than just "Apple sux". Flash for Android has shown to be lacking. While Adobe announced Flash for Blackberry in 2009, they haven't released it yet for the general public. Maybe Apple doesn't want to release a buggy beta platform on their devices?

Re:Headline should say

[BatGnat]

You should re-read that.

Re:Headline should say

[peragrin]

Have you ever used Flash on a non windows computer?

It makes sucking donkey balls down the intertubes with one cup providing lubricant taste good.

Flash(yes even the supposedly hardware accelerated version) takes my mac book from 6 hours of surfing off the battery to 2 hours. I watch a whole core on my core dou system grind at 70% usage over and over again.

Flash on android is just that bad too. Not only do you not get full flash api(lots of things aren't there at all just the most common for video and websites) but you can watch your phone drop like AT&T drops calls.

Steve jobs may be a control freak, but it is one stance that I agree with. Flash must DIE!!!!!

Re:Headline should say

[BasilBrush]

No need. Any illogicality is inherited from the post which was mocked.

Re:Headline should say

[scot4875]

The spelling errors were all yours, however.

--Jeremy

Re:Headline should say

[vadim_t]

Flash(yes even the supposedly hardware accelerated version) takes my mac book from 6 hours of surfing off the battery to 2 hours

So does constantly compiling stuff using both cores on my laptop. Yet Ubuntu doesn't seem to be about to stop shipping GCC, just because it can suck battery life.

I want to be able to compile, or run flash when I need to, battery life be damned.

Re:Headline should say

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you care if I punch the monkey in the privacy of my own home? Stop trying to push your fundie agenda on my browser.

Re:Headline should say

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how all the people jocking RMS are all waiting on pins and needles for their closed, bug-filled, proprietary Flash player that will make average battery life on their precious Android tablets into a joke.

"PLEASE, Adobe, give us our shitty proprietary software so we can access all the websites that... are converting away from Flash because they want to be compatible with Apple's devices."

Steve Jobs says "you're welcome," for bringing you closer to web sites that work without proprietary & closed plugins. Guess what, if they kill Flash, that's one less proprietary piece of shit in the world that you FLOSSies will have to copy the functionality of to have a legitimately usable system.

Re:Headline should say

[peragrin]

you choose to run GCC when and where you like. you don't always have that option with flash.

Also you can force GCC to use less CPU and take longer to compile.

Re:Headline should say

[Americano]

I'm pretty sure RMS doesn't use Flash on his computers, on which he says he's dedicated to using only Free Software, from pretty much metal-on-up.

I suspect this is why the Linux users get lampooned over this issue - arguing in favor of Flash puts you squarely on the side of proprietary and closed systems. I've seen numerous Linux advocates suggest that people "simply shouldn't use" software that isn't Free; why is Flash suddenly exempt - simply because it has the market share? By that logic, you should all be arguing in favor of Microsoft's products, as well.

Re:Headline should say

[jedidiah]

> Have you ever used Flash on a non windows computer?

Yes. I have even done "side by side" comparisons.

When you are a Linux Zealot that's gotten the over the whole "Mac Mini as an HTPC" thing, that's pretty easy.

Windows is nothing special when it comes to Flash. Flash sucks on all platforms pretty much equally.

That's not to say that I advocate or condone platform tyrants trying to keep it from me.

It is my right to be tasteless however RMS or Steve Jobs might want to define that.

Re:Headline should say

[CharlyFoxtrot]

When every browser supports flash except the browser on iOS devices, who's desperate to differentiate? Android users just want what's always been available to them in every other environment they use.

iOS devices don't support it because it doesn't work properly, as TFA explains, and there's a better way (AND because frankly Adobe screwed Apple over with the terrible Flash on OSX for years.) For some reasons Android users prefer to use a technology that's broken for their platform rather than to seize on it as an opportunity to move on to better things. Maybe Adobe will get a decent version of Flash on mobile devices in a couple of months or a year but where's the famous push of open source enthusiasts for open standards in the face of proprietary technologies ? It's been jettisoned in the race to beat the new Great Enemy, Apple, the end justifying the means.

Re:Headline should say

[h4rr4r]

Sure you do, use flashblock. Then you click on the flash elements to activate them.

Re:Headline should say

[iluvcapra]

Why should I settle for LESS when I leave the "desktop"?

You're getting less both ways, the only difference is who's being honest about it.

Re:Headline should say

[toriver]

"I want Flash on my device so that I can block it!"

I like what you did there.

Re:Headline should say

[jedidiah]

You are confused.

It's usually the Free Software purists that get the grief as most people simply don't care and don't appreciate the "virtue".

Even in the early days, not all Linux users were Free Software evangelicals.

It's a useful means to an end, a way to get around the problems inherent in the market.

One key advantage of Unix users in general is that not everyone drinks the cool-aid (or swims in it).

Re:Headline should say

[BasilBrush]

And the grammar mistake was yours.

Re:Headline should say

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve jobs may be a control freak, but it is one stance that I agree with. Flash must DIE!!!!!

Sure, but so should Apple and of the two Apple is by far the biggest nuisance as well as the one with the least dominance of the market, so I'm on Adobe's side for now.

Re:Headline should say

[RobertM1968]

"Flash On Android Fails To Impress InfoWorld's Neil McAllister"

Tell us how it impressed you!

Though I cannot comment on how it performs on Android 3.0, I can comment on being generally happy with v10.1 on Android 2.2 (TMo/HTC G2). Of course there are going to be the "Flash shortfalls" introduced such as flash banner ads now appearing - but just like in the "PC/Mac Computer World", that's par for the course.

And just like in the "Computer World", there are options to alleviate such problems, such as the Froyo browser's "plugin on demand" feature ("To make Flash content load only after you click on it, go to the settings, tap Enable plug-ins and select On demand."). And of course, the same feature works in the much more powerful "Dolphin Browser", and there's also FlashBlock for Firefox.

So, the only "inconsistencies" I see that remain are the ones that one would expect from using a touch based tablet/cell phone to interact with anything that was designed for mouse based input - but those same inconsistencies apply from standard HTML/Javascript websites (for instance, our Computer Repair website, where the "mouse-over drop-down menus" (note, I said drop-down MENUS, and not drop-down form fields) are going to be "problematic" since there's no true mouseover for most touch devices - in our site's case, a long press on the dropdown will create the sub-menu). Even in that respect, it's something somewhat inconsistent - but that's due to site design, not the technologies behind it.

The same applies to flash content. If it's not designed for cell/tablet experiences, it's going to be "inconsistent" or broken on such devices. That's not a flash shortcoming - that's a web developer shortcoming. In our case, the default site view is a customized mobile view which is very very light (ie: none I'm aware of) on tablet/cell unsafe layout (yet allows one to switch to the full version if they so desire).

Re:Headline should say

[Draek]

Not really. You may notice no one's actually advocating the creation of more Flash content, and that's because we have HTML5 here, which even after Apple crippled it with its tantrums to the W3C it remains a much superior choice for interactive web content.

The thing with Flash however is just that, well, support for even outdated and inefficient formats like Flash is one of the advantages of an open ecosystem such as Android's over Steve Jobs' walled prison, and is an example popular and simple enough that it won't go over the layman's head (as would, for instance, the ability to develop in any language you choose).

Well, that and the fact that what Apple's proposing in its stead (HTML5/h.264) is in many ways worse from a freedom standpoint than Flash itself so really, freedom advocates are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place in this Adobe vs Apple fight.

Re:Headline should say

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no grammar error there, fuckwit.

Re:Headline should say

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Not really. You may notice no one's actually advocating the creation of more Flash content, and that's because we have HTML5 here, which even after Apple crippled it with its tantrums to the W3C it remains a much superior choice for interactive web content.

What tantrums are you referring to ? I know apple was part of the workgroup that originally created and pushed for HTML5, the WHATWG:

"The WHATWG was founded by individuals of Apple, the Mozilla Foundation, and Opera Software in 2004, after a W3C workshop. Apple, Mozilla and Opera were becoming increasingly concerned about the W3C’s direction with XHTML, lack of interest in HTML and apparent disregard for the needs of real-world authors. So, in response, these organisations set out with a mission to address these concerns and the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group was born."

So it seems likely they take an active role in guiding the process.

The thing with Flash however is just that, well, support for even outdated and inefficient formats like Flash is one of the advantages of an open ecosystem such as Android's over Steve Jobs' walled prison, and is an example popular and simple enough that it won't go over the layman's head (as would, for instance, the ability to develop in any language you choose).

Not just inefficient, broken. TFA states that he could hardly get a balloon-pop game, right out of a Flash beginners guide, to work right. I'll grant you that if they get it to work right and they can make it efficient enough to sip battery power instead of guzzling it, it would be a boon. If that were the case, however, would Apple keep it out ? The conspiracy theory says yes, I don't buy it though.

Well, that and the fact that what Apple's proposing in its stead (HTML5/h.264) is in many ways worse from a freedom standpoint than Flash itself so really, freedom advocates are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place in this Adobe vs Apple fight.

I don't buy that argument either but lets not go into the whole h.264 thing except to say that that race has been run and h.264 came out on top much like mp3 did. The difference with Flash is that where Flash is wholly closed at least in the combo with HTML5 you've got the choice of easily swapping out h.264 with WebM if you support it on the client.

Re:Headline should say

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Why should I settle for LESS when I leave the "desktop"?

This is all about Apple Fanboys trying to make lame excuses that they would laugh at themselves if they came from Linux users.

Why settle for less CPU power or less RAM ? It's the limitations of the platform. Flash is infamous for bringing desktops to its knees, why would you expect it to fare better on much more limited resources ? Hey I hope Adobe can somehow squeeze it down to size and maybe in the process vastly improve their desktop version. Based on past experience I'm not betting on it though. Maybe years of using Flash on OSX has made me bitter ;-)

Re:Headline should say

[UnknowingFool]

Why should I settle for LESS when I leave the "desktop"?

Is that a serious question? You do realize when going to mobile there are tradeoffs of power, efficiency, and portability. My smartphone isn't very good at high computational scientific work or playing Crysis at 300fps. But it's fine for trying to figure where I am and how to map out my destination. There is always less when you leave the desktop. In this case you are getting less anyways as it appears Flash for Android isn't very usable yet.

Re:Headline should say

[Anonymous Coward]

I've noticed you don't seem to actually understand much about technology, or anything for that matter. Did you buy that low-id account on ebay?

Re:Headline should say

[exomondo]

In the same way that shit on a shoe is infinately better than shit on a shoe that has no shit?

No.

Re:Headline should say

[mywhitewolf]

I like what you did there.

as apposed to "i don't want flash on my device because i like limiting my options." SWIDT?

everyone agrees that flash is not an ideal web add-on, especially in comparison to html5. but I'd much prefer to have the option to use flash when required than not. But i guess that's why I'm an android user not an iphone user. i like having the control and the responsibility, even if its at the expense of really nice design (which is what apple are really good at). everything (for me at least) doesn't need to "just work", as long as the trade off is flexibility.

to me, its the same as microsoft saying "we no longer support opening .csv files into excel because it should have been done in a database". they are right, but why deliberately limit yourself when there is a demand?

the real reason why flash isn't on iOS though is because it doesn't conform to the apple design principles of "so easy any one can do it, and so smooth everyone will love it", everything is about having the best experience (which, imo, is a long overdue principal and works really well). the very nature of flash makes having it available on a touch based device question the experience (is it going to be usable, is it going to be slow etc.).

For Android, not having the problem of trying to sell a perfect experience but instead having a focus on flexibility, having flash is ideal.

For apple to impliment flash, they would have to make a sacrifice to the "high quality image" that they have worked so hard to create. Which, imo, probably isn't worth it for Apple. I won't listen to PR that say "you shouldn't have flash on websites anyway" though. that's just trying to push the blame of lack of compatibility onto the content providers (which were providing flash content well and truly before smart phones).

Re:Headline should say

[Draek]

What tantrums are you referring to ?

The one they threw when they saw that the proposed specification required support for Ogg Theora for the video tag.

Not just inefficient, broken. TFA states that he could hardly get a balloon-pop game, right out of a Flash beginners guide, to work right. I'll grant you that if they get it to work right and they can make it efficient enough to sip battery power instead of guzzling it, it would be a boon. If that were the case, however, would Apple keep it out ? The conspiracy theory says yes, I don't buy it though.

They would, as they've done with every other interpreter that's tried to get inside the Apple prison regardless of quality.

I don't buy that argument either but lets not go into the whole h.264 thing except to say that that race has been run and h.264 came out on top much like mp3 did. The difference with Flash is that where Flash is wholly closed at least in the combo with HTML5 you've got the choice of easily swapping out h.264 with WebM if you support it on the client.

Yeah, let's not talk about h.264 except I'm right and you're not. The problem with HTML5/h.264 is that both content producers *and* content consumers need to ensure they're properly licensed for it, which can cost quite a bit of money. With Flash, you can be sure at least that Adobe has that covered so while producers are still screwed, end users can have some marginal peace of mind with it.

Re:Headline should say

[Belial6]

It renders all of the videos on http://www.xhamster.com/ perfectly fine. Perhaps Neil McAllister was holding it wrong...

Re:Headline should say

[Belial6]

I'm trying to find the place where it is buggy and beta. Flash has been running great on my Android devices for as long as it has been available.

Re:Headline should say

[smash]

Actually, as a Linux user since 1996, my hatred for flash started LONG before i had anything to do with Apple gear. I spent years of dealing with sub-standard, buggy, unmaintained flash plug-ins for Linux. Nothing of value is implemented in flash anyhow.

Re:Headline should say

[jedidiah]

> Is that a serious question?

Sure it is.

The web is a "platform" I surfed on a 40Mhz 486. Flash is a resource hog but it really isn't that much of a resource hog.

The Fanboys seem intent on fixating on how poorly Flash performs when streaming video and glossing over the fact that it is used for more than just video.

Banning Flash essentially locks your users out of a great deal of the web.

Re:Headline should say

[jedidiah]

You are so funny. Fixating on ids. I remember when Slashdot didn't even have them.

Re:Headline should say

[Spaseboy]

Flash doesn't work on mobile. Period. No one at all says it's even halfway decent. It can't do anything that people actually want it for: it can't play games and it can't play video. I'm not sure what website you are going to that you so desperately need Flash

Re:Headline should say

[Crudely_Indecent]

I don't know about you, but I've got flash on my android tablet and my android phone as well as my linux and (vm) windows systems, and both of my macs. Mine wasn't an "apple sux" rant, it was a "don't be an asshat, give me what I want" rant. The market has spoken, and apple said 'take a flying leap'.

Flash on my android devices is fine...I have no problems with it. I'll be buying an ipad for testing and development this weekend. If it had flash, I wouldn't be buying it because it would support the video solution my customer is using for every other platform. Instead, I'm burning their contracted support hours on development when I could otherwise mark them off while I read the automatically generated reports.

The Whole Web!

[wsxyz]

With the Flash Player installed, however, all those ads suddenly appear where once there were none, their animated graphics leaping and scuttling under your fingertips like cockroaches on a dinner tray

Oh so that's what everyone means when they say flash lets you see "the whole web".

Re:The Whole Web!

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Probably.

Speaking of ads, I was on a site with heavy flash ads, and noticed that Activity Monitor was showing both my CPU cores pegging. I check it out and Chrome's Flash handler was using something like 150% of CPU time.

The whole web indeed.

Re:The Whole Web!

[Anonymous Coward]

With the Flash Player installed, however, all those ads suddenly appear where once there were none, their animated graphics leaping and scuttling under your fingertips like cockroaches on a dinner tray

Are cockroaches really known for leaping and scuttling under people's fingertips on dinner trays? I don't know about Flash player but I wouldn't accept a dinner invitation from Neil McAllister after reading that.

Re:The Whole Web!

[0123456]

I remember back when I used to run Windows on my laptop, if the battery suddenly dropped 50% in ten minutes I'd go to the task manager and find some minimized Firefox window maxing out a core running some Flash crap. Firefox seems to handle that better these days, or maybe Linux Flash does.

It really is an evil monstrosity.

Re:The Whole Web!

[BatGnat]

Simple, You need more cores, or a cluster...

Re:The Whole Web!

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly! I *want* my tablet to run as hot as a dinner plate, and have a battery life of 37 minutes, so I can watch all the lovely ads on my web that I've been deprived of! Why not an octo-core?

Re:The Whole Web!

[mangino]

They actually mean restaurant websites. For me, that's the only useful flash content I've used on an android phone/tablet.

Re:The Whole Web!

[KingSkippus]

Oh so that's what everyone means when they say flash lets you see "the whole web".

Well, if they're like me, they mean being able to do things like watch Hulu.

Of course, since Hulu is blocked on mobile platforms because Adobe stupidly allowed the ability to detect the platform Flash is running on, and thus web sites such as Hulu can selectively block their content, that kind of makes it useless to me.

sigh...

Re:The Whole Web!

[LBU.Zorro]

I remember back when I used to run Windows on my laptop, if the battery suddenly dropped 50% in ten minutes I'd go to the task manager and find some minimized Firefox window maxing out a core running some Flash crap. Firefox seems to handle that better these days, or maybe Linux Flash does.

It really is an evil monstrosity.

This statement has always bugged me about flash and why some people seem to detest it.

Hasn't it occurred to you that it's to do with what you use flash for rather than flash itself?

Animation, sounds all that junk in those ads takes CPU time, it's pretty much the same as playing lots of little movies on your system. Why shoot the messenger when it's to do with the ads developer, or the site developer?

Flash may not be efficient (I have no idea as to the relative efficiency compared to other ways to achieve the same thing) but I'm pretty sure it's the content that causes the issue. I suspect that a text only flash ad wouldn't be as draining. Once HTML 5 is present sufficiently and has the same capabilities then there's a real likelihood that this conversation will be about how HTML 5 feature X drains battery massively, not once realising that it's what you do with it thats the problem.

I'm a little puzzled as to why you left any pop-under windows up on your system - they really annoyed me when they launched so I'd just kill them. And since firefox has had tabs for a long time there never really was a major reason to have loads of windows open (that I could see) making pop-unders even more obvious.

I've got a couple of points to make:

1. On Android you can (and it appeared to be default for me) have it set to load plugins only when requested.. So no flash unless there's something particular I want to see (in fact no plugins at all unless there's something particular I want to see).
2. The ads that you're all hating are the things that are paying for the content you want to view. You have visited these websites, sat there long enough for them to max out your cores in order to view the content. That's the exchange you're making. No ads, eventually no content - and people don't seem all that willing to pay for everything.

About the only other solution is a paywall, or getting rid of the web and going for pay-for apps only..

Z.

Re:The Whole Web!

[peragrin]

you can't control what flash designers are going to do(yes designers they are about as much a programmer as VB)

so you have Zero control over how much CPU a given flash ad will use.

Re:The Whole Web!

[iluvcapra]

Of course, since Hulu is blocked on mobile platforms because Adobe stupidly gave platform developers, you know, the people who pay money for Adobe software, exactly what they wanted.

FTFY

Re:The Whole Web!

[Americano]

The whole web indeed.

What, you didn't realize that they meant "all at once" when they said that?

Re:The Whole Web!

[fean]

You also can't control how much JS is run on the page, or Quicktime, or Canvas.... so you have Zero control over how much CPU anything in your browser will use.

Re:The Whole Web!

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

i"m a JS developer, and the only time I've *ever* pegged a CPU with pure JS was when I was trying some recursion technique to traverse DOM information, and that's ONLY because I got > and confused for end point check and that was only for about 20 seconds because Firefox eventually shits itself when unchecked recursion runs.

Re:The Whole Web!

[exomondo]

i"m a JS developer, and the only time I've *ever* pegged a CPU with pure JS was when I was trying some recursion technique to traverse DOM information, and that's ONLY because I got > and confused for end point check and that was only for about 20 seconds because Firefox eventually shits itself when unchecked recursion runs.

and when designers start having to use JS for interactive content we're going to see many more instances of pegged CPU usage.

Re:The Whole Web!

[Cronock]

I don't think most people mind ads in general, but there's a class of "Offender" ads that basically rely on flash to annoy the user. (Since when has relying on annoying somebody become a socially acceptable advertising tool?) Ads that pop up as you accidentally mouse over things, covering the document you are in the middle of reading, any animated ad that I didn't click a Play button to initiate, ads that attempt to look like a functional part of the site you're on. These aren't going to make people want to purchase your product, and probably actually do a better job of tarnishing your brand image. We all like that our sites can stay in business by tasteful advertising, but a very large portion (and I'm tempted to say the majority) of flash ads are done in a distasteful way. If they weren't then they'd probably not need flash to begin with.

