Adobe Ends Development of Flash On Mobile Browsers

OMG by masternerdguy · 2011-11-09 04:02 · Score: 3, Funny

Just in time for the .xxx domains.

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Shhh... Listen... by Petersko · 2011-11-09 04:02 · Score: 5, Funny

My god... it's Steve Jobs laughing.

Re:Shhh... Listen... by yabos · 2011-11-09 05:14 · Score: 1, Insightful

It took 750 people to work on mobile flash and it was still complete crap? WTH do they do all day?
Re:Shhh... Listen... by MisterSquid · 2011-11-09 05:18 · Score: 1, Troll

Jobs didn't blink when he said Flash will never work on mobile. He was convinced Flash was unviable way before Adobe acknowledged as much 4 years after the iPhone debuted.
He knew this day was a matter of time. It's the rest of us who are "surprised".

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blog
Re:Shhh... Listen... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-09 05:26 · Score: 1

Given enough time, all predictions can eventually come true. Jobs didn't foresee anything. Flash worked fine on mobile devices for all of those years and is only now being discontinued in favour of better technologies.
Re:Shhh... Listen... by iluvcapra · 2011-11-09 05:33 · Score: 2

It seems to work well for everyone else.
Everyone but Adobe.

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Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Re:Shhh... Listen... by sarhjinian · 2011-11-09 06:07 · Score: 1

No, it doesn't.
Anecdotal, I know, but I end up turning Flash off on my PlayBook, and rarely clicking on Flash content on Android to play it. When I do try to use it, it's really frustrating because it's often poorly coded and runs badly and/or uses mouseover actions and/or takes clicks when I try to drag-scroll.

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--srj/mmv
Re:Shhh... Listen... by Random+BedHead+Ed · 2011-11-09 06:21 · Score: 2

Good riddance to Flash. But you know, since we're on this topic, to all the "Steve Jobs was right" fanboys: you do not understand logic. Sorry, but you don't. (Note: the following rant is not directed at parent, who makes a parallel argument to the one Steve Jobs made, and is surely correct.)
I think that letter from Steve, Thoughts on Flash, is a great way to test whether people understand logical arguments and are competent in keeping separate ideas straight in their heads. Those who see the letter as a definitive rebuttal against the use of Flash on the iPhone fail to do these things. I advise them to avoid both commenting, and voting.
To distill the logic of letter, it basically said the following: Flash sucks. You should therefore not be allowed to use it on your own phone.
Obviously it was more detailed than that, and went to great lengths to politely point out the many ways in which Flash sucks. Go ahead and read it - it's a great takedown of that wretched, ubiquitous plugin. Steve says that Flash goes against the idea of open standards on the web, that it's slow and a resource hog, that its development is way behind what market needs, and that it ran poorly on the iPhone when Apple evaluated it. All good points, and because I agree that Flash is a rotten piece of crap that should never have risen to prominence, I enjoyed reading them.
But none of this directly implies that you should not be allowed to install it on your own phone. Steve makes the case that Flash sucks, but at the end of the article a thinking person does not "better understand why [Apple] do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads." There is no logical connection to support that outcome, even if we emerge from the letter hating Flash more than ever. Again, his premises were spot-on, but his logic was broken, so he pulled a conclusion out of his butt and the masses lapped it up. And to those of you who ignore this sleight of hand and argue that Apple must do whatever it can to restore a sense of childlike wonder and superior design to humanity: shut up, you stupid fanboy zombies. Brains like yours are the reason we have the politicians we have.
Re:Shhh... Listen... by zieroh · 2011-11-09 06:32 · Score: 1

And to those of you who ignore this sleight of hand and argue that Apple must do whatever it can to restore a sense of childlike wonder and superior design to humanity: shut up, you stupid fanboy zombies. Brains like yours are the reason we have the politicians we have.
Through history, there are very few instances where this approach has won an actual debate.

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People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
Re:Shhh... Listen... by sribe · 2011-11-09 06:35 · Score: 1

He knew this day was a matter of time. It's the rest of us who are "surprised".
I for one am not surprised ;-)
Re:Shhh... Listen... by zieroh · 2011-11-09 06:41 · Score: 2

But more to the point, the logical connection is not that hard to fathom, and has even been stated as such on more than one occasion. The essence of Flash for most developers is an easy way to create something that works equally on all platforms. The flaw with that, of course, is that it leads quickly to a lowest-common-denominator situation where advanced features aren't widely taken advantage of. On top of that, access to those features is gated by Adobe, essentially putting a third party between Apple and any Flash developers that actually wanted to take advantage of the advanced features the iPhone possessed.
The logical connection, if you really need it spelled out, is that access to a "good enough" development platform that works (i.e. Flash) is often a barrier to the adoption of a great development platform. By banning Flash from the iPhone, it forced a large (and fairly successful) development community to come into existence out of seemingly nowhere.
Put another way, Apple didn't want Flash to become the de facto development environment of the iPhone. Doing so would have placed Apple at a competitive disadvantage, with Adobe in charge. The fact that Apple acted in its own best interests shouldn't really be surprising.

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People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
Re:Shhh... Listen... by BitZtream · 2011-11-09 07:03 · Score: 1

But none of this directly implies that you should not be allowed to install it on your own phone. Steve makes the case that Flash sucks, but at the end of the article a thinking person does not "better understand why [Apple] do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads." There is no logical connection to support that outcome, even if we emerge from the letter hating Flash more than ever. Again, his premises were spot-on, but his logic was broken, so he pulled a conclusion out of his butt and the masses lapped it up. And to those of you who ignore this sleight of hand and argue that Apple must do whatever it can to restore a sense of childlike wonder and superior design to humanity: shut up, you stupid fanboy zombies. Brains like yours are the reason we have the politicians we have.
I agree with your assessment based the letter alone, ignoring everything outside of it.
If you take common sense and wisdom into the equation though, it becomes a little different.
You are not allowed to run improper fuel in your car. It is in fact illegal to do so everywhere I'm aware of that has any sort of sane laws for various types of both environmental and personal protection. It is bad for a number of reasons, just like flash (on anything imho).
Why are you not complaining about the fact that you can't run any random fuel in your car legally? Its the same thing. The reason is because you were born with that law in effect and have known no different, and you don't think you know better than someone else because of it.
Why are there laws against it? Cause its bad. Its potentially dangerous, the wrong fuel can cause all sorts of combustion issues (ranging form 'it dont run' to 'holy shit, I just blew grandma to the moon, Pa!'), it can be very bad environmentally, it can damage your car and make it run slower or even cause an crash due to resource starvation issues ... JUST LIKE FLASH.
Yet ... you don't complain when someone doesn't let you do it to your car, but you do when its for your phone. Hell, you don't even consider doing something stupid like that with your car ... yet you're gung ho about doing it with your mobile device.
So heres the actual connection between Steves letter and when its not allowed on the phone.
Users are ignorant of the technical details involved and they WANT TO STAY THAT WAY. They DO NOT WANT TO HAVE TO CARE ABOUT SHIT THAT YOU CARE ABOUT AS A GEEK.
Users don't give a shit why they can't use leaded gas in their cars, they just don't do it because someone else figured that part out for them, and they can get on with more important things like their own lives. Because of legal requirements, it becomes much harder for your average person to FIND a way to refuel with improper fuel, so the problem is more or less fixed ... just like the iDevice area. Its become much harder for your average person to FIND a way to fuckup their iPhone with bad software.
Not allowing flash to run on an iDevice is the same as not allowing leaded gas to be sold. Leaded gas mind you was far more of an environmental concern than anything else, but the point was to protect people from their own ignorance, and thats all that preventing flash on the phone was.
Do to the practicality of 'the fill up', actually making it DRM-hard to use the wrong gas isn't possible, but the iPhone can make the problem DRM-hard, and they have. Which makes it not impossible, but difficult enough that the only people that make it that far entirely deserve the raping their battery gets in order to run some retarded flash file that doesn't even work right in a touch environment.

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Re:Shhh... Listen... by UnknowingFool · 2011-11-09 07:31 · Score: 1

Maybe the gap in logic that you are missing is that Apple and not Adobe has to support the customer. One thing that Apple promised when it launched the app store was that the apps would be approved to be safe and not buggy. Allowing an app that is known to be buggy would go against that. If you want a platform where you can install anything you want, Apple has never said they were that platform.

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Re:Shhh... Listen... by UnknowingFool · 2011-11-09 07:43 · Score: 2

Actually Adobe has itself has been somewhat problematic for Apple. When Apple announced their development platforms of of OS X: Classic, Carbon, and Cocoa, it laid out the intended usage. Classic was a bridge between 9 and OS X. Carbon would be an intermediate but Cocoa was the future. While Carbon could be used in the upcoming years, everyone should move towards Cocoa. I remember Steve Jobs laying this out. Adobe coded their applications like Photoshop in Carbon and you can still code in it; however, advanced objects like 64-bit are done in Cocoa. Apple toyed with the idea of 64-bit Carbon but realized only a handful of developers would need it, namely Adobe. And they needed it because they didn't want to port to Cocoa. That's why Jobs called them lazy because they dragged their feet for years instead of following the roadmap that had been laid out.

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Re:Shhh... Listen... by mcgrew · 2011-11-09 07:54 · Score: 1

You are not allowed to run improper fuel in your car. It is in fact illegal to do so everywhere I'm aware of that has any sort of sane laws for various types of both environmental and personal protection.
Good analogy, but can you cite a law that makes it illegal? There was a guy here in Illinois that got in trouble for making his own biodiesel, but his crime wasn't using an "unauthorized fuel", it was for failure to pay the fuel tax.
Way back in the day I owned a little two-stroke Harley (manufactured in Italy). I discovered that a capful of model airplane fuel (ether) mixed with the gasoline made that sucker outrun bikes with twice the engine size. That was illegal? Personally, I don't think it should be. If my car explodes, that's my problem. And what about the cars that add a nitro boost? Are they illegal?
Citation, please.

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Re:Shhh... Listen... by mcgrew · 2011-11-09 07:59 · Score: 1

Good riddance to Flash
I wish it were true, but Flash is alive and well on the desktop. When Flash dies completely, THEN I'll cheer.

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Free Martian Whores!
Re:Shhh... Listen... by P-niiice · 2011-11-09 08:13 · Score: 1

porn tubes work fine on my phone- who looks at non-porn flash content? do people really care about kellogscornflakes.com that much
Re:Shhh... Listen... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-09 08:17 · Score: 1

To distill the logic of letter, it basically said the following: Flash sucks. You should therefore not be allowed to use it on your own phone.
No. It said: Flash sucks. We don't like putting things which suck in our products, especially when we have to rely on Adobe's Flash team to improve them until they don't suck, because said team has been half-assing it on all platforms other than Windows from the dawn of time. Feel free to go buy something else if you want this piece of shit software on your phone or tablet; as far as we're concerned it compromises stability and battery life too much, so much so that we're willing to take the hit of some things on the Web not working on our platform. We'll be over here working on open standards to replace Flash, go ahead and use them if you want!
Re:Shhh... Listen... by RocketRabbit · 2011-11-09 09:16 · Score: 1

I just uninstalled Flash a few months ago. Really, it's no big deal for me now. If I see a site with a big blank space that says "you must install Flash to see this content" I say in return "tough shit for you" and close the tab, and move on.
It is the same treatment I'd give a business that would tell me that "negros and tattooed people not allowed."
Re:Shhh... Listen... by RyuuzakiTetsuya · 2011-11-09 09:24 · Score: 2

err, logic?
Steve Jobs' point was that they didn't support flash on the iPhone because it it was a giant stinker. He supported his reasoning with evidence.
Steve's not saying YOU can't have it on your phone, and if you want a phone with flash on it, go buy someone else's.
If you want plugins for your mobile browser, dont' use an iPhone. If you do, get an Android, or some other device that supports the feature you want.
You're chastising apple for not including a feature they didn't want to have in their product in the first place. How is this a failure of logic in relation to Steve's letter on flash?

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Re:Shhh... Listen... by Bing+Tsher+E · 2011-11-09 10:17 · Score: 1

It is the same treatment I'd give a business that would tell me that "negros and tattooed people not allowed."
You chose to uninstall Flash. What would you say to a business that said 'negros, tattooed people, and Flash not allowed" ?
Re:Shhh... Listen... by Mr+Bubble · 2011-11-09 10:17 · Score: 2

No, his logic was that it would suck the battery and resources out of the iPads and provide a bad touch experience - both of which would have reflected poorly on the product and on Apple had the customers installed it.
The public is not really tech savvy and would have installed it on their IOS devices and blamed Apple for the resulting security, usability, and performance degradations. Developers wouldn't have had a reason to use HTML5 and Adobe wouldn't have caved and thrown in with HTML5. Seems pretty logical to me. Choices like not using Flash are what made the iPad so useable and so different from all the other tablets that didn't sell worth a shit.
Also, let us not forget that, for all that time people bitched about Apple not having Flash, it was not available even for Android anyway. There was no product.

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"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
Re:Shhh... Listen... by Random+BedHead+Ed · 2011-11-09 10:36 · Score: 1

Well, yes, it did go to great lengths to (very reasonably) diss Flash, but my point is that Apple's judgment should have nothing to do with whether people can install Flash of their own volition. And saying you can use another product if you don't like it, while true, doesn't really make a case in favor of Apple.
Re:Shhh... Listen... by LinuxIsGarbage · 2011-11-09 10:42 · Score: 1

Flash is unviable even on a PC platform. Watching Youtube videos Flash's RAM consumption can climb over 1GB, and the CPU usage will be 3x what it would be to watch the video in VLC.
Re:Shhh... Listen... by BasilBrush · 2011-11-09 12:01 · Score: 1

If Apple did what you suggested, then web-sites would continue to use flash, and tall people without the plugin to install the plugin. Just as happens to users on PCs. And so the crap-fest would have continued.
Instead, Apple assured a better experience for users by not having Flash, and at the same time broke Adobe's business model, so that, as of now, Flash technology is on death row.
Apple did the right thing. And that's been proven today. You're suggesting the pathetic loser move that the rest of the industry has been making for years.
Re:Shhh... Listen... by Jaxoreth · 2011-11-09 14:54 · Score: 1

You chose to uninstall Flash. What would you say to a business that said 'negros, tattooed people, and Flash not allowed" ?
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArsonMurderAndJaywalking

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In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
Re:Shhh... Listen... by ytpete · 2011-11-09 23:06 · Score: 1

Jobs didn't blink when he said Flash will never work on mobile.
Comments like this are reading wayyy farther into the Adobe announcement than is warranted. Flash as a technology has been available on mobile devices in two forms for well over a year now: the Flash browser plugin, and AIR apps (essentially Flash apps packaged for distribution in app stores). On iOS, Apple disallows browser plugins, but AIR apps can and do run on iOS (i.e. Flash is ok as long as it goes through the App Store garden gate). The only part of that story Adobe said they're changing is the Flash browser plugin. Flash-based apps will continue to be possible, even on iOS.
Incidentally, some of the top-selling iOS apps running on Flash/AIR. So it's awfully hard to justify the claim that Flash will "never work on mobile" -- since it already works well on mobile, and has for quite some time.
Re:Shhh... Listen... by ytpete · 2011-11-09 23:22 · Score: 1

Except that Jobs calling Adobe lazy over Carbon/Cocoa (or 32/64-bit) was about as disingenuous as you can get. Apple dragged their feet far worse than Adobe did during that transition: Finder, QuickTime, Aperture, and Final Cut Pro all made very slow transitions to 64-bit / Cocoa. In the latter cases, the competing Adobe products (Lightroom, Premiere, After Effects) all finished the same migration about two years ahead of Apple's products.
Apple also publicly promised that 10.5 would support 64-bit Carbon as a transition stage. They even shipped multiple betas with that support in place -- only to yank it at the last minute, even though Cocoa at that time didn't have full parity with Carbon APIs.
So Apple reneged on a transitional API they said they would support, shipped a new API with missing features, and didn't even bother to convert most of their own flagship apps over to the new API... and then had the audacity to call others "lazy" for not instantly dropping everything and making that same conversion? Sorry, but that's politician-worthy behavior right there.
Re:Shhh... Listen... by UnknowingFool · 2011-11-10 02:07 · Score: 1

Again you can still code in Carbon today if you don't need all the advancements of Cocoa. 64-bit is one of them.

In the latter cases, the competing Adobe products (Lightroom, Premiere, After Effects) all finished the same migration about two years ahead of Apple's products.
Wikipedia says otherwise about Premiere and After Effects. They became 64-bit in 2010 after Finder and QuickTime. Please check your sources.

So Apple reneged on a transitional API they said they would support, shipped a new API with missing features, and didn't even bother to convert most of their own flagship apps over to the new API... and then had the audacity to call others "lazy" for not instantly dropping everything and making that same conversion? Sorry, but that's politician-worthy behavior right there.
Apple pulled 64-bit Carbon because only a few developers would use it and one of them was Adobe. The main reason Adobe didn't want to migrate to Cocoa is because they didn't to port. 64-bit was one reason. As for Apple not having their apps in Cocoa, you can still code in Carbon today but bitching that it doesn't have all the features or advancements of Cocoa when Apple laid out the plan ten years ago.

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Re:Shhh... Listen... by ytpete · 2011-11-10 07:39 · Score: 1

I'm comparing equivalent apps to each other. Lightroom went 64-bit over 1.5 years before Aperture (July 2008 vs. February 2010). Premiere and After Effects went to Cocoa/64-bit 14 months before Final Cut Pro (April 2010 vs. June 2011... and FCP X is much more limited). iTunes only just moved to Cocoa in July, and iLife/iWork are still Carbon afaik. I don't care if a few smaller Apple apps migrated over sooner -- if you sum it all up, Apple has no right to call others "lazy" over this transition.
Btw, I'm not saying Apple is lazy either. Rewriting any complex piece of software to use totally new platform APIs is a crap-ton of work. Apple puts third party devs (as well as themselves) through these massive transitions a lot, but it never really gets any easier...

The Whole Web by gwking · 2011-11-09 04:04 · Score: 5, Funny

But.. but... now how will I get the "whole web" experience?!

Re:The Whole Web by bberens · 2011-11-09 04:05 · Score: 4, Informative

Easy, you'll use the most recent version of the flash player on your Android device for the next 5 years or so while people migrate.

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Re:The Whole Web by xaxa · 2011-11-09 04:28 · Score: 4, Interesting

Easy, you'll use the most recent version of the flash player on your Android device for the next 5 years or so while people migrate.
I won't. The "built in" Flash on my HTC Desire keeps trying to update itself to the latest version via the Android Market, which uses the last few MB of space I have for apps. The only way I've found to prevent this happening is to "Clear Data" for the Market app -- deselecting the "Update automatically" box for Flash doesn't make any difference.
This annoys me greatly. It's supposed to be my device, HTC. (I would remove Flash completely if I could. I don't ever seem to visit websites that need Flash on my phone.)
Re:The Whole Web by amRadioHed · 2011-11-09 04:44 · Score: 2

Move flash to the SD card. Flash on my N1 only takes up 72KB.

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We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Re:The Whole Web by xaxa · 2011-11-09 04:55 · Score: 1

Move flash to the SD card. Flash on my N1 only takes up 72KB.
For some reason I don't have that option.
Re:The Whole Web by amicusNYCL · 2011-11-09 05:01 · Score: 1

On the Android market it's listed at 11.0.1.153, which is actually higher than the version I see ready to download when I go to Adobe's site on my desktop. So I guess it's not behind at all.