Re:The Whole Web!

[Meski]

150% ? Quick someone, copyright it!

Re:The Whole Web!

[MemoryDragon]

Actually another piece of junk journalism, because you can set flash on ondemand mode in android. Which is the standard setting litterally any user (except tech journalists of course who seem to be to dumb to use a phone) uses. Which means you run into a site with flash, you will get a grey box with an x where the flash is located and as soon as you press the x, the flash applet is loaded.
This is an excellent solution and literally bypasses all flash ads.

Re:The Whole Web!

[Vectormatic]

Damn, my cores only go to 11 :(

Re:The Whole Web!

[jurgemaister]

Opposed to flash content where the player runs the content (and therefor acquires resources from the system) JS content is run by the browser. If the browser detects some script that goes crazy it will simply kill it (or ask you if you want to kill it). I think it's better to let the browser render web content (including ads) in stead of create a browser inside your browser, so you can render while you render.

Re:The Whole Web!

[exomondo]

Opposed to flash content where the player runs the content (and therefor acquires resources from the system) JS content is run by the browser. If the browser detects some script that goes crazy it will simply kill it (or ask you if you want to kill it).

Javascript is run by a javascript renderer and flash is rendered by a flash renderer, your browser can stop either of them. What's the difference between a script 'going crazy' vs one that's legitimately using 100% CPU and flash content 'going crazy' vs one that's legitimately using 100% CPU?

Re:The Whole Web!

[Ncl8]

You can use NoScript to disable JS.

Re:The Whole Web!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, because Flash is on the slide, advertisers are starting to port their ads to HTML5. Then people will be asking how do we turn off the HTML?
Personally I love Flash because it's so popular, it means I can switch it off on a site by site basis.

Re:The Whole Web!

[LBU.Zorro]

You don't have to install flash - problem solved.

Oh yes, if you don't have flash you can't access flash, if you don't have javascript you can't use javascript - meaning that if you turn off the ads or whatever then you run the risk of not seeing what you want to see.

Frankly if the website is that annoying, then go to a different one, or create your own content to rival it.

What might be nice actually is a plugin control that allowed you to load individual objects on the page, so load this JS script (not that it really has a visual element tho) or load this flash object (which does have a visual element), but then again a fair few of them may interlink and break if they are partially loaded.. Sigh.

But I suspect that Adobe might bring out the lawyers to take care of that if there was one.

Z.

Re:The Whole Web!

[LBU.Zorro]

I agree, it's the use to which it is put that's a problem.

The thing is, I can understand why there are flashing, bouncing annoying ads. Simply put they catch your attention and advertising is about catching your attention (well for a generic 'your').
The second issue is that the ads work, it's depressing and makes me weep for the species (well exaggerated there) but flashy ads work (or at least I assume they would, otherwise they'd soon disappear). I don't actually know about any click-through / conversion rates as I've never posted any ads (nor directly hosted any - I presume wordpress have slapped some on my blogs) but I suspect that they do generate more for the advertiser, hence they exist. Ads don't have to be socially acceptable, they aren't going for acceptance they're going for clicks and potentially sales.

Maybe I'm just not visiting any of the most annoying sites, but I don't find the flash ads that intrusive anymore, few flashy, bells whistles and running around the screen ads - they used to be appalling so I wonder what's changed? Is it just me not bothering to return to sites with sucky ads or have they actually improved?

You have to remember who is seeing these ads, annoying as it is to acknowledge, we're in the minority. Tech savy users are few and far between compared to the average person on the web, which means those ads aren't interested in you, they're interested in your neighbour because your neighbour might click on the flashy ad, or respond to the 411 scam, or click 'scan my machine for viruses'. It's all social engineering and it's not targeted at you, you're just an unfortunate bystander.

As for the numbers? Who knows, I've seen some decent flash ones, and I've seen some appalling ones. You're probably right that the majority are sucky, but that doesn't make it flash's fault, it's the use that's a problem. Assuming flash dies then something else will take up the slack as unfortunately sucky ads work for some people.

Z.

Re:The Whole Web!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't usually think about it but now that you mention it, Flash-content works perfectly on Linux right out of the box. Really, you don't have to do anything to block all those annoying ads. It "just works."

Re:The Whole Web!

[tehcyder]

The ads that you're all hating are the things that are paying for the content you want to view.

Saying that on slashdot is like going to the Vatican website and calling the Pope a gynophobic Nazi paedophile-protector.

Re:The Whole Web!

[tehcyder]

All advertising is annoying and/or distracting, or else it's not working.

Re:The Whole Web!

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Opposed to flash content where the player runs the content (and therefor acquires resources from the system) JS content is run by the browser. If the browser detects some script that goes crazy it will simply kill it (or ask you if you want to kill it).

Javascript is run by a javascript renderer and flash is rendered by a flash renderer, your browser can stop either of them. What's the difference between a script 'going crazy' vs one that's legitimately using 100% CPU and flash content 'going crazy' vs one that's legitimately using 100% CPU?

Granularity of what the browser can do. With Flash, all the browser can do is kill the Flash process - period. With JS it can simply stop executing that one JS script. It can even detect if a script acts funny - no such chance with Flash.

Re:The Whole Web!

[exomondo]

Granularity of what the browser can do. With Flash, all the browser can do is kill the Flash process - period. With JS it can simply stop executing that one JS script.

If you've got a canvas thrashing the CPU or a swf thrashing the CPU it makes no difference which you kill, the content is gone. It doesn't impact the browse because the browser tabs are sandboxed processes anyway. And that still doesn't help you determine whether it's legitimately using 100% CPU or not.

It can even detect if a script acts funny - no such chance with Flash.

How so? What is 'acts funny' even supposed to mean?

Re:The Whole Web!

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Granularity of what the browser can do. With Flash, all the browser can do is kill the Flash process - period. With JS it can simply stop executing that one JS script.

If you've got a canvas thrashing the CPU or a swf thrashing the CPU it makes no difference which you kill, the content is gone. It doesn't impact the browse because the browser tabs are sandboxed processes anyway. And that still doesn't help you determine whether it's legitimately using 100% CPU or not.

But the content in all other browser windows wouldn't. When Flash is gone its gone everywhere. It's not that hard to understand - unless your hard-on for Flash keeps the blood from your brain.

It can even detect if a script acts funny - no such chance with Flash.

How so? What is 'acts funny' even supposed to mean?

You wouldn't be able to understand, judging from your previous comments.

Re:The Whole Web!

[LBU.Zorro]

Not sure what your point is, mainly because your example doesn't make any sense.

Your comparison appears to be that telling the truth ("The ads that you're all hating are the things that are paying for the content you want to view.") vs lying to incite a (presumably negative) response ("calling the Pope a gynophobic Nazi paedophile-protector") is somehow the same?

If I'd gone to the Vatican website and called the Pope that, then obviously I would be trolling and attempting to start a flame-war. Whereas all I did was tell the truth (granted as I see it, but I've seen no evidence to the contrary) in discussion about flash (and specifically how bad flash is because of the uses of it).

However saying it on slashdot? I don't know about you but I prefer the intelligent (yes I know bits of slashdot aren't, but significant bits are) conversation on here, where I might actually learn something and I have to say I really don't know what you'll learn from deluding yourself. Granted I tend to define learning as learning new beneficial skills, or information etc. I don't really consider it 'learning' if what you've learnt isn't correct, or at least approximately correct.

Denying that ads do pay for content on a site that is partially funded by advertising revenue is a little odd. It may be unpleasant but it's still true, and you can only change things for the better (other than blind chance) if you start from what's true not just what you want to be true.

Z.

P.S. Quite like the sig :)

Re:The Whole Web!

[exomondo]

But the content in all other browser windows wouldn't. When Flash is gone its gone everywhere.

If you have a tab running with a flash website thrashing the cpu and you kill the process running that tab that does not in any way affect any other tabs. Try it, you'll see how wrong you are.

It's not that hard to understand - unless your hard-on for Flash keeps the blood from your brain.

Don't resort to that sort of rubbish just because you fail to understand the topic. I'm not a flash proponent, i'm just saying that is not a valid argument for one over the other.

You wouldn't be able to understand, judging from your previous comments.

What you mean is actually that you don't know so you'll try and pass it off that way instead of admitting it's something you made up and aren't capable of defining.

Re:The Whole Web!

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

But the content in all other browser windows wouldn't. When Flash is gone its gone everywhere.

If you have a tab running with a flash website thrashing the cpu and you kill the process running that tab that does not in any way affect any other tabs. Try it, you'll see how wrong you are.

Using which browser I don't have? Sure as hell doesn't work in Firefox - do I need a special Flash-approved browser for that? Do I have to buy into the unholy alliance of Adobe and Google?

And how the hell is one supposed to know which Flash process is going bonkers? Do I have to go to a adobe.com page that will tell me if I offer my first-born?

Re:The Whole Web!

[exomondo]

But the content in all other browser windows wouldn't. When Flash is gone its gone everywhere.

If you have a tab running with a flash website thrashing the cpu and you kill the process running that tab that does not in any way affect any other tabs. Try it, you'll see how wrong you are.

Using which browser I don't have? Sure as hell doesn't work in Firefox - do I need a special Flash-approved browser for that? Do I have to buy into the unholy alliance of Adobe and Google?

Any browser that sandboxes tab processes, it's obvious - if you have any technical knowledge - that killing one of the processes (or thread even) executing on the runtime won't kill the runtime itself. Just like in Javascript, you don't create a new instance of the JS renderer for every script and if the browser wants to kill a script it doesn't kill the JS renderer, it kills the script, so your comment:
But the content in all other browser windows wouldn't. When Flash is gone its gone everywhere.
Obviously makes no sense since the browser isn't going to kill flash, just the process/thread that's thrashing the flash runtime.

And how the hell is one supposed to know which Flash process is going bonkers?

The same way you know apparently know a JS script is going bonkers, but of course that was my initial question, how do you determine whether it's using 100% CPU legitimately or not? As i asked here.

Do I have to go to a adobe.com page that will tell me if I offer my first-born?

I get it, you're anti-flash, i don't particularly like flash either but im not about to go around spreading FUD like you are just because of that.

corporate not consumer

[Twillerror]

Air and Flex are really where these are useful. Certainly video sites, but most will just have native apps...so yes for the average consumer flash isn't much a bonus over native apps that will of course perform better.

Remote desktop sharing may or may not use native apps, but there could be some usefulness for some of the "share my desktop" sites out there.

Gaming has some bonus. Most of the facebook games are Flash based. So all those Facebook games that this guy probably doesn't play will work....many of them of course will port to natives...I guess it just gives Android a bigger app number.

Re:corporate not consumer

[PhilHibbs]

So all those Facebook games that this guy probably doesn't play will work...

Unless they have any kind of mouseover interface. And if the flash content that he did try didn't work properly, why do you expect Facebook games will be any different even if they don't use mouseover? They aren't all that reliable even in Internet Explorer (I don't use it, but my friend that plays facebook games does).

Re:corporate not consumer

[Anonymous Coward]

because you know, the IT tech consists of "serious" business, and those games.
Games did nothing for IT in general, they were just there.
Only kids play games. Mostly because human learning itself depends on games, and we stopped learning as soon as we did know all.

Re:corporate not consumer

[LWATCDR]

Have you tired it? I find almost no flash games work with Flash on Android. It really is very iffy at best.

Re:corporate not consumer

[fermion]

It seems to me that flash is primarily driven by the commercial side of the web. This is not necessarily bad, and there are some critical things I cannot do on a flashless device, but it does beg the question of is flash really critical. On devices where work has to get done I would say no. On personal device bought by kids and young adults, probably. I suppose anyone born after 1990 is used to having 24 hour portable entertainment, and much of that is flash games. OTOH, I see kids using the flash games only when there is nothing better to do. If there are native games, angry birds, simple physics, that is what they will play. Which leads me to believe it is really about the ads and the possibility that if android did not run Flash, Flash as an advertising platform could be quickly depreciated.

Re:corporate not consumer

[__aazsst3756]

"Gaming has some bonus." - Except they were not able to get most to actually play. Personally I have yet to find a flash game I want to play. I have found some rather nice Java games however.

Re:corporate not consumer

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you didn't read the article too carefully. It already covers Air and Flex, and why those frameworks aren't a reason to want Flash on a tablet.

The bottom line is that Flash was built for the desktop, and it's now well past its expiry date.

You're Joking?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using Flash on my Nexus one for a while now and yeah it had bugs and issues and crashes a lot but there are certain situations that it was either
A. Use a buggy flash implementation
B. Don't view the content at all

I know that I'd choose the buggy Flash 99% of the time. Also, I have flash setup to only display on demand which means that I don't see the flash content unless I want to.

Re:You're Joking?

[CharlyFoxtrot]

I've been using Flash on my Nexus one for a while now and yeah it had bugs and issues and crashes a lot but there are certain situations that it was either
A. Use a buggy flash implementation
B. Don't view the content at all

I know that I'd choose the buggy Flash 99% of the time. Also, I have flash setup to only display on demand which means that I don't see the flash content unless I want to.

What content did you need that you couldn't get without Flash ?

Re:You're Joking?

[softWare3ngineer]

Pron

Re:You're Joking?

[CharlyFoxtrot]

No-one has made a pron site with a HTML5 player yet ? Sounds like an opportunity for some enterprising young entrepreneur.

Re:You're Joking?

[Anonymous Coward]

xhamster.com
spankwire.com

both work fine on one-handed iDevices

*splat*

Re:You're Joking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also:
extremetube.com (DID work, though I had trouble with it last time I tried viewing any of their videos)
tube8.com (works great, decent search & tagging functionality)
xnxx.com (huge selection, but spotty tagging, search can be a little odd, so might be tough to find stuff if you're looking for something in particular)

Re:You're Joking?

[Americano]

I'm always curious when I see this "Buggy flash is better than no flash". I can't think of a single time where my only possible route to the information I need is through a flash web site.

Re:You're Joking?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=iphone+porn

Re:You're Joking?

[gnasher719]

I'm always curious when I see this "Buggy flash is better than no flash". I can't think of a single time where my only possible route to the information I need is through a flash web site.

I once tried to book a hotel room, but couldn't because I didn't have Flash installed. Actually, I had Flash installed on my Mac, and it wasn't disabled in any way, but for some reason the site checked whether Flash for Windows was installed on your machine. They also had a link that would allow me to install Flash for Windows on my Mac.

I did not book that hotel room.

Re:You're Joking?

[Man On Pink Corner]

I did not book that hotel room.

And you can rest assured the hotel's head office noticed your attempt when they reviewed their user-agent statistics. Unless they're idiots, which they aren't, they will have told their IT people to ditch the Flash shit if they don't want their next job assignment to involve wearing a paper hat while 'configuring' a deep-fat fryer.

It's very safe to say that Flash will no longer be required by any major B2C websites within the next 6-12 months. It's dead, Jim, stick a fork in it.

Were Apple right?

[Computershack]

Ever wonder why Apple didn't want to put Flash support on the iPhone? It would appear to have been a shrewd move.

Re:Were Apple right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever wonder if anyone would had complained so vehemently about flash on mobiles if it wasn't for apple? As a linux user I complained about it for years then all of the sudden everyone jumps in, including many windows users which had no real problem in the first place.

Re:Were Apple right?

[Anonymous Coward]

And then you stopped complaining, right? Because it wasn't cool any more.

Re:Were Apple right?

[kybred]

Yes

Re:Were Apple right?

[meerling]

I thought flash was interesting and possibly very useful, then everybody started making these flash monstrosities of websites that became gaudy fairgrounds of useless crap. That's when I swore off flash. Shortly after that the 'advertisers' discovered flash. At that point, flash became the marauding barbarians at the gate. The only real choice was to reinforce the wall, ready the boiling oil, and siege engines. Metaphorically speaking.

Currently I hate flash, though I still need it for certain things. If there was someway to split out the useless bloatware and the evil ads (they're all evil by default), it wouldn't be bad.

Re:Were Apple right?

[somersault]

If there was someway to split out the useless bloatware and the evil ads (they're all evil by default), it wouldn't be bad.

Adblock

Re:Were Apple right?

[catchblue22]

Steve Jobs was right.

Re:Were Apple right?

[gilesjuk]

Flash was built for the desktop. Devices with big screens, keyboards and mice.

Cramming it into a smartphone with a limited battery life has never really made sense.

Flash on the web seems to be only used for a few things:

1. Video, which can and has been done in other ways

2. Games, plenty of games in the app stores.

3. Presentations, which I imagine few people bother to use?

4. Adverts, which most people don't like.

5. IM, which can be done with AJAX and existing HTML scripting.

Re:Were Apple right?

[Ced_Ex]

The annoying part is when you want to see a video that mandates ads before you get to watch, there's no filter that allows the video to be played while blocking the ad that precedes it. I know some news sites are setup this way.

Re:Were Apple right?

[Anonymous Coward]

The people who are complaining about flash on mobile are the same ones who are stuck with their iDevices. I love my flash. I love that I can watch nearly any video site I want right on my phone. This guy is complaining about things that you don't have to deal with at all. Just take a look at the settings for flash player on android. Disable it if you don't like it! Or better yet, set it so you have to tap a flash object to activate it.

Re:Were Apple right?

[stewbacca]

I thought flash was interesting and possibly very useful, then everybody started making these flash monstrosities of websites that became gaudy fairgrounds of useless crap. That's when I swore off flash.

You could just swear off gaudy web sites.

Re:Were Apple right?

[cratermoon]

I've noticed more and more sites being designed in a similar way. They somehow make it impossible for me to see the content I want unless I completely disable ABP (or FlashBlock) to first allow the ad content to play. Instead of a little (f) icon replacing the Flash content, there's just a blank area.

Re:Were Apple right?

[ThatMegathronDude]

Hulu shows a nag message if it can't get its precious ads. Fine by me, I'd rather not have to reach up and mute while I alt-tab.

Re:Were Apple right?

[pushing-robot]

It is perhaps ironic that Apple is the driving force behind the anti-Flash movement, since IMHO the biggest problem with Flash is that it caters to anal-retentive developers who want everything just so.

While HTML and CSS contort themselves to suit the browser and user, Flash was designed to be a window unto itself; a stage on which everything works exactly as the developer intended. At first, that may seem like a good thing—especially to developers. However, it conveys a false sense of conformity, causing developers to lose sight of the reason why HTML was made to be so flexible. The Internet is a diverse place where Flash's attitude of one-design-for-everybody breaks down:

Oh, you've got a small screen? Sorry, we didn't plan for that.
Oh, you want to translate the text? Sorry, we didn't plan for that.
Oh, you're using a touch interface? Sorry, we didn't plan for that.
Oh, you need large fonts? Sorry, we didn't plan for that.
Oh, you have a low-end CPU? Sorry, we didn't plan for that.
Oh, you use a screen reader? Sorry, we didn't plan for that.
Oh, you're on an unsupported/64-bit browser or OS? Sorry, we didn't plan for that.
And so on.

As handheld devices take off, the Internet is becoming even more diverse, and the notion that Flash can provide the same experience for everyone is becoming less and less plausible.

Re:Were Apple right?

[alostpacket]

6. RIAs. Flash runs The Weather Channel's interactive map among a bunch of other cool desktop and web apps: http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplatformruntimes/gallery/

It's certainly not for everything, but as a technology it is really powerful despite being used for advertising mostly.

Re:Were Apple right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that kind of applet can be implemented in JS (especially thanks to frameworks like jQuery and Ext) and you need a programmer anyway, so unless you live in an area flush with developers capable of working in the latest version of Flex, why wouldn't you use the library that enables your RIA to work on more platforms, faster, and with fewer dependencies and potential security holes?

Re:Were Apple right?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that ironic? Apple has always favored user experience over developer whim.

Oh were you meaning to imply that Apple likes to control what you do? That's simply not true. Apple knows that to have a smartphone succeed you need tight control over the OS, and the apps that can be installed and absolute consistency of UI. One single app that causes the phone to crash, or is sluggish enough or confusing enough to make the user frustrated will immediately have the blame shifted to the platform itself... all of what Apple has done was to ensure that their phone gave you the best user experience you've ever had.

Here with flash on Andriod we see exactly why

Re:Were Apple right?

[thegarbz]

Yeah let's chalk leaving out a feature almost (and unfortunately) critical to the usability of the internet on a device that when released was one of the most feature rich devices in the world to it being a shrewd move, rather than saving on license costs. (Fun fact, flash is not free for vendors to install on phones).

I suppose Jobs Almighty coming out and saying that NFC has no standard in the industry and thus won't be in the iPhone 5 is also a shrewd move, despite there being quite strict standards and the systems being interoperable between all major vendors. Maybe Apple just needs to learn that if you want to be a bully you're going to have to have a lionshare of the market first.

Re:Were Apple right?

[Cloud K]

Well yeah.

Obviously we're a bit of a more savvy audience here, hopefully wise enough to just switch Flash off, but from the sounds of the summary it proves exactly how bad the experience is with it enabled. Everyone would've been piling in at the Genius Bars in droves to return their iPhone because "the browser is really really slow and freezes and crashes a lot"

Having Flash turned on sounds like an awful user experience, not exactly what Apple goes for.

I can't say I miss it very often (never been into Miniclip or whatever) and I certainly don't miss the animated ads.

Re:Were Apple right?

[judeancodersfront]

It stopped being cool when Linux fans realized that Flash would give Android devices an advantage.

Re:Were Apple right?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an iOS weather channel app. Why would you use their website?

Re:Were Apple right?

[The End Of Days]

Shocking, they are trying to make some money providing a service you apparently want? They must be pure evil.

Re:Were Apple right?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Yeah let's chalk leaving out a feature almost (and unfortunately) critical to the usability of the internet on a device that when released was one of the most feature rich devices in the world to it being a shrewd move, rather than saving on license costs. (Fun fact, flash is not free for vendors to install on phones).

No, let's not.

Adobe would be more than willing to let Apple install flash on iOS devices for free. Heck they'd pay Apple to install flash if they could.

Re:Were Apple right?

[yuhong]

Anyone remember Netscape presentational HTML extensions, such as and , which became HTML 3.2? Anyone remember table-based layouts?

Re:Were Apple right?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot:

6. Restaurant websites.

Re:Were Apple right?

[Cronock]

Don't say that on Slashdot!! You'll be attacked by the sea of hungry antifanboys that have been waiting all thread for this to be posted so they can derail it into an Apple-bashing festival. Then one guy who hasn't been to a computer store in 10 years will mention something mocking one button mice, and the cycle starts over.

Re:Were Apple right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds good if you feel like rewriting everything on the internet to utilize your crafty 5 points... The point of flash on the phone is simply just to get us closer to actually being able to *surf the web on your phone* (the same web that your surf when you are at home on your real computer, not some watered down version of webpages which are deemed 'better' for displaying on phones...)

Re:Were Apple right?

[martin_dk]

Apple banned Flash and disabled the html FILE tag so every single website which interacts with user provided content had to be converted into an App.

Apple don't really care if users want to get rid of flash banners. They want all rich content exclusively as Apps.

Re:Were Apple right?

[dargaud]

Flash was built for the desktop. Devices with big screens [...]

Big screen ? At its ridiculously tiny native resolution I can already see all the compression artifacts and the image flow sputters like a moped in a rock garden, so why would you want to enlarge it to make it even worse ? I used to think say that RealMedia was crap in, oh, 1996, and Flash has consistently maintained that high standard since then.

Re:Were Apple right?

[Vectormatic]

meanwhile, here i am, with my android phone, with flash disabled.

Choice is good, android allows you to run flash, or to turn it all off

Re:Were Apple right?

[AmiMoJo]

The reason they don't allow it is because you can write apps in Flash, and Apple want to keep the App Store as the only source of vetted software. If they allowed Flash in the iOS browser you would see sites popping up all over the place offering unauthorised games to play online.

Re:Were Apple right?

[raddude99]

so much wrong in one post I don't know where to begin.

Flash is a development tool, so don't blame the tool when the developers don't know how to use it properly, Flash is perfectly capable of scaling, translating, different fonts etc.. And the one that bothers me, Touch, of course Flash can handle that (despite what Steve Jobs says), it's just that Flash was mostly developed with a Mouse in mind, any decent programmer could simply re-tool their app to work well with a touch interface.

... so in summary, all your comments were incorrect... with the exception of the 64bit one of course :-)

Re:Were Apple right?

[blackchiney]

Choice is good, which is why you can choose a phone that supports Flash or not. You can also choose to develop a mobile site with or without Flash knowing that 50% of the mobile browsers won't see it at all.

I honestly believe that if Apple decided to include flash in the iPhone then other, better suited, frameworks would be ignored. Most web developers stick to what they know and Flash has been a vise and a noose for far too long.

Re:Were Apple right?

[m50d]

Sadly modern CSS has gone that way too. I cringed when I saw the acid2 test's requirement that the page "look exactly, pixel-for-pixel, like this reference rendering" - it simply shouldn't be possible to specify something like that in html.

Re:Were Apple right?

[tehcyder]

Don't say that on Slashdot!! You'll be attacked by the sea of hungry antifanboys that have been waiting all thread for this to be posted so they can derail it into an Apple-bashing festival. Then one guy who hasn't been to a computer store in 10 years will mention something mocking one button mice, and the cycle starts over.

But an Apple fanboi will leap in first to protect his beloved toys from imaginary criticism.

Re:Were Apple right?

[tehcyder]

Coming under video (as it were) is porn. A casual surfer on the web needs flash to look at porn.

Apparently.

Re:Were Apple right?

[Anonymous Coward]

fandroid will make sure he says something to feed the trolls

Re:Were Apple right?

[Cronock]

Not exactly. Apple was once preferring people make "web apps" for their content rather than actual apps. I think if adobe truely made flash work well, apple wouldn't be able to keep it off their devices over customer demand. But given the fact it causes so many headaches on the desktop, people don't care much.

Re:Were Apple right?

[RajivSLK]

What? of course it should... If you couldn't do pixel perfect CSS layouts then developers would still be using a lot more png's and jpegs for simple things. Resulting in an overall crappier web. In my ideal world, by default all browsers would render everything exactly the same and give the end user the ability to rescale, re-size, modify and change whatever they want.

Re:Were Apple right?

[m50d]

If you couldn't do pixel perfect CSS layouts then developers would still be using a lot more png's and jpegs for simple things.

And marking themselves out as wrong when they did so, and costing themselves more in bandwidth.

In my ideal world, by default all browsers would render everything exactly the same

That's absurd; think about a phone rendering a page the same as a widescreen monitor. The point of html is that the browser gets to adapt it, reflowing things as it sees fit, rather than having to display everything exactly as the designer positioned it.

Re:Were Apple right?

[RajivSLK]

At the same window size my iPhone does in fact display everything exactly as Safari does on my laptop. Of course designers create pages that dynamic with regards to resolution. What you are advocating is world where borders don't line up because one browser renders differently than another. Or padding and spacing changes between browsers; nobody wants that.

Flashblock for Android?

[Anonymous Coward]

Flashblock is my favourite Firefox plug-in for a good reason.

Re:Flashblock for Android?

[thetartanavenger]

Just set plugins to be disabled, or on request.. Job done...

Re:Flashblock for Android?

[Anonymous Coward]

True dat, but you need an exception for YouTube.

Re:Flashblock for Android?

[realityimpaired]

http://www.youtube.com/html5

Youtube supports HTML5.

Which is good, until the ads start supporting HTML5 too...

Re:Flashblock for Android?

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera Mobile on Android has a built-in Flash block that works just like the Firefox Flashblock. Opera is still a little unstable on Android (well, more unstable than usual) but is generally way better than the default browser.

I don't like Opera on the desktop because there are more stable and feature-filled browsers but Opera Mobile seems to be better than any other mobile browser. I think they may have found their niche. Now if they can just make it crash less.

flash without flashblock is idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash is occasionally useful - some sites won't even show you any content without it, or like Strongbad have their content primarily in flash. But why on earth would anyone run flash without a flashblock extension in the browser? That's just idiotic!

Seriously, maybe i'm just an old fart, but whatever happened to the user being the one in control of his or her own computer? Why do more people not insist on having control over their machines? Why would you trust any random flash content *by bloody default*?

SOME flash is useful. SOME flash is malicious. SOME flash is merely advertising. The only thing that makes sense is to run that flash which is useful. Arbitrarily running any flash at all - sheesh, would you let anyone in the world borrow your car? Your house? Or would you only permit that of people you trusted? Why should your computer be any different?

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Flash is occasionally useful - some sites won't even show you any content without it, or like Strongbad have their content primarily in flash.

Homestar Runner used to be my primary reason to install Flash. This was back in the days Linux users were bitching about Flash because it was so poorly supported, now it seems they are its biggest cheerleaders. Honestly, I haven't been to that site in a couple of years and anyone starting out now would be insane to do it with a Flash based website.

SOME flash is useful. SOME flash is malicious. SOME flash is merely advertising. The only thing that makes sense is to run that flash which is useful.

The "problem" with flash these days is that there is a better solution for the problems it solves, especially on mobile devices. They are pushing a bad solution to a technical problem and that's why Adobe will eventually lose even if they make it "good enough."

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[blair1q]

whatever happened to the user being the one in control of his or her own computer?

It died when Apple bundled an operating system with every one.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[ScrewMaster]

They are pushing a bad solution to a technical problem and that's why Adobe will eventually lose even if they make it "good enough."

Bad solutions win more often than not, especially if there's a few billion in advertising dollars behind them.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[smelch]

Well some people like to be in control of their computers and not have it ask for stupid things. Like, I wouldn't want the browser to ask me or wait for me to tell it to display images, or run javascript, or.... whatever. I went to the page damnit! That was authorization enough for me. Why would I install flash, go to a page, and not have it run the flash *by bloody default*?

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[casualsax3]

All of the existing Android implementations of Flash behave like this. On my Viewsonic GTablet, Flash 10.2 defaults to loading On Demand (ie you click play) in both the default browser and alternate browsers like Opera Mobile.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

> Why would I install flash, go to a page, and not have it run the flash *by bloody default*?

Because it can be malicious or annoying. Same as for javascript.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[mattcasters]

The default way that Flash presented itself on my Android 2.2 tablet (Point Of View Tegra 2) was by showing an empty block with an arrow in it where you would normally see the Flash content. If you then tap on it, it is activated.

I disabled that tap-enabled mode for the following reasons:
1) the Tegra2 dual core is plenty fast
2) I only visit fairly straightforward sites with Flash, like news-sites and such.

Personally I couldn't be happier. Flash on Android, even on 2.2 works as advertised as far as I'm concerned. Later I indeed would like to use it with Firefox 4 and add-block & flashblock plugins but for now it works fine for the things I expect from it.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[CharlyFoxtrot]

They are pushing a bad solution to a technical problem and that's why Adobe will eventually lose even if they make it "good enough."

Bad solutions win more often than not, especially if there's a few billion in advertising dollars behind them.

Sure, but usually not when there is a popular platform that offers a better solution. That better solution is HTML5 on the desktop and mobile for video and native apps on mobile for games. The platform is iOS, it doesn't even need to retain dominance because the fatal blow has already been dealt: who would start a project these days with Flash as their primary technology ? The fact they are making their play for relevance with Adobe Air shows that Adobe know the way the wind is blowing.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's a page you've not visited before, how do you know which Flash you want to enable? How do you know how much Flash it has? Why not disable all Flash by default and then enable only those portions you actually want (or think you need, since you'd be uncertain where all the content is hiding)? After all, it's a safe bet the content is in the middle and that any Flash at the extreme top, bottom, left or right is just advertisements (and advertisements are universally [or near enough universal for the difference to not matter] superfluous and not what you'd be interested in on the page anyway). In the end, it's trivial to re-enable a piece of blocked Flash, whether you are using Flashblock or running content only on demand.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

The "problem" with flash these days is that there is a better solution for the problems it solves, especially on mobile devices.

So what is the 'better solution' for a site like HomestarRunner.com ?

SVG with animation and sound? How well does that work these days?
I just tried:
http://svg-wow.org/text-effects/text-effects.xhtml

And it fails on FF4 quite badly. Maybe it's my underpowered CPU, but lines being written end up overlapping eachother, there's text characters bunching up in the center, and so forth and so on.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[farble1670]

Arbitrarily running any flash at all - sheesh, would you let anyone in the world borrow your car? Your house? Or would you only permit that of people you trusted? Why should your computer be any different?

ya right on. in fact, i don't load any web pages either, because we all know most of those are really applications written in javascript.

but i can't wait for HTML 5. i hear it magically manages to perform all the tasks currently performed by flash, but it doesn't use any CPU. can you imagine? those guys at apple are real smart. and the best thing about HTML 5 is that it can't be disabled or uninstalled, because it's part of the browser!

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[smelch]

Oh, ok I get it. So you go to the site, then enable the flash to see the content, then if it's malicious it didn't get you! Come on, don't be stupid, for most people that doesn't matter. The OP was a little bit retarded in his assertion there is no reason to let it run by default. I see his point to, I'm just mocking him for being a dickwad about it. Sure it can be annoying, but the security end of the flash argument is pretty weak. By the time you know it was malicious you already ran it. Don't go to malicious looking sites period. If it doesn't look malicious, there's no reason not to enable the flash when you get there.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

You are fucking retarded.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[John Hasler]

Why would I install flash, go to a page, and not have it run the flash *by bloody default*?

Because the designers of the pages are *bloody idiots*.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[shutdown -p now]

SOME flash is useful. SOME flash is malicious. SOME flash is merely advertising. The only thing that makes sense is to run that flash which is useful. Arbitrarily running any flash at all - sheesh

Coincidentally, the way it works on Android by default is that all Flash plugins on the page are disabled, with a "tap to run" icon on them. So it is done just right - no Flash in general, but it's there for when you need it.

Consequently, the quote from TFA, namely that "all those ads suddenly appear where once there were none, their animated graphics leaping and scuttling under your fingertips", is a lie. Unless the guy specifically fiddled with his settings to make it as annoying as possible for the purpose of his review.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[shutdown -p now]

I actually wouldn't be surprised if Flash worked worse on Android 3.0 than it does on 2.x. From my experience of using Xoom and Nexus One, the browser in the latter is often faster. On some websites (e.g. Slashdot, or XDA forums), Xoom stock browser is so slow that I ditched it altogether and use Opera Mobile instead.

I don't know what they did in Honeycomb, but the software that is currently running on Xoom is beta quality, and that includes perf.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[scot4875]

Except for, you know, malware-infected ad networks that can pop up *any* time, on *any* site that uses the ad network. If you had flash blocked, none of those malware-infected ads would even be an issue. You enable the content you want to run (which will generally be safe), and not have to worry about any other garbage linked into the page.

--Jeremy

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[Vectronic]

Really?... that's when? I'm no fan of Apple, but I wouldn't blame bundling an OS with a computer to be the root cause, you might be able to argue that earlier Mac's being on a somewhat unpopular architecture "forced" you to use that OS... but really... buyer beware, buyer be 2% of the market, buyer have lots of other choices, almost all of which come bundled with an OS, some not pre-installed, but odds are "it came with it, may as well check it out" doesn't matter if it's installed already or not.

I'd say it was more an Eternal September type thing... it used to be far more common that if you were using a computer, you either knew how to use it, or were invested in figuring out how to use it. Now that everyone uses them, most people want it to "just work" at the click of a button, so developers are forced to implement automation to install things, enable/disable things, diagnose and repair itself, etc etc... for that to work effectively, it basically means it can't be disabled itself, since it will try and re-enable itself, it ends up being the normal/usual/default behavior of an OS, and subsequent software installed. Applications taking on their own life, the OS taking everything as a part of it's life... screw you, you luser, I want to live... and I want to phone my mother, and my siblings... stop using me, yer fucking up my schedule... I'm supposed to be defragging then updating the AV, scanning, then I gotta call my doctor and see if any more implants are ready, or need repairing... .. .

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[mr100percent]

You mean IBM/Microsoft?

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[mattcasters]

You could be right. As long as Google says 3.0 is not ready I'm in no hurry to upgrade.
IMO Xoom was launched too soon. Manufacturers should have learned from the iPhone/Android battle that a huge head-start doesn't mean all that much in a new market. They should take their time and run with their own strengths, not Apple's.

The POV Tegra2 tablet proves that you can indeed make high performance tablets with plenty of features (camera, HDMI, USB, sd card) for a low price ($300). Sure, you make compromises like an inferior screen. However, I'm not going to give my 6 yo old son an $800 state of the art piece of technology to bang on in frustration while playing Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja. That's just not right. With the POV I simply don't care all that much. (but it survives just the same)

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[mattcasters]

Like another poster mentioned above it could be that this behavior is different between Android 2.x and 3.0. But you're right: I think the reviewer in TFA would have don't better to wait until 3.0 is actually officially released before making these judgment calls.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[ChunderDownunder]

i'd agree with your sarcasm except that html5 is a cross-platform solution. Steve wants you to spend as little time as possible in the browser. Or at least that's the thrust of Apple's tv ads that promise 1000s of apps exclusive to iphone4. Many of these apps, albeit not with the same native lustre, could be written in html and js - cf webos.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

It is this ignorance that amazes me..

NO, HTML5, doing the same things as flash, in current testing is still slower.
The Issue here is that once HTML5 is used in the same way as flash, it will be just as bad. Doing motion graphics in native browser or native code in a plugin. there is no difference.. HTML5 is just 10x the cost to implement due to its over complex nature of being a standard by committee.

The future with out flash is just as bad or most likely worse. AS, then there will be no way to filter it out. NO WAY. Its all HTML5 code, even the stuff you don't want to see.

It is true, the low powered devices don;t do what flash is used for well. THEREFORE they will not do well when HTML5 is used to do the same thing. The issue is that we have this flashy internet "BECAUSE IT WORKS" It attractes clicks for adverts etc. This is the greese that makes the internet work. Portable devices will of course evolve to be exactly the same as they become more efficient... BECAUSE IT WORKS. IT MAKES WEBSITES MORE COMPETITIVE/PROFITABLE.

All this "kill Flash" crap is nothing more then propaganda by large companies for strategic reasons. Flash has qualities that HTML5 cannot even get close to, so will always be a force of some kind. Using flash for what it is good for will improve your life. The problem is producers use it to make money, and in making money, usually annoy you.
"Guns protect your country, but when they are pointed at you, they should be destroyed." You cannot have it both ways.

Understand the issues. Don;t follow the propaganda. Think for yourself.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that the bigger attack vector here isn't Flash, is JS, and if all you do is use Flashblock but still run around executing random JS you're just as boned.

And the new wave of web development that says "screw all you JS-disabled people" is going to make noscript really painful to use indeed.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[drb226]

would you let anyone in the world borrow your car? Your house?

Don't worry. All I'm going to do is place these fun "punch the monkey" games on your windshield and windows.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[farble1670]

HTML5 + CSS3 are x-platform in the same way HTML4 + CSS2 are cross platform. it's at the mercy of the folks that implement the browser. it's silly to think that because 5 > 4 and 3 > 2 all of the cross-platform issues will magically go away. the spec will still miss some things, and the folks that implement the browser will interpret it differently.

that's where flash excels, like it or not. wherever you go, flash is flash. being a single company it's easier for them to implement their plugins consistently across all platforms than it easy for a bunch of competing companies that are building browsers. adobe deserves some credit for making a platform that manages to run identically (for the most part) across different platforms. that's at least one of the reasons why it's popular. businesses would rather burn up your CPU than pay developers to implement things in HTMLN + CSSM and deal with all the cross browser issues.

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

You could substitute "Flash" for any of these words: "javascript", "html", "ajax", blah blah blah and your argument still remains the same. But why single out Flash?

Re:flash without flashblock is idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're suggesting the sh!tty HTML5 Spiderman (which doesn't run well / at all on my desktop browser, incidentally)., or that sh!tty sidescroller (that stop working when I die when I try to play it on my mobile phone last time I tried) compared to a Flash based HomestarRunner (which just works)?

Give me *THE OPTION* to choose Flash any day, thanks! I'll just simply put it on "load on-demand" (phone) or use Flashblock-like addons (desktop) for my lower end machines.

Could it be?

[mean pun]

Yeah, I know, it's a question you just don't ask. I'll have to hand in my geek card. But still, I can't help but think of it. Could it be? I mean, is it possible? Could it be that Apple was right, and Flash is just too heavy for a handheld device?

Re:Could it be?

[jedidiah]

That's kind of like saying that Flash is too heavy for a yesterdays Mac.

Re:Could it be?