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"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Re:The Whole Web by HopefulIntern · 2011-11-09 05:05 · Score: 1

It's supposed to be my device, HTC.
Cyanogenmod now!
Re:The Whole Web by grub · 2011-11-09 05:14 · Score: 1

I'm confused as well. Does this mean Amateur Hour is back on?

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Trolling is a art,
Re:The Whole Web by amRadioHed · 2011-11-09 05:24 · Score: 4, Informative

Adobe never enabled it for Flash for some reason which I can't understand, but you can force it (and many other large apps) to SD by using an ADB command. Not all apps work from SD, but Flash works perfectly.
Leaving this option set can cause problems since you can't or don't want some apps moved to SD, so I just enable it temporarily when I have an app to move, then disable it again after by setting the option back to "0". Once the app is forced to SD it will stay there when it's updated in the future.

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We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Re:The Whole Web by jc79 · 2011-11-09 05:32 · Score: 2

If you want it to be your device, root your phone using Revolutionary. Install Titanium Backup. Use it to move updates to system apps into the ROM so you get more space for user apps.
Or go the whole hog and put CyanogenMod 7 on there. With S2E you can use a partition on your SD card as an extension of the /system filesystem and never run out of space for apps again. Other advantages of CM7 on Desire are increased battery life and control over how apps communicate ("Phone goggles"). The main disadvantage is the lack of HTC Sense and the integration between Sense apps, although for me that wasn't a particularly painful thing to lose. Other custom ROMs are available.
Re:The Whole Web by xaxa · 2011-11-09 05:57 · Score: 1

I will probably root it at some point, although I've had the phone for over a year and not had any issue annoying enough to make me do it. I've had to remove apps to save space though.
From the list on Wikipedia there are a few things I use regularly. I assume there are alternative Flashlight, Camera, Calculator, Clock and Alarm apps.
But without HTC Sense, would I still see contact details (phone number & email) from Facebook when sending a text, making a call, or writing an email? That's important. Would Facebook events show in the calendar? And can I still connect to an Exchange server for mail?
(I can probably find the answers myself, but I haven't had enough motivation yet.)
Re:The Whole Web by Binary+Boy · 2011-11-09 07:01 · Score: 1

Interestingly enough, this perfectly illustrates the folly of Flash on the Web. A single vendor controls the technology, and can pull the rug out from under it at any time, as they just did. The same cannot be said for HTML.
Re:The Whole Web by mlingojones · 2011-11-09 09:29 · Score: 1

This annoys me greatly. It's supposed to be my device, HTC. (I would remove Flash completely if I could. I don't ever seem to visit websites that need Flash on my phone.)
Not to rub salt in your wound, but this seems kind of ironic given that the logic behind a lot of the attacks on iOS is that users should be able to choose whether they want to use it or not. It seems to me that not having the option not to use Flash is just as bad as not having the option to use it.
Re:The Whole Web by ytpete · 2011-11-09 23:55 · Score: 1

Actually, the Flash file format is published openly and the entire Flash VM is open source. The fact that no one else seriously tried to create a Flash implementation doesn't mean it's not possible (although it's maybe a testament to the fact that what Adobe built was a lot harder than most people give them credit for).
Re:The Whole Web by rynoski · 2011-11-10 00:53 · Score: 1

Yes, you still have that integration and dont need sense.
I'm using the Oxygen ROM, it's great.
Sense was the flashing thing that made me get the HTC Desire, not that I have my Desire without it, I love it even more.
Head over here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=594

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There are two types of people in the world: 1) those that can extrapolate from incomplete data.
Re:The Whole Web by Kestrell69 · 2011-11-10 18:39 · Score: 1

Give it up. It's rather obvious from all of your postings on this topic that you're a shill. Hope they're paying you well for all the shite that you're vomiting forth.
Re:The Whole Web by ytpete · 2011-11-10 21:01 · Score: 1

Hmm, way to not actually respond to any of the points I was making. If I'm such a shill it should be easy to shoot them down, no?
Truth is, I've spent a bunch of years doing serious HTML/Javascript development and a bunch of years doing serious Flash development. I think I'm in a position to compare them fairly. There are lots of things on the web you should never use Flash for, but there are plenty of things where it's still clearly the better choice. So sure, I get annoyed and speak up when people who don't know any better run around screaming "omg Flash is teh sukz"... but believe me, I'm equally annoyed by people who are 100% all about Flash and can't build an HTML site/app to save their lives.
Re:The Whole Web by jc79 · 2011-11-10 23:04 · Score: 1

You would need to install the Facebook app and allow it to sync your contacts. You can link contacts from different accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc) in a similar way to Sense, once you have the apps install that access the accounts.
CM7 has flashlight (with super-powerful boost mode), camera (it doesn't have touch-to-focus but otherwise works well), calculator, clock and alarm. These are mostly stock android ones. If you want a clock/alarm/weather widget like the Sense one, you'll have to install an app like Fancy Widgets from the market. The default dialer can't do smart dialing (type a name on the numpad) but apps like Dialer One are available in the market.
I can't tell you if Facebook events show in the calendar, as that's not a feature I ever used anyway. I'd recommend replacing the stock calendar app with Touch Calendar (much easier to see your events than either the stock calendar or the Sense one). You can add an Exchange account for mail and contacts through the Accounts & Sync settings.
The lack of space issue was the main driver for me to root the phone. Once I had played with CyanogenMod for a few days, I could think of no reason to switch back to the stock ROM. Being able to make nandroid backups of your phone is an incredibly useful feature, as is the functionality provided by apps like Titanium Backup.
Re:The Whole Web by hotfireball · 2011-11-15 21:55 · Score: 1

Much shorter. Until critical security exploit found.

Rather Petty, Adobe... by Petersko · 2011-11-09 04:05 · Score: 5, Funny

Can't believe they would actually hold out until it was certain Steve Jobs couldn't say, "I told you so!"

Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by nschubach · 2011-11-09 04:15 · Score: 1

Yeah, I'm sure that was the plan.

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Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by Greystripe · 2011-11-09 04:16 · Score: 1

Considering how petty Adobe and Apple have been to each other over the years, this comes as no surprise.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by sundru · 2011-11-09 04:34 · Score: 1

See i wish more companies were like Adobe, they can see a losing argument and innovate on the the next steps. If this was some other big company like IBM or M$ theyd have code cronies hidden away on the dark side of the moon still chipping away at it ..
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by davidbrit2 · 2011-11-09 04:40 · Score: 1

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that were really the case. (As far as the timing of the announcement, at least. I'm sure there are various reasons behind the decision.)
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by hairyfeet · 2011-11-09 04:59 · Score: 2

What innovation? I have YET to see an HTML V5 site that didn't suck! I can watch full screen SD video even on this 1.8GHz Sempron I use as a nettop with NO GPU acceleration and it plays just fine, no skips no stutters. I try to play any site bragging about HTML V5 and even on my brand new dual core netbook its beats the CPU like a pimp dealing with a bitch late with his money. Of course it also looks like the video tag (which is all it is you know, its up to the browsers to decide what it means and Apple and MSFT have already said won't be Theora or WebM, seeing as how they both want to "fucking kill Google") will end up being H.264 so it will be just as damned proprietary as flash, so no gains there either.
So what do we gain? we get a "solution" that uses more resources than the one we had, is just as proprietary if not more so that the one we had, and which will mean many more machines that can play the original solution won't be able to play the new and will have to be shitcanned. You guys SERIOUSLY call this progress? Are you sure you don't work for Oracle or MSFT?

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ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by zieroh · 2011-11-09 05:09 · Score: 1

You're giving Adobe far too much credit. I don't think their current management team is bright enough to have thought of that.

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People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by king+neckbeard · 2011-11-09 05:17 · Score: 1

They are pretty good at marketing, they just don't have any competent programmers.

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Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by ConceptJunkie · 2011-11-09 05:31 · Score: 2

Actually, I would bet that they, like Microsoft, have tons of competent programmers, but no competent management.
You'd be amazed at how much damage management can do.

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You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by HarrySquatter · 2011-11-09 05:37 · Score: 2

I hate to break it to you but despite what you claim the flash video player is using gpu acceleration for scaling and colorspace conversion at minimum. On the other hand, the html5 player is most likely doing everthing in software hence the heavier cpu usage and less smooth playback.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by HarrySquatter · 2011-11-09 05:39 · Score: 2

Sure as long as we ignore the fact that that "standardized replacement" was born largely from webkit proprietary extensions developed by Apple (canvas being a huge one)
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by AmiMoJo · 2011-11-09 05:57 · Score: 1

Let's see, that's it for "openness" and "flash" so far as arguments for Android that have turned out to be colossal bullshit. What's next ?
Right, because very site that uses Flash will now instantly switch to HTML 5. Apparently it wasn't worth it just for iOS users, but now Android's support is only likely to last five or ten more years the urgency is clear.
I don't know what you mean about openness, it is still awesome. I loaded up a hacked version of BBC iPlayer (which uses Flash, at least until tomorrow's update) that works over mobile networks (normally it is limited to wifi), and then I installed the development version of RMaps because there are some handy new features that have not reached the stable version on the market yet. Best of all my friend is able to have my old HTC Hero as a going concern because Cyanogen is better than the official HTC ROM and up to date, rather than it becoming next to worthless.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by dbkluck · 2011-11-09 06:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

Steve Jobs can't say "I told you so," all Android users knew he was right (or should have, anyway): flash is crap and we wish the web would switch to something better. But we're not going to be the ones to cut of our noses to spite our faces by going without flash while it is still so pervasive on the web. Steve and his devoted market segment are making the sacrifice for us, and at the same time driving content providers away from flash while I get to enjoy the convenience of still being able to use the flash content from websites who haven't switched. I have nothing but gratitude for that. I'd never buy an Apple product, I don't agree with the man's business practices, and I think the godlike homage he's gotten in the past few weeks since his death unfairly ascribes to him a lot of technical knowledge more properly attributable to the Woz. But credit where credit is due, he repeatedly had the balls to say "this is an outdated technology, we're switching to something better, backward compatibility be damned. Our users will follow us through the rough transition and be glad of it." See OS9, the floppy drive, the PS/2 keyboard and mouse, and soon, hopefully, Flash.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by CharlyFoxtrot · 2011-11-09 06:38 · Score: 1, Insightful

Android's support is only likely to last five or ten more years the urgency is clear.
Android is not Windows. You think this plugin will keep working for another 5 years based on what exactly ? Android vendors can't even be bothered pushing the latest version of the OS to their customers, you think they're going to spend time making sure a dead technology works ?

I don't know what you mean about openness, it is still awesome.
The whole "You can just compile Android from source. Oh nvm, we're not going to give you the latest sources" thing.

I loaded up a hacked version of BBC iPlayer (which uses Flash, at least until tomorrow's update) that works over mobile networks (normally it is limited to wifi), and then I installed the development version of RMaps because there are some handy new features that have not reached the stable version on the market yet.
"You can hack applications!" Developers are just going to love that argument.
"You can install the latest unstable develoment versions!" Because that's the feature that has drawn the multitudes to desktop Linux.

Best of all my friend is able to have my old HTC Hero as a going concern because Cyanogen is better than the official HTC ROM and up to date, rather than it becoming next to worthless.
The ultimate Android argument: it's better because a team of volunteers has to spend their time hacking it into an actual non-sucking version which the customer then ultimately has to support themselves instead of their phone manufacturer. Relying on a third party version of an OS when Google has demonstrated that they have no problem keeping the source to themselves to provide their partners and themselves with a competitive advantage is building your house on quicksand.

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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by jones_supa · 2011-11-09 06:43 · Score: 2

Oh, why can't the web players (either Flash or HTML5) just throw the material on an YUV overlay like in the old days. If someone here wants to observe how much CPU is minimally needed, please grab some videos using youtube-dl and put them playing in mplayer.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by PwnzerDragoon · 2011-11-09 07:14 · Score: 1

Gee, it's almost like HTML5 is some sort of work-in-progress draft standard, that nobody should expect universal or efficient, complete support for yet.
Wait a minute... *looks at parent's username* Damn, I've been trolled.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by BitZtream · 2011-11-09 07:15 · Score: 1

You're an idiot. I can safely say this because you start off by saying:

I don't know what you mean about openness, it is still awesome.
And follow it up by saying:

I loaded up a hacked version of BBC iPlayer (which uses Flash, at least until tomorrow's update) that works over mobile networks (normally it is limited to wifi),
Its very open ... as you talk about hacking proprietary software to get it to work.
I could go on about the rest of your post but basically everything you're fanboying for in your post is a good example of something that is broken as well.
'I have to use the beta version because the stable one doesn't do what I want'
'I had to root my phone because I didn't like the original software and no one kept it up'
You really are just illustrating the original posts point ... Now that you got no flash, and you yourself are talking about proprietary apps and the non-openness of your own device, ah well, why bother. If you can't see how silly you look by rereading your own post, you probably never will.

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Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by BitZtream · 2011-11-09 07:18 · Score: 4, Interesting

You would be wrong. They may have SOME competent programmers, but they are a tiny minority at best.
Adobe's products will not run on case sensitive file systems.
NO amount of mismanagement can cause that. You can not end up in that situation with out actively doing things that are undeniably considered bad practice by anyone with half of a clue.

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Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by scot4875 · 2011-11-09 07:51 · Score: 1

When did the "openness" argument turn out to be bullshit? Has anyone told the Cyanogen team?
--Jeremy

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Jesus was a liberal
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by CharlyFoxtrot · 2011-11-09 08:18 · Score: 1

Please point me towards the Cyanogen mod versions based on Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich. Companies like Red Hat deserve praise for "openness" because they actually deliver it with their Fedora project, Google doesn't. Heck, even Apple has a better track record with releasing the OSX Darwin sources than Google has with Android.

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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by mcgrew · 2011-11-09 08:40 · Score: 1

Right, because very site that uses Flash will now instantly switch to HTML 5.
That was insightfully sarcastic. Why do you need a separate app to view a damned web page? If webmasters had a clue, they'd write straight HTML and can the CSS. My phone isn't an iPhone or Android, but it will play YouTube videos just fine. However, most text only websites won't render properly -- the text goes off the screen rather than wrapping like it should.
The problem is people making web pages who don't know shit about HTML, and use one of the HTML editors. If you want to make a web site, learn HTML. If you want your site to dosplay on a phone, don't use CSS. Actually, I'd say don't use CSS at all -- granny with her fifteen year old tewlve inch 640x480 monitor will have as much trouble as an iPhone user.

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Free Martian Whores!
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by ConceptJunkie · 2011-11-09 08:44 · Score: 1

Well, I won't argue the point. Adobe is extremely good at doing things extremely poorly. How many versions of the Acrobat Reader did we have to go through before it actually became decent? 4 or 5 according to my recollection. And then at that point it started becoming the bloated monstrosity it is today. The problem with Adobe Reader now is that it is huge and slow (although less slow than it used to be), yet 99% of its users don't need 99% of its functionality.
But at least the format is open. You can't say the same for Flash.

--
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by WiiVault · 2011-11-09 08:58 · Score: 1

Nice to see another WebOs guy (I think, or perhaps Symbian?) Same issues as you. And despite having Flash for WebOS, I'm still glad to see it die.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by RocketRabbit · 2011-11-09 09:20 · Score: 1

On my platforms HTML5 video is using the GPU. Then again I am using OS X and iOS 5. Flash won't even run on any of my machines because thankfully Steve said no on iOS and I uninstalled it on OS X. So, it doesn't get acceleration there.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by afabbro · 2011-11-09 10:38 · Score: 1

If webmasters had a clue, they'd write straight HTML and can the CSS. My phone isn't an iPhone or Android, but it will play YouTube videos just fine. However, most text only websites won't render properly -- the text goes off the screen rather than wrapping like it should.
The problem is people making web pages who don't know shit about HTML, and use one of the HTML editors. If you want to make a web site, learn HTML. If you want your site to dosplay on a phone, don't use CSS.

You apparently don't know what CSS is or what it's used for. Making a site work display well on a phone has zero to do with use of CSS (or not). In fact, it's much easier to make a site that renders nicely on all sorts of devices if you use CSS.
I can't comment on dosplay, but you do rant like someone who is still using MS-DOS.

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Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by afabbro · 2011-11-09 10:41 · Score: 2

Adobe's products will not run on case sensitive file systems.
I thought surely this must be hyperbole, but no.

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Advice: on VPS providers
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by hairyfeet · 2011-11-09 11:09 · Score: 1

Okay genius you explain to me how flash is doing GPU acceleration on a Riva TNT2 because THAT is what is in the Sempron. It draws the screen at native 1600x900 so I never bothered to put anything bigger, still plays SD video just fine too in dragon.

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Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by AmiMoJo · 2011-11-09 12:08 · Score: 2

Android vendors can't even be bothered pushing the latest version of the OS to their customers, you think they're going to spend time making sure a dead technology works ?
Yes, because their customers want it. Plus they don't actually have to do anything to support it, that is all down to Google, and historically they have been excellent when it comes to maintaining browser APIs.

The whole "You can just compile Android from source. Oh nvm, we're not going to give you the latest sources" thing.
We shall see when ICS source is available. I was thinking more along the lines of "at least they try to provide source and don't lock out anything and everything they don't approve of, and it costs nothing to write and publish apps for and is compatible with all open source licenses", but okay I'll give you Android 3 is not fully open source.

"You can hack applications!" Developers are just going to love that argument.
So? "You can copy CDs!" Music labels are going to love that argument. The right to own a thing, the right to do what you want with it is important to me. More over screwing your customers to keep developers happy is not a business model I wish to promote or encourage. And yeah, there are plenty of Android developers and plenty of good apps, and while there might not be 1,000 versions of a cracked screen or fart noise generator I think I can live with it.

"You can install the latest unstable develoment versions!" Because that's the feature that has drawn the multitudes to desktop Linux.
Who said anything about unstable or development versions? 2.3 is a full retail release, nice and stable. It is interesting that you mention Linux because a lot of people here got pretty upset when it looked like OEMs might lock out non-Microsoft operating systems by requiring the bootloader to be cryptographically signed. I'll decide what I run on my hardware, thanks.

The ultimate Android argument: it's better because a team of volunteers has to spend their time hacking it into an actual non-sucking version which the customer then ultimately has to support themselves instead of their phone manufacturer
Try calling Apple to see if they will offer you some support for a 1998 Power PC Mac. See how useful it is as a general purpose computer these days. Then install Linux or a hacked MacOS update that bypasses the arbitrary lock-out on older systems and see how much better it is. Then appreciate that you saved a perfectly good computer from landfill and can maybe give it to someone who doesn't want to invest a lot of money in a new one.
My friend is like that, he had a basic dumb Nokia but was interested in Android, just not willing to plump down the cash for a new phone or long term contract. Now he has a 1 month rolling contract SIM in an old but good phone which runs up to date software with excellent stability. HTC's support for shite anyway, especially since they apparently didn't update the manuals when the 2.1 update came around.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by BasilBrush · 2011-11-09 12:18 · Score: 1

See i wish more companies were like Adobe, they can see a losing argument and innovate on the the next steps.
The time for seeing the losing argument and doing HTML5 dev tools was last year when Steve Jobs told them straight. Waiting 18 months to announce they're going to take Steve's advice is far from innovative.
Nor would Adobe still be using Carbon a decade after they were told it was a transitory technology and Cocoa was the future.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by ytpete · 2011-11-10 00:00 · Score: 1

There are lots of Flash-based apps on iOS (see: Adobe AIR). You probably just don't notice it because you assume everything related to Flash sucks, and it never occurred to you that apps you actually like might be using Flash under the hood...
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by ytpete · 2011-11-10 00:09 · Score: 1

Job's complaint about Adobe & Carbon is slimy enough to run for Congress -- and a nasty case of the pot calling the kettle black. If you want to hear the real facts, I posted about this earlier in the thread.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by mcgrew · 2011-11-10 02:08 · Score: 1

You apparently don't know what CSS is or what it's used for.
Yes, I do know. It's to make it so that you don't have to change 200 web pages to change the look of your site, just change a single CSS file. But that's not how it's usually used. It's usually used in an attempt to make a page render the same on all screens, and that's just not possible.
CSS, as it's usually used, does in fact break phone displays, since webmasters are using absolute positioning. And yes, you don't need CSS to make this mistake, but CSS makes that mistake easier.
As to using MS-DOS, my phone's OS is probably even more primitive than that. I'm running kubuntu 10 and Win 7 on the PC and notebook.