[thetartanavenger]

No. Flash isn't necessarily ideal but I'd rather have the choice. There have been times when I've been out and wanting to view a specific video, listen to a radio station etc where there wouldn't be an iphone app. You have the choice to completely disable it, I think possibly even uninstall it, and easily set it to only on demand... Whereas with Apple, you have none...

Re:Could it be?

[xMrFishx]

Thing is, Flash stuff is made by artists, and artists are commanded by marketeers, and marketeers exist to annoy the shit out of you, and we all know what Flash ads do... Flash let adverts become the new embedded midi. I browse with flashblock on, with a small whitelist for things like YouTube, but generally it stops my browser doing annoying things like lock up, play sounds I really don't want to hear or throw shit across the site whilst I'm browsing. Like frames, flash will eventually be dropped for the sake of everyone's sanity. Unfortunately JavaScript is allowing web designers to do some more annoying shit again, but it takes longer to appear as it's nowhere near as draggy and droppy as Flash is.

Re:Could it be?

[xMrFishx]

I own a 2007 MBP. Flash is too heavy for that. If I fancy emptying my battery in 30 minutes, I allow flash. It's permabanned from the machine for the sake of usability, and it's not a particulary underpowered machine either.

Re:Could it be?

[Quiet_Desperation]

Well, yeah. I have an 8 year old Mac Powerbook that gets killed by modern Flash objects. You can watch the battery % charge meter count down when a heavy Flash page is being displayed.

Re:Could it be?

[jeffmeden]

Hand in your geek card. Its not about flash being heavy, it's about every single flash-ready web site being designed to be navigated with a mouse, and being designed to appear as annoying as possible to boost ad clicks. That is the problem plaguing flash on handhelds, you dont have a mouse and you dont have screen real estate to waste on ads. Was apple right in saying that flash adds little to nothing to the overall handheld browsing experience? Yes. Then again, no one is making you use flash on your phone. Were there to be mobile-oriented flash apps out there, they would probably work great (oh, wait, there are.)

My big gripe with flash is that not a single content provider has turned to it to deliver mobile media in an effective way. Hulu? Sorry, locked out. CNN, FOX, and the rest of the news? Big fat bomb. Netflix? Oh, right, flash is "insecure". There's no killer app for flash, probably because it took so darn long to have a working client on mobiles. Everyone with a genuine interest went off and made their own app long before flash 10 mobile came around.

Re:Could it be?

[repetty]

No. Flash isn't necessarily ideal but I'd rather have the choice. There have been times when I've been out and wanting to view a specific video, listen to a radio station etc where there wouldn't be an iphone app. You have the choice to completely disable it, I think possibly even uninstall it, and easily set it to only on demand... Whereas with Apple, you have none...

I'm kinda like you -- I prefer to have choices.

The general public, however, does not think that way at all. They aren't interested in choices and certainly don't want to fucking think about it. Please don't bother them.

Apple is a profanely profitable company because that nail that kinda stuff.

Re:Could it be?

[DCstewieG]

Also remember that we're coming up on 4 years since the iPhone came out and was ridiculed for not supporting Flash. 4 years of vastly increasing mobile computing power and memory. 4 years for Adobe to get its act together. 4 years to see why HTML5 video and animation is important.

4 years. If this is what we're seeing now, just imagine what Jobs was shown way back when the decision was made.

Re:Could it be?

[mac84]

Flash isn't ideal? Sounds like a good reason to convince content creators to use or develop alternative platforms. How do you do that? A big player or players (like Apple and Microsoft) fail to support the platform.

Re:Could it be?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I'm kinda like you -- I prefer to have choices.

Keep in mind, these problems are often solved in their own way. Youtube, Netflix, Hulu, these all work on the iPhone.

Re:Could it be?

[LBArrettAnderson]

Flash works very well on my android phone. Steve jobs was wrong 4 years ago, and he's still wrong today, no matter how many apple fanboys write articles about how bad flash on android is.

Re:Could it be?

[pherthyl]

I also like to have choices. Currently I have an iPhone4, and love it, but sometimes I still miss functionality on certain sites. Most interesting video sites now support alternate formats, but there is still the occasional one that doesn't. Not the end of the world, but definitely a downside to using Apple products.

However, I do hate the idea of flash, and if Apple's refusal to allow it is what it takes to finally drive the web to never rely on it as the only way to deliver functionality, then that is a good thing. So I'm willing to put up with the inconvenience if it pushes the web towards that goal.

Re:Could it be?

[UnknowingFool]

Indeed. I remember an interview where Apple was willing to put Flash on the iPhone but it didn't work very well. So Apple told Adobe that when Adobe got it working right, Apple would re-evaluate. Adobe only now is getting Flash semi-functional on mobile. Maybe Adobe just never thought mobile was a priority and is playing catchup.

Re:Could it be?

[stewbacca]

Flash works very well on my android phone.

Given the evidence to the contrary, I'm beginning to wonder who the real fanboy is...

Re:Could it be?

[Anonymous Coward]

And Flash works great on my Android tablets...too bad it doesn't work on my iPad... I hate being limited by my device's OS...bad enough I have to use Windows at work. I have a feeling Google and Adobe will iron out any lingering issues with Flash soon enough. What's the big deal anyways? Android is *nix-based and flash works fine on my *nix machines.

Re:Could it be?

[scot4875]

If that's truly the case, the battery % charge meter would count down running *any* CPU and/or GPU intensive application. To think that Flash somehow consumes more battery than any other CPU-pegging (not tough to do on an 8-year-old PC) process is to show a fundamental lack of understanding about how computers work.

--Jeremy

Re:Could it be?

[jo_ham]

Where does he state or even infer that?

Just wondering. He doesn't talk about what other CPU and GPU intensive processes do, he only mentions flash.

It seems you are inferring something about his understanding without any actual evidence.

Re:Could it be?

[jedidiah]

Yes. They all work by taking an 80s style proprietary approach to apps that present the content.

That's hardly progress.

Flash may be a proprietary standard but it is at least cross platform.

A proprietary PhoneOS binary is not.

Re:Could it be?

[jo_ham]

I'm starting to wonder if the lady doth protest too much.

You might want to start from the premise that not everyone who writes something critical about something you like is a fanboy or paid shill of the "opposition". That level of cynicism speaks volumes about the fragility of your own belief in the thing you are "protecting".

Re:Could it be?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Right, then we bitch about bloat.

Re:Could it be?

[Americano]

My big gripe with flash is that not a single content provider has turned to it to deliver mobile media in an effective way

Care to explain why they need it, when a simple H.264 stream will deliver mobile media without it? (And, if we're to believe the speculation, hardware-accelerated WebM / VP8 video will also work just fine without flash in the near future?)

It sounds like you're saying, "I sure wish things came with more unnecessary and redundant packaging!"

Re:Could it be?

[colinnwn]

Or given how Apple treats mobile app developers, maybe Adobe decided it wasn't worth the risk of investing in Flash on iPhone and then have it summarily dismissed if they weren't on the right side of Apple's business plan of the moment?

Adobe may have chose to wait for Android to be worth marketing to, and are now making the investments to bring Flash up to speed. Not that I like Flash one bit...

Re:Could it be?

[toriver]

You, Sir, do not own a Mac. You cannot understand the very black hole suckitude of Flash on a Mac.

Re:Could it be?

[toriver]

So when an Android 3.0 user writes about how Flash sucks on Android 3.0, he's a "fanboy" of a totally different platform? You are not making sense, and believe that performance for 2.3.x (which I guess you have) indicates anything at all about performance under 3.0. When it does not, ref. all the writing about how Flash for Honeycomb and the Xoom was delayed at launch.

Does actual Flash applications - and not just the YouTube video player, or animated Flash ads - but for instance hover-dependent Facebook games, do they actually "work very well" there?

Re:Could it be?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Also remember that we're coming up on 4 years since the iPhone came out and was ridiculed for not supporting Flash. 4 years of vastly increasing mobile computing power and memory.

And if Apple had supported Flash from the start, it wouldn't have made it on the Phone until the 3 GS anyway, because that's how long it takes for Adobe to actually bring out something barely working. Android "supported" Flash from the start - look how long that took to actually appear.

Re:Could it be?

[Anonymous Coward]

4 year old computer nearing the end of it's life cycle can't run the latest and greatest. News at 11. 2011.

Re:Could it be?

[UnknowingFool]

Well given that Flash for Blackberry was announced in 2009 and hasn't been released yet, given that Flash for Android apparently sucks, given that Flash for WP7 hasn't been released yet, I would guess that the problem isn't with Apple necessarily. Maybe Apple may have dismissed Flash because they got tired of waiting among other things. Adobe may have chosen to wait for Android but that doesn't mesh with history. Adobe announced Flash was coming to Blackberry in 2009. That was over 2 years ago and no Flash yet. Also while Android has more phones overall than Apple, Apple has sold 89 million phones to date and 15 million iPads last year. That's a large market to ignore.

Re:Could it be?

[colinnwn]

You have a good point that Adobe has promised a lot, but delivered little. Though comments in this thread indicate Flash on Android is somewhere between acceptable given the constraints, to absolutely worthless. If you are denied access to the iOS platform, zero percent of 114 million devices is still a big fat goose egg. I can see them deciding it wasn't worth the investment risk. Android and Blackberry were the next 2 best candidates, I guess I'm not convinced Adobe had the foresight to pick the right one to target the most resources. It was probably serendipity.

Re:Could it be?

[LBArrettAnderson]

He was "testing it out." That hardly makes him a user. I'd bet money that this guy is an iPhone and/or iPad user, even though statistics would be against me.

Re:Could it be?

[LBArrettAnderson]

Yes, instead of my own experience I should just trust "evidence" given by an apple fanboy.

Re:Could it be?

[LBArrettAnderson]

I formed that assumption based on the review itself. I've used Android, and I happen to love that I can view flash on websites. It doesn't get in the way. You can disable it. You can set it to only load when you tell it to (by tapping on a flash element). I've never met a non-apple fanboy who didn't love the fact that you have a choice to use flash on your phone, or who didn't care one way or the other because it's *simply an option* that you don't have to enable, and can uninstall.

Re:Could it be?

[fredmosby]

If that's truly the case, the battery % charge meter would count down running *any* CPU and/or GPU intensive application. To think that Flash somehow consumes more battery than any other CPU-pegging (not tough to do on an 8-year-old PC) process is to show a fundamental lack of understanding about how computers work.

--Jeremy

On any laptop I've used running the CPU at 100% reduces the battery life to less than a quarter of what it normally is. The issue is that there's no reason web browsing should be a CPU intensive task (besides poor programming). An iPad gets 10 hours of web browsing. It's completely inexcusable for my laptop which normally gets 8 hours of battery life to get only 2 hours of web browsing because flash is enabled.

Re:Could it be?

[Anonymous Coward]

t I'd rather have the choice. There have been times when I've been out and wanting to view a specific video, listen to a radio station etc where there wouldn't be an iphone app.

You do have a choice. You can buy a phone that runs Flash.

I'm failing to see your problem.

Re:Could it be?

[tehcyder]

As numerous posts hee have shown, Flash on an Android 2.x device is fine. On my bog-standard 2.2 tablet, web browsing is surprisingly smooth and fast even using Flash. The problem is something to do with the Android 3.0 upgrade and/or the new version of Flash and/or someone messing around with the default settings.

Re:Could it be?

[LoganDzwon]

It is the same suckitude on windows, just people are used to their computers being shit they don't notice.

Re:Could it be?

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Wha't's the evidence some random link bait from infoworld? Seriously I guess a person like you would never believe it but I have the OPTION to load flash content on my Nexus one and it works just fine. I don't have to load the content I get the choice you don't if you use an iDevice and wether you want to admit the truth or not that sucks.

Re:Could it be?

[stewbacca]

Again, your own insecurities are biasing your position. You can inject your dislike of Jobs and Apple all you want, but that doesn't support your argument that Flash doesn't suck on Android because....wait for it....the two things are not related.

This "random link bait from infoworld" is just another testament in a long list of technical publications that concur Flash sucks on Android. Then a few slashdotters make the logical conclusion that perhaps, just perhaps, there's more to Steve Jobs' opposition to Flash than some sort of marketing conspiracy, in that it would also suck on iOS.

With that, I think you need to seriously rethink your definition of fanboy, because there seems to be a lot of reputable sources out there you are quickly dismissing into the fanboy category, which seriously diminishes your credibility.

Re:Could it be?

[Quiet_Desperation]

Your comment shows a fundamental lack of reading and comprehension skills.

Re:Could it be?

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Wow LOL What?

Firstly reading comprehension fail.

Did I call you a Fanboy? No!

Where did I say I dislike Jobs? I am writing this from a 15" MacBook Pro of which I have two (one work and one personal) and an iPad2 shows what you know.

Did I say Flash sucked on my nexus one? No! (I wish my iPad2 had the option)

I said I liked Flash on my phone!

And as I pointed out does not matter to a person like you because no matter what anyone says you would not believe it because that would force to reevaluate your position which you have no interest in doing.

If you don't see that article as link bait then you are either really naive or being willfully ignorant so as to support your own opinion.

Re:Could it be?

[stewbacca]

No I don't see it as link bait. And yes, I replied to the wrong person. I assumed your post was a response from the post I was commenting to from LABarrette.

Given your response, combined with his original post, it makes for quite the anti-apple rant. But since you and he are two different people, I take it back.

Re:Could it be?

[LBArrettAnderson]

They are indeed related. The reason people feel the need to bash it so much is because Steve Jobs told them that they don't need flash. It's so obvious to anyone on the outside of iWorld. There are zero surprises about the functionality of flash on mobile devices. Yes, there are issues since the majority of content was produced to work with a mouse, but that's expected! The fact that people are still writing articles about how it's useless because of this issue (it isn't useless--I use it all the time) shows that they are all fanboys.

So, not all that different from Flash on a desktop

[Burz]

The UI turns into a tug-of-war between the browser and the Flash Player, where each touch produces varying effects

Flash has a way of stealing focus away from the page its on, causing havoc with input, browser commands, mouse scrolling, etc. I'm not sure to what extent its because of how Flash is written, or because of the browser plugin architecture.

Accomplished two things not one ...

[perpenso]

As far as I could tell, there was one thing and one thing only that the Flash Player for Android 3.0 accomplished successfully

Actually there seems to be two things. Besides getting advertisements working again it seems to also suggest that Apple may have had a point that Flash performance was disappointing.

Re:Accomplished two things not one ...

[MachineShedFred]

Especially since Apple said this a year ago, and Adobe has had another year to try to make it right, and (according to the reviewer) has missed the mark by quite a bit.

Re:Accomplished two things not one ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Be careful, trying to talk sense around here... you do realize you're on slashdot here, right...?

Re:Accomplished two things not one ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides getting advertisements working again it seems to also suggest that Apple may have had a point that Flash performance was disappointing.

This is too funny. Only on slashdot...

Flash back a year (No pun intended)
Most of the site was raging and frothing at the mouth that iPhone and iPad were useless junk because they did not support flash, and promises to god were made that such devices would never be purchased or considered only because of lack of flash.

Now today, those exact same people finally realize the only thing flash gains you is annoying ads and other bits that make browsing the web miserable.
Yes they have the choice to install flash or not. Only to choose not to use it because of how sucky it makes the whole browsing experience.

I bet these same people are still telling their parents and family to avoid Apple products because you can't install flash, yet the first thing they do to these peoples Android devices is disable flash! (Then go out to find some other reason to hate on Apple)

Re:Accomplished two things not one ...

[Anonymous Coward]

So because a site or flash application is written badly, or written for a higher system requirement, someone's right in saying it's bad? Why don't you complain why max-settings Crysis doesn't run on your computer and then ban the game from all stores?

I can't believe how many people I have to repeat this to: if you bothered googling "HTML5 vs Flash performance on phone" or something of the like, you'll find that Flash performance for simple animations is actually better than a comparative HTML5 version (this is a frame-for-frame comparison -- not the sh!tty comparisons saying "Flash vs NO-FLASH-WITHOUT-REPLACEMENT". It's like comparing running Crysis and complaining your CPU is pegged at 100% compared to when you're at your desktop doing nothing). I can't imagine why a more complex page would be any better.

Set plug-ins to "On demand"

[bit trollent]

By setting the browser to enable plug-ins on demand, unwanted flash ads appear as clickable boxes, and and flash object in a page can be loaded by clicking it.

Since nobody is likely to rewrite the whole internet to exclude flash (espeically since there are old browsers that practically require flash) it's really nice to be able to have flash when you need it.

I've used flash many times on my phone, and my only complaint is that the phone can be a bit wonky about registering clicks. But this happens with 'clever' html too.

Pro-tip: if your web browser is acting weird (not registering clicks etc..), tip your phone into landscape mode and then back again. You'd be surprised how reliably that fixes weird flash and html problems.

Re:Set plug-ins to "On demand"

[Anonymous Coward]

By setting the browser to enable plug-ins on demand, unwanted flash ads appear as clickable boxes, and and flash object in a page can be loaded by clicking it.

On the Mac, the ClickToFlash program makes Safari do this, and I love it. Almost as effective and less work than NoScript.

Pro-tip: if your web browser is acting weird (not registering clicks etc..), tip your phone into landscape mode and then back again. You'd be surprised how reliably that fixes weird flash and html problems.

That reminds me of some Windows graphics programs which have "refresh", "redraw", or "repaint" menu items. This always seemed like a cop-out; graphics programs should be very good about keeping the displayed image accurate.

Re:Set plug-ins to "On demand"

[keytoe]

By setting the browser to enable plug-ins on demand, unwanted flash ads appear as clickable boxes, and and flash object in a page can be loaded by clicking it.

Since nobody is likely to rewrite the whole internet to exclude flash (espeically since there are old browsers that practically require flash) it's really nice to be able to have flash when you need it.

But several of the big players are doing exactly that. If you play along with the people that continue to insist on flash by having your browser report that you do, in fact, have it installed (which is how those 'click to load' mechanisms work) then they will keep producing content in flash.

Or you can remove the plugin entirely and be pleasantly surprised at how many sites will serve up alternate non-flash content if your browser reports that it doesn't have it installed.

I've disabled it entirely on my system, and I don't really miss it. The web feels much quicker, I rarely miss out on content - and if I run into something that requires Flash, I'll fire up Chrome which at least sandboxes the monstrosity.

Re:Set plug-ins to "On demand"

[Drakino]

It's also annoying how many sites don't serve up HTML 5 content when Flash is missing on the desktop. Engadget is one good example of this. Load up a story with Engadget made videos (such as the recent Playbook review). iPad and iPhone get playable videos, Safari on a Mac without Flash is told to install Flash.

I need to try getting rid of Flash again here soon, I didn't get the workflow set up fully last attempt, and gave in eventually. Time to start actively contributing to lowering Flash's desktop market share.

Re:Set plug-ins to "On demand"

[shutdown -p now]

By setting the browser to enable plug-ins on demand, unwanted flash ads appear as clickable boxes, and and flash object in a page can be loaded by clicking it.

That is precisely how the stock Android browser is configured by default. It seems that reviewer was willing to go some extra length, mucking around with settings, to paint a bleak picture (ads everywhere etc).

Re:Set plug-ins to "On demand"

[Anonymous Coward]

If Steve jobs said that, /. would be ablaze with snarks about customers holding it wrong. And they would be justified, that's a ridiculous response.

Re:Set plug-ins to "On demand"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not Steve Jobs, and completely bug-free applications are an elusive (but laudable) goal.

I doubt that the iPhone doesn't have a few whoppers that the iSheep let slide. Stuff like, "you must connect to iTunes to do this basic thing" when iTunes wouldn't be necessary for that task at all if not for the stick up Steve Jobs' ass. Still, the media gives Apple a pass on these obvious usability flaws.

I've been using computers for long enough that I consider that solution to be among the easiest workarounds I know. It's not good, and exposes a flaw in the software, but at the end of the day it's really not a big deal.

Computers are complicated beasts, and web browsers are fairly sophisticated pieces of software. The android browser has a few bugs, but far more sophisticated scaling than the iPhone. This bug not withstanding, I think Android's web browser is significantly better than Apple's, especially when you consider flash support.

What I don't need is a locked down anal dildo aimed at technology illiterate sheep. I'll take a few bugs here and there over a locked down toy any day of the week.

Re:Set plug-ins to "On demand"

[dissy]

unwanted flash ads appear as clickable boxes, and and flash object in a page can be loaded by clicking it.

Ironically this is exactly how flash on the iPhone and iPad works.
I've been using this very setup on my iPad with flash for over a year.

I can honestly say I don't miss the ads one bit. But it comes in very handy for those few rare sites that still put a navigation box of plain links in a flash widget, which should have been a href links from the start.

Re:Set plug-ins to "On demand"

[internettoughguy]

That reminds me of some Windows graphics programs which have "refresh", "redraw", or "repaint" menu items. This always seemed like a cop-out; graphics programs should be very good about keeping the displayed image accurate.

I have to disagree with you there, it depends on how heavy that repaint option is, if it takes more than ~5 seconds to repaint, then you definitely need that pause/update button.
It's like driving a car, the car can't predict when you're coming up to a hill, or when you're going to stop, so it's nice to have that manual override on the gearbox.

There are tricks though; a 3d painting application I have been working on in my spare time recently stores the paint strokes in an off-screen buffer, and then projects those screen space strokes on to the uv texture map only when the user rotates the mesh. This means that you can still have nice fluid strokes when your painting to an 8k texture on a 3 million polygon mesh in a python application.

So...

[Minwee]

"The UI turns into a tug-of-war between the browser and the Flash Player, where each touch produces varying effects, seemingly at random."

So what he's saying is that Flash is working as designed.

I don't see the problem here.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's always worked as designed: like crap. To be honest, I haven't missed flash on mobile at all and I have no intentions of installing it on my phone. I need my phone to last the whole day, after all.

For video, there's absolutely no reason to be using flash in today's world.

Re:So...

[517714]

I think Flash leaves a lot to be desired, I agree with Steve Jobs' assessment of it for mobile, but if you read the article it is clear that the author doesn't know squat. It is pretty clear Flash was working as designed for the most part. A monkey at a keyboard is limited to a hundred characters or so, but a journalist at touchscreen on a webpage with Flash enabled provides virtually unlimited ways to demonstrate incompetence.

I've never used Android, but I know that swipe doesn't work on a Flash or a scroll window. Clue one that he hasn't got a clue, and he takes Flash to task for this, it works that way on my MacBook, even when running Windows. He did not know how to turn off the Flash by default setting. He strikes me as a real power user.

"Playback quality was mostly good but a little choppy at times, and audio occasionally seemed slightly out of sync." Did he check to see if that was the case with another browser? Did he confirm that his bandwidth was adequate? If not, it could be that he was getting the full user experience. But a journalist won't let fact checking get in the way of a good story.

"Videos that looked sharp in full-screen mode seemed to degrade in picture quality when shrunk to smaller sizes." That happens on any platform, but who shrinks Flash content? I am more, "Make it full screen and wish it were bigger." "This becomes especially clear when scaling bitmapped text, which becomes blocky and hard to read at small sizes." Has this guy been watching too many CSI type shows - "Zoom in and enhance"? if you make text small the pixels of your display will eventually make it blocky. Does he offer us screenshots? No, he didn't, probably because he isn't capable and/or because he knows it isn't any truer of this version of Flash than any other.

Why skip those "carefully vetted showpieces"? Especially when he said, "I had a hard time finding demo cases." Sure they are of limited value, but if Flash is as broken as he seems to believe, wouldn't one expect that maybe it would show up there too? "Canned demos," like the kind that show you how the interface works? Either way why not just do it? He clearly demonstrated his prejudice at that point in the article. He just refused to learn how to use the touchscreen and blamed his ineptitude on Flash. I've seen the same sort of unwarranted criticisms from PC users, Mac users and *nix users on platforms other than their favorite.

"As it stands, Flash support offers no reason for buying a Xoom instead of an iPad." And yet he had to search for sites where he could demonstrate how badly Flash works, remember earlier he said, "I had a hard time finding demo cases. The Xoom ships with a video player that automatically launches when you view content from YouTube or Dailymotion, so you don't need Flash for those sites." So I don't see how relevant Flash is, yes it will work, perhaps poorly, the few times you actually need it, but doing without on an iPad is clearly preferable?

Has it ever worked?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has flash ever worked as it should on _ANY_ platform? (Specially on linux-based puppies.)

Adobe's flash team is a joke, to say the least.

But as long as everything uses flash and we just need to use it anyway, they'll keep neglecting it until absolutely required.

Flash on my phone is okay

[erroneus]

But then again, I use the equivalent of "adblock" on my android phone so I never see those ads he speaks of.

But it's true about the moments of conflict between flash and browser. Guess what? There is no "hover" in a touch screen environment. That makes flash and even a lot of HTML/CSS/JavaScript pretty unsuitable for mobile/tablet browsing. Should we be shocked or should web developers need to take this into a little more consideration? I think they should -- after all, flash will be eventually replaced with HTML5's functionalities and the problems will remain the same with or without flash.

I'm a little surprised this topic hasn't been raised sooner and more often.

(On a side note, I am actually grateful that advertisers don't trust content providers to report accurate click rates and/or that content providers can't or won't host advertising content themselves. If there were honor among those thieves, it would be a lot harder for me us to block ads. Let's all thank their greed and mistrust to making it possible and even trivial to block their ads.)

Re:Flash on my phone is okay

[thetartanavenger]

Offtopic but which adblock do you use? And how good is it?

Re:Flash on my phone is okay

[afidel]

Fennec (Firefox Mobile) now has adblock, but I personally find the mobile experience with Fennec less than ideal, perhaps it works better on a tablet?

Re:Flash on my phone is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

Maemo 5 for the N900 has a bit of a clever way of dealing with the no hover issue. If you hold off the screen (while in the native browser) on the bottom left a mouse popout comes up. Tap on the mouse popout and a mouse cursor appears. Dragging your finger across the screen moves the cursor without panning. You can pan with the arrow keys or switch modes if you need to. Once you get the hang of it, it is a pretty nifty way of faking mouse functionality. It was a little rough around the edges, but interesting nonetheless.

Re:Flash on my phone is okay

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder where this "Tap on the mouse popout" is, I can't see it and I've got the latest updates. When holding and the right-click menu appears, everything else is faded in the background, and the menu disappears when releasing the screen, and otherwise there's no "mouse popout". Maybe I'm just blind. :S

Re:Flash on my phone is okay

[erroneus]

It's called "AdFree" and works not just in browsers but in all apps. It's basically a hack utility that adds to your /etc/hosts file with known ad hosts. So all those ad-supported apps out there are ad-free as well. Once again, if there were TRUST between advertisers and content providers, it wouldn't be an issue. No trust and they lose out.

It's all about focus

[DNS-and-BIND]

Obviously, the developers didn't give a rat's ass about focus. I have the same problem with Opera web browser - a flash application will "take focus", even though it is not in the active window. I do something like "mouse gesture close current window" and a background window closes. Why? Because the flash app had focus. Why does this happen? Because developers are just racing to implement a raft of features from a bullet point list in a powerpoint presentation somewhere. Who the hell cares if it actually works for users out in the wild? That's not the metric by which developers' work is measured. Nobody ever got a bonus or promotion by attending to nitpicky user-experience details.

Re:It's all about focus

[ScrewMaster]

Because developers are just racing to implement a raft of features from a bullet point list in a powerpoint presentation somewhere. Who the hell cares if it actually works for users out in the wild?

Dick Jones: "I had a guaranteed military sale with ED 209. Renovation program. Spare parts for 25 years. Who cares if it worked or not?"

Re:It's all about focus

[Man On Pink Corner]

Nobody ever got a bonus or promotion by attending to nitpicky user-experience details.

No, they just get a market cap worth several DELLs more than MSFT.

Great Solution!: guess

[repetty]

Settings > Enable plug-ins > "On demand"

Problem solved.

Hey, great! Could you please forward that to the appropriate higgajillion users out there using Flash on Androids?

Get back to us when that's done. Thanks.

Flash video works too

[MikeBabcock]

The issues brought up are mostly true for me as well (Dell Streak, Android 2.2) but the nice part is being able to watch embedded video and navigate websites with Flash front pages. Both seem to work properly (including DLink's annoying selector app). Video websites other than Youtube and Ustream which don't have their own apps are actually visible as well because Flash video is supported.

Re:Flash video works too

[Drakino]

There are a surprising number of videos out there beyond ones hosted on YouTube that work fine without Flash. Main problem is that sites only present them at HTML 5 video when an iPad or iPhone visits the site. The proper thing to do would be to detect capabilities and fall back. I'd love to see more HTML 5 video on my desktop browser.

I didn't realize how many worked until I tried an Android phone last summer after owning an iPad and iPhone. The Samsung Captivate came with some crappy Flash Lite prior to the update to 2.2, and it resulted in tons of video that I could play on iOS becoming unavailable on the Android side. Sometimes embeds blogs do won't work, but hitting the source link for the story leads to a page doing proper HTML 5 for iOS.

Re:Flash video works too

[John Hasler]

So maybe I should use useragent switcher to have Firefox claim I'm on an iPad rather than admitting to being on a Linux desktop? What's the appropriate useragent string?

Re:Flash video works too

[MikeBabcock]

I use a useragent switcher in Firefox for my Linux desktop machine for websites that don't work properly or don't display all their content. A similar plugin on Android would be very handy. Perhaps Dolphin has one, but I haven't checked.

The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[DavidinAla]

Can't people finally start admitting that maybe Apple was doing the right thing -- for users' long term experience -- in trying to get rid of Flash for mobile devices? It's so bizarre how hatred of Apple and Steve Jobs drives some tech people to irrationally support a lousy and proprietary plugin that we CAN move beyond. Flash was a great thing earlier in the history of the web, but it's time to leave it behind. The only reason the Android crowd loves it is because Apple was the first to admit that it was time to leave it behind. It's become a badge of honor to be able to check that box as a feature -- even if we would be better off (long term for sure) without it.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a developer, but my understanding is that Flash is easier for the content creators, if not always as convenient on the user side. I'm not sure if that's right, but if it is, everyone seems to be ignoring that end of it.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care what the internet will look like in 5-10 years. Well, I do, but not in this context. Not having flash in *today's* internet is a retarded move that seriously artificially limits the usability of the platform.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

No it's easy for LAZY developers, and lazy developers never make for a good user experience.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[geek]

Apple was "right" in removing choice? It isn't even an option on iOS. I can "choose" to remove it from android if I want, just like on my desktop. If people don't want it, they can remove it. Removing CHOICE is ignorant, arrogant, and truly the Apple way.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

Hold on a second. In saying "Apple was doing the right thing" we have to be careful about what we mean by what "Apple was doing".

I, personally, dislike 90% of what Flash is used for (annoying ads/popups, etc., slightly less annoying gimmicks, etc.), and I think the abysmal performance of Flash makes it painful to use in most instances (desktop or mobile), and the lack of thoughtful design with respect to touch/mobile interfaces makes it even worse on smartphones. In that sense, I agree with Apple: I don't particularly want Flash on my smartphone.

But people, or at least some people, were not really criticizing Apple for not supporting Flash. They were criticizing Apple for making those decisions and not allowing users to override those decisions. It's fine for Apple to ship their products without Flash installed by default. But Apple goes beyond that, and locks down the platform (e.g. not allowing third-party or arbitrary software installation) so that even those users who really want Flash can't get it on their Apple device. And some subset of users really do want Flash (e.g. someone has a few sites they really care about that require Flash, and they are willing to put up with the annoyances in order to access those sites). So, in that sense, I fundamentally disagree with what Apple did: they shouldn't be creating a platform that is so locked-down and user-hostile as to remove the choice from the user about what to install on the device that they purchased.

The Flash debate wasn't just about Flash. For many of us, it was simply an example of Apple's needless lock-down. The reasons Apple gave for why Flash was bad I actually agree with. But those were just a smokescreen, since those reasons only justify "not having Flash be pre-installed". They don't justify "not allowing Flash to be installed in any way, shape, or form". Let the user decide.

(Note: Obviously Apple is free to sell whatever products they like, and it's up to the buyer to buy or not buy things depending on whether they like the product. That is their freedom. Of course I'm also free to point out how user-hostile this is and encourage all companies to build more open platforms.)

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

I can respect that Apple doesn't want flash on their iDevices. That's fine. But I don't see them offering much in the way of a solid replacement either. HTML5? Where's that? And even on Apple's site, a non-flash page is just terrible on my 3G iPod Touch. Try this: go to http://www.apple.com/ipad from an iDevice. Then notice that the page stumbles and crawls as the page tries to handle the fancy javascript scrolling of the slideshow. And try playing the "See the Smart Cover In Action" video. Notice that the video frame is now covering up most of the sub-navigation links with no obvious way to close that window? Yes, so much better than flash.

Granted this is still the iOS 3.1.3 (or whatever the last version of 3 was) so I don't have any idea if their updates have fixed these issues. But that's another story having to do with my loathing of iTunes in general.

I'd much rater just have the option of the video render in flash there if I need it.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[alostpacket]

It's never in the best interest of the consumer to have a company kill off a technology by artificially limiting choice. If Steve was correct, then there isn't a need to kill Flash, it can be replaced by better alternatives. Or it can find it's niche where it belongs among other competiting technologies. Cheering the death of a technology instead of cheering it's replacement is just as irrational as the claims you lay at the feet of the "Android crowd." Competition is good, having technology decided by one guy is not.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

Technology isn't being decided by one guy, you moron. It's being decided by the people who buy the products -- people who don't want to put up with the garbage described in the review.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

No I have flash on my phone and it works great I am not sure what this guys problem is or what he's talking about. I would rather have the option then have some company dictate to me what I can and cannot do with my own device that I paid for... so not just no but hell no. Apple was just plain wrong and still is on this one.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[gad_zuki!]

Err, Apple was right in what exactly? Removing your choice?

I have flash on my phone. Its set to On Demand (something the wiliest tech reporter doesn't seem to understand). When I'm using my phone and see a video that is not hosted on youtube, I press on the green box and it magically plays. What exactly is the problem here?

Secondly, none of the flash stuff I run has been remotely optimized for mobile screen. None. Yet they tend to work.

The android crowd doesn't love it.I don't love most technologies. Its just a boring tool I use. Its the Apple set that politicizes everything and becomes emotional when Dear Leader makes a proclamation. I couldn't give a shit what Jobs or the Goolgle Twins think I should be doing. I just want tools that let me do what I want.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[CompMD]

Flash on Windows Mobile is fine, it worked just fine back in the day...six years ago. I never had any trouble watching Strong Bad Emails on my old Sprint PPC6700/HTC Apache.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't people finally start admitting that maybe Apple was doing the wrong thing - for users long term experience -- in trying to get rid of an open app model for mobile devices? It's so bizarre how the love of Apple and Steve Jobs drives some people to irrationally support a lousy and proprietary app store that we CAN move beyond. App store was a great thing earlier in the history of mobile apps, but it's time to leave it behind. .....

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[DeadboltX]

The right thing would have been to support flash but have it disabled by default.

I'd rather have the option to enable it then be forced to live without it.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[TheSpoom]

Apple disallowed Flash because it would have let people compete against App Store apps, for free, with much the same functionality.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been in Flash Development for the past 4 years professionally - so my comments may be biased. I believe that Flash has a real tendency to be slow mainly because development has been heavily influenced / pressured external forces to create very graphically intensive experiences. On top of that given a resource constrained device these limitations are very evident; it's abstractions are simply too costly for some platforms to handle.

We as developers can probably move past the plugin, however its a different story when we consider the consumer given its capabilities : crossdomain communication, cross-platform video and 3D, and p2p communication via RTMFP. Moreover given the current state of HTML5/CSS3 it is in my opinion still considerably easier to create a rich experience with Flash and deliver to the people with decent computers.

The only reason the Android crowd loves it is because Apple was the first to admit that it was time to leave it behind. It's become a badge of honor to be able to check that box as a feature -- even if we would be better off (long term for sure) without it.

I disagree with this comment as I don't think your perception of Android developers are the majority.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's called backward compatibility. Yes, flash is dying - but until it does, I want my backward compatibility.

Re: Android users are Apple haters...

I'm not an Apple hater - but I don't want Jobsy making my decisions for me (note: I'm an iPhone user, not an Android user - but I think I made a mistake buying iPhone because I like freedom to choose)

AC

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Billly Gates]

HTML 5 is still unsupported for the majority of current web users so we have to wait for it to die. Sure, we on slashdot probably have upgraded to IE 9, Chrome 10/11, and Firefox 4, but Joe Six pack probably still uses IE 7 or maybe had a geek friend show him how to use Firefox 3.5.

Until 90% of internet users upgrade and the tools that convert mpegs to flash no longer exist can we switch to HTML 5 and leave flash behind. Corporate users still use IE 6.5 so this makes web developers want to stick with Flash to make up for the lack of support of modern browsers. Is there any tool to make a video into an html 5 thing? That is a problem right there.

It will take years if ever to get away from Flash. I do not have the time but maybe someone reading this comment can make such a free tool.

Also, I have left Linux as a desktop thanks to crappy Flash support and hardware based HTML that is only available on Windows. The software we have to use sucks with Adobe having a monopoly on the market. Another problem right there as they want you to use Flash.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[jrumney]

Not really. The article seems to boil down to a few complaints.

1. Badly coded websites that block you from seeing the content because they do not recognise the browser you are using (not the fault of Flash).
2. Developers using UI gimmicks that do not translate well to the touchscreen interface (again, not the fault of Flash).
3. Flash controls not acting as part of the part of the page they are embedded in with respect to scrolling (the fault of Flash, but the same fault exists in Quicktime on the iPad).
4. Flash jumping out of where it should be in the page and drawing in the top corner of the screen (again, the fault of Flash, and again, I have seen this with Quicktime on the iPad).

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that a badge pinned to your chest? os is your check box just pleased to see me :P

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

If people don't want it, they can remove it.

Except they can't. Most of them, anyway. Most of them are too ignorant, or too intimidated, to mess with the configuration of their phone's browser.

So Apple did what was best for most of its potential customers in the short run, and all of its customers (and all of the Internet) in the long run. For a business, this is generally seen as a good idea.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

Suspicion regarding the motives behind decisions made by multi-billion corporations is healthy when it moves people to ask questions, get more information, etc. But anything that moves one to pass off speculation as fact, or to deduce someone else's intentions from one's own fears, is cancer of the mind.

Case in point, Apple allows people to write web apps which compete against iOS apps for free. In fact, they're pushing HTML 5 hard, and the whole point of HTML 5 is to let people write cross-platform web apps, for free.

I mean, did you even consider the possibility Apple asked Adobe to show them Flash running on a phone without sucking battery life, and Adobe couldn't deliver? Jobs made that claim in writing and had it displayed prominently on Apple's web site for everyone to read it. Did you have a link to anyone from Adobe denying it?

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful? come on..

Apple makes consumer devices which 'just work'. The average consumer doesn't frit around with settings trying to make it work. If it's broken, it gets returned. And why not? Damn but I'm sick of people complaining about Apple's arrogance. Apple has brought:

- Smartphones
- Tablets
- Digital music

Out of the dark ages. Good on them and good luck.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is removing choice by not providing Flash the same way that the GPL is tyrannical and oppressive for forcing open source on everyone. Sure, in the short term, it might make a handful of people happier. But in the long run, this way will lead to an improved ecosystem. By committing genocide against Flash applets.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[yuhong]

iOS 4.3 has a new JavaScript engine that should be much faster. Unfortunately the 3G iPod touch can't handle it anyway.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[yuhong]

Unfortunately the 3G iPod touch can't handle it anyway.

Actually, the last two generations of the iPod touch/iPhone should be supported by iOS 4.3.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

What can you possibly use Flash for that isn't a:
a) crap game on Facebook
b) video on an obscure site... which is 99% of the time on a major site.
c) advertisement

I'm purposely excluding porn.

But seriously. You want the choice of loading adverts on a low-capped mobile connection? Ok, Android is -----> that way.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Tablizer]

At least make it an option. It's not an all-or-nothing choice.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[MemoryDragon]

Actually getting rid of flash is a good thing but nevertheless, the article was written by a guy who did not even do 5 minutes of research. Most people who use android phones and flash have it on on demand mode which is simply excellent. You simply get a grey area with a big X on a place where the flash should be and if you press the area the flash for exactly this area is loaded.
That way you wont have any stupid ads screaming on you or other nasty things people did with flash, but you have it on demand when you need it.
This on demand mode was widely known as soon as flash became available and a lot of articles wrote how you should set it to this mode, and nevertheless even after a year a so called tech journalist seems to be to dumb to go into the settings and set it.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Udo Schmitz]

The iPhone came out in January 2007, more than 4 years later Adobes mobile version is only in beta. So, I'm not sure how Apple exactly "removed" anything :/

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is what Apple had to say on that, http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/. Has what was written several years ago been addressed? The answer is no. Then and now, Adobe has not been able to address those issues. Motorola Zoom, which is trying to differentiate itself from Apple's iPad, with a promise of flash enabled tablet, have yet to have a decent running version. How much of the money and research has Motorola put in on the Zoom only to have Adobe fail them? Sure, you can believe you have "choice", but it is you who is really fooling yourself. Well it doesn't matter, in the end the consumer will choose, and for now, their "choice" is an iOS device without flash.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it's good user design. Good design involves removing all the extra crap you can think off.