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Free Martian Whores!
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by CharlyFoxtrot · 2011-11-10 04:09 · Score: 1

Yes, because their customers want it. Plus they don't actually have to do anything to support it, that is all down to Google, and historically they have been excellent when it comes to maintaining browser APIs.
This isn't a browser API, this is a binary blob. Backwards compatibility isn't free it takes work, work that won't help Google sell ads. I don't buy it but time will tell.

Who said anything about unstable or development versions? 2.3 is a full retail release, nice and stable. It is interesting that you mention Linux because a lot of people here got pretty upset when it looked like OEMs might lock out non-Microsoft operating systems by requiring the bootloader to be cryptographically signed. I'll decide what I run on my hardware, thanks.
You did (I was talking about apps): "I installed the development version of RMaps because there are some handy new features that have not reached the stable version on the market yet."
When it comes to deciding what you run on your hardware there is no good choice in the mobile market, there's no open hardware platform. You can't assemble your choice of hardware and then run your choice of OS on it, it simply doesn't exist. Doing things like putting Android on a TouchPad or iPhone requires a lot of hacking, reverse engineering and redevelopment of missing parts.

Try calling Apple to see if they will offer you some support for a 1998 Power PC Mac. See how useful it is as a general purpose computer these days. Then install Linux or a hacked MacOS update that bypasses the arbitrary lock-out on older systems and see how much better it is. Then appreciate that you saved a perfectly good computer from landfill and can maybe give it to someone who doesn't want to invest a lot of money in a new one.
Actually a late 90's G3 Powermac can run OSX up to Tiger (slowly, Panther would be a better choice) Personally I'd take Panther or Tiger over Linux every day. I've tried running Linux on "exotic" (i.e. non-x86) hardware, like my old RS/6000 (also a PowerPC), I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than try that again. Even it were easy modern distros don't care about old hardware, so you'd have to go with a specialized cut down one or roll your own, either way it's not going to look anywhere near as nice as an older version of OSX.

My friend is like that, he had a basic dumb Nokia but was interested in Android, just not willing to plump down the cash for a new phone or long term contract. Now he has a 1 month rolling contract SIM in an old but good phone which runs up to date software with excellent stability. HTC's support for shite anyway, especially since they apparently didn't update the manuals when the 2.1 update came around.
Good for him (no sarcasm intended.) Personally I'd rather spend the money on an iPhone and get decent support and don't have to worry about his sort of thing but to each his own.

--
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by HarrySquatter · 2011-11-10 06:46 · Score: 1

Shaders.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by hairyfeet · 2011-11-10 08:42 · Score: 1

Apparently you don't even know what a Riva TNT2 is do you? You might want to read here and be sure to note that NOWHERE do you see the word shader, that is because this card is so old it didn't use shaders in the modern sense, it was a buffer design ala the Voodoo 2. BTW it isn't even the top of the line one with decent buffers and a 64bit pipe, but the Vanta OEM which had been made for OEMs because Nvidia found they had many chips that wouldn't even reach the 100MHz clockrate or take the 64 bit bus so Nvidia was one of the first to sell its chips that didn't pass muster as a slower model, in this case an 80MHz clock and only 16bit bus with 12Mb of RAM. You will also note that it is a Dx6 card and the absolute lowest Adobe says they support is Dx9, more than 3 generations newer.
So just admit your wrongness and accept it. There is no way in hell a Dx6 card with only 16bits and 12Mb of RAM can accelerate shit when it comes to FMV of ANY sort, much less flash. hell this card didn't even accelerate DVD, this was the days when you would buy an MPG2 card if you wanted to watch DVDs.

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ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Re:Rather Petty, Adobe... by RocketRabbit · 2011-11-11 16:55 · Score: 1

It's pretty obvious to me when applications are using Flash on the iOS. For one flash font rendering still sucks, especially compared to Apple's work there.

At last! by Yvan256 · 2011-11-09 04:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

Mobile being the future of the Web, it should also means the end of Flash on the desktop in a few years. Nobody's going to waste money doing Flash for the desktop and HTML5 for the mobiles, especially when the desktops can already do HTML5 too.

Applications done in Flash but compiled to Adobe Air is okay, just don't trash the Web with the stupid plug-ins.

Next step: agreeing on a CODEC for the HTML5 videos*. That's gonna be a fun topic!

* doesn't the tag allow for two source files? If it doesn't, it should!

Re:At last! by afabbro · 2011-11-09 04:08 · Score: 1

Mobile being the future of the Web
OK, who let the Gartner fanboi in...

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Advice: on VPS providers
Re:At last! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-09 04:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

Actually, A lot of corporations use flash for things like elearning and some of them are generations behind (like fp8 if you're lucky).
HTML5? I still have to support IE8, sometimes even IE7 in my webapps.
Try telling a fortune 500 company they should upgrade all their browsers to the latest IE. I have and its a pretty short conversation. They know the cost will be in the millions and they are more than happy to continue on using ancient technology.
Re:At last! by Hentes · 2011-11-09 04:20 · Score: 1

Multiple source files means multiple times the space usage.
Re:At last! by Pi1grim · 2011-11-09 04:22 · Score: 1

Actually noone cares about the protections. Studios will either concentrate on quality and convenience of the products delivered or will continue to create more and more elaborate DRM protection schemes untill noone cares enough to buy any of the stuff.
Re:At last! by Canazza · 2011-11-09 04:28 · Score: 1

what are you on about?
So long as you can get the absolute reference to the .flv you can download it, regardless as to whether it's flash or HTML 5. Add on to that the fact you can use FRAPS or most other Screen Recorders to capture the video should the stream be encrypted and it doesn't matter either way.
Flash is dominant in the video space because it got there first. The .flv format is reasonably good compression wise, and it plays MP4s as well, so most of the web video is currently encoded in one of those formats. The reason it's staying there in the face of HTML5 video is that most browsers are capable of displaying flash (and therefore the video) in EXACTLY the same way from EXACTLY the same source.
until HTML5 can offer that, or until flash is abandoned by Adobe entirely, HTML5 will lag behind.

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It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
Re:At last! by Yvan256 · 2011-11-09 04:29 · Score: 1

It's easier to block ads servers.
Re:At last! by mahomedalid · 2011-11-09 04:35 · Score: 1

FYI Adobe buyed Phonegap. "PhoneGap is an HTML5 app platform that allows you to author native applications with web technologies and get access to APIs and app stores. PhoneGap leverages web technologies developers already know best... HTML and JavaScript."
Re:At last! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-09 04:39 · Score: 1

Next step: agreeing on a CODEC for the HTML5 videos
Followed by: A solution for LIVE video.
I rarely see this topic (live video) mentioned. ATM, there appears to be no working system for delivering live video in a "one-to-many" format using HTML5. Current (i.e., non-HTML5) options include Flash Media, Windows Media, or Quicktime.
I look forward to being corrected. Seriously.
Re:At last! by grumbel · 2011-11-09 04:43 · Score: 5, Insightful

So long as you can get the absolute reference to the .flv you can download it,

That's why a lot of flash is streamed these days, so you don't have a flv that you can just grab out of your Temp folder. If you know a way to easily and quickly download content directly from say http://www.thedailyshow.com/, let me know, last time I looked, there wasn't any working one on Linux.

Add on to that the fact you can use FRAPS or most other Screen Recorders to capture the video should the stream be encrypted and it doesn't matter either way.
That's complicated and cumbersome, as it it forces you to not use your computer in the mean time or it will run the video. It also forces you to download in real-time, which is the very thing you normally would want to avoid with a download.

Flash is dominant in the video space because it got there first.

Flash wasn't the first, ActiveX and Quicktime where much earlier. Flash won because it was the best and could do things that no other thing could do at the time. Even today HTML5 is still far away from being a fully working Flash replacement. Remember, Flash isn't just video, it's also a pretty damn good game development platform and animation toolkit.
I fear that the only thing that will change with Flash gone is that webpages will switch to ever more obscure Javascript hacks to protect their content from manipulation. A Flash object can easily and comfortably be blocked with Flashbock, some Javascript hackery is far harder to handle.
Re:At last! by Surt · 2011-11-09 04:44 · Score: 2

It's funny, but he is right. Desktop and laptop sales are already in decline. It's gonna be all virtualization on dense servers and thin clients, just like Sun thought (but about a decade late to save them).

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"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Re:At last! by pmontra · 2011-11-09 04:47 · Score: 1

You're right but there is more: we also need a solution for video and audio input, used by video conference and live streaming services.
Re:At last! by neonKow · 2011-11-09 04:54 · Score: 1

Multiple source files means multiple times the space usage.
Yeah, but you're talking web apps. We care about file size because of bandwidth far more than space usage, because that is where the costs are going to be. And maybe some less significant costs involved in CPU cycles for processing videos (converting into multiple files, etc.?). The end user won't download both source files.
Re:At last! by Hentes · 2011-11-09 05:04 · Score: 1

True but in the same space you could just use Theora (that every browser supports) in higher definition thus countering its shortcomings.
Re:At last! by neonKow · 2011-11-09 05:23 · Score: 1

I'm not sure what your point is. Making other formats available in addition does not exclude Theora.
Re:At last! by king+neckbeard · 2011-11-09 05:26 · Score: 1

That's why a lot of flash is streamed these days, so you don't have a flv that you can just grab out of your Temp folder. If you know a way to easily and quickly download content directly from say http://www.thedailyshow.com/ , let me know, last time I looked, there wasn't any working one on Linux.
It's a bit more convoluted than it used to be, but most sites still use /tmp on the GNU/Linux client, they just erase the file just after it's creation, so, you have to get it from /proc. http://n00bsys0p.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/how-to-download-flash-10-2-video-streams-in-linux/ explains how to do this, along with other sites.

Flash wasn't the first, ActiveX and Quicktime where much earlier. Flash won because it was the best and could do things that no other thing could do at the time.

No, Flash won because sites kept telling people to download this plugin or that plugin (quicktime, realplayer, some other random proprietary solution), and that got annoying since half of the time it was malware. People already had Flash because of Newgrounds and some other game sites, so sites that had flash video were less annoying in that regard.

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Re:At last! by ConceptJunkie · 2011-11-09 05:34 · Score: 1

You are greatly underestimating the willingness of the majority of people to part with their beloved media. Piracy isn't quite that easy for everyone... yet.
As for me, as long as they keep publishing MST3K DVDs, I'll be happy.

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You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Re:At last! by ConceptJunkie · 2011-11-09 05:37 · Score: 1

Are you saying IE supports Theora? ...not that I care what IE supports since the only thing I use it for is download Firefox and using the web interface for Microsoft Project at work (which is quite possibly the most poorly-designed web app I've ever used).

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You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Re:At last! by Hentes · 2011-11-09 05:40 · Score: 1

My point is that in the same space it leads to better image quality to use a widely supported but inferior codec at higher bitrate than to support multiple better codecs at lower bitrate.
Re:At last! by jc79 · 2011-11-09 05:40 · Score: 1

Why does video conferencing need to be a web app? It's not as if there aren't hundreds of clients available on any mobile platform for exactly this purpose. I'm not sure direct hardware access (to cameras, microphones etc) from the browser is such a good idea anyway, without some very strict security enforcement, which will no doubt vary wildly in implementation from browser to browser.
Re:At last! by Hentes · 2011-11-09 05:46 · Score: 1

I'm not sure IE supports HTML5.
Re:At last! by FireFury03 · 2011-11-09 05:47 · Score: 1

It's funny, but he is right. Desktop and laptop sales are already in decline.
They are probably in decline because people have realised that their 5 year old computer doesn't need replacing. Gone are the days when you had to upgrade every year - modern computers are pretty much as powerful as most people need.

It's gonna be all virtualization on dense servers and thin clients, just like Sun thought (but about a decade late to save them).
I don't see many applications seriously moving to the cloud. People still want to be able to do stuff when there is no internet access. E.g. I use my computer to do off-line stuff like word processing, watching videos, etc. when I'm on the train, sure I have 3G internet access but it is slow, incredibly unreliable and battery hungry, so forcing me to use a remote server would be unacceptable (and also pointless - modern phones are powerful enough to run stuff like a word processor, why on earth would you cripple them by forcing them to be thin clients?)

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http://blog.nexusuk.org
Re:At last! by hairyfeet · 2011-11-09 05:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

Y'all wanna know why desktops and laptops are in decline? I hate to break the news to ya but it ain't because everyone is using an iPad, it is because as we system builders that are still doing well in this economy can tell you for several years the PC has been "good enough" and there simply is no killer app that makes users need to switch!
I have several customers who do their daily computing on what guys here would laugh at, late model P4s with a Gb of RAM and a couple hundred Gb HDD, but why should they switch? Webmail, FB, farmville, these things just don't slam even a 3.2Ghz P4 with HT, much less all those dual cores that have been sold since 06. hell my boys are both on hand me down Pentium Ds and when I offered to build them something bigger they were both "Uhhh...why? Our stuff works fine." all they do is surf and play MMOs and with both boxes having Radeon HD4850s everything just works fine.
The problem is too many in the industry as well as my fellow system builders got used to the "MHz Wars" where everyone tossed every 3 years and which gave them constant churn and that just isn't the case anymore. Hell i always built myself a new PC every year and a half but my AMD quad is going on 3 years now and will probably last me another 5 or more, why should I switch? My games play just fine, I have 8Gb of RAM and 3Tb of space, and I can always slap in a replacement for my HD4850 or upgrade my CPU to a 6 core later on down the road if I need more power. But as it is all my games play at my screens native 1600x900 smooth, video transcoding is nice, everything "just works" and now that I finally replaced my old laptop for a dual core netbook I honestly can't see myself needing another PC for several years.
So PCs aren't going anywhere, it is simply everybody has one. With cell phones folks chunk when the 2 year contract is up so that is creating churn and the tablets simply haven't be around long enough for everybody who wants one to have already bought one. I'm actually seeing quite good sales on the new AMD Brazos netbooks, I think the problem in that market is in the race to the bottom too many OEMs chose Atom without ION and that equals painful, but the Brazos has a nice Radeon built in and does full 1080P and plays WoW so everyone likes those. hell in my own family we have something like 7 desktop and 4 laptops, what would we do with more?
The ones that survive are gonna be smart and doing value add like me. I show folks how they can organize and stream everything with an HTPC, how to make that late model P4 or early dual into a great PC media center for the kids, how to set up sharing networks so you can drag and drop between every machine in the house, how to have it all "just work" wirelessly. PCs aren't going anywhere, if anything everyone has so many of them now nobody knows what to do with them. the smart guys will be showing them how to get the most out of what they have.

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ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Re:At last! by pmontra · 2011-11-09 06:01 · Score: 1

I confess I never used it but WebEx, which is a big name in enterprise video conferencing, apparently uses Java from within the web browser. It's not Flash but it's about as secure.
Re:At last! by loufoque · 2011-11-09 07:01 · Score: 1

Mobile being the future of the Web
It's that kind of stupid thinking that generates economic bubbles that end up in recessions.
Of course it's not the future of the web. The web is mostly a tool for people to get work done, to access to information and to entertain themselves. The desktop and laptops are the best way to experience all three of these things.
Mobile is just to get information on the go. It's a substitute, not the real thing. Entertainment on the go is basically low-quality games to keep you busy while waiting in public transport, and no one gets their work done using a smartphone unless they're quite desperate and it's the only thing they have access to.
It's not the future of the Web more than RSS is the future of HTML.
No one in their right mind would choose to use a smartphone to do something when they have a computer that can do it far better.
Re:At last! by BitZtream · 2011-11-09 07:30 · Score: 1

Desktop and laptop sales are already in decline.

Yes, thats what happens when you are at the end of a new product life cycle. The previous 10-15 years not everyone owned a laptop or computer so sales were 'higher than normal' as people bought them.
Now we're at the replacement stage. (well, not completely but pretty close).
Computers are now purchased as replacements for existing equipment, the sales rate will remain fairly flat from now on.
Virtualization isn't going to lower the number of servers out there, just change how they are used. Virtualization isn't really new in the data center, its just not something you've dealt with as you've not worked in a large data center. Its been going on since the mainframe days, it just seems special now as PCs have gotten to the point of being powerful enough to make virtualization worth talking about (that and the hardware support helps). Virtualization just adds at best another more memory intensive layer into the stack we've already been using for years. If anything it will actually cause an increase in resource usage, not a decrease.
Sun wasn't the first to think of Thin clients, and this is the second time 'the cloud' has been 'the next big thing' in my short life time. This cloud is better connected, but otherwise the same as the last cloud. We called them VANs (value added networks) and used them primarily for EDI translation, but otherwise the data flowed over the exact same physical connection types as it does today. The networks never go away, but popularity ebs and flows as people ride fads without understanding why they are doing it. Basically people like yourself cause these things to be 'the next big thing' ... again ... because you just don't bother to know your history.

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Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Re:At last! by BitZtream · 2011-11-09 07:38 · Score: 1

People already had Flash because of Newgrounds and some other game sites
No ... people had flash because its come preinstalled since Windows XP at least. Whatever site you reference that few people have ever heard of has nothing to do with it.

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Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Re:At last! by BitZtream · 2011-11-09 07:40 · Score: 1

Your logic is simply invalid and unquantifiable.

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Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Re:At last! by Americano · 2011-11-09 07:58 · Score: 1

modern phones are powerful enough to run stuff like a word processor, why on earth would you cripple them by forcing them to be thin clients?
You wouldn't. You'd write a word processor that resides native on the device and makes use of the local processing power, and tie its filestore to a service like dropbox, where the relatively small text document can be autosaved, and then available from any device with access to that dropbox store.
And then you'd realize that services like dropbox can easily cache content locally on the device, and that if network connection cuts out, you just wait for network connectivity to resume and then resync with your "cloud" storage. Wireless internet access will only continue to get faster, more ubiquitous, and less power-hungry.
I doubt many people are ever going to be running entire word processing applications over the network, but I think it's likely we'll continue to see more and more application data move into the "cloud," which will be the reference data which will be (perhaps) mirrored to local on-device caches while you're using it.
Re:At last! by king+neckbeard · 2011-11-09 08:01 · Score: 1

XP was 2001. Newgrounds was 1995. Back in the day, it was one the most popular websites on the internet, and was probably the biggest site for Flash content.

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This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Re:At last! by Ogi_UnixNut · 2011-11-09 08:07 · Score: 1

I just downloaded the video using the "Flashgot" plugin for firefox. Alas, the video only says "This content is unavailable from your location", but I have the flv on my box right now. Try it yourself and see if it works (I presume you can view the actual videos).
Re:At last! by mcgrew · 2011-11-09 08:25 · Score: 1

Desktop and laptop sales are already in decline
That's because everyone already has one that's good enough, for the first time in computing history. Hell, my main box I built out of five year old junk parts, and it does everything I need it to (including playing videos).
Phones will eventually go into decline as well as soon as the upgrade treadmill stops, like it finally did with PCs and laptops. Of course, it won't go into as steep a decline, because phones break and get lost, unlike desktops.
gonna be all virtualization on dense servers and thin clients
No it won't. It won't be long before your phone has as much computing power as your desktop does now. A smartphone is already more powerful than the most powerful computer in existance in 1972 (the Cray).

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Free Martian Whores!
Re:At last! by Surt · 2011-11-09 08:33 · Score: 1

It's headed for the thin client model because the internet now has high enough bandwidth to effectively stream any application, and the client (phone/tablet) has the display and processor to display it. Moving the computation off the client is about control, not performance.

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"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Re:At last! by BasilBrush · 2011-11-09 08:45 · Score: 1

Desktop and laptop sales are already in decline.
PC Desktop and laptop sales are in decline. Macs are growing 21.5% year on year.
Re:At last! by shmlco · 2011-11-09 09:32 · Score: 1

"Y'all wanna know why desktops and laptops are in decline?"
Well, except for Apple. What is it? Six straight years of end-over-end gains?
"... but it ain't because everyone is using an iPad..."
Okay. But Apple sold 40 million of them, and that's 40 million sales that could have gone to notebooks or netbooks, but didn't. And IDC said that tablet sales will be equivalent to 15% of the PC market in 2011.
"The ones that survive are gonna be smart and doing value add like me."
I think there's still a few places where you can find people to setup component stereo systems too. Doesn't mean that they're mass market products.
Don't get me wrong. There are still plenty of reasons that someone might want a desktop or notebook. But some of those needs are currently being fulfilled with smartphones and tablets, and as those devices get better and better (up to the PC "good enough") PC sales will continue to decline.

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Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Re:At last! by jbolden · 2011-11-09 09:38 · Score: 1

You should look at the statistics at work from home and the savings in terms of real estate which was always Sun's position. Sun (Scott McNealy) was absolutely right about the whole distributed computing paradigm. The problem was there was no compelling reason to use Sun to implement it and Java may very well have hampered the effort.
Re:At last! by jbolden · 2011-11-09 09:40 · Score: 1

modern computers are pretty much as powerful as most people need.

Hah! Have you tried websites lately. Megs and megs of interpreted code with function calls multiple levels deep. Javascript is a power hog that is going to make the GUI revolution look like nothing. Its just the hardware guys aren't improving things as fast as they used to. I've love to buy a machine 10x faster than the one I have.
Re:At last! by Bing+Tsher+E · 2011-11-09 10:30 · Score: 2

Not really. I don't know of anybody who has switched to a Mac recently. I bet most other people reading this thread don't either. But keep rollin' the astroturf, dood.
Re:At last! by FireFury03 · 2011-11-09 11:05 · Score: 2

You wouldn't. You'd write a word processor that resides native on the device and makes use of the local processing power, and tie its filestore to a service like dropbox, where the relatively small text document can be autosaved, and then available from any device with access to that dropbox store.
So, uhm, how is that different to what we have now? Except for the fact that you're building remote file system drivers into the individual applications rather than the OS, which is moronic. We can already mount remote filesystems and save files to them, what you're suggesting is nothing new.
I'm getting more and more tired of the push to "cloud computing" which perpetually seems to mean running things in your web browser. The original idea of "cloud computing" was that your PC is a thin client and the application is mostly on a remote server and is being displayed by your web browser. Then people realised that that was largely a bloody stupid idea (because network access is *not* ubiquitous!) and so now "cloud computing" seems to often involve having a local application running in your web browser. So the only difference between "cloud computing" and "regular computing" is that you're running everything inside a web browser, requiring orders of magnitude more resources to do what we've already been doing for years natively. The whole concept is idiotic.

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http://blog.nexusuk.org
Re:At last! by Americano · 2011-11-09 11:23 · Score: 1

So, uhm, how is that different to what we have now?
Noticed that, did you? Say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss.
Only real disagreement I have with you is your comment about network access being ubiquitous. For a vast majority of us, it already is via - at a minimum - 3G on a mobile, and the coverage continues to improve, and will continue to improve; During the course of my normal day, I am never out of range of a cell network, and I'd venture a bet that a fairly high percentage of the population (certainly higher than 50%) works under similar conditions. If you live in any reasonably well populated area... you've likely got access to at least one 3G provider.
As you said, the "original" cloud idea was of a thin client, but that is no longer the case - terms evolve. What "cloud" computing is now is mostly a marketing term that means your data gets stored somewhere off in a server farm, and it's accessible via the internet. Not particularly fancy, and not anything we haven't been capable of doing for years now, but that doesn't mean it's a useless concept. Not sure why you seem so particularly offended by what is, essentially, a marketing term.
Re:At last! by BasilBrush · 2011-11-09 11:47 · Score: 1

You might not know anyone. I get disgruntled PC users asking me for advice about buying their first Mac quite often.
That 21.5% Mac growth is coming from somewhere. And given the PC's decline, it's easy to see where.
Re:At last! by jo_ham · 2011-11-09 12:47 · Score: 1, Informative

It's not "astroturfing" when it's using actual, published numbers.
Apple is one of the few PC vendors growing their marketshare at the moment in hardware (and this is *not* including iOS devices - those are measured separately). It's not a torrent, but it is measurable, non-negligable, year-on-year growth for the past few years.
Just because you personally don't know anyone who bought one doesn't make anything that contradicts your single-data-point-anecdotal opinion automatically an astroturf attempt.
But then, you won't believe me because I'm contradicting you. First google hit though:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/may/24/apple-sales-growth-pc-market
Re:At last! by xhrit · 2011-11-09 17:09 · Score: 1

^This. My own system was state of the art 3 years ago, when I built it myself from parts I bough off newegg. It was specifically designed as a high end system to play the most advanced games available on the highest detail settings. Since that time, no game has had higher system requirements. Every new game is targeted to the mid range celerons and geforce 7s found in the xbox and ps3.

The next time I will need to upgrade my PC will be in 3 years when game developers start making games for the next generation of console.

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Dungeon Tactics : Free Open Source SRPG
Re:At last! by Jonner · 2011-11-09 21:15 · Score: 1

HTML video elements can specify any number of sources AFAIK. Exploiting this will be essential for a long time I'm afraid. Standardized codecs won't be possible until the scourge of software patents has been vanquished, which won't happen in our lifetimes.
Re:At last! by FireFury03 · 2011-11-09 22:50 · Score: 1

Only real disagreement I have with you is your comment about network access being ubiquitous. For a vast majority of us, it already is via - at a minimum - 3G on a mobile
I frequently travel by train and I can tell you that 3G is *not* ubiquitous. I have frequent drop outs - its enough for a bit of web surfing so long as you're happy to wait 5 minutes for the signal to come back every so often, but I wouldn't want to work over it. Not only do trains pass through areas of poor coverage, they also pass through tunnels where there is *no* coverage. I also frequently go to reasonably remote parts of the country where there really is no 3G signal (e.g. on the Isle of Skye I get no mobile phone signal at all anywhere on the island). Another important factor is going abroad - with MNOs charging 10gbp per megabyte for roaming data, you can bet I expect pretty much everything to work without network access. 3G is also a bit of a battery hog, so if you can avoid using it you get much better battery life.
Modern computers are vastly powerful and have huge amounts of disk space, why on earth would we want to cripple them by tieing them to a network for things that fundamentally don't need to be done remotely?

Not sure why you seem so particularly offended by what is, essentially, a marketing term.
I get slightly annoyed at people using meaningless terminology to pass something that is no different to what we have already been doing for years as if it were new.

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http://blog.nexusuk.org
Re:At last! by Americano · 2011-11-10 03:45 · Score: 1

"For a vast majority of us, it is already ubiquitous."
Not "It is ubiquitous for everybody everywhere." Many - probably a majority - of the people around you are never out of range of a decent connection to a cell tower during their normal daily routine. The last time I was off the network was when I was on a plane at 40,000 feet. You apparently travel out of range of a network connection frequently, and happily, there will always be the option of local non-networked storage for you. And for those of us who are increasingly able to have a network connection anywhere we go... tying into the network can save us a lot of time and hassle.
As a counter-example to your off-the-grid living, I work and play on 3 separate computers - 2 laptops and a desktop - a smart phone, and an iPad - services like Dropbox and other sync/filestore services are a godsend for me. I don't have to spend 20 minutes searching for "that one version of the file that I made when I was at that client site, and saved to some network location on one of those computers, but now can't remember where it was..." - before services like that, I emailed stuff to myself constantly. Email was my on-the-go version control, transfer & sync service, and it was a nightmare to manage without losing changes. I think the "cloud" has plenty to offer people with appropriate use cases, and I don't think for a second that it will ever replace stand-alone computers, merely augment them.
Re:At last! by shmlco · 2011-11-11 04:52 · Score: 1

"No. Most of those people would NOT have bought an extra PC, even if no tablets of phones existed."
Really? People didn't buy notebooks when they had desktops? People didn't buy super small and light netbooks when they already had a 10 lb. "desktop replacement" notebooks? People who had 15" MBPs didn't buy Airs for meetings and on the go type things?
People didn't buy a newer, lighter notebook because the bought an iPad? And people -- like me -- didn't give his mom an iPad so she could have email and stuff, and not a desktop or notebook.
All of those people add up...

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Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.

Really?! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-09 04:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if 750 voices screamed out in terror and were laid off. But that noise was overshadowed by everybody else celebrating.

Seriously?? _THAT_ submission made it to the front page with _THAT_ tidbit?? There wasn't another submission that didn't make light of people losing their jobs?

Come on, Slashdot - I know you're trying to generate page views and whatnot to increase revenues but can we please stop being complete asses about it. Eventually you'll start driving people away which will DECREASE page views...

Seriously...

Re:Really?! by peppepz · 2011-11-09 04:15 · Score: 1

I don't think many people will lose their jobs. Adobe will probably re-target the development tools they sell to produce HTML5 instead of flash. They wouldn't announce the plan to phase out flash without having a viable migration path for their business model.
Re:Really?! by peppepz · 2011-11-09 04:22 · Score: 1

OK they will. I failed to read TFA.
Re:Really?! by bwintx · 2011-11-09 04:23 · Score: 2

From TFA (the third one):

approximately $70 million to $75 million related to employee severance arrangements

...which translates to an average of $100K per job. Granted, some folks get a lot and some don't; but in many companies, severance translates to a pittance if it happens at all. Just sayin'.

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Discussion System prefs link: http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=editcomm
Re:Really?! by Canazza · 2011-11-09 04:30 · Score: 2

750 people are losing their jobs. It says so in the article. Hell, it says so in the Summary. Albeit obtusely.

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It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
Re:Really?! by peppepz · 2011-11-09 04:43 · Score: 1

Yeah, I'm a moron, I think I broke the world record of not even reading TF summary. I had skipped the "layoff part :-P .
Then I strongly agree with the AC I was responding to. Quite an asshole wording they chose.
Re:Really?! by jellomizer · 2011-11-09 04:50 · Score: 1

FTFA "In order to better align resources around Digital Media and Digital Marketing, Adobe is restructuring its business. This will result in the elimination of approximately 750 full-time positions primarily in North America and Europe."
It doesn't say all the people are getting laid off. Some of them will be moved into Open Positions in other areas, Other Positions were Open and will not be filled. Some may be retiring or quitting anyways, and not will be filled in. If Adobe HR is worth their weight they will be doing this then just canning 750 people.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:Really?! by idontgno · 2011-11-09 04:59 · Score: 1

I suspect there are many anti-Flash bigots who feel that 750 unemployed is a small price to pay. As long as they're not the ones getting the pinkslip.

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Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Re:Really?! by Ultra64 · 2011-11-09 05:05 · Score: 1

I laughed.
Re:Really?! by impaledsunset · 2011-11-09 05:58 · Score: 3, Insightful

So you're worried more about certain people who would have to find new jobs rather than something that could potentially improve the Internet significantly for everyone? Would you rather we have a proprietary plugin like Flash as a defacto standard forever just to help them save their precious jobs? I'm not making light of people "losing" their jobs, I'm happy about it. And not because it is something good, but because it enables something good to happen.
Re:Really?! by Jonner · 2011-11-09 21:17 · Score: 1

If someone can't transition from Flash development to using web standards, she probably deserves to lose her job.
Re:Really?! by gmhowell · 2011-11-15 20:59 · Score: 1

I'm not making light of people "losing" their jobs, I'm happy about it. And not because it is something good, but because it enables something good to happen.
If 10,000 men would cheer the death of one man, the life of that one man is worth more than those 10,000 men.
This comment cries out for a Godwinning.

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Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon

writing has been on wall by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-09 04:07 · Score: 1

In the moment Apple chose not to include Flash support in the iPhone, Flash on mobile devices was doomed. The period between then and now was just the death throes.

Re:writing has been on wall by MadKeithV · 2011-11-09 04:16 · Score: 1

In the moment Apple chose not to include Flash support in the iPhone, Flash on mobile devices was doomed. The period between then and now was just the death throes.
In a way the situation reminds me of the days when Microsoft killed Netscape by bundling IE. I have visions of years of subpar HTML5 support driven by Apple iOS "quirks", and holding off on HW acceleration on the web just as it seemed to start gaining traction with Flash 11 and WebGL.
Maybe Google can still make a dent with NaCL.
Re:writing has been on wall by bonch · 2011-11-09 04:50 · Score: 2

Yeah, not including support for a proprietary, third-party plug-in rife with performance issues and security vulnerabilities is definitely the same thing as pumping a new market with a free product funded by revenues from the monopoly product.
Actually, no, it's not. Not at all.
Re:writing has been on wall by MadKeithV · 2011-11-09 04:55 · Score: 1

You do realize that Google (among _many_ others) are heavily behind HTML5 as well, right? Though Apple championed it, they are far (FAR) from the only company involved in HTML5 development and deployment.
Of course I realize that - what I mean is that I fear for a large chunk of the market how it works on iOS will be the benchmark. In that scenario, if Apple decides to be quirky that quirk will end up being the de-facto standard for HTML5. If Apple decides that some part of the evolution of HTML5 doesn't fit into their business model, that part will fail to gain traction. I'm thinking specifically of some form of hardware accelerated 3D (and 2D) for browsers, which seems to now be a lost cause with Microsoft and Apple dropping WebGL, and Adobe taking their mobile Flash 11 ball and going home.
Re:writing has been on wall by MadKeithV · 2011-11-09 05:06 · Score: 2

Yeah, not including support for a proprietary, third-party plug-in rife with performance issues and security vulnerabilities is definitely the same thing as pumping a new market with a free product funded by revenues from the monopoly product.
Actually, no, it's not. Not at all.
IMHO there's not that big a cognitive gap between using a position of power to bundle something to damage a competitor, or using that position of power to specifically disallow the competitor. The effect is the same.

Also, for all its faults Flash is/was widely supported with relatively few hiccups, and for my particular purposes the hardware acceleration for 3D graphics in Flash 11 was a very big deal for cross-platform & mobile 3D.
Now the only conclusion I can make is that the web will not be the platform for me in the medium-term future, and I think that's a shame.
Re:writing has been on wall by LingNoi · 2011-11-09 05:25 · Score: 1

Why exactly is IOS the benchmark? It's a minority platform regardless of how devote its followers are. Even on my Mac I don't use safari, hell none of my friends do either so I fail to see why you think a minority player in the market can have such a big effect.
Re:writing has been on wall by iluvcapra · 2011-11-09 05:50 · Score: 1

Why exactly is IOS the benchmark? It's a minority platform regardless of how devote its followers are.

It is not a minority of mobile browsing. A majority of people run Android but they seem to use their phones more like featurephones.
It's also a good benchmark because it's a relatively old, known and predictable quantity. Everybody knows what mobile Safari is and does, its competitive and it's been out for a long time, it doesn't do anything remarkably novel or unusual that would make it difficult to compare to other browsers, and the experience of using it is basically the same regardless of hardware.

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Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Re:writing has been on wall by LingNoi · 2011-11-09 06:01 · Score: 1

Rather then pick a news website I actually dug up some stats..
http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-ww-monthly-201010-201110
It's behind both opera and android with the trend that android is gaining more traction.
Not only that but your typical iPhone owner is going to be the first to ditch their product for the latest shiny which is even less incentive to waste money dealing with it.
Re:writing has been on wall by iluvcapra · 2011-11-09 06:44 · Score: 1

What's weird is that that breakdown separates iPhone and iPod touch into separate columns, even though they run the same browser. (Also for whatever reason, the bar graph and line graph views of the same data give values that differ by several percent.)
I mean you want a link for actual stats... here. The discrepancy with StatCounter is that they don't call an iPad "mobile," which wouldn't seem to matter except that it literally gives one browser a 20% advantage. They probably should at least account for that, iPads are 25 million ad-viewing, website-browsing machines.

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Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Re:writing has been on wall by ConceptJunkie · 2011-11-09 08:04 · Score: 1

Netscape had a significant hand in killing themselves. I used Netscape from version 1. At the time, it was awful, but more or less the only option. By version 2, it was a decent program and version 3 was even better. Microsoft had come out with IE in the meantime and it wasn't any great shakes. But when that Vista-like trainwreck that was Netscape 4 came out, I promptly switched to IE. When IE 4 came out shortly after that, it was clear Microsoft's browser had won by being better.
Yes, Microsoft has a monopoly, which has never been adequately addressed in the courts, but they abused their monopoly position for many years before IE came around. Bundling IE was a blip on the radar compared to the way they competed unfairly through undocumented features going all the way back to before Windows 3. Nevertheless, Netscape lost the browser war because of their own doing and not just because MS could give their competing product away for free, and bundle it with new versions of Windows.
Fortunately, Mozilla and Google have won the war back, and for the same reason: better products. Even Microsoft's monopoly which is still extremely powerful and very capable of competing unfairly, couldn't beat superior products by nimble competitors while it took them years to lumber back into motion to produce improved versions of IE that were too little, too late.
If Netscape had remained significantly better than IE, I think history might have gone a little differently. I'm not trying to absolve Microsoft, but occasionally they actually have been able to compete by having better products.

--
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Re:writing has been on wall by UnknowingFool · 2011-11-09 08:21 · Score: 1

Few hiccups? Obviously you only use Flash on Windows. For those of us who use OS X, Linux, or mobile devices, hiccups are normal. It's gotten better but it hasn't been exactly smooth.

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Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Re:writing has been on wall by LingNoi · 2011-11-09 15:42 · Score: 1

iPad isn't a mobile browser, it's a tablet browser. It's a bigger screen size and useless data to combine when you're trying to figure out which device (which only has 600 pixels max) you should target first.
Re:writing has been on wall by MadKeithV · 2011-11-09 20:09 · Score: 1

Few hiccups? Obviously you only use Flash on Windows. For those of us who use OS X, Linux, or mobile devices, hiccups are normal. It's gotten better but it hasn't been exactly smooth.
My experience of using Flash has been on various flavours of Windows starting with Win2K, on OS X and on Linux (on an Atom netbook even). I've had fewer niggles with flash across those platforms than annoying differences in browser rendering. I know the plural of anecdote is not data, and I have no idea how much work has gone into the flash I've used to make sure they do work across platforms, but it *did* work *for me*.
Re:writing has been on wall by UnknowingFool · 2011-11-10 02:14 · Score: 1

One recent example is when Adobe changed the cookie behavior. In Windows, you could correctly set the cookie settings and Allow or Deny the flash object to set a cookie. In OS X, it showed you the dialog box to Allow or Deny but you could not click anything on it. But that meant the dialog never went away so you could not interact with the flash object or watch it. If you set the cookie settings to always deny, it still showed the dialog box. The only way to workaround it was to always Allow. It was fixed later but that's a hiccup.