I see it as the same as the YAGNI principle when programming. Why add shit that adds complexity for little benefit to the end user. Yes in theory it could be useful, but really YAGNI.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[master_p]

Apple could have supported flash, if they wanted to, and simply have it deactivated unless the user demanded so, with a simple warning that "Flash is bad for your battery". In this way, all of the people that want to view Flash videos would be happy with their iOS device, whereas people that don't care about Flash video and applications would simply have not activated it.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Stuarticus]

What is with all you people complaining that he didn't have it set to "On demand" it was a real world test, how does it work with flash TURNED ON, ALL THE TIME!! You know the way most people (not just the wiliest tech reporters) actually use it.

People who buy a phone and want it to work without fiddling around with settings or being scared to click the green box on the screen that "breaks the internet".

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

90% of the people using a smartphone probably don't even know what Flash is, and DON'T want the choice. They want to press the browser icon that allows them to look at web pages and have a smooth, reliable experience. I am a big fan of Android but I think Apple has huge appeal to the layperson... They make the choices for you, to give you the best possible experience out of the box. That has always seemed to be the philosophy behind the iPhone and I respect that. As a techie I choose Android. Horses for courses!

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we should ask all car manufacturers to limit the speed at 60 mph, just to avoid accidents.

Also, we should prohibit alcohol because it can destroy families, cigarettes because it can give you cancer. It's fun having someone deciding what's best for us, huh?

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[gad_zuki!]

You're wrong. If you install flash via the market nothing happens. You need to go into the settings and enable it as always or on-demand.

The end user's phone isn't just automatically displaying flash. Its something you need to get well out of your way to do.

Re:The sooner Flash is dead, the better

[Anonymous Coward]

If flash was an option, developers would go the lazy route and use it, despite it being a poor experience for users. Have fun in your overly idealistic ivory tower of capitalism where the right product always wins solely by democratic choice of omniscient market actors. Talk about ignorant.

Can we stop trying now?

[sidragon.net]

Flash is dead. As is the parallel port. The floppy disk. The CRT. And many more archaic technological inventions that have come and gone over the years. We have HTML 5. It is standards-based. It is fast. It eases development. Can we finally get over ourselves and accept that Apple have been dismissing Flash because it is simply not useful for low-powered, touch-controlled devices?

Re:Can we stop trying now?

[BatGnat]

We have HTML 5. It is standards-based. It is fast. It eases development.

Actually, we don't.

It is not a standard (yet). It is no were near being a standard (yet).

Re:Can we stop trying now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fast? Even still all the apples-to-apples comparisons out there have HTML5 either running slower and/or burning through CPU like mad.

Flash on PC fails to impress

[Anonymous Coward]

... how long has it been since the last 0-day exploit?

Re:Flash on PC fails to impress

[PNutts]

... how long has it been since the last 0-day exploit?

0 days. Sometimes if you ask that question at 12:01 AM the answer is "1 day".

Re:Flash on PC fails to impress

[Anonymous Coward]

I realize there are multiple moving definitions of what a "0-day exploit" is. My original comment is using the definition: "An exploit with no available patch from the developer", i.e., 0-days from developer response. With this definition, an exploit can be "0-day" for a long time, if the developers hold off on releasing a patch.

Re:Flash on PC fails to impress

[Anonymous Coward]

WHOOSH... Did you hear that go right over your head? Miss jokes much?

In short: Flash sucks

[gweihir]

Not that this was not already known. Flash basically is a way-out (that works badly) for people that do not get the web and force the old concepts both of paper (where you have absolute positioning) and of movies into the web. That is a bad idea to start with. To make it worse, this particular failed technology suffers from vendor lock-in, bad implementation, bad specification and an atrocious security record. Why anybody competent would want to use Flash is beyond me. Of course, it is possible that nobody competent uses Flash and that the users of Flash are just as incompetent as its designers and implementers. Would not be the first time that something badly broken by design sees widespread adoption.

it's good enough for pr0n

[alen]

which is why anyone would want it on their phone anyway. works very nicely on my HTC Inspire

Re:So, not all that different from Flash on a desk

[erroneus]

Flash can be created/written to do all sorts of things. I have had my flash code call javascript functions to change the z-index of the div it lives in and a lot more. There are certainly ways to control every aspect of a flash object's behavior to make it behave properly in the web page's environment.

Well at least I get the choice

[Reapman]

Do I make use of Flash on my phone a lot? Not really.. Am I glad that for the few times I need it that it's there? Yup.

Since I'm sure the comparisons will be made:
iPhone - Flash uses up 0% of CPU, works on 0% of Flash based sites - for some people this is ideal.
Android: Flash uses up CPU (potentially lots) when I allow it to (it's set to on demand), works on... 20% of Flash based sites? - for some people this is better then the above option.

I guess I'm in the camp that prefers to have the tools, even if they're far from perfect, then to not be allowed the choice. Each to their own really.

Re:Well at least I get the choice

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it really irritating when commenters ask themselves questions and answer them? Yup.

Re:Well at least I get the choice

[moredrivel]

>>Each to their own really.

At first I read this as "Each to their own reality." Works either way, but I like mine better.

Re:Well at least I get the choice

[dissy]

iPhone - Flash uses up 0% of CPU, works on 0% of Flash based sites - for some people this is ideal.
Android: Flash uses up CPU (potentially lots) when I allow it to (it's set to on demand), works on... 20% of Flash based sites? - for some people this is better then the above option.

Not quite accurate numbers there.

At last count, around 10% of all iPhones are jailbroken.
That means some percentage of iPhones DO have flash installed, ranging from non-zero percent up to 10%. Defiantly not zero percent however.

In addition, flash on the iPhone is always set to on-demand.
With flash installed on the iPhone, browsing to a web page with flash in it will display a correctly sized square with the blue question mark 'missing plugin' icon. Once you tap on that, it will load the actual flash code and run it.

However in the past year+ I have had flash on my iPhone, I can only think of a handful of times I've allowed it to run, since most instances of flash really are banner ads.

Re:Well at least I get the choice

[Reapman]

Yes, but my point was the iOS Philosophy of NO FLASH vs Androids Flash if you want it. Your point is valid however - in fact I didn't know Flash was available on jailbroken phones, been awhile since I had a iPhone 3G.

Android might as well be considered always on demand on all phones where people want on demand - probably a higher percentage of people would know how to set preference then jailbreak an iPhone and install Flash.

Re:Well at least I get the choice

[dissy]

in fact I didn't know Flash was available on jailbroken phones, been awhile since I had a iPhone 3G.

I'm not sure if you still have or use your iPhone, but you can google for frash-0.0.2.deb
It takes ssh'ing in and dpkg -i to install.

probably a higher percentage of people would know how to set preference then jailbreak an iPhone and install Flash.

Totally agreed. I would say most Android users, way over half.
Of the non-zero percent to ten percent of jailbroken iPhones, even I would have to guess it would be the far lower end of that spectrum of users that installed flash.
I'd pick 1% if I had to think about it, and be surprised if it was 1-2 points above that even!

I have no idea why Apple is so actively against such things.
I do understand why they wouldn't want to support us jailbreakers, or even admit we exist. I'd also imagine most of us jailbreakers would be perfectly happy with that.

It's the actively trying to lock the phone down to make it harder to do, for no real good reason.

I used to love Apple back in the pre-mac days. They were shockingly open compared to most other technology companies at the time.
Boy did that change big time :{

Re:Well at least I get the choice

[Anonymous Coward]

iPhone - Flash uses up 0% of CPU, works on 0% of Flash based sites - for some people this is ideal.
Android: Flash uses up CPU (potentially lots) when I allow it to (it's set to on demand), works on... 20% of Flash based sites? - for some people this is better then the above option.

I guess I'm in the camp that prefers to have the tools, even if they're far from perfect, then to not be allowed the choice. Each to their own really.

Why not go for "works on 100% of the sites"?

MeeGo Tablets, e.g. WeTab, have no problems with Flash.

Wrong question

[Rix]

Yes, having flash render by default is stupid. It's primarily used by ads - which bring no benefit to the user.

Having it *available* is useful, and there Apple is wrong.

Re:Wrong question

[DJRumpy]

Someone has to take a stand. Apple did. Had it been some other company, /. would have most likely cheered them on, as they used to despise flash as if it was the devil itself. When Apple said no, suddenly /. loved flash and couldn't wait to get it on their mobile devices. It would be funny if it wasn't so painful to watch.

Frankly I don't miss it (I have an iPhone). I have yet to need it on any site I frequent on my phone. Without fail they all seem to have either M. sites for mobile devices, or they just have shit sites that don't require Flash to navigate or for some core functionality.

Re:Wrong question

[judeancodersfront]

How convenient that their alternative to Flash is to have the user buy movie rentals and games in the itunes store.

Re:Wrong question

[DJRumpy]

Actually the alternative to flash that they are pushing is HTML5. iTunes movie rentals and games are irrelevant as those use an app, not HTML to play content.

Re:Wrong question

[Drakino]

The App Store supports free apps of any size, and iOS allows web apps too. Blocking Flash from iOS was never about trying to block free Flash content from competing with the App Store. It was about blocking technology that wasn't ready for mobiles, and still isn't. I have yet to see an error on iOS saying "This video isn't optimized for mobile" and a chunky 5fps playback. I instead get video I can easily make full screen, and plays with no performance issues since hardware is helping out. Apple is, and will always be a consumer focused company. As such, they will make decisions at times that rile up the tech community, but in the long term still provide a better consumer experience. General consumers don't understand, nor care about the little details about why Flash doesn't work well on Android. All they will do is blame the Android phone/tablet they own for being crappy. Apple understands this, Google doesn't either understand it, or they don't care.

The decision is ultimately up to developers and content producers. Hulu is one of those content providers who does rely on Flash heavily, and actively blocks anything thats not a desktop or laptop computer even if it does support Flash. On the other side are companies like CBS and ABC who don't care about the lack of Flash on iOS, and provide superior experiences on those devices with either native apps, or HTML 5 video.

Re:Wrong question

[judeancodersfront]

They are not pushing HTML5, they merely point to it as an alternative when in reality it isn't ready. If idevices had Flash then users would have more options for movie rentals and games. That's the underlying motivation.

Re:Wrong question

[judeancodersfront]

Whether or not Hulu blocks portables is irrelevant since they have adapted to Apple's plans.

Allowing Flash would give users more options and developers/content providers would not have to give Apple a cut. Apple never tried working with Adobe on mobile performance. The ipad has plenty of power for Flash so why not give users a choice? That is the real question.

This whole war against Flash is futile. The big media websites including Google did not ditch Flash as Jobs wanted which means it is here to stay. Flash on Android is currently in beta and the bugs will be eventually worked out. Apple defenders like yourself will find it harder to explain why it is good for consumers that Apple provides them with fewer choices and an incomplete web experience.

Re:Wrong question

[The End Of Days]

It's primarily used by ads - which bring no benefit to the user.

Well, you mean aside from enabling people to provide content everybody seems to want without demanding a direct payment.

Also, in many cases outside the Slashdot crowd, people actually don't mind finding out about products and services that may interest them. Shocking, I know, but you aren't actually the arbiter of taste for anyone but yourself.

Re:Wrong question

[spongman]

which bring no benefit to the user

i'm no lover of display ads, but i have to take issue with that comment.

the benefit they bring to the user is the existence of the sites themselves.

there's a few steps missing there, but it shouldn't take an economics degree to work them out...

Re:Wrong question

[otuz]

Apple pushed HTML5 as the primary application development platform for iPhones long before they had an AppStore.

Re:Wrong question

[tehcyder]

which bring no benefit to the user

i'm no lover of display ads, but i have to take issue with that comment.

the benefit they bring to the user is the existence of the sites themselves.

there's a few steps missing there, but it shouldn't take an economics degree to work them out...

But we are entitled to everything. For free. With no strings or annoyances.

Re:Wrong question

[Drakino]

“It’s a hard technical challenge, and that’s part of the reason Apple and Adobe are collaborating,” says Shantanu Narayen of Adobe. “The ball is in our court. The onus is on us to deliver.” - February 1, 2009

Apple did work with Adobe. Adobe failed to deliver after 3 years. Apple put their foot down and said "We aren't waiting any longer, we are going to move on". Yes, it's a painful move right now with so much Flash content, but it's becoming less and less painful by the day. Just as it used to be painful when the web moved from one "standard" to another in the past. I doubt anyone here would defend the old Real media methods, nor Windows Media and Quicktime. So it puzzles me why people defend Flash with statements like "The whole war against Flash is futile". Was it futile to try and banish Real's crapware player? Nope. Same goes for the security issue ridden performance hogging Flash runtime.

Re:Wrong question

[FrellMeDead]

Apple / Jobs only took a stand because flash would have bypassed the control that Apple has on all its products. Additionally flash would have allowed more content which wouldn't/couldn't be controlled by Apple. There are sites that I have used that have flash as a big part and I haven't had any issues so far. Stop making excuses and trying to make it seem like Jobs had some big foresight or that the reasons given (battery life, etc) by him were right since they weren't. Maybe flash for everybody isn't right but it's better to have it when needed then be told by somebody that your not allowed to have it at all.

Sounds about right

[glwtta]

This gets really frustrating when there's lots of HTML and Flash content mixed on a Web page. The UI turns into a tug-of-war between the browser and the Flash Player, where each touch produces varying effects, seemingly at random

Ah, so they've faithfully reproduced the Flash experience.

Re:Sounds about right

[drb226]

This. I *hate* when ctrl+w doesn't close the current tab because flash is in control.

Far Worse for you

[SuperKendall]

Android: Flash uses up CPU (potentially lots) when I allow it to (it's set to on demand), works on... 20% of Flash based sites? - for some people this is better then the above option.

Meanwhile 40% of the total Flash based sites would be feeding you alternative content if you are in a mobile browser (Safari) that cannot support Flash.

In that way the iPhone user is better off because they are seeing more sites that have content re-done in a way more appropriate for a mobile device, or eliminating overhead (why have a Flash video wrapper at all when your system can play and control h.264 just fine?).

Re:Far Worse for you

[Reapman]

Uhhh your aware of the fact that Android's built in browser is treated as a "mobile browser" too right? There's nothing preventing me from viewing a mobile friendly version of a page if it exists - this isn't a special feature of the iPhone. In fact sometimes it's annoying in that as a mobile browser I can't see the full website.

Re:Far Worse for you

[duranaki]

I think he means those sites with "if browser supports flash, show XXX, else show YYY". Even with flash block (on demand), your browser will report that flash is supported and thus get the flash version of the site.

Re:Far Worse for you

[Anonymous Coward]

How can they do this alternative content thing?

User agent maybe.

Good thing I'm not retarded like yourself.

Re:Far Worse for you

[scot4875]

I can only imagine someone's disappointment in visiting a site looking for XXX, and instead getting some YYY.

--Jeremy

Agenda?

[C_Kode]

Reading the story, that guy appears to have an agenda. I can't take him as a credible source.

Re:Agenda?

[nedlohs]

Where are all the people you do take as credible, who are interested enough in something to spend time writing and publishing about it but have no agenda related to it?

Re:Agenda?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a ___World article. Same company that brought us the (quickly proven false) story on "Samsung is keylogging you! omgz!!!" . Take with a grain of salt (and bag of bullshit)

Re:Agenda?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone has an agenda. Everyone.

And Flash is garbage on every platform. You don't need an agenda to see that. Just powers of observation.

Re:Agenda?

[PCM2]

Reading the story, that guy appears to have an agenda. I can't take him as a credible source.

What's the agenda as you see it, may I ask?

Re:Agenda?

[toriver]

So... the DEA is not a credible source for drug crime statistics since they have an agenda, too?

Re:Agenda?

[C_Kode]

Everyone has an agenda. Everyone.

And Flash is garbage on every platform. You don't need an agenda to see that. Just powers of observation.

While I don't use Flash very often, I have yet to have a problem with it. (Nexus One)

I'm sure there are things that it really sucks at, but I only use it to view specific Flash websites. There aren't many that I actually enable it for though. I will say this, I damn happy I can use it when I need too.

You can hate Flash all you want, it doesn't change the fact that it exists and people do use it. ...and at times you may need to have support for it.

In other words...

[Anonymous Coward]

It works just like Flash on a desktop computer. Why did InfoWorld think running it on an Android magically fix all of the problems with Flash? Adobe never cared about Flash and never tried to fix it.

I don't understand...

[frank_adrian314159]

Why should anyone be surprised by this? Flash usually fails to impress on any platform. In fact, it usually epic fails to impress.

Re:I don't understand...

[H0p313ss]

Why should anyone be surprised by this? Flash usually fails to impress on any platform. In fact, it usually epic fails to impress.

I treat the presence of flash on a company website as a sign of a company that I do not want to do business with. Except possibly as a consultant...

OK Chrome has the fix now

[fugas]

Stable Channel release 10.0.648.205 is out. Thanks Google for the incredibly swift response.

Re:OK Chrome has the fix now

[fugas]

oops, wrong thread :(

Doesn't have to be an app

[SuperKendall]

There have been times when I've been out and wanting to view a specific video, listen to a radio station etc where there wouldn't be an iphone app.

Did you actually try those sites on an iPhone? Because just about any site now simply gives that content directly to the iPhone instead of forcing you to use a Flash wrapper to play it. That way media doesn't have fiddly controls, I can control it easily.

The reality is that if you are browsing media almost everything will work on an iPhone or iPad these days.

Re:Doesn't have to be an app

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you actually try those sites on an iPhone? Because just about any site now simply gives that content directly to the iPhone instead of forcing you to use a Flash wrapper to play it. That way media doesn't have fiddly controls, I can control it easily.

The reality is that if you are browsing media almost everything will work on an iPhone or iPad these days.

Another situation the parent didn't mention. Certain, often slightly dubious websites, are known for using flash as a gateway between their site and the site hosting the content. By forcing a user to click through a flash box they can prevent many (most?) crawlers from leeching all of the links from their site, as they do not support flash and hence are unable get a link to the actual content. Whilst this prevents leeching crawlers, it also prevents users who have no access to flash, completely cutting off iphone users.

Personally in this circumstance I would just tether, but that's not always possible. Having the option is good.

What about the user experience without Flash?

[ravenscar]

What isn't pointed out is that, on some sites, the absense of Flash support means there is NO user experience - just a box indicating a missing plug-in. Some might say that the inability to have the experience at all is worse than the poor experience. I won't argue that Flash is a wonderful platform, but it is a platform through which useful content is delivered. I prefer to have the choice to see that content.

To put it more simply, I had an iphone for 2 years. I frequently wished for Flash support. I know have a phone that supports Flash. I've never once wished it did not.

Re:What about the user experience without Flash?

[realityimpaired]

If I come across a site that shows me a warning about a missing plug-in, I go to a different website. I have yet to find a single website that actually *needs* Flash to run, with the possible exception of Youtube, which runs fine in HTML5 on both my netbook and my actual work laptop.

With the sheer number of sites out there on the web, I don't really have the patience or the tolerance for some idiot developper who doesn't know how to code a website without a crutch like Flash. And between no flash, and having AdBlock Plus installed, my web surfing experience is not only safer, it's a hell of a lot more enjoyable.

Re:What about the user experience without Flash?

[judeancodersfront]

I've come across local news sites that only had video in Flash. As for web developers they rarely get to decide which technology is used and HTML5 does not have nearly the same install base as Flash.

Oh really?

[SuperKendall]

There are and endless number of sites on the internet that feed Pron out in h.264 to iPhones and iPads. Saying that need Flash to get Pron from the internet is like saying that you can't get any water unless you have a specific faucet when it's raining outside and a fleet of Deep Rock trucks are stuck just outside your door with flat tires.

Choices?

[mveloso]

You can choose to eat shit or not. For most people that's not a valid choice.

Flash for videos

[Anonymous Coward]

As most people are excited when their Android browser runs Flash, I am/was excited as well.