--
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.

Die, you monster! by T-Mckenney · 2011-11-09 04:07 · Score: 1

Buuuurrrrnnnnnnn....

I'm not celebrating by nedwidek · 2011-11-09 04:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

It is really nice that on my Asus Transformer, every website I've used just works. Compare that to my iPod touch and the iPad where I just get a big lego piece.

Until all websites stop using Flash, this sucks.

--
Post anonymously - For when your opinion embarrasses even you!

Re:I'm not celebrating by bonch · 2011-11-09 04:51 · Score: 1

Until all websites stop using Flash, this sucks.
The discontinuation of Flash on mobile devices will be a hugely motivating step.
Re:I'm not celebrating by neonKow · 2011-11-09 04:55 · Score: 1

You should probably stop visiting Lego.com
Re:I'm not celebrating by DinDaddy · 2011-11-09 05:10 · Score: 1

Compare that to my iPod touch and the iPad where I just get a big lego piece.
Really? I am going to have to start surfing more flash sites on my wife's ipad and beef up my lego collection.
Re:I'm not celebrating by eht · 2011-11-09 05:27 · Score: 1

Or take a minute to complain to those device manufacturers. The more they get bitched at the sooner they'll update. It makes more sense to updates the couple of million devices than the billions of web sites.
Re:I'm not celebrating by Espectr0 · 2011-11-09 05:47 · Score: 1

it's not like they will stop working, you will have flash installed. they will keep releasing bugfixes. It's just that there won't be a flash 12 on mobile devices.
It's not that bad.

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Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
Re:I'm not celebrating by Pope · 2011-11-09 06:11 · Score: 1

Amusingly enough, Lego.com is very Flash-dependent!

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It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Re:I'm not celebrating by Jonner · 2011-11-09 21:23 · Score: 1

It is really nice that on my Asus Transformer, every website I've used just works. Compare that to my iPod touch and the iPad where I just get a big lego piece.
Until all websites stop using Flash, this sucks.
Maybe you don't realize that the only way to prevent the Lego piece from appearing on you iPad is to also make it appear on the Transformer. Web developers don't want to (and shouldn't have to) use totally different methods to make their sites work on different devices. It really seems Adobe is really becoming less evil.

It's a shame when a buggy proprietary de-facto by Brannon · 2011-11-09 04:10 · Score: 1

standard is ruthlessly cut down in its prime by an evil corporation pushing open standards.

Re:It's a shame when a buggy proprietary de-facto by Nerdfest · 2011-11-09 04:13 · Score: 1

Right ... like the connector, FaceTime, etc. It's good to see it dying, but please.
Re:It's a shame when a buggy proprietary de-facto by bonch · 2011-11-09 05:06 · Score: 1

You cite hardware and software standards that pertain only to Apple devices. Adobe tried to push its proprietary plugin on the whole web in place of HTML5.
Re:It's a shame when a buggy proprietary de-facto by GameboyRMH · 2011-11-09 06:18 · Score: 1

The protocol is SIP, yes, but it uses a so-far proprietary HTTPS-based lookup service hosted by Apple to connect peers. From what I understand it should at least accept regular SIP calls though, in theory there's nothing keeping it from placing regular SIP calls either, but given Apple's record, they're probably worried that a SIP URI would make the user's head explode.

--
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Re:It's a shame when a buggy proprietary de-facto by makomk · 2011-11-09 08:29 · Score: 2

Don't forget Apple's showcase of what HTML5 could do that sniffed browser user agents and refused to run on anything except Safari - because Apple would hate for anyone, especially the press, to get the impression that this new standard HTML5 could run on anything else.
Re:It's a shame when a buggy proprietary de-facto by Nerdfest · 2011-11-09 10:56 · Score: 1

They also claimed they were making it an open standard immediately. To date, they've been advertising it heavily as "communicate between iPads, iPods, and Macs". Major dick move. Pushing H.264 over WebM is another strike against open standards.

Multiple source files by Yvan256 · 2011-11-09 04:10 · Score: 3, Informative

Yes, it does! Hurray! - Dr. Zoidberg

Is this really good news? by Alien+Being · 2011-11-09 04:10 · Score: 1

This description from Wikipedia makes it sound like they're just moving Flash into a bigger container.

Adobe Integrated Runtime, also known as Adobe AIR, is a cross-platform runtime environment developed by Adobe Systems for building Rich Internet Applications (RIA) using Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, HTML, and Ajax, that can be run as desktop applications or on mobile devices.

Re:Is this really good news? by nschubach · 2011-11-09 04:19 · Score: 1

This description from Wikipedia makes it sound like they're just moving Flash into a bigger container.
It's not like they are moving it into AIR. It has always been a major part of AIR.

--
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.

uh by bhcompy · 2011-11-09 04:12 · Score: 2

Why does everyone think that HTML5 is the answer when even desktop browsers can't get it uniformly implemented? Mobile browsers are still mostly shit from a compliance and capability perspective compared to the desktop browsers that still can't get it right. Not sure where all this pie in the sky idealism comes from

Re:uh by bobcat7677 · 2011-11-09 04:37 · Score: 1

HTML does have a long way to go to be "there". But really, this is more about getting away from flash then going to HTML5. It wasn't just Steve Jobs that hated Flash...there were/are many many other people out there (including me) that passionately wish flash was never born. The wild popularity of flash blocking plugins is a small glimpse of that passion.
Re:uh by gnasher719 · 2011-11-09 04:44 · Score: 1

Why does everyone think that HTML5 is the answer when even desktop browsers can't get it uniformly implemented? Mobile browsers are still mostly shit from a compliance and capability perspective compared to the desktop browsers that still can't get it right.

Most browsers installed on mobile devices are based on Webkit, and there is not much reason to change the code from the code for a Webkit-based desktop browser like Safari.
Re:uh by bhcompy · 2011-11-09 04:45 · Score: 1

So what do we use in the meantime that all browsers can implement? Java? That's already proven to be a dog, as much of a dog as Flash.
Re:uh by bhcompy · 2011-11-09 05:14 · Score: 1

Most in terms of installed base, yes, because Android, Safari, and BB browsers are Webkit-based, but IE, Opera, and FF are not. And, of course, that doesn't mean the Webkit-based browsers all support the same functionality or meet the same standards.
Re:uh by Fahrvergnuugen · 2011-11-09 06:27 · Score: 1

What are you talking about? WebKit (aka, 95% of the mobile browsers + Desktop Chrome & Safari) does an extremely good job with HTML5.

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Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
Re:uh by Billly+Gates · 2011-11-09 07:07 · Score: 1

HTML 5 is the answer.
Most *modern* browsers support it, including IE. Besides the desktop is old like the mainframe before it as mobile access will overtake the desktop browsing. Most people at work shouldn't be on the net anyway unless it is a corporate site to do work.
Mobile browsers can do everything. My Andriod phone is more capable than the latest version of IE even. In 3rd world countries it will be the prefered way to get on the net and HTML 5 will be there. Think China, Asia, Africa, and Russia as the majority of internet users running Andriod, Windows Phone, and IOS. Not Americans on desktops.
I just hope old versions of IE die which are holding it back. IE 8 is still considered new and will be the next thorn in the side of any html 5 developer until 2019 when support ends for business. If the economy recovers businesses wont do these crazy 12 year life cycles anymore. Or until MS includes IE 10 with Win 7 SP 2 cd. We can only hope.In that regards you are right but I feel consumers will upgrade more often if the default machine/CD automatically installs the later browser as MS had to do that with XP to finally kill IE 6.

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http://saveie6.com/
Re:uh by fiannaFailMan · 2011-11-09 11:42 · Score: 1

Why does everyone think that HTML5 is the answer when even desktop browsers can't get it uniformly implemented? Mobile browsers are still mostly shit from a compliance and capability perspective compared to the desktop browsers that still can't get it right. Not sure where all this pie in the sky idealism comes from
It comes from open source fundamentalism. Anything proprietary is evil in the /. mind. Flash has taken a lot of flak here over the years for that reason. In fact Flash is probably one of the most unfairly maligned products I've ever seen mentioned on /.
HTML 5 has taken a long time to come around, Flash was a great interim measure that allowed us to spend the last 5 years watching video and enjoying interactivity on the web in the days when a HTML page was written in stone once it was rendered. Sure, some people abused it with annoying "skip intro" pages and springing audio on the unsuspecting user, but that's not the technology's fault. JavaScript has been abused a whole lot more (popups, pop-unders) but it never seemed to generate the same amount of vitriol. I think it was just a personal thing. Flash was beloved of the more artistic types and the engineering types didn't like it or their creations.

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Drill baby drill - on Mars
Re:uh by Jonner · 2011-11-09 21:29 · Score: 1

The idealism comes from the fact that major browser incompatibilities have been overcome in the past. It's no longer necessary to resort to ugly hacks to get a page to render the same in modern browsers like it was in the days of IE6. People will do whatever's necessary to make sites work well. Since they can't depend on Adobe, they'll have to depend on consensus, which is the only reason the Internet and web have worked at all.
Re:uh by bobcat7677 · 2011-11-10 06:29 · Score: 1

Adobe has nothing to gain. They lose. I am just saying there were ALOT of people that didn't like flash (Jobs being one of them) and Abobe's bad news is good news to them.

Laid off by rabenja · 2011-11-09 04:20 · Score: 5, Informative

My friend sent me an email yesterday: "I'm about to go into a meeting where Adobe is laying off my whole team." He had worked on Flash for many years since Macromedia owned the project. After the meeting he said, "Just got out of meeting, I have a job until April 20, paid thru May 15, decent severance, but job will end."

Re:Laid off by Vince · 2011-11-09 04:32 · Score: 1

He's in the Bay Area? He'll probably only have 20 new job offers by the end of the week. Must be rough...
Re:Laid off by rabenja · 2011-11-09 04:38 · Score: 3, Informative

We are in the Minneapolis area where a tech recruiter friend of mine emailed me this morning regarding his layoff: "IT unemployment in the Twin Cities is currently at 1.7%, so most of our clients have to use us because they can't come close to finding/recruiting talent on their own." I do not think that my friend will have much trouble in this area.
Re:Laid off by rayharris · 2011-11-09 04:43 · Score: 1

If they had developed a plugin that didn't drain the battery and have reliability and performance issues, maybe they'd still have a job.

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I void warranties.
Re:Laid off by tyrione · 2011-11-09 05:05 · Score: 1

My friend sent me an email yesterday: "I'm about to go into a meeting where Adobe is laying off my whole team." He had worked on Flash for many years since Macromedia owned the project. After the meeting he said, "Just got out of meeting, I have a job until April 20, paid thru May 15, decent severance, but job will end."
Cry me a River. Everyone gets laid off in the IT Industry once or twice, or better yet, ride a few Start up collapses.
Re:Laid off by amicusNYCL · 2011-11-09 05:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

He had worked on Flash for many years since Macromedia owned the project.
Is he one of the people I can blame for the bugs from back then that still exist today? I kind of feel like a dick for saying it, but maybe if his team were better at their jobs then they would still have them.

--
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Re:Laid off by Pieroxy · 2011-11-09 05:10 · Score: 1

My friend sent me an email yesterday: "I'm about to go into a meeting where Adobe is laying off my whole team." He had worked on Flash for many years since Macromedia owned the project. After the meeting he said, "Just got out of meeting, I have a job until April 20, paid thru May 15, decent severance, but job will end."
So what should you do? Keep old and irrelevant products alive so that everyone can eat?
We're doing that in France, and look where it got us. We're gonna have to change, but people got used to being paid doing nothing, so that's going to end pretty badly.
The end of a product is always sad for those that were deeply invested in it. But that's life.

--
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Re:Laid off by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-09 05:12 · Score: 1

+1. The Flash development team are a bunch of incompetent cunts, especially their Mac and mobile programmers.
Re:Laid off by jawtheshark · 2011-11-09 06:00 · Score: 1

Keep old and irrelevant products alive so that everyone can eat? We're doing that in France
Minitel still exists? ;-)

--
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Re:Laid off by GameboyRMH · 2011-11-09 06:20 · Score: 1

I don't think even an ex-Macromedia employee would be able to stomach what he'd be doing to the web by working for Apple...

--
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Re:Laid off by iceaxe · 2011-11-09 06:49 · Score: 1

My condolences to your friend.
That does give a good amount of time to find the next job, though. Quite a bit better than my two experiences with layoffs. While that's no real consolation for the inevitable stress, it's at least some time to work it out.

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WALSTIB!
Re:Laid off by elsurexiste · 2011-11-09 07:22 · Score: 1

Keep old and irrelevant products alive so that everyone can eat? We're doing that in France, and look where it got us.
Names, please. :) I'll guess ILOG.

--
I rarely respond to comments. Also, don't ask for clarifications: a brain and Google are faster, believe me!
Re:Laid off by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2011-11-09 07:39 · Score: 1

My friend sent me an email yesterday: "I'm about to go into a meeting where Adobe is laying off my whole team." He had worked on Flash for many years since Macromedia owned the project. After the meeting he said, "Just got out of meeting, I have a job until April 20, paid thru May 15, decent severance, but job will end."
Since most of the other responders are being twits...
I'm sorry to hear your friend is losing his job. I expect he'll quickly find another one, but still - I know from personal experience how it hurts to lose a job you've worked at for years (in my case, the lab I worked at closed when the director retired).
I'm not sorry to see Flash becoming less relevant; but I still sympathize with your friend and wish him well as he moves on to new things.

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#DeleteChrome
Re:Laid off by phorm · 2011-11-09 08:36 · Score: 2

Who's responsible, the developer that doesn't fix a bug, or the manager that tells the developer "don't waste time working on that bug, work on *money gathering fancy feature X* instead"?
Re:Laid off by Pieroxy · 2011-11-09 10:22 · Score: 1

The entire country is doing it. As soon as someone loses a job, the government start paying. Granted, this is limited in time, but still 18 month!
When there is nothing due left, anyone can apply for the RMI, which is basically the government giving away money so that people can eat. No need to work, no need to be looking for a job, nothing is due back.

--
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Re:Laid off by Pieroxy · 2011-11-09 10:24 · Score: 1

Minitel is going to stop soon IIRC. Checked, June 2012.
So yes, it still exists.

--
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Re:Laid off by fiannaFailMan · 2011-11-09 11:44 · Score: 1

He had worked on Flash for many years since Macromedia owned the project.
Is he one of the people I can blame for the bugs from back then that still exist today? I kind of feel like a dick for saying it, but maybe if his team were better at their jobs then they would still have them.
As well you might. Do you write perfect bug-free code?

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Drill baby drill - on Mars
Re:Laid off by jawtheshark · 2011-11-09 12:08 · Score: 1

Holy fuck... I remember the 3615 ads on TF1 while watching cartoons. (May have been Club Dorothée, but that might have been another channel). The fact that I still know it's 3615, just means those ads did work. I've never used it as I don't live in France.

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Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Re:Laid off by amicusNYCL · 2011-11-09 14:36 · Score: 4, Interesting

Do you write perfect bug-free code?
Is that what I claimed?
Do I have errors in my currently supported applications that were originally reported 8 years ago? No, I don't. You know what else I don't have? The resources of a $13 billion market cap, or 750 ex-programmers.

--
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Re:Laid off by amicusNYCL · 2011-11-09 14:38 · Score: 1

Who's responsible, the developer that doesn't fix a bug, or the manager that tells the developer "don't waste time working on that bug, work on *money gathering fancy feature X* instead"?
Don't worry little guy, when I say "his team" I'm talking about the managers also.
But if you must know, instead of blaming the guy who doesn't fix it, or the manager who doesn't prioritize it, I'm going to go ahead and blame the guys who designed and implemented it.

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"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Re:Laid off by ytpete · 2011-11-10 06:41 · Score: 1

Man, I am so tired of this meme going around. Have you ever quantitatively compared Flash's performance to HTML? Because others have, and they found Flash to be twice as fast . Have you ever quantitatively measured Flash's impact on battery life? Because it turns out battery life is almost exactly the same as equivalent HTML content (despite running 2x-4x faster in many cases). And do you have statistics on how often Flash crashes on mobile devices, compared to other apps? In my experience at least, Safari on my iPad crashes more often than Flash on my Android devices (which has never crashed to my knowledge).
Re:Laid off by NoGenius · 2011-11-10 09:37 · Score: 1

You are right...you are a dick.

One closed platform down! by StripedCow · 2011-11-09 04:21 · Score: 1, Insightful

I feel sorry for the creators of all the flash content, but OTOH, they should have thought better when they chose that platform in the first place.

The next closed platform to tackle, iOS?

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If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.

Re:One closed platform down! by Surt · 2011-11-09 04:46 · Score: 1

It's already dieing. Down to the #2 mobile platform, and falling fast.

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"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Re:One closed platform down! by DinDaddy · 2011-11-09 05:23 · Score: 1

Yup. Look at it fall:
http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Screen-Shot-2011-11-06-at-11-6-10.40.33-PM.png
Re:One closed platform down! by Karlt1 · 2011-11-09 06:06 · Score: 2, Informative

http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/21/861-5-percent-growth-android-puny/
But Android users don't buy apps....
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/21/861-5-percent-growth-android-puny/
They don't surf the web
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20128243-264/android-browser-bumps-opera-for-no-2-spot/?tag=mncol;txt
And even 2/3rd's of Google's mobile traffic comes from iOS devices....
http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/two-thirds-of-googles-mobile-search-traffic-comes-from-ios-devices-18718/

You are doing it wrong by Hentes · 2011-11-09 04:22 · Score: 5, Funny

You are not supposed to use a browser on an Apple device. You have to download an app for every webpage you want to visit.

Re:You are doing it wrong by Dr+Herbert+West · 2011-11-09 04:28 · Score: 1

MOD PARENT +1 AWESOME!
Re:You are doing it wrong by characterZer0 · 2011-11-09 04:51 · Score: 1

Why is this modded funny?

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Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Re:You are doing it wrong by edxwelch · 2011-11-09 04:52 · Score: 1

Because the modders have a sense of humour?
Re:You are doing it wrong by HopefulIntern · 2011-11-09 05:09 · Score: 1

Because hyperbole is being used humorously.
Re:You are doing it wrong by blackraven14250 · 2011-11-09 05:17 · Score: 1

Tell that to my SGS, and any of the newer generation phones, on which flash runs perfectly fine for the most part. It takes a horribly inefficient Flash file to cause a slowdown.
Re:You are doing it wrong by colsandurz45 · 2011-11-09 05:22 · Score: 1

You are not supposed to use a browser on an Apple device. You have to download a 99 cent app for every webpage you want to visit.
Fixed that for you.
Re:You are doing it wrong by Cougar+Town · 2011-11-09 06:01 · Score: 1

No, you don't. What are you talking about?
Woooooosh... he was making a joke. Many iPhone apps are just a website wrapped up in an app that you have to install and download.

Flash performs so poorly on mobile devices
It performs perfectly and smoothly on my Nexus One. The only things I've found that didn't work well were things that also had issues in a desktop browser. Not that I'm defending Flash and wouldn't like to see it die... just pointing out that your statement isn't true in at least my case.
Re:You are doing it wrong by Jicehix · 2011-11-09 06:11 · Score: 1

Good old times, if you ask me.

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Jicehix
Re:You are doing it wrong by GameboyRMH · 2011-11-09 06:13 · Score: 1

It's TEH FYOOCHAR!

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"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Re:You are doing it wrong by ndege · 2011-11-09 06:32 · Score: 1

So many [stupid] websites have code in the site that, as soon as you visit, a pop-up with a message something to the effect of, "Welcome Apple iPhone user! We have an app for our website, why don't you use that instead!" then, tiny text to actually attempt to view the site. Not only that, but often, the website then attempts to give me a mobile "optimized" version of the website. Dang it! I don't want an optimized version with limited functionality.
To solve this, I have installed and use the Terra web browser on my iPad2 as it can masquerade as different versions of IE or Safari. Much of the time, I run in "IE" mode so that websites don't suspect I am running through the ipad; then I always see the "real" site.

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Sig Return: 204 No Content
Re:You are doing it wrong by scot4875 · 2011-11-09 08:09 · Score: 1

I somehow was using Flash back in the early days of the web on desktop computers with less RAM and CPU power than phones have now. There's no reason it can't be used now.
That said, I'm glad Flash will finally be dying. I'm pretty convinced that once better technologies came along (HTML5, etc) it would have died off eventually anyway, regardless of its lack of support on iOS devices. I don't even have Flash installed on my phone, but that's by *choice* -- something that an Apple fanboi wouldn't really understand.
--Jeremy

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Jesus was a liberal
Re:You are doing it wrong by sessamoid · 2011-11-09 12:54 · Score: 1

Tell that to my SGS, and any of the newer generation phones, on which flash runs perfectly fine for the most part. It takes a horribly inefficient Flash file to cause a slowdown.
This is a contradiction in terms. Either it runs "perfectly fine" or it doesn't.

--
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
Re:You are doing it wrong by blackraven14250 · 2011-11-10 03:11 · Score: 1

It runs as well as it does on a standard, 2 year old Dell. That's exactly the standard an average person is going to hold mobile Flash to.

Flash to HTML5 movement is not new to Adobe by Superken7 · 2011-11-09 04:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

Everybody knew eventually this was going to happen. Adobe started transitioning to HTML5 years ago. Clearly they aren't there yet, but this is proof that progress is being made. (finally! the end of flash is not near, but it's certainly coming!)

It's almost 2012, I think Adobe is doing this at the right time now that most browsers are starting to be fairly HTML5-complete (as complete as HTML5 itself is, which is not _that_ much).

I know many now think "Steve Jobs was right!". Well, I don't think it took a genius to know that this was coming, Adobe has been preparing for it ever since HTML5 started going big (thanks to Apple and Google, among many others). I would not say this is Adobe "finally giving in" to Steve, because Adobe has never really opposed HTML5 AFAIK. Flash has always been complementary to stuff the web was not ready for; even if we hate flash that's why it existed. Now its 2012, not 2007, and most people are ready to go HTML5 and definitely drop flash (wide browser support, more mature spec, somewhat consistent across browsers, etc.. at least compared to 2007).

Re:Flash to HTML5 movement is not new to Adobe by bonch · 2011-11-09 05:12 · Score: 1

Well, I don't think it took a genius to know that this was coming
It took someone with the balls to stand up to Adobe and the raging Apple-haters, though. Maybe in time Google will stop hypocritically bundling Flash in its "open" browser as well.

Flash has always been complementary to stuff the web was not ready for; even if we hate flash that's why it existed.
Flash existed to tie the web to a proprietary platform belonging to one company.
Re:Flash to HTML5 movement is not new to Adobe by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-09 05:18 · Score: 1

>> Well, I don't think it took a genius to know that this was coming
No, but it did take the success of the iOS devices. What if iOS had supported Flash from the start? I can't imagine that we'd be reading this news today. iOS forced websites to transition to HTML5 for video and not rely on flash for other site features. It's very rare these days that I encounter a website that doesn't have HTML5 video delivery as an option, or a site that doesn't have an HTML version. Car manufacturers seem to be one of the few holdouts in that they still have largely flash sites.
Re:Flash to HTML5 movement is not new to Adobe by mr.dreadful · 2011-11-09 05:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

"I don't think it took a genius to know that this was coming, "

No, but it took huge balls at the time to say "we're not supporting this anymore. " Apple did the same thing with the 3.5" floppy disk and adopting the USB port on iMacs back in the day and got roundly mocked for it, until the PC makers started following suit a few years later. Whatever Jobs was, he was certainly a visionary. Apple was never afraid of break convention when they felt it was the right thing to do. What other companies can we say that about (seriously, what other PC manufacturers have down this? I'm genuinely curious.)
Re:Flash to HTML5 movement is not new to Adobe by LingNoi · 2011-11-09 05:37 · Score: 1

If anyone is hypocritical it's apple...
"We believe the web should be open", they said in their abode speech, yet that didn't stop them from refusing to support either WebM or vetoing that OGG should become part of the standard (due to their contributions in the h.264 patent pool).
Re:Flash to HTML5 movement is not new to Adobe by 0ld_d0g · 2011-11-09 06:28 · Score: 1

How exactly did Apple standing up to Adobe have any effect? On the Desktop side Apple choosing to not ship with flash (I reckon many OSX users would install it anyway) only affects about 5% of web users. My guess is that most websites ignored that fact. Do you have any data on that?
OK so in the mobile/tablet space Safari is at roughly 60% market share. But then again, sites which had mobile versions of their pages were already non-flash anyway. You could present a reverse argument to your position that since Adobe tried to sue Apple into shipping flash on iOS (or w/e) .. it means they were "scared" and hence it means Flash was threatened. It won't be much of an argument - more like opinion. Unless you're some kind of mindreader ;-)
And yeah.. flash sucks :-) I hope they eradicate that malware installer/CPU hogger piece of crap as soon as possible.
Re:Flash to HTML5 movement is not new to Adobe by yabos · 2011-11-09 06:41 · Score: 1

I recently(last few weeks) saw a video of a tablet release(can't remember what unfortunately), and the CEO of Adobe was up there on stage trumpeting that it played flash content and could access "the whole web". And then now only a few weeks later they kill it. I have to assume he knew about this decision all the while going up on stage.
Re:Flash to HTML5 movement is not new to Adobe by Solandri · 2011-11-09 07:16 · Score: 1

Exactly. The whole tiff over Flash support was blown up by the media and marketing to be way bigger than it really was. It wasn't some huge clash over the viability of Flash. Everyone knew Flash was on its way out. Before the Apple/Flash spat, most slashdotters constantly derided Flash. And Google has done far more to build HTML5 into a viable replacement for Flash than Apple ever did.

Where the players differed was how to make the transition. Google/Android's approach was customer-centric. Let the users and website developers decide how quickly or slowly the web should transition away from Flash. Apple's approach was self-centric. They decided Flash had to go, they knew better than their users and web developers, so they enforced it on their devices. Apple has a long history of aggressively phasing out technologies they feel are destined for obsolescence, even if they're still being used. The 3.5" floppy, removing support for PowerPC binaries starting with Snow Leopard a mere 3 years after transitioning to Intel, and currently getting rid of optical drives.

All of what happened and is happening to Flash is utterly mundane, with all the players acting just like they usually do. Not some grand "A was right and B was wrong" conflict.
Re:Flash to HTML5 movement is not new to Adobe by BitZtream · 2011-11-09 08:13 · Score: 1

For reference, to anyone outside the zealots that make up the slashdot/GPL community, h264 is an open standard by everyone else's definition of the word open. Its only here that people can't understand the definition of open is that which is defined by RMS. Those standards actually make it fairly clear that right now WebM does not qualify as open (though its simply a matter of a statement from google making it so so I'm not arguing that its different in that respect based on a technicality).

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Re:Flash to HTML5 movement is not new to Adobe by BitZtream · 2011-11-09 08:15 · Score: 1

No, but it took huge balls at the time to say "we're not supporting this anymore. "
Not really, they knew at the time that they had a game changer product ... a smart phone that didn't suck ass, which is the case for all other smart phones at the time. With that, they KNEW they were going to sell and they KNEW they could call the shots ... and so did everyone else (outside of silly slashdotters who still don't get it) which is why AT&T slurped Steves wang for a couple years and let him tell them how they were going to run their network in order for them to get the product.

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Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Re:Flash to HTML5 movement is not new to Adobe by UnknowingFool · 2011-11-09 08:36 · Score: 2

Really all Jobs did was publicly state what many thought about Flash. That seems rather typical of Jobs to tell someone to their face that their product sucks.

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Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Re:Flash to HTML5 movement is not new to Adobe by Paladeen · 2011-11-09 13:50 · Score: 1

"removing support for PowerPC binaries starting with Snow Leopard"
Surely you mean starting with Lion, 6 years after the transition to Intel? Rosetta runs just fine on Snow Leopard.

Flash block by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-09 04:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

Oh great, now there is no easy way to block all the bloat of surfing the internet. These were truly the glory days when ad block + flash block created a nice browsing experience. We will soon be subject to every ones personal animation framework; coded in fancy html5 with loads of hacks to get it to work on each browser, no easy way to block it and helpfully running at 99% cpu util.

Re:Flash block by sootman · 2011-11-09 04:58 · Score: 4, Insightful

True. Unfortunately, the problem was never that Flash was inherently evil--the problem was developers overusing it.
I very much liked having all the bad kids in the "Flash" room and being able to close the door on that room with a Flash blocker. Now we're going to see a ton of badly-made sites with HTML5, and I don't think we'll ever see a "craptastic HTML5 blocker". :-( I'm already having a hard time with sites who think it's cool to cram a 100mb H.264 movie into a page.

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Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Re:Flash block by LifesABeach · 2011-11-09 06:13 · Score: 1

It should be easier to spot junk if one now has access to the anchor sites that generate the junk. Grease Monkey, and its variants are very helpful for this.
Re:Flash block by GameboyRMH · 2011-11-09 06:22 · Score: 1

NoScript can block the canvas element, works pretty much like Flashblock.

--
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Re:Flash block by iceaxe · 2011-11-09 06:53 · Score: 1

So what we will need is "dumb-ass website block".

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WALSTIB!
Re:Flash block by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-09 07:48 · Score: 1

NoScript puts a damper on a lot of HTML5 nonsense.
Re:Flash block by ps60k · 2011-11-10 04:23 · Score: 1

Filters and scripts can scrub <video> and <canvas> tags. Filtering proxies installed in schools can do this. Security packages used in schools can do this. Browser extensions can do this.
Filters and scripts can also inject a preload="none" attribute into <video> tags to prevent your 100 MB movie from preloading, although this is really the duty of the browser. Some browsers are getting close. Opera can do this with plugins, including Flash. Adding support for HTML5 media should be trivial.
Flash is not just video. Keep your Flash blocker for every other Flash-based evil out there, like games, soundboards, Newgrounds-era cartoons, nuisance ads, sites that will never adopt HTML5, etc...

Your post say more about you than it does Jobs by Picass0 · 2011-11-09 04:35 · Score: 1

You sound like a very small and insignificant person to have a chip that big on your shoulder.

"Great people talk about ideas. Average people talk about things. Small people talk about other people."
Eleanor Roosevelt

Re:Your post say more about you than it does Jobs by LingNoi · 2011-11-09 05:18 · Score: 1

uh, doesn't that also make you a small person too then by your own criteria?
Re:Your post say more about you than it does Jobs by mcgrew · 2011-11-09 08:16 · Score: 1

You can't tell a troll when you see one? Especially from an AC sitting at -1 that nobody would have seen had you not responded?
Here's a hint: if it has the "N-word" it's almost certainly a troll and likely a variation of the GNAA trolls.
PLEASE DON'T FEED THE TROLLS! Especially don't make their -1 invisible comments visible by commenting while logged in.

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Free Martian Whores!

Flash is a Problem on My MacBook Pro by BoRegardless · 2011-11-09 04:35 · Score: 2

Mobile is only one problem area. Flash has unexpectedly quits on wake from sleep on my MBPro.

How many years have these problems been going on?

Re:Flash is a Problem on My MacBook Pro by psyque · 2011-11-09 05:05 · Score: 1

Those kind of problems have been around more years then they haven't been around. That makes them a feature, rather then a bug.
Re:Flash is a Problem on My MacBook Pro by UnknowingFool · 2011-11-09 05:21 · Score: 1

Flash on platforms other than Windows have been less than ideal. I think part of the issue is that Flash was ported in the easiest way possible and instead of using the advantages of each platform. Adobe just wrote generic code to handle everything itself so that it was easier for different platforms. It's not that they can't but it would be an undertaking to re-architect Flash to do this. The end effect is that the CPU does all the rendering instead of the GPU. I saw this demo where a guy took a MP4 file. Playing it with open source VLC used very little CPU. Encapsulating it in a Flash container used 100 % of the one core.

--
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Re:Flash is a Problem on My MacBook Pro by LinuxIsGarbage · 2011-11-09 11:00 · Score: 1

It's ideal in Windows? In Chrome the flash plug in will gradually climb in RAM consumption until it slows down the computer or crashes the plugin (over 1GB)

Re:GOOD by JDG1980 · 2011-11-09 04:35 · Score: 1

I dream how YouTube will stop using that piece of shit... and go for 100% WebM and let IE suck on a WebM plugin..

Sorry, but WebM is inferior to H.264 in virtually every way. That said, there's no reason why YouTube couldn't determine what the browser supports, and target its output that way. Flash-compatible systems get that, others get HTML5 in either H.264 if available or WebM if not.

I don't understand why the open source browsers don't simply allow H.264 to be decoded through the hardware's built-in functionality. Nearly every GPU (discrete or integrated) made in the last 5+ years supports this.

So... you bought TWO devices you don't like? by SmallFurryCreature · 2011-11-09 04:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

So, it is no secret Apple devices don't do flash and yet you bought two... way to go on voting with your dollars.

Buying TWO devices whose user experience you claim sucks. Please tell me you are not allowed to vote. Ever!

--

MMO Quests are like orgasms:

You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

There is already agreement by SuperKendall · 2011-11-09 04:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

Next step: agreeing on a CODEC for the HTML5 videos

To support iOS devices you need to support h.264.

Thus supporting any other formats mean extra, needless work.

Pretty much any site on the web today tat supports video has already transcoded to h.264.

Hello, de-facto standard.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:There is already agreement by CharlyFoxtrot · 2011-11-09 05:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

Hello, de-facto standard.
You know what's a good way of confirming this ? Go on your favorite torrent site and try to find some video encoded in WebM or Theora. You can't, it's all x264 and xvid and the x264 stuff is both higher quality and becoming ever more popular. It perfectly mirrors what happened with mp3, no way h.264 is going away. So why spend precious developer time in an ultra competitive industry building support for another codec that you'll just have to support on top of the de-facto standard for which you'll be paying and developing anyway ? That fight is over, geeks are just in denial.

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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Re:There is already agreement by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-09 05:28 · Score: 1

iOS isn't the only device or browser in use.
Firefox, Chrome, and Opera all do not support H.264. So you already have to have two copies of the video, one in MP4 (H.264+AAC) and the other in WebM (VP8+Vorbis), if you want to support more than about 50% of users out-of-the-box.
Re:There is already agreement by scot4875 · 2011-11-09 08:01 · Score: 1

Hello, royalties.
--Jeremy

--
Jesus was a liberal
Re:There is already agreement by PerfectionLost · 2011-11-09 08:07 · Score: 1

Isn't that what we used to say about flash?
Re:There is already agreement by makomk · 2011-11-09 08:26 · Score: 1

You know what's a good way of confirming this ? Go on your favorite torrent site and try to find some video encoded in WebM or Theora. You can't, it's all x264 and xvid and the x264 stuff is both higher quality and becoming ever more popular.
Of course, torrent sites don't have to worry about minor issues like whether the files they're offering are actually legal, because most of them aren't anyway. The rest of us on the other hand...
Re:There is already agreement by hedwards · 2011-11-09 08:32 · Score: 1

No, the reason for that is that pirates don't pay licensing fees for using codecs. The rest of us ultimately do pay for licensing those codecs or we do without.
As for why, the reason why is that h.264 isn't free for use, which means that Linux and Firefox and all the other free software out there would have to either start charging or nudge people to a pirate codec package.
Re:There is already agreement by CharlyFoxtrot · 2011-11-09 08:40 · Score: 1

Flash would still be the de-facto standard if they hadn't self destructed by making performance really lousy and completely missing the boat on mobile touch screen devices. The fact that the most popular touch screen device was based on a platform Adobe had been neglecting (and antagonizing) for years didn't help either. Of course it's possible that the MPEG-LA self destructs in some way too but it doesn't seem as likely.

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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Re:There is already agreement by nightfell · 2011-11-09 08:55 · Score: 1

Firefox can support H.264 without charging or paying a fee. All major Linux distros include direct means of getting H.264 support, although this is a fairly unimportant point because this only affects 1% of the people out there.
Licensing terms and fees for H.264 are inconsequential. The only people that care about it are those that feel the need to build up some issue to get worked up about.
Re:There is already agreement by CharlyFoxtrot · 2011-11-09 09:21 · Score: 1

No, the reason for that is that pirates don't pay licensing fees for using codecs. The rest of us ultimately do pay for licensing those codecs or we do without.
As for why, the reason why is that h.264 isn't free for use, which means that Linux and Firefox and all the other free software out there would have to either start charging or nudge people to a pirate codec package.
Firefox should just use codecs provided by the OS. And the licensing costs for OS's are really small :
"royalties (beginning January 1, 2005) per Legal Entity are 0 - 100,000 units per year = no royalty (this threshold is available to one Legal Entity in an affiliated group); US $0.20 per unit after first 100,000 units each year; above 5 million units per year, royalty = US $0.10 per unit. The maximum annual royalty (“cap”) for an Enterprise (commonly controlled Legal Entities) is $3.5 million per year 2005-2006, $4.25 million per year 2007-08, $5 million per year 2009-10, and $6.5 million per year in 2011-15."
Linux users couldn't stomp up $0.20 for a commercial codec add-on ?

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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Re:There is already agreement by hedwards · 2011-11-09 11:49 · Score: 1

The problem is that it's non-zero, which means that somebody has to pay it. Paying patent trolls to use a standard is not something that I personally think is acceptable. On top of that, it's an absolute nightmare to collect.
Re:There is already agreement by hedwards · 2011-11-09 11:52 · Score: 1

They're not inconsequential they're enough to prevent Firefox and law abiding distros from including the support. Somebody has to pay for the license fee, and the money could otherwise be used to pay for other things.
As far as that goes, there's absolutely no guarantee that in the future the licensing fee will be that low. They would be well within their rights to raise rates in the future. On top of that it's a licensing fee per software to encode and decode, the total amount of money is not small for most projects.
Re:There is already agreement by CharlyFoxtrot · 2011-11-09 14:59 · Score: 1

You're paying the people who developed the standard. R&D isn't free you know. I find it hard to believe all the patents in that pool are frivolous.
Also worth noting: I count 8 Android vendors among the AVC licensors, it's a veritable who's who list of software and electronics. Some also use Linux extensively like Sony (eg. my Sony TV runs on an embedded Linux.) This isn't some shell company set up to make a quick buck.
There also isn't a real alternative. Notable for its absence from the AVC licensors list is Google, the ones who are trying to disrupt the system by offering a "free" codec. Free is in quotation marks there because the hidden cost is the uncertainty of you being sued for patent infringement at some point in the future if you use WebM because it may or may not infringe on patents depending on who you ask. Putting your fate in the hands of a single company instead of a consortium that basically represents the entire sector isn't an improvement, no matter how much you believe their "don't be evil" motto.
The very best way open software can avoid this kind of trap is to be on the forefront of technology instead of just recreating free versions of things others have done. But then that takes us back to where we started ... R&D isn't free and some people see a non-zero cost as a problem.