It works great on my epic 4g, except for the fact that I cannot navigate the video timeline... By that I mean that if I attempt to click further into the video, which normally works on the site I am viewing, it will not skip forward to that point. Instead the video is paused. Another tap un-pauses. At no point can I skip through the video like I can on regular firefox browser on laptop.

Nobody likes to wait through the first 5 minutes of porn...

Same effect on my pc...

[Anonymous Coward]

You've pretty much summed up my experience with flash on the PC, which is why I usually have it disabled.

Android apps from AIR

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, now you can use AIR to build Android apps using Flash development tools, so they are evolving.

Just to balance the force a little.

[PortHaven]

So apparently, the author argues that websites NOT designed for mobile SUCK. And I agree... but is this a gripe of Flash or not?

How many HTML sites royally suck on my iPhone. TONS. Especially ones with multiple cascading menus, huge link lists, etc, etc. To exclaim that Flash apps made a few years back don't work well nor handle certain motion behaviors is a pretty lame argument. A site not made for mobile use is usually going to be a poor mobile experience. It doesn't matter if it's HTML or not.

Yes, the iPhone taunted the whole internet. But to be honest, I consider it an article reader browser for most sites. It's great for popping open a site, zooming in, and reading an article. But for actual use of many websites, it's just a PITA. This is not a fault of Apple, rather it's a fault of a screen not much bigger than a finger length.

A great example is going to a video player and complaining the menu controls aren't very usable. Well gee, you think. Does it matter whether such was made in HTML/Flash/HTML5 - nope. If the web app is NOT designed for mobile, the experience will suck. You will have to zoom in, use a control, zoom back out. LAME.

But as more apps are designed to recognize and deliver a mobile based experience. This will be come less of an issue. Does Flash lack the touch? Or does a 2 yr old desktop focused Flash app lack a touch experience. There is a difference.

Re:Just to balance the force a little.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm shocked that such a well balanced response is on /.

Screen sizes have been a time/cost analysis for a long time now. Longer ago it was the decision of whether to optimize for 1024 width or 800 width. The designers always wanted to use 1024 because it gave them more freedom, but users that used 800x600 for their resolution the sites looked un-readable and were a horrible mess. Scaling up from 800 to 1024 worked ok with tweaks, but then we lost valuable screen space. Do you know how many websites we made layouts for using 800 and 1024, 0. Now we have an even smaller screen on mobile and even bigger screens on desktops, and there are no easy fixes to get the two to be nice. So we usually don't do a mobile specific site because clients don't want to pay for it, although some are coming around. Do you know how well they work on an iPhone when we have an interesting app that uses a lot of AJAX, piss poorly. Not to mention they're much slower than the desktop version.

When you see flash on the web through an Android phone you're not seeing something that was built for a mobile experience unless it was built using the toolset for Flash Lite.

The fact that Flash needs Flashbock is idiotic

[Lord_Jeremy]

So the police should stop trying to catch robbers because people should have locks on their doors so the robbers can't get in? Seriously, why should the onus be on you to have to sidestep annoying, resource hogging, sometimes malicious advertising and other crap? When such a problematic tool has such widespread use as a great annoyance to people you might consider reevaluating its use at all. I use the "Click to Flash" plugin in Safari on my Mac. It's nice, it shows you where the flash content would be, it will look for MP4 playback alternatives on video sites. Even so, it's annoying when I visit some web site and have to play guess-which-flash-box-is-the-thing-you-want or puzzle on why something is working before I think to go to the menu and tell it to enable all the "invisible" flash on the page. Advertisements will probably never go away, but I'm sick of either having my CPU fan rev up because of some stupid flashy rectangles or having to bang my head against gmail wondering why it's file attacher isn't working and then on a hunch tell Safari to load all invisible flash and have it magically work.

Are you aware of servers??

[SuperKendall]

Uhhh your aware of the fact that Android's built in browser is treated as a "mobile browser" too right?

You seem to be ignorant of what is actually going on.

While Android does indeed have a mobile browser, that's irrelevant as far as the server is concerned. It cares more about WHICH browser you have, it sees you CAN support Flash so it directs you to a version of the site that supports Flash.

Meanwhile because it knows mobile Safari cannot and will not support Flash, you will often see variants of the site designed explicitly for lack of Flash support. Which is why I noted that Mobile Safari users will be better off than people with Flash, because while Flash might work OK 20% of the time for whatever thing you are trying to do many of the sites will work perfectly fine on Safari.

You can trick the sites with other browser strings of course, but that doesn't help people who don't even know what that means.

Re:Are you aware of servers??

[Reapman]

Hmm can you point out a site that I'm missing out on? I've yet to experience what your describing. Closest example I can think of would be something Flash heavy like Gizmodo or Kotaku - both of which give me a mobile site.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't most "browser detection" happen in the browser agent ID? Never heard of detecting your browser based on flash capability before. Not a web developer tho so would suprise me if I'm wrong on this.

I suppose some sites might do "if it does flash display video in flash, if not use h.whatever" however in this case I could just as easily say I can still browse those video sites with Flash, AND sites that only display video in flash without the option. So I'd still consider that a bonus.

Re:Are you aware of servers??

[Drakino]

Browser detection though is the wrong way to do it. Detecting capabilities is the right way. This has been true since I did web development as a job, and this was back when "DHTML" and "Push" were the popular buzzwords.

Doing browser detection leads to failures like Engadget.com. They feed HTML5 video just fine to an iPad or iPhone, but not to Safari on a Mac lacking Flash. Automatic fail on proper web design there.

Re:Are you aware of servers??

[SuperKendall]

Browser detection though is the wrong way to do it. Detecting capabilities is the right way.

True but the practical reality is most sites use browser detection.

Doing browser detection leads to failures like Engadget.com. They feed HTML5 video just fine to an iPad or iPhone, but not to Safari on a Mac lacking Flash. Automatic fail on proper web design there.

Yes but my point is that is currently the standard in web design, so you are better off having the browser they are looking to feed h.264 video if you prefer that.

Flash is great. The iPad is failing.

[xevioso]

I am this close to switching from my ipad to another tablet with another operating system that allows Flash. It comes down to this simple fact: There is a lot of content I am unable to see on the web because Steve Jobs wants site developers to switch to another standard and build websites that do not use flash. But...a lot of content I want to see is already in Flash. For example, there is a great Thai recipe site that has a lot of videos of people in Thailand making food using traditional Thai recipes. These videos were all simply imported into Flash and then spat out with a player skin and uploaded. Hundreds of them. They are great. So use my ipad/iphone to go to the site. But I can't view the videos because I am using a machine that does not allow flash. It's this simple. Should the owner of the Thai recipes site re-encode his hundreds of videos so that people using an ipad can play them? The maker of the device should include software that allows me to view this content, easily, as part of the browsing experience, if I want to see it. Usability 101. Millions of website ownsers should not have to change their websites to fit Steve Job's inability to add a flash player that plays flash video content when I want it. If android can do it, so can the iOS - based devices.

Re:Flash is great. The iPad is failing.

[Drakino]

So the solution to fixing an infestation of proprietary software into what is supposed to be an open web is to just keep using the proprietary software? And the reason is because some web developer picked a proprietary method of embedding videos, and shouldn't be bothered to change them? Do you feel the same for all the web developers who picked the proprietary Real Video solution a while back?

Apple blocking Flash is one of the best things to happen to try and get a proper open way of doing video on the web. Real, Quicktime, and Windows Media were all past attempts we are glad failed now. Flash took over for a while, but it's time to go join it's proprietary buddies of the past.

Re:Flash is great. The iPad is failing.

[Anonymous Coward]

No. What he is saying is that he spastically, as many consumers do, went out and bought an iPad without actually considering what he values. Now, after owning the iPad, he realizes the many things he needs to accomplish with it are not possible due to the well discussed lack of flash.

And so he is considering other options, and is vocal about it.

What he is expressing is that advertisement and popular buzz clouded his senses and he bought a product, the iPad, that does not meet the needs he thought it would.

Gotta love watching an iPad owner use his Samsung/HTC phone to do a few flash things, then go back to typing emails on the pad screen.... It's just pure comedy. Got the iPad for people to see him owning it, then got the android phone so he can actually do what he needs.

Re:Flash is great. The iPad is failing.

[toriver]

What "Flash things" do you actually need though?

Re:Flash is great. The iPad is failing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Like so open web is cool but open OS is not. That about sum up your infestation argument? How many choices of browser do you have on iOS again? Hearing an iOS user rally for the open web is like hearing Kim Jong Il rally for human rights. iOS really is BestOS. Just remember what you were cheering when all those annoying, unblockable, and equally privacy-invading and security-challenged HTML 5 local db, canvas, and video become the norm.

Re:Flash is great. The iPad is failing.

[judeancodersfront]

No a website should not feel obligated to change hundreds of videos for 2% of web surfers, especially when that 2% has a desktop or laptop at home with Flash. What should they be changed to anyways? The HTML5 video spec isn't even finalized and there is still the IE6/7/8 problem.

Re:Flash is great. The iPad is failing.

[xevioso]

I don't care if it is proprietary or not. I care if it is useful. Windows is proprietary, the Mac OS is proprietary; I am not a linux fan, so I am not going to stop using something just because a company may restrict others in how they use it. The fact is that on most platform simple embedded Flash videos work fine. Something like 99% of desktops have flash installed. But Apple is unable/unwilling to allow me to see these videos on another platform. Therefore I am considering switching. I am not of the school that says proprietary = bad. I want to see my Thai recipe videos on the iPad; Im sure the Thai recipe website owner feels the same way. The company standing in the way is Apple, not Adobe.

Re:Flash is great. The iPad is failing.

[xevioso]

I'll speak for myself, thanks. I love my iPad. It is amazing in almost every respect. It's just this one area that really bugs me. All in all, I'd rather have the iPad than another tablet because it integrates so seamlessly into my iphone applications and iTunes and a whole host of other things. I am a ipad/ipod/iphone/itunes fanboy. But this ONE thing really really bugs me.

Re:Flash is great. The iPad is failing.

[xevioso]

Two things 1) Flash video. The ability to see simple flash videos without needing to install other software. 2) Applications written in flash - This is one area where HTML5 just will never measure up to snuff. There's a ton of web apps out there written in AS2.0-3.0 that are amazing. If my PC can handle these with few or no bugs, then the iPad should as well.

Re:Flash is great. The iPad is failing.

[Drakino]

An open web benefits everyone. It also allows everyone to tackle the challenges that come up. Right now, no one has access to change Flash beyond Adobe. So you are forced to get the annoying pieces with the useful pieces.

Remember when popup windows were annoying? Because they were being called via open web standards, instead of a proprietary plugin, browser makers were able to address the issue pretty quickly. Well, except Microsoft since their team was asleep at the wheel then. The point is though that we didn't have to wait on one company to address the annoyance.

I don't want to get rid of Flash just because my iOS device doesn't support it, nor do I have any comments to address your open web vs open OS as I don't find it relevant here. I want to get rid of Flash because it annoys me elsewhere. It slows down my desktop browser, adds another security risk, and is a poor way to get video. I actually preferred older Quicktime and Windows Media methods since the player UI controls were standard, and generally worked. I stumble across tons of Flash players that have poor controls, won't resume if paused for a while, and seek poorly. And the only company that can address this is Adobe. If people were using HTML 5 video, I could chose a better browser if one annoyed me.

Re:Flash is great. The iPad is failing.

[Drakino]

You can work around the Flash video issue for now with Skyfire on iOS devices. It's not great, but it's something. (Yes, iOS browsers do exist beyond Safari)

As for the apps, it would depend on what they do. Some may not be touch aware and simply wouldn't work. Others may need a more powerful processor then the ARM chip in the iPad and other mobile devices. It's all a crapshoot right now. Apple did attempt to let Flash on the iPhone initially, by coding in support for browser plugins and everything. The fault for Flash not being on iOS is Adobe's, not Apple. Apple set a minimum quality bar that Adobe never passed in 3 years of attempts, and Apple finally put their foot down.

From All Things D in 2007 prior to the iPhone launch but after the announcement:
Q: If the iPhone’s Web browser is so good, why can’t it play video on Web sites I visit?

A: At launch, the iPhone version of the Safari browser is missing some plug-ins needed for playing common types of Web videos. The most important of these is the plug-in for Adobe’s Flash technology. Apple says it plans to add that plug-in through an early software update, which I am guessing will occur within the next couple of months. However, a separate program included on the iPhone can play a limited selection of videos from YouTube, and the phone can play videos you purchase from Apple’s iTunes store, and certain videos you create yourself.

And this was still in the works even in 2009:

“It’s a hard technical challenge, and that’s part of the reason Apple and Adobe are collaborating,” says Shantanu Narayen of Adobe. “The ball is in our court. The onus is on us to deliver.” - February 1, 2009

Adobe failed to deliver. Apple moved on. And Google embraced it as an attempt to have one more checkbox feature over iOS devices, leading to poor experiences for Android owners trapped in a platform battle. Google normally pushes for an open web, except for Flash.

Re:Flash is great. The iPad is failing.

[Drakino]

I pointed out why it is Adobe's fault earlier (along with a workaround), so I'll expand on something different here.

You state that you don't care if it's proprietary or not. By not caring, you allowed the situation to happen. Adobe is one company, with one proprietary solution they now own (thanks to buying Macromedia) and continued to spread, hitting a high percentage of the desktop market. The iPad is not a desktop computer, it's a new class of mobile device that relies on different architecture for it's CPU. Because Adobe has a proprietary solution, only Adobe can do the work to port Flash to the new setup. And they failed to do so in the 3 years they were given, at a quality level Apple felt sufficient.

Had the web already been using an open specification for video on the web instead of Flash, Apple would have been able to work to make that specification work on their iOS devices day one.

It's for this reason I have been moving to just rid myself of Flash on all platforms. I do not want to be part of the statistics that indicate my machine can run a proprietary solution on what is supposed to be an open web. By having Flash installed, or even the Click to Flash plugin, my machine is counted. The sooner we as consumers drive up the percentage of non Flash capable browsers, the sooner web sites adapt. Apple sees it this way too, and has stopped shipping Flash on new Macs (since it also clears them of taking responsibility for the security nightmares Flash brings to the table). Now while it is true the open standards path hasn't been responsive in addressing video demands, the history of it is in the past. I want to move to change the future today, by promoting standards and hopefully seeing others do the same so that the standards organizations start moving quicker.

Re:Flash is great. The iPad is failing.

[Drakino]

I should also point out Microsoft stopped distributing Flash with Windows well before Apple did on the Mac side. Many Linux distributions don't include it either. So at this point, it's up to consumers to make the choice on every platform. The sooner people start saying no, the sooner we fix the actual root of the problem, instead of extending proprietary methods for showing video online.

Re:So, not all that different from Flash on a desk

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless, flash is the only plugin out there that will suck your input away from the page it is "enhancing" and into itself. Windows Media player, Real Player, embedded Quicktime and even ActiveX itself don't do that as a modus operandi.

What bothers me is that there is NO tweak to disable that, and browsers haven't tried to change their plugin architechture to deny flash its fits of input greed.

I do not understand why nobody dabbed in talking to flash has published a plugin to fix the input problem already. I mean, there is already a Firefox extension changing the default flash render "quality" to LOW so I can throttle all things that desire to batter my processor. Adobe, for their part, has been REMOVING the quality settings from their right-click menu, which is a FOUL move away from power user choice. If it wasnt for streaming I'd ban flash like I ban Java.

Flash on Android... No thanks

[sircastor]

I have a little bit of flash functionality on my Galaxy S. For the most part, it's just obnoxious. The flash stuff that I've wanted to use isn't properly developed to function well on a phone. It doesn't resize well, it's interaction with tapping is mixed. Missing flash on my phone is a non-issue. I'm comfortable leaving flash to my desktop thanks.

One saving grace: It shows ESPN3.

[PinchDuck]

The iPad doesn't. I hope that ESPN releases the "ESPN3" app for the iPad, but until then, I can get my sports fix on my Android device. As for the ads, set flash to only turn on when you activate it. Flash is not forced on you, it's an option.

Re:So, not all that different from Flash on a desk

[Dr Herbert West]

The AS language and IDE itself is not crappy by itself-- blame sh**ty flash developers for sh**ty performance. For instance, go ahead and ask your average flash monkey what a memory leak is.

Bigger deal than it is?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever I view flash, I use Opera as my browser and I have no issues at all. I can't jump on the hater bandwagon until I really have a reason. I think this issue is being exacerbated.

humbug!

[yodleboy]

I was thrilled to get flash on my android phone and still am. I don't give a crap about flash video or games, what I DO care about is that menus and navigation finally work on sites that I had to give up reading on my iPhone. yes, i still used my desktop for them, but it was inconvenient.

Expecting a flash app or game to run well on a mobile is just delusional. I'm sitting here on a quad core pc w/ 6 gb of RAM and a nice video card and my wife can slow things to a crawl loading farmville/cityville/cafeworld in tabs on facebook.

Dumb journalism

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still not sure how to react to this kind of journalism.

Ok, flash sucks, but it exists, it's out there in the wild. It will eventually die i hope.

Flash abuse is a common practice in many websites, so flash fails to impress on ANY platform when it's misused.
Where are the news?
I still remember when we were DEMANDING flash support in linux. We really wanted it, even when we already knew about all it's drawbacks, problems, etc.

As long as your android device can render websites using a "desktop" user agent, you will get about the same experience as always regarding flash websites.

Currently I love having flash on my android device, since i can watch video as if i were using my desktop PC. Basically: Porn, Sports, News, tube-of-choice.
I even can access "flash only" websites w/some trouble maybe...but my spectrum is broader than the one i would get using an iphone.

So my reaction when i read this kind of journalistic reports is "trolling".
I sincerely hope flash dies and some open standard replaces flash in every website. But that won't get us rid of advertising insanely filling our phones screens.
There are good arguments already against flash already, we don't need this kind of retarded argumentation.

Doing the right thing for itunes sales

[judeancodersfront]

I don't see them working on cross-platform alternatives.

Yes, it was right

[SuperKendall]

Apple was "right" in removing choice?

Yes, that was right. Because letting users make a choice you know is bad, is a bad idea. It is "removing choice" that they don't offer a "crash browser now" in Safari button too, yet that is not bad...

Technical users that REALLY REALLY want Flash can still get it via jailbreaking. But I wouldn't even bother because Flash on mobile is a totally senseless thing that doesn't help me at all.

Flash is not dead and HTML5 is a fetus

[judeancodersfront]

Even Google said that Flash isn't going anywhere. But maybe if a thousand more Slashdotters claim it to be dead the 97% install base will magically disappear.

Of course it sucks but it's still useful!

[morgauxo]

Of course Flash on Android sucks. Flash on PC sucks too. Flash just sucks!

First, if this guy had ads dancing around on his pages he definitely did it wrong. Flash on Android has an option where Flash content is replaced by a static box. Nothing actually runs unless you touch the box then it gets replaced with the Flash content. This is IMHO the only way to run Flash on an embedded device. Just letting all Flash content pop up at will is really asking for trouble on a low powered machine with a small screen.

Still, UNFORTUNATELY there is still content out there that is inaccessible without flash. Yes, if your favorite video site has it's own app that is much better. Run that instead. But... if it doesn't then having Flash on the device lets you at least give it a try. You can run it the way a underpowered device with a small touchscreen can. Which is often if not always better than not at all.

Personally I dream of a day when nobody uses Flash anymore. Everything is html v.X and Java/ECMA script vY, as a result all content is available for all platforms with a browser and runs as well as the browser allows it to. (Even so, dedicated apps for the most popular video sites would still be nice). Until that day having Flash does add value to a platform over not having it, even if it still sucks.

Catching up slowly...

[elPetak]

So android still can't do flash right... My good old nokia N95 can do it just right and it's a 5 year old phone... why is this taking so long for android?

Re:Catching up slowly...

[John Hasler]

Perhaps it's because Google is trying to do it securely.

For others, an example of user first design

[SuperKendall]

The Flash debate wasn't just about Flash. For many of us, it was simply an example of Apple's needless lock-down.

The thing is, it wasn't needless. As this article shows Apple made the call that users normal users not technically astute enough to make good choices, would use try to use Flash and it just wouldn't work for them.

So Apple removed it and tried (and succeeded) in convincing many sites to support the iPhone/iPad without Flash.

Users are better off because they get sites that actually work on mobile devices. Website designers are better off because they have fewer Flash components to maintain.