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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Re:There is already agreement by nightfell · 2011-11-09 18:40 · Score: 1

Firefox doesn't have to pay a dime to support H.264. They simply won't because they are taking an ideological stance, not a legal, technological, or economical one.
As for guarantees, big deal. If they raise their rates, it will stop being so widely used. I trust MPEG-LA to act in their members' self-interests, as they've always done, and not fuck everyone over like you seem to be afraid of.

Re:But, but... by amRadioHed · 2011-11-09 04:49 · Score: 1

If by hardly ever you mean never, that's true. I've yet to see Flash crash on my phone.

--
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace

Spread the news: The monster's dead! by bedwards · 2011-11-09 04:49 · Score: 1

I'm just thinking of all the ways I can break the news to the "web developers" working in east london offices painted a plethora of shades of white (with a suspiciously vibrant green fern) and insist there is more difference between their mac pro and my intel based workstation than a piece of fruit, that they can no longer list ActionScript as their primary programming language!

Plenty of fun ways but none lacking in cruelty :)

Re:First Post by HermMunster · 2011-11-09 04:54 · Score: 3, Insightful

Adobe is being stupid. I use flash on mobile every day, most of the day. Very stupid move Adobe.

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You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.

Animations in SVG or canvas by tepples · 2011-11-09 05:06 · Score: 1

Long before Flash supported compressed video, it supported keyframe-based vector animations. Which of those HTML 5 codecs is vector animation? Is there a standard way to author animations for SVG or canvas yet? (Adobe Edge is still a preview.)

Re:Animations in SVG or canvas by VoidEngineer · 2011-11-09 05:34 · Score: 2

While not authoritative, the standard way to author SVG animations with HTML seems to trending towards a Javascript/jQuery solution. Raphael & Mashi is generally what you're looking for; although it lacks a IDE still.

http://raphaeljs.com/
http://mashi.tv/
Re:Animations in SVG or canvas by nightfell · 2011-11-09 18:37 · Score: 1

Does this actually matter?
Re:Animations in SVG or canvas by tepples · 2011-11-10 03:42 · Score: 1

If there were no Flash, in what format would Homestar Runner, Weebl and Bob, and the cartoons on Newgrounds have been produced?
Re:Animations in SVG or canvas by nightfell · 2011-11-10 08:07 · Score: 1

We're not talking about going back in time and erasing Flash from ever existing. We're talking about killing it off today.

Reducing H.264-related revenue by tepples · 2011-11-09 05:13 · Score: 1

To support iOS devices you need to support h.264.

Web sites in some situations must pay a royalty for each H.264 stream. If they can switch as many clients as possible to WebM, they can deduct WebM plays from their "related revenue" as defined by MPEG-LA. Ideally, such a web site could serve H.264 to iOS and Windows Phone 7 and WebM to everything else.

Windows 8 by bWareiWare.co.uk · 2011-11-09 05:15 · Score: 1

Presumably the aren't maintaining their ARM port. What dose this mean for their Windows 8 support?

Re:Windows 8 by GameboyRMH · 2011-11-09 06:24 · Score: 1

Hahahaha ask some N900 users, they can tell you...

--
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel

Re:Not so fast! by Billly+Gates · 2011-11-09 05:17 · Score: 2

The same users who insisted on IE 6 in the enterprise and our 50+ year old parents, now use IE 8 or will upgrade to it very soon.

IE 8 which has no html 5 will dominate the web until 2019 as these users refuse to upgrade and love the blue E, and have no idea what html is sadly. Until such users make less than 10% of the marketshre you still need to support html 4, css 2, and flash. You do not want to turn away 1 out of 10 customers would you?

I pray earnestly, that MS will make Windows 7 SP 2 come with IE 10 next summer. Or at least IE 9 which does have some HTML 5 support, siniliar to WinXP sp 3 included IE 8. IE 6 did not start dying off until the SP automatically updated the browser on the cdrom. Otherwise these users will never upgrade past IE 8 and hold us all hostage to outdated technology.

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http://saveie6.com/

A decade late... by mevets · 2011-11-09 05:17 · Score: 1

Funny, plan9 had it about a decade earlier, and it didn't save them. Well, not directly. At the current rate of adoption, osx, linux, bsd, ... will have adopted the rest of plan9's ideas.

Personal Observation, Adobe is at Apogee by LifesABeach · 2011-11-09 05:21 · Score: 1

When Apple said "no" to Adobe, I thought it was a pissing contest. I thought Adobe would get it figured out. Like when every printer manufacturer was told by Apple to write their interface drivers to Apple's specification or be ignored; now it's an assumed industry requirement standard for all platforms. Adobe says is can't make it work. My cynical self says, "I have no pity for outsourcing oneself into oblivion, like HP has." One would think that given all this time, Adobe would have converted its Flex source code to C++, and tuned it; obvious enough. This could actually be of some good; one idea comes to mind is to use this as a business school case study of what happens when a business listens to only to Wall Street, and ignoring Main Street. Last year when I got wind of this Apple-Adobe contest, and the way Adobe was crapping on Linux Developers, and that the Canvas Tag in HTML5 had been embraced by IE9; the handwriting was on the wall. I've seen many dynasties born, rise, and fall; it's painfully obvious, Adobe is at Apogee.

From my office, the Universe is this. Adobe's Dream Weaver product is a far second to Eclipse. Adobe's Flex/Flash product won't let Photoshop, and Illustrator file formats be embedded into Flash, I can't figure out why. The industry is moving to the Tablet, and Phone. Flash has less to offer than HTML5. And I don't need Adobe to create using HTML5, simple economics can be applied here. Adobe has had a fine run, I'm reminded of the statement by a grateful spider, "good bye, friend of Flash."

Re:Personal Observation, Adobe is at Apogee by BitZtream · 2011-11-09 08:36 · Score: 1

Adobe's Flex/Flash product won't let Photoshop, and Illustrator file formats be embedded into Flash
Because these formats are designed for editing, not presentation.
Its the same reason the movie theaters get a finished product and not all the raw footage and sound bytes from the recording of a movie and a seperate file telling them how to mix it all together. There may be data in the original formats that should never be sent to the client, likewise sending it would be inefficient anyway, especially if its not viewed.
Finally:
They tried, sort of, with Macromedia Generator (okay, Macromedia tried actually) and it worked okay, until Adobe killed it ... and then sued out of existence the open source alternative that popped up to replace it.

--
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager

Re:Somebody think of the children by LingNoi · 2011-11-09 05:30 · Score: 1

"Why should I buy this instead of an iPad?" Flash was always a weak answer to that question at best and now Apple's competitors don't even have that.

Why exactly? Flash websites aren't disappearing overnight. It's still a feature until flash isn't in use any more.

Any chance it will be open sourced? by yog · 2011-11-09 05:32 · Score: 1

Maybe they can hand Flash to the open source community and let people continue to adapt it to new hardware, etc. Maybe Flash has its flaws, but for at least the next few years it's still necessary. They're not going to convert all those websites that rely on Flash to HTML5 overnight.

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it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.

Re:Any chance it will be open sourced? by RazorSharp · 2011-11-09 07:32 · Score: 1

I don't know, I've been seeing less and less Flash-dependent websites since the iPhone came out. Kind of like the old days where there was "click here for Flash version of site, click here for non-Flash" except less people notice it now b/c the site just auto-detects whether Flash is present or not. I've been noticing a lot less Flash ads as well (this is extremely noticeable b/c I use Flashblock). The transition has been underway for a couple years now. Now that there is no disputing the status of Flash, stupid managers and lazy web designers will no longer have an excuse to continue using it. An open source Flash would just make it easier to exploit the many security holes present, which I doubt anyone in the open source community wants to waste their time fixing.

--
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."

Flash is one sad long series of epic fuck-ups. by Qbertino · 2011-11-09 05:33 · Score: 2

This news saddens me. For more than a decade Flash has been *the* ubiquitous end-user rich-client cross-platform environment. Whereever Java initially wanted to go, Flash was already there.

However, the botch-jobs Macromedia and then Adobe delivered when it came to fixing basic issues and bugs in the Flash are beyond comprehension. Font-rendering and compiling has had the same serious bugs and troubles ever since 2001, right to the point were HTML5/CSS3 Font integration hasn't only caught up but superseded Flash-based Font integration. It peaked in what can only be called a flat-out scam by Adobe, when they introduced Flash 8 IDEs 'justify' option for textfields - which would lose it's justified layout as soon as you'd change the default text dynamically. The slowpoking with HW-accelerated 3D - it basically still is a beta, if at all - is beyond any measure. Unity3D has taken the helm in that department, and they aren't letting it up it appears. Flash simply lost out in that area aswell. At last the Flash Pipeline totally missed out the touch-based UI craze which it easily could have jumped ahead of to lead the way into a future of sleek touch-based UIs. Flash is made for this sort of thing, yet it hasn't even entered a beta phase regarding this. Like I said: Nothing but a series of large-type epic fuckups.

Even with modern HTML5/CSS3/Ajax/JavaScript being pretty much cross-platform without to many workaround hacks, it is still a bloated mess of a historically grown stack of intermangled technologies and paradigms that doesn't even come near the capabilities of a Flash/AS3 based enviroment. It's even basically half a decade behind of what pure Browser-based solutions could be simply due to the browserwars back in the early 200x'ses.

Flash could've had it all and even pushed back Java into the most obscure pure-business related stuff - but I guess after the one glimpse of light with the introduction of AS2 it was all downhill from then on.

Sad. Very sad. I hope they finally GPL the whole damn thing. Maybe the FOSS community can save the day with a usable AS3 - VectorGFX VM. But I'm not holding my breath.

It's a tradegy to see Flash go this way, but I guess it's time to move along, bite the bullet and stark messing around with bizar DOM-based rich-client programming. Great. Just great. Just the thought of that gives me the creeps.

Well done, Adobe. I hope your rich-client operations die of allready, you're obviously not competent enought to handle them, no matter how advanced the technology you have at hand is. Not only did Steve Jobs see how well Webkit HTML5 did, he also saw how uninspired your handling of Flash was. The iPad didn't kill Flash, at least not alone, Adobes incompetence had a measurable part in that aswell.

My 2 cents.

--
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca

Pardon Me? by Petersko · 2011-11-09 05:41 · Score: 1

It's almost like betting on the sun rise happening but you fanbois will go around making him sound like a prophet for predicting the end of a technology that already had a standardized replacement in place with growing adoption.

What the hell are you on about? I recognize your right to be an overly sensitive pinhead, but I feel l must protest. All I did was make a joke about Adobe's timing and the little war they had. I note that some others actually got it.

Re:GOOD by LingNoi · 2011-11-09 05:42 · Score: 1

WebM and H.264 is almost the same but work around the patents. It's like calling an identical twin ugly while the other beautiful.

Re:Thank you Adobe (and Microsoft) by LingNoi · 2011-11-09 05:45 · Score: 1

What's so bad about NaCi? Sandboxed, multiple platform support, open source? buh?

Goodbye FutureWave software by wisebabo · 2011-11-09 05:46 · Score: 1

A long long time ago in a (MacWorld) Convention far far away, I visited this booth by a little company called "FutureWave software".

They had this product that I had been thinking about: rather than sending bulky (and coarse) bitmaps over our state-of-the-art 56K modems, why not just send vector graphics? It was like the difference between Illustrator and Photoshop. Maybe you could even use vector graphics to do animation that wouldn't tie up huge amounts of bandwidth on this thing called the "Internet".

Anyway, since my imagination far far outstripped my coding ability, I had no chance to do this on my own (and I was, and still am, lazy as shit. To the do'ers in the world go the rewards I guess). Still I knew a winner when I saw one. I promptly signed up for a pre-release copy of software (as I did for CoSA After Effects and Electric Image). I think I got a single digit serial number.

Of course, what I REALLY should've had done was to ask if they needed some investors. Even though I didn't have a lot of money, maybe they would've taken pity on me and given me a few token shares (or offered me a job like CoSA did wrangling Macs). Then, when they got bought by Adobe I would have been rich(er)! Ah well, the young are stupid. (I finally started thinking of innovative software companies as potential investment targets when I came across Silicon Color.)

I guess nowadays whenever someone comes up with potentially game-changing ideas, news gets out fast and the Vulture Capitalists (just kidding a little) jump on it quickly. Note Gruopon's $12B valuation. Life was simpler and more innocent back then.

Re:But, but... by gwking · 2011-11-09 05:47 · Score: 1

Same here! Flash has never crashed on my phone or used lots of CPU and killed my battery... I use an iPhone.

I'll miss you, AS3 by Steve+S · 2011-11-09 05:48 · Score: 1

While I am not the biggest fan of it's proprietary nature or bugginess, flash has one big feature that makes developing for it a LOT better than html5: ActionsScript 3. It's based on what ecmascript 4 would have been, and is a true strongly typed class-based object oriented language with first-class functions. It's a really nice language to develop in, actually. Especially compared to javascript. Fuck javascript. Fuck it right in its almost-untyped, prototype-based ass. And I say that as someone that develops in javascript every day.

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------- Driver carries less than 64K of cache.

Re:Artists? by LifesABeach · 2011-11-09 05:48 · Score: 1

When one considers the functions provided by Photoshop, and Illustrator; that's a lot. Combined? Even more. But not impossible to do. Fonts are going to be a heart breaker, consider using SVG? I know one can use GIMP, and Photoshop plug-in and now one has Photoshop... I don't know about Illustrator, maybe InkScape?

Re:Thank you Adobe (and Microsoft) by 0123456 · 2011-11-09 05:52 · Score: 1

Nah, Flash is trivial to block and sandbox. HTML5 is going to be a security and privacy nightmare.

Real issue....locked doors by PortHaven · 2011-11-09 05:52 · Score: 5, Insightful

I think the real issue is far more hideous. With the likes of Apple (and now Microsoft) saying "No plugins". It was becoming clear only native apps were going to be allowed in the playground.

While many rejoice. See a closed proprietary system is in the death thralls. I caution you not to rejoice. But to contemplate what's really going on.

Apple made a closed system that allowed all profits to funnel through it. And not a peep out of the Dept. of Justice on such anti-competitive practices.

So Microsoft said, "Hey, let's do the same with Windows 8."

Adobe just merely read the writing on the wall. Such anti-competitive behaviors are going to be allowed. A user who purchases a computer will be told by the manufacturer what software they run on their own property.

Adobe doesn't make money on Flash. It costs them a small fortune. They make it on the tools they sell. And well, they're just going to do more with their tools outputting native and HTML5.

In the end....it's the consumers who lose. Less choice. Few alternatives. And it's a pay-to-play(ground).

All apps must be approved by Apple. All developers must share a 1/3 of their profits with Apple. Is it ANY wonder Apple exceeded even Exxon-Mobil?

There's an app for that. But you can't install it unless we approve and get a lion's share. How does this world look for developers?

$1

Apple takes 30 cents.
Gov. take 30 cents.
Developer is left with 40 cents to cover overhead and all.

Re:Real issue....locked doors by RetroRichie · 2011-11-09 06:48 · Score: 1

Why on earth would the Dept. of Justice peep when there are plenty of reasonable alternatives to the Apple ecosystem? What Apple is doing is entirely OK while there exists consumer choice.
Re:Real issue....locked doors by BitZtream · 2011-11-09 06:50 · Score: 5, Insightful

And not a peep out of the Dept. of Justice on such anti-competitive practices.
Because they aren't doing anything anti-competitive. THEY get to determine how their products are sold. They can choose to only allow things to be bought for their products in their store.
Anti-competitive practices would be coming into wal-mart and saying 'if you want to sell iPhones, you can't sell any other kind of phone' ... or course walmart would tell them to fuck off, but a smaller local chain may have to capitulate in order to not lose sales of the iPhone ... and THAT is anti-competitive, and THAT is what Microsoft got in trouble for.
Contrary to what you may think, Apple does have complete and total control over how ITS PRODUCTS are sold and handled. It can not tell anyone else how to handle other peoples products in their store. Apple say 'AT&T is the only company getting an iphone!' and thats okay. They can not say 'AT&T can ONLY sell the iPhone, no other phones if they want ours'
Neither you or anyone else gets to tell Apple how to sell or what to do with their product just because you don't like it. I don't like that you're such a self entitled spoiled brat, but that doesn't give me the right to force you to not be such a douche does it?

In the end....it's the consumers who lose. Less choice.
Thats the GPL vs Anti-GPL argument. You're arguing that losing flash means losing choice. Which is like me saying that GPL takes away choice because I can no longer NOT distribute the code.
And in both cases, it can be interpreted the other way. The user is being protected from being locked into a single vendors implementation.

All apps must be approved by Apple. All developers must share a 1/3 of their profits with Apple. Is it ANY wonder Apple exceeded even Exxon-Mobil?
And according to every financial report they've ever put out, the iTunes music store and the App store do just a little better than breaking even. This is publicly verifiable fact. They aren't sitting on 40 billion in cash because of their death grip on Apple developers, and no matter how many times you try to imply that, it still won't be the case.
The reason they've exceeded even Exxon-Mobile is because they are selling products people WANT. Exxon sells a product people need, people only buy as much of it as they have to and will buy it from the lowest priced person they can find. Exxon still makes a fortune because they can take advantage of the fact that its basically a requirement for many Americans to buy gas to commute at this point in time. Apple on the other hand makes a fortune selling products at almost 100% markup that are simply trendy gadgets ... but trendy gadgets which people are willing to pay way more for because they are that well done.
Unfortunately, your too busy blaming Apple for being evil to notice why they are doing as well as they are.

How does this world look for developers?
I can tell you from experience that it looks incredibly profitable and the 'Apple Tax' you're referring to doesn't' really add up to anything more the cost of the service unless you're a big developer with an existing infrastructure for other reasons. This only hurts the big guys (and only a little), it does nothing but good for the little guys, which you'd know if you had any experience what so ever selling software to random people on the Internet. A proper sales infrastructure is a pain in the ass for a small shop to maintain, so you're going to be paying someone else to do it unless you're an idiot or have far more time than money or brains. Now go compare pricing for that service and get back to me when you find the competition that you'd be so eager to use instead of Apple.
You're complaining about something that you clearly do not understand and have never been involved with.

--
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Re:Real issue....locked doors by IAmGarethAdams · 2011-11-09 07:04 · Score: 1

Except, Adobe AIR is a viable way of packaging an Flash app for deployment via the Apple App Store
Re:Real issue....locked doors by BlueStraggler · 2011-11-09 07:09 · Score: 2

Apple made a closed system that allowed all profits to funnel through it.
Oh, and here I thought we were talking about HTML5, WebKit, and open web standards. Fuckin' Apple, ruining it for everyone.
Re:Real issue....locked doors by MachineShedFred · 2011-11-09 07:25 · Score: 1

And not a peep out of the Dept. of Justice on such anti-competitive practices.
I forgot that Apple was the only company that made smartphones, or an OS for said phones. Oh wait, they're not; and they're not even the market share leader.
Stop crying for the Government to waste their time fixing a problem that doesn't exist anywhere but in your ignorance.