The only people complaining are the technical elite here on Slashdot, who are ignoring the real benefits for users this choice resulted in. Lots of people here just want to have a choice because it exists, without thinking about what is better for 90% of the people who use the device.

Lets abandon the past of abusing users and really design systems that real people can use. The rest of us technical people can easily override these simplistic defaults and do what we like. But let us not pollute the base platform with choices that hurt people who don't understand how to stop the pain.

Re:For others, an example of user first design

[Anonymous Coward]

The only pain on this website is you - another tiresome apple shill.

Truth is that flash is not going anywhere and it's that evil old creep jobs that's looking to kick the bucket (phew).

Try getting a real computer/phone and then you'll be able to run flash OK. Paying extra for a machine with designer looks is not going to give you credibility around here from the start.

Adobe tools are a big factor

[judeancodersfront]

Flash has a 97% install base and the security record hasn't reduced it. For Flash to die there has to be a better alternative and HTML5 is merely a planned alternative with a smaller install base. Silverlight is the best available alternative but also has the install base problem.

Kongregate

[Anonymous Coward]

For me, the killer flash app on Android is Kongregate. It's awesome!

Actually that is worrysome

[Anonymous Coward]

Current peace of living without Flash ads will be replaced by "living with unblockable HTML5 ads."
Don't trust me? Javascript floaters and nags already show that flash isn't the only one marketting force we're fighting. Smartphone presence awareness is growing, and just like HTML5 video exploded thanks to Youtube converting all vids to the mobile world, we'll have HTML5 culture (adverts) slowly creep beyond smartphones. That's FF/opera/Chrome/Safari and more noticeably IE9's eventual wedging into the corporate world looking to leave IE6. Marketters and PHBs will notice the growth trend and then it will be the end of ad-less peace.

I really doubt browsers will give real HTML5 control to the average slashdotter looking for it: architectures less and less able to protect us from rogue plugins than they are from Javascript. Look at what happened with Flash becoming "enable OR disable" instead of "disable blinking, popups, scrolling text, background pictures" and so on. All across the board not one person is posting angry comments in the whole decade of Flash dominance about how EVEN our trusted browsers care not about customizing flash. Sandboxing it isn't the same, Google!

The only current HTML5 features our browsers allow us to control is ONE setting that says that of database allowance size for cookie-like storage. So I don't believe in plugin writers, but I trust even less browsers' standard practices of looking the other way to willingly allow those plugins to run amok and do things like report my entire font list to advertisers.

Re:Actually that is worrysome

[toriver]

user.css says:

*[@href *= "stupidadserver.com"], *[@src *= "stupidadserver.com"] { display: none ! important }

FTFY.

Re:So, not all that different from Flash on a desk

[stewbacca]

Memory leak...that's that thing that happens on my PC about three to four times a day when Task Manger tells me Outlook is using 800,000k memory, right?

Thank you apple

[kirkb]

Even though the iPhone omits flash for Apple's own selfish reasons (app store competition), not including flash is one of the nicest things that Apple ever did for iPhone users. I don't miss it a bit.

Wrong, oh so wrong.

[SuperKendall]

So apparently, the author argues that websites NOT designed for mobile SUCK. And I agree... but is this a gripe of Flash or not?

No, he is not saying that. He is saying Flash sucks on mobile.

The truth is that I HATE mobile websites. The full-sized sites are perfectly usable, even if feature rich with many tiny controls.

A great example is going to a video player and complaining the menu controls aren't very usable. Well gee, you think. Does it matter whether such was made in HTML/Flash/HTML5 - nope.

Actually it does. Because the Flash controls are going to be unresponsive things that are expecting to work with mice. Meanwhile if you've used HTML5 and h.264, you get a native player with native controls that are full sized and perfectly responsive - and that is true on a mobile device OR a desktop.

Re:Wrong, oh so wrong.

[shutdown -p now]

Because the Flash controls are going to be unresponsive things that are expecting to work with mice. Meanwhile if you've used HTML5 and h.264, you get a native player with native controls that are full sized and perfectly responsive - and that is true on a mobile device OR a desktop.

You do realize that a video player implemented with HTML5 can also have custom JS-driven controls, and those controls can be made just as unusable as for the Flash version (e.g. by relying on hover)? And, conversely, that a video player implemented in Flash can be made fully touch enabled?

There's nothing inherently touch unfriendly about Flash. It's just that it has been out there for ages, and most websites and apps written in it assume mouse and not touch. Whereas HTML5 was pushed by Apple specifically as a Flash replacement mainly on its mobile devices (since HTML5 is the only option you have there), and so most HTML5 players are written keeping limitations of touchscreens in mind.

Re:Wrong, oh so wrong.

[SuperKendall]

You do realize that a video player implemented with HTML5 can also have custom JS-driven controls

Which respond much better than the flash controls, and on the iPhone the video still goes full screen on command with native controls.

There's nothing inherently touch unfriendly about Flash.

Yes there is, libraries and developers all used to designing for mice/keyboard WIMP systems. Like anything you can make it work if you try, but yes inherently Flash is not touch friendly.

It's the same reason why PC tablets didn't really man out even though technically any application COULD run on them.

Oh yeah? I don't see ANY ads on my Android!

[Kamiza Ikioi]

Oh so that's what everyone means when they say flash lets you see "the whole web".

So, my choices are ads for free news sites, or, The Daily? I'll go with option #3 - AdFree, which blocks all ad content on an Android (rooted) device.

I swear, you'd think people like InfoWorld's Neil McAllister were as smart as they sound. Oh, but wait, he wants the "default" experience. M'kay, then he shouldn't run "beta" products.

Oh, btw, can you're iPad2 modify it's host file to adblock not only for itself, but also for all tethered wifi devices (nice bonus!) like my Android? Oh, it doesn't adblock, or tether, or adblock for tether. Oh, so you see ads at all? That's so 2010!

Re:Oh yeah? I don't see ANY ads on my Android!

[PCM2]

So, my choices are ads for free news sites, or, The Daily? I'll go with option #3 - AdFree, which blocks all ad content on an Android (rooted) device.

I swear, you'd think people like InfoWorld's Neil McAllister were as smart as they sound. Oh, but wait, he wants the "default" experience. M'kay, then he shouldn't run "beta" products.

You're a pretty clever guy, I guess. So how do you figure a mainstream tech publication is going to run a review of a user experience that you can only get if you root your tablet? How many Xooms do you think Motorola has sold, how many of those are going to be rooted, and how many of those rooted Xooms are going to have a good user experience running Flash? (Read the review for a hint.)

And yes, I am InfoWorld's Neil McAllister.

Re:Oh yeah? I don't see ANY ads on my Android!

[cmdahler]

I'm sorry, but the apostrophes in your post really got in the way of a successfully implemented attitude of intellectual superiority.

Re:Oh yeah? I don't see ANY ads on my Android!

[scot4875]

None of what you just said has anything to do with reviewing a beta product. (For the record: I hate Flash and have it blocked everywhere)

--Jeremy

Re:Oh yeah? I don't see ANY ads on my Android!

[PCM2]

None of what you just said has anything to do with reviewing a beta product. (For the record: I hate Flash and have it blocked everywhere)

--Jeremy

And if you read the review you'll see that I address that, and that few if any of the problems I found could be attributed to the player still being in beta on the Xoom.

Re:Oh yeah? I don't see ANY ads on my Android!

[Penguinisto]

Argument aside...

...the sight of GP getting smacked by TFA author and one with a 4-digit UID to boot?

Ouch.

==

@sibling: For the record, Chrome was "beta" for long after its release to the world at large, and my missus' FB games (Cityville, Farmville, etc) often sport a "beta" tag on them. Sort of ruined the whole designation for those of us who know what they once meant.

Re:Oh yeah? I don't see ANY ads on my Android!

[Anonymous Coward]

BS. You made a passing referennce to the beta status and shrugged it off as unimportant.

Reading your reviews is a painful exercise in frustration with jouralistic and technical incompetence. Perhaps you're intentionally being obtuse, Flash is a hotbutton issue and I'm sure you'll get the clicks for that paycheck. But man that article was terrible. It astonishes me you're even here defending it.

You get a tech fact wrong on the first page.

There's no stand-alone Flash app for Android.

And a simple Google search shows you're wrong: http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2011/02/adobe-air-2-6-for-android-is-now-available.html

Then you continue with the nonesense: RIAs that don't work on 4 inch screens? OMG switch to HTML! I'd love to see a comparable HTML RIA that works well on a 4in device. I could go on and on but what's the point? I'm sure you'll probably defend yourself as above the fray having given the overall picture or some other such hyperbolic BS. Respond if you want, I don't care -- but at the very least do some fucking research and stop doing us all a disservice with this hatchet-job sensationalist trolling "journalism". The world does NOT need sensationalist leach journalism. Just stop.

PS: Yeah I'm posting AC, yeah this is harsh language, and I bet unpleasant for you to hear, which will probably get modded to hell but try not to miss the point.

Re:Oh yeah? I don't see ANY ads on my Android!

[Vectormatic]

Oh, btw, can you're iPad2 modify it's host file to adblock not only for itself

I'm iPad2? damn, i've been selling myself short at my job, clearly i'm worth much more!

(sorry dude, i feel a bit nitpicky today)

Re:Oh yeah? I don't see ANY ads on my Android!

[AmiMoJo]

The stock Android browser in 2.2 has an option to show placeholders instead of loadnig the flash animation immediately. You then touch the placeholder and it loads. No root required, it is built-in functionality.

Re:Oh yeah? I don't see ANY ads on my Android!

[PCM2]

There's no stand-alone Flash app for Android.

And a simple Google search shows you're wrong: http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2011/02/adobe-air-2-6-for-android-is-now-available.html

What are you smoking? The full quote is: "There's no stand-alone Flash app for Android. The installer simply adds Flash support to the existing Android Web browser, much like the Flash plug-in does for desktop browsers." That's what it does. Your link is for Adobe AIR, which is a different product from Flash Player (which was what I was reviewing). But if you must know, there's no standalone Adobe AIR app either.

RIAs that don't work on 4 inch screens? OMG switch to HTML!

The Xoom has an eight-inch screen. And "switch to HTML" is my advice, because I've hardly found any HTML sites that suffer as badly on a tablet as Flash content does. You don't have to believe the review. If you don't, go ahead and buy a Motorola Xoom (or some other Android tablet) and enjoy Flash to your heart's content. People who have actually tried it already, on the other hand, know the review is accurate.

Call the whambulance!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Nook Color on my couch running Cyanogen (Gingerbread) and flash works great.. (for video)

love it.
 

Re:Call the whambulance!

[toriver]

So it is not running Honeycomb. Which is the point here. And I see you avoided talking about how "great" it runs animation-heavy Facebook games...

Re:So, not all that different from Flash on a desk

[dzfoo]

No. A memory leak is when you click on a button, the hourglass shows up, and after waiting like an idiot for a few minutes, it just fizzles away and nothing happens, because the computer forgot what you asked it to do.

When your computer keeps forgetting stuff like that, it may eventually end up doing something completely stupid or even questionable, and then you end up with an "Illegal Operation" error. Those are scary!

          -dZ.

That's because it still blocks content.

[thedarb]

The entire reason I wanted flash on my phone was to be able to watch Hulu at the gym while on the treadmill. But surprise! They enabled Hulu to selectively choose which Flash clients to allow... and they chose not to allow phones. Typical ass hat maneuver. Why should it matter if it's my PC or my phone? I already had a Youtube app... so without Hulu, what's the point?

Will Xoom offer a refund?

[goombah99]

Xoom promised Flash. it was arguably the main selling point. Certainly the only one that interested me. Will xoom owners demand a refund? it was widely advertised.

Re:Will Xoom offer a refund?

[Penguinisto]

They were promised a working MicroSD slot too. Have they enabled that yet?

First generation

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people always whine about everything first generation.

HTML 5

[Billly Gates]

Both the Iphone and Andriod support it via webkit. THe IPhone already uses html 5 so it would make sense that Google could use that too. ... unless they are prohibited by a contract with Apple.

Re:HTML 5

[JackAxe]

Google leads with HTML 5 last I checked and it performs better under mobile Chrome than it is under mobile Safari. The biggest issue with it right now, is that it's slow and limited. The more advance examples of HTML 5 are really slow on my iPad, they're unusable in most cases. My Nexus One on the other hand does a much better with HTML 5 than my iPad, but on the flip-side, Flash doing the same tasks is way faster on my phone -- night and day faster.

OK Timothy we get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Another saga in the endless android bashing News headlines from Timothy. Timothy takes his apple loving to religious fundamentalist levels tbh I find myself doubting the source of anything he links these days.

Androids average rating is 4.5 out of 5.

[JackAxe]

So 150k reviews are all wrong, just because this one guy's "opinion" was linked to Slash dot. I'm calling this for what it is, FUD.

Flash is growing at a faster rate than some would like. It's already on about 26 million smart phones, which is impressive considering it wasn't available until later last year.

Anyways, 10.2 update runs nicely on my Nexus One. Well enough that I leave Flash enabled now, where as earlier versions were versions were quirky, but still better than the so-called alternative on mobile devices. I know for a fact it would work well on my iPad, which has a better GPU and similar speced CPU, but I guess that will never happen, but I'd like the option, just like it would be nice if I could also run Java on it.

Come on...

[plastick]

Look, I'm just glad they are trying. Kudos for trying to get flash to work on a phone!

Works great on my XOOM

[Anonymous Coward]

Have Flash set for On-Demand....

And reading EGMi fullscreen.......works great.
Playing Plants vs Zombies on POPCAP's website.....has some load time...but works great...and is free.
Watching videos on all my favorite websites.....couldn't be happier.
Able to see how the animations and flash elements look on my wedding website.....works great as well.

I am not sure what this article's writer's intent was....but Flash works great on my XOOM for when and if I need it.
Better to have the ability to use it fully rather than through some Skyfire workaround.

As the architect said.....the problem is CHOICE.

Hulu

[drb226]

He notes that Hulu won't work at all, even with flash installed

Unfortunately, this video is not available on your platform. We apologize for any inconvenience.

This, however, is probably Hulu's fault, and not Flash's. Hulu intentionally makes the video unavailable for the platform, either for DRM/money reasons or for simply not wanting to support/test that platform.

Lets see, what are my options

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets see, my options:

Apple Solution: No option for Flash content at all.

Android Solution:
1) Choose not to install Flash and simulate the Apple option.
2) Install it only when you want it, uninstall it when you dont.
3) Set it to "on demand" and only use it when you activate it.
4) Set it to be active all the time.

Which platform give me, the end user, the most options?

I really do not understand why people actually defend Apple's decision to take the choice away from you, the end user. Do you people REALLY like being told what is best for you? Do you people REALLY not like having options?

It's BETA software

[judeancodersfront]

There is plenty of time to fix it given how slowly websites are moving away from Flash. Some of the bigger media websites have flat out stated that they have no interest in HTML5.

Android users don't have to run Flash, it's called choice.

Flash on anything...

[theBully]

fails to impress. It's a closed format, with no real development alternatives besides Adobe tools. I'd say let's drop the thing and move on. When silverlight came out I was disappointed because it offered nothing better. But HTML 5 may be just the bullet to finally kill it. I wonder why it was even allowed onto Android. Apple took a good decision (even if for ulterior motives) to keep it off. All I have to say to Flash is: Good Riddance.

It was never going to be good

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash uses floating point arithmetic. As far as I'm aware no cellphone processors do this, our passive cooling technology currently doesn't allow for processors of this spec without serious overheating. This means software has to emulate what the hardware would do, meaning it will run like a dog. Screen size and all the other reasons mentioned are probably wrong.

Flash fails to impress

[Nyder]

me for one. Never thought it was that neat, seem to have more downfalls then anything useful.

Oh, i forgot, it made it so i could click on a monkey in ads fast. Neato

Anyways, whatever, no loss. Do NOT WANT. Stay away from my phone, thanks!!!!

"Beta" is no indicator of stability.

[Gondola]

I'd rather have a buggy Flash as an option than to have no choice at all.

It should get there eventually. Until then, use it when it works, disable it when it becomes a problem. Hardware inconsistency is one problem I'm sure, and it's really a shame that some vendors created slow, resource-starved Android phones.

flash is bad

[amn108]

Flash is so bad that it's worth inventing a phony god and prey to him that Flash disappears from the face of the Earth.

Flash is simply not as viable and attractive thing today as it was when it was introduced into the world of Web utterly desperate for realization of more and richer possibilities. Not enough people used laptops and cared for extra hours of battery life then (mind you I didn't say there weren't any) as now, and frankly the amount of Flash ads were about zero then as well. Web didn't take advantage of all those Intel Pentium and Athlon CPU cycles rendering HTML 4 pages and all heavy web app logic was done server-side.

Today it's a whole different world. Someone like Google, they willing, can almost invent, inject and install just about anything on the Web, and tomorrow everybody will be using it, courtesy of auto-update, preinstall-on-new-PC and tech savvy bloggers. Not to mention again, how Flash is out of place for a lot of function Web needs today.

Admittedly, the idea is not bad - bytecode, layer-based animation, compact binary (well, not THAT compact anymore, but still). But it's the implementation and a lot around it that are out of place. Sometimes you have to admit you've made a hell of a lot of money, and make life easier for MILLIONS of people for once. Adobe, how much is enough? You bought out Macromedia, you've given us the monstrocity that is Creative Suite (more like Creative Wardrobe Cabinet)... I am not an anti-capitalist, but Flash directly affects life of just about anybody on Internet, sooner or later, one way or another. If money is to be made, there are many other user-friendly ways to make it for a company the size of Adobe, yet they hold on to Flash with steel claws (and pink ribbons) like there is no tomorrow.

Be realistic

[little.robot.of.doom]

Come one, be realistic. If you're looking to use Flash on Android as more than just a convenient method to watch videos here and there (that were previous unavailable to you), that's your own problem. McAllister sounds like a real douche. If you don't like it, don't use it..... And don't be such a User. Android doesn't want you.

Nothing is better than bad

[tgibbs]

One of Apple's great insights is that it is better not to have a feature at all than to have a feature that works badly. If you go to a web site and can't access it because it uses Flash, you might be momentarily annoyed, but then you either go on to a competing Flash-free web site, or else you wait until you can access it from a computer. On the other hand, if it seems at first to work, but doesn't work right, you keep struggling with it, wasting a lot of time, and getting madder and madder.

And as Apple realized early on, getting Flash to work well on portable touch-screen devices with limited processing and battery power wasn't simply a matter of getting Adobe to rewrite Flash to be more efficient and reliable. Most Flash web sites would still require a major redesign. So if they were going to have to be redesigned anyway, why not give them an incentive to avoid Flash, with all of its reliability, resource-hogging, and security issues?

Two way to do it

[DrYak]

There is two way to do it :

Way A.
Apple's way : you just refuse to let flash on the iPhone and piss every developer and geek because you're anally retentive and want to control everything and prevent as much as possible non-AppStore applications (specially when they can't be Saint-Jobs-approved) from ever reaching the phone. By every possible mean, including forbidding every app to run remote or scripts.

Way B.
Everyone else's way : You know flash on portable sucks. You want people still want to have it. You find a way to mitigiate it. You provide an optional plug-in, which only launches in case of tap. Thus taxing less the resources, and not imposing flash crap ads. Result : most people will soon get tired of taping the "launch flash content" icon, only to find that said content suck on non-desktop non-windows machines. The few who really-really-really need flash will have the choice. You won't look like an asshole, the joke will be on Adobe who will have to publicly admit that, yeah, their flash technology just sucks on touch devices, make their webistes not portable, and that they are themselves unable to make Flash "right" on such platforms (not optimized enough and/or not power efficient).

Re:Two way to do it

[SuperKendall]

Everyone else's way : You know flash on portable sucks. You want people still want to have it. You find a way to mitigiate it. You provide an optional plug-in, which only launches in case of tap.

Which means that many web designers use browser detection and because you can support flash, insist you install it.

Which leads many users to install it, so Flash starts being used on many sites.

Meanwhile browsing is substantially degraded for the average user, who doesn't know how to uninstall or disable it.

Your second approach is the Old Way, doing what is best for you, the technical user, at the expense of everyone else on earth. It's an inherently selfish approach that thankfully we are starting to move past as a computing industry, thinking of what is best for the USER and not for ADOBE or GOOGLE.

Standards.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did I say I was?

Install base.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it is installed everywhere. What percentage actually use it for more than viewing ads?