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Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Re:Real issue....locked doors by nightfell · 2011-11-09 08:35 · Score: 1

Two problems:
1. HTML5 works fantastically on iOS
2. iOS isn't a monopoly
Re:Real issue....locked doors by RocketRabbit · 2011-11-09 09:06 · Score: 2

This comment is full of so much shit that you turned my screen brown.
Let's take it apart piece by piece. Your first point is about native apps being the only ones in the playground. I'm not so sure what you meanby that - you an install anything you wish on Windows and OS X. Phones are a different matter, but most folks are fine with that. Those who aren't can find another solution.
Apple made a "closed" system but anybody can play in there. Does the Justice Dept have it in for Disneyland simply because you have to buy a ticket to get in? You have mistaken a monopoly from a business. Apple has no monopolies on anything. At least, you could argue that Nintendo has a monopoly on producing Wiis and on the Wii store, but again that would only be possible if you didn't know what a monopoly was in the first place. Why aren't you pissing under Nintendo's tree about how you can't play Xbox 360 games on the Wii?
Then you say that Adobe doesn't make money on Flash, but on the tools. Isn't that true of just about any plugin manufacturer? Nobody buys plugins, so you saturate the market and then make the money on the toolset. Clearly if Flash cost them more money than they were making from it they would be dropping it.
Apple takes a 1/3rd cut for their applications on the app store, but this beats the pants off the old arrangement, where applications cost $29.99 and up and the actual coder typically didn't get a share in the the profits at all! Now a coder has a large market available, and all he has to do it wait for the money to roll in. In the old days he would merely sigh and hope he still had a job with his large, heartless publisher.
In short, for every person like you lamenting the inevitable fall of Flash, there are thousands who are saying "good riddance."
Re:Real issue....locked doors by Deorus · 2011-11-09 09:23 · Score: 1

As a consumer I feel much better served by native apps, and the rest are not my problems.
Re:Real issue....locked doors by jbolden · 2011-11-09 09:28 · Score: 2

How does this world look for developers?

Pretty good, like most regulated markets. Customers trust Apple and so are willing to spend more. The iOS app market is 7x the size of the Android, Blackberry and Nokia smart phone app markets combined. Regulated capitalism is more profitable than anarchy for developers and better for consumers.
_____

In the end....it's the consumers who lose. Less choice. Few alternatives.

That was the scenario under Java Mobile. The carriers controlled software. Under Blackberry and Palm you had an unregulated free market but it was tiny. How exactly are consumers under iOS experiencing less choice?
Re:Real issue....locked doors by PRMan · 2011-11-09 09:50 · Score: 1

So, you're saying that Microsoft was NOT convicted as a monopolist for including THEIR browser on THEIR OS for free, even though they DID allow Netscape to be installed also?

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Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Re:Real issue....locked doors by devleopard · 2011-11-09 11:47 · Score: 2

That's oversimplification. Remember that the case was opened in 1991, before a single line of code had been written for Internet Explorer (or Netscape, or Winsock, or ....) IE was central, but so was the abuse of OEM's, in a world where 95%+ of all new computers shipped with Windows. Microsoft abused those OEMs, forcing them to bundle certain software.
Apple is much different:
1. Smaller share of market. (Slashdot loves to trumpet about Android's higher market share) Microsoft was found to be an abusive monopoly in the computer industry, not the Windows industry - Apple has no such monopoly.
2. Apple doesn't abuse OEMs, since they manufacture their own devices.
A better example of a monopoly would be if Google abused the phone vendors by forcing them to load certain software in order to be allowed to license Android.
Keep in mind that most of the app stores out there (for example, deploying to the Nook) have very similar terms to what Apple is doing.

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The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.
Re:Real issue....locked doors by metaforest · 2011-11-09 20:11 · Score: 1

Why would the DOJ do anything?
This type of lock-in has been practiced by the game console industry since the first round of machines such as the Atari 2600, ColeicoVision, et al. That the 2600 and other 1G consoles used security through obscurity is quite beside the point. It was not until very late in the 2600's product life cycle that anyone successfully marketed games that were not authorized by Atari. Atari addressed that in future platforms with some hardware lockout devices, but really never did get it right.
Nintendo finally got it right with their address-line scrambling chip-set. Which created a patented lockout. When Tengen (a subsidiary of Atari) tried to bypass it in the late 80's they got fish-hooked by the patent on the lockout chip. Atari tried arguing anti-trust, and lock-in, unfair market exclusion etc. The courts rejected all of it, and held Tengen's feet to the fire for patent infringement. Tengen faded into obscurity, and no one seriously (in law) challenges a platform manufacturer's right to make software/firmware/peripheral development exclusive, should they choose to.
And addressing the usual Greek Chorus of Walled Garden Whiners:
As always, the best solution is to vote with your dollars.
If you don't like the terms of the EULA/DevLicense, you don't have to buy the device, or contribute to the ecosystem. So STFU.
Re:Real issue....locked doors by garyebickford · 2011-11-10 02:36 · Score: 1

Apple takes 30 cents.
Gov. take 30 cents.
Developer is left with 40 cents to cover overhead and all.
From my own experience with software retail a long time ago, I would have loved to get that deal. I was selling an application called MailQuery(tm) for the NeXT machine, which was a relatively low volume environment. So all the costs tended to be high. The deal I was coping with was: catalog costs $5000 just for the ad in the catalog, plus 50% off the top. Distributor takes 40% off of that (20% of gross, leaving 30%). License for the underlying software engine takes 20% of the gross. I forget the whole deal but it turned out that selling the software for $500 retail (at least twice what the market would likely bear), I would make about $10 to cover all my costs.
The application provided very fast, very useful full-text semantic search of your mail with an easy user interface, so you could look for concepts rather than particular words. It was great for finding that email from a year ago that you couldn't remember the details of, but you knew what it was about. But there was no way to make any money off of it. So I got out of the business, and IMHO the world still hasn't seen an email search system that was anywhere near as useful.

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It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Re:Real issue....locked doors by MightyYar · 2011-11-12 05:09 · Score: 1

Could you be convinced to open source that? :)
Heck, the Mail app isn't that much different from the old Next Mail app... maybe it would still work on Mac?

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W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Re:Real issue....locked doors by garyebickford · 2011-11-12 12:45 · Score: 1

I'd love to, but the core of it was licensed. It was a context-aware full text semantic search engine called Metamorph, produced by Thunderstone, which has since then been built into some other commercial tools. I think they may have a free-for-non-commercial-use non-open version of some sort. It really was quite a cool engine and probably still is. I haven't looked into it for a number of years.
Basically my product used the Metamorph search engine to spin through all the mail files, and using the NeXTstep object system was able to link right into the Mail app and display the email in question, with highlighting. It could run through ten thousand emails (a lot for the early 1990s) in a second or two, on a 25 MHz NeXTstation. So it was basically a relatively simple user interface (although tuning that to make it dirt simple to use and powerful was an interesting project), a driver for the search engine, and of course the packaging into an installable app. But the NeXT system made that part pretty straightforward.
I suppose that by now someone must have built an equivalent full text semantic search engine. As I recall it was originally based on a huge semantic network, constructed by 'reading' various dictionaries, thesauri and other sources. Bart Richards, the inventor (and one of the smartest people I've ever known) originally built Metamorph as a tool for processing research literature and looking for papers relevant to his interest, which (IIRC) was scanning tunneling electron microscopes. But I believe it was later used by the CIA for filtering newspapers around the world, and as of a few years ago was still used by some of the big legal/academic reference databases.
Context-aware semantic search is cool - I haven't seen any other tool that matches it in usability, at least for me. You could look for 'Congress' and it (if you wanted it to) would find both 'Representative' and 'Senator' - or vice versa. I suppose that, given an updated semantic network, you could look for 'geek' and find 'programmer'. :)

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It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Re:Real issue....locked doors by garyebickford · 2011-11-12 12:47 · Score: 1

Oh - also, I don't have a copy of the source any more, unless it's on a floppy stored in a box somewhere. But I never had a copy of the source for Metamorph. Part of the installation was getting a license key from Thunderstone.

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It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Re:Real issue....locked doors by MightyYar · 2011-11-13 02:56 · Score: 1

+1 Interesting... thanks!

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W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.

Flash and Silverlight... by ZenDragon · 2011-11-09 05:57 · Score: 2

This, on the heels of the accouncement of that MS is discontinuing Silverlight development as well. Seems like a bad business decision on the part of both companies. I realize that HTLM5 is intended to take the place of them both, but being a .net developer I can say from experience that HTML 5 is a lot more frustrating to code and debug... more than silverlight at least cant really speak for Flash. My point is, there is a place for both and with the only two big players jumping ship its going to be hard for developers that have already learned Flash or Silverlight, to just switch gears and starting mucking around in JavaScript again.

What about the Chumby? by kriston · 2011-11-09 06:04 · Score: 1

What about the Chumby? It relies on mobile Flash.

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Kriston

Re:What about the Chumby? by am+2k · 2011-11-09 07:14 · Score: 1

What about the Chumby?
Well, in their forums they got told to move to HTML5 about 3 years ago... It's even pretty easy to do, I was able to get a browser running on it back then.

Re:Laid off - try to stay at Adobe by KJSwartz · 2011-11-09 06:15 · Score: 2

Sadly, whenever a profitable platform is shut down, a lot of good developers are RIF'ed. Its a horrible market right now, so PLEASE look for a way to stay with Adobe.

1) Use your knowledge of internal procedures and development practices WORK for you (saves the company serious $$$s training somebody new!)
2) Submit your resume back to your own HR department and let them know you wish to stay
3) Work off-hours on active projects that YOU think have potential - ask questions, involve yourself in debugging, development and design reviews
4) Get yourself invited to development meetings while still putting 40 hrs/wk on your current tasks
5) Don't Slouch - its bad for your posture

The last two items really get the line managers' attention.

This fight has not been settled by Sits · 2011-11-09 06:22 · Score: 1

RAR predates zlib and is very popular in circles you mention above but zlib is built into web browsers and is here to stay. Such issues aren't settled in just one place - give it time and we'll see what happens. Sometimes you end up with both...

But what about VIDEO?! by bradgoodman · 2011-11-09 06:48 · Score: 1

...and don't say "HTML5" - because that doesn't define just about ANYTHING.

First there was Flash video over RTMP, then there was Adobe HTTP Dynamic streaming (HDS). Both of these were ADAPTIVE streaming technologies, and extremely popular an widley used. Moreso RTMP, but HDS is starting to gain adoption.

HTML-5 does not provide any method for any kind of adaptive bitrate, or fragmented video delivery. It is strictly PROGRESSIVE download - i.e. download the whole file, and play it. There are a billion problems with this. No adaptive bitrate (downgrade video quality if you cannot meet the sustained bitrate), and difficulty in caching (caching one giant file very difficult for a reactive, real-time cache, as opposed to caching smalller HDS or HLS "fragments"). The only other really "competitor" would be Apples HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) - which is the standard for iOS devices, and starting to gain adoption on Set-Top Box-devices, but pretty invisible on the desktop space.

So...my question is... "What about video!?"

Thank god it won't spread! by guspasho · 2011-11-09 07:03 · Score: 1

Every time Firefox crashed on my desktop, it was Flash. Every time FF hung for long periods of time before coming back out of it and acting like everything was normal like some cracked-out epileptic, (apologies to epilepsy-sufferers), it was Flash. And to top it all off, I can't imagine the number of times I've read the words "your version of Flash is out of date". I am so glad I won't be forced to put that crap on my phone, and I'll be glad when it's dead on the desktop too. I'll be the first one to buy tickets to the dance party on its grave. Good riddance!

Re:Thank god it won't spread! by thetoadwarrior · 2011-11-09 07:28 · Score: 1

Same here. If I see performance problems in Firefox there is a big flash banner somewhere in my tabs.

Net gain by Quila · 2011-11-09 07:09 · Score: 1

Steve Jobs created tens of thousands of jobs.

Re:Net gain by instagib · 2011-11-09 09:03 · Score: 1

That's what his wife said.

Jobs was right by thetoadwarrior · 2011-11-09 07:27 · Score: 1

I know a lot of anti-Apple fanboys couldn't admit it but it's shit on Android because Flash is just going to be shit on a mobile device, imo. I never used it because it was shit so it's not big loss.

Re:Jobs was right by LinuxIsGarbage · 2011-11-09 10:43 · Score: 1

It's shit on a PC. If a dual core PC struggles to keep up how could anyone ever imagine it being usable on a handheld.

Re:First Post by P-niiice · 2011-11-09 08:10 · Score: 1

morons like me are happy with that answer

Except it's quite clear why Apple chose... by mario_grgic · 2011-11-09 08:23 · Score: 1

not to allow flash

Sixth, the most important reason.

Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms.

Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.

Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins – we sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform.

It is a perfectly reasonable explanation. Same reason why Java on the desktop never took off. Developers could only program for the lowest common denominator and never take advantage of unique hardware capabilities.

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As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.

Re:Except it's quite clear why Apple chose... by Random+BedHead+Ed · 2011-11-09 10:33 · Score: 1

Ah, but Java on the desktop was not blocked by Microsoft, Apple and Linux distros. It was blocked by its own demerits. If Steve believed his own arguments he'd have allowed people to install Flash, expecting it to lose popularity of its own accord. Instead, Flash on the phone is failing because software developers cannot distribute their software directly to the user.
Re:Except it's quite clear why Apple chose... by mario_grgic · 2011-11-09 11:56 · Score: 1

Not if you are trying to build a successful platform and have people who actually build software for it, and not use some cross platform toolkit that does not take advantage of the platform capabilities, and in addition is slow to adopt new features of the platform, slowing down innovation. I think the point 6 in the original letter sums it up nicely.

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As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Re:Except it's quite clear why Apple chose... by BasilBrush · 2011-11-09 12:03 · Score: 1

Flash would have died either way. Apple just hastened it's death. Which is certainly a good thing.
Re:Except it's quite clear why Apple chose... by ytpete · 2011-11-09 23:47 · Score: 1

There were many problems with Jobs's arguments, but the most important one is that Apple's own actions proved him wrong. Remember that after all this bluster, a few months later Apple actually reversed course and decided to allow Flash-based apps into the App Store after all. There are currently hundreds of Flash apps available on iOS, and some have hit #1 rankings on the charts.
That's a clear demonstration that -- contrary to everything Jobs wrote -- Flash apps aren't guaranteed to suck, are enjoyed by consumers, and thus contribute to the device's ecosystem. If Jobs had kept on the course set out in his letter, who knows how many of those popular apps would never have been available on iOS?
Re:Except it's quite clear why Apple chose... by nether · 2011-11-10 01:55 · Score: 1

You seem to be missing the fact that they are NOT flash. Adobe Air products are compiled to use native code of the target device. They suck because they're all coded for the lowest common denominator. But they are not flash.
Re:Except it's quite clear why Apple chose... by ytpete · 2011-11-10 07:14 · Score: 1

Some of the apps I'm talking about hit #1 on the App Store charts, and many climbed into the top 10. You have a funny definition of "suck" if you think all those apps suck.
For all intents and purposes, those apps ARE Flash. An iOS AIR app is basically a copy of the Flash runtime glommed together with the app's Flash content (with all the ActionScript code pre-JITted to get around Apple's "no interpreters" rule). Afaik the Flash runtime part is almost exactly the same as what would be running in the browser if Apple allowed a browser plugin.
So the difference between Flash that Apple allows and Flash it doesn't isn't technological. I think there's two reasons for the difference: Apple prefers to have all rich iOS content go through their App Store gateway (they don't believe HTML5 will compete with the App Store yet, but Flash sure could); and they want iOS browsing as unencumbered by legacy website design as humanly possible. It doesn't hurt that blocking all Flash ads gave Apple a huge opening to push an iOS specific ads platform too.
Re:Except it's quite clear why Apple chose... by RyuuzakiTetsuya · 2011-11-11 00:19 · Score: 1

One time use of AIR versus a general Flash plugin for the browser are two separate issues.
Apple's had a lot of bad experience with middleware. Middleware vendors are lousy at supporting new features and keeping up with the times. They're also not afraid to bring a lot of cruft with them. Apple denied not just AIR but a few other middleware platforms as well. Why they reversed course is beyond me.
Not including flash was pretty consistent because you can't install silverlight or any other browser extension either. If your AIR application sucks then it sucks on it's own merit. If your browser plugin compromises stability, then you're fucking with the basis for a lot of the usability with the OS.

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Non impediti ratione cogitationus.

Re:GOOD by BitZtream · 2011-11-09 08:23 · Score: 1

Except that they aren't identical twins ... and one is pretty than the other, but yea, other than facts, they are exactly alike!

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Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager

Re:GOOD by Americano · 2011-11-09 08:27 · Score: 1

Better hope that line isn't used in a lawsuit against WebM.

"Your Honor, WebM is like H.264's identical twin."
"So you're saying it's the same?"
"Yes. But completely different."
"So it's not a twin?"
"Oh no, it's an identical twin. Just totally not the same in any way that would get us in trouble. Take our word for it."

Re:Not so fast! by lgw · 2011-11-09 08:28 · Score: 1

Microsoft pushes home users to the latest IE as aggressively as they can really get away with. Legacy IE support has become a substantial cost for them.

Meanwhile, app virtualization is just starting to unfreeze the glacial flow of upgrades at large companies. The big cost of a broswer upgrade today is that all of your images have to be refreshed (and tested), which is a huge expense for a 100K+ desktop shop. But we're seeing the very beginnings of app virtualization, which will eliminate the whole idea of "blessed images" at large shops (because each application is entirly self-contained, so you don't have to test for conflicts). It will be a slow change of course, but it's inevitable given the cost savings and will evenually be the doom of back-version software in the enterprise (except for IE6 for thos legacy intranet sites, that sucker will be around when the Sun explodes).

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Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.

Re:Artists? by BitZtream · 2011-11-09 08:29 · Score: 1

Photoshop and Illustrator are not part of flash directly, they are irrelevant.

Illustrator does just fine with SVGs however, though it doesn't support flowing text which is freaking obnoxious, especially since Inkscape does stupid crap like setting the background color of flowing text to the same color as the foreground ... which looks fine in Inscape ... and of course completely wrong in any other rendering environment ... and they refuse to fix it as 'flowing text isn't standard' except it is, just not ratified ... like the rest of the 1.2 standard they they half ass support when it suits them.

You don't have to change your use of Photoshop or Illustrator to work with HTML5 or SVGs. They are just as useful/buggy in dealing with that format as they are any other.

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Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager

Re:Thank you Adobe (and Microsoft) by BitZtream · 2011-11-09 08:32 · Score: 1

The problem is that people like yourself think that Google can sandbox NaCl effectively ... even though we get reports every day or two about a new exploit, and how most of the time it got around the sandboxing.

NaCl is like trying to sandbox ActiveX controls. Its a really stupid idea BEGGING for being broken. You're basically saying that you think Google is going to be able to write code to do with and they are SO good at doing so, that it won't be exploitable ... meaning it would effectively be the first time in the history of computing that someone has writing un-exploitable code.

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Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager

Re:actionscript 3 by BitZtream · 2011-11-09 08:37 · Score: 1

Which is funny, because someone forgot to tell you that ActionScript IS actually JavaScript.

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Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager

Ditto java, activeX etc by phorm · 2011-11-09 08:39 · Score: 1

Programmers use what they know. I've seen plenty of things that are in ActiveX (UI's for Cisco network equipment, for example) in situations where the target audience may very well not be windows users.

I've seen some *horrible* abuse of java.

But programmers use what they know, or what's popular. This lends to a bit of a cycle, but eventually may break down as a newer language moves up.

Mod parent up! by WiiVault · 2011-11-09 09:01 · Score: 1

Wow, that must be the most insightful, unbiased post I've read on Slashdot in a long time. The usual black and white thinking I see on here is so immature.

This is awful by bgspence · 2011-11-09 09:10 · Score: 1

Please Please Please Adobe, Do No Kill Flash

Sure I hate it. It is the engine of all the blinking, spinning, annoying bits of noise on web pages everywhere. If you kill Flash, then these bubbly bits of crap will be implemented by the intrinsic features of every browser. I use ClickToFlash to keep these naughty bits of the web in their place. How will I suppress the noise?

Please continue to support Flash so I have an easy way of turning the crap off.

Re:But, but... by amRadioHed · 2011-11-09 09:11 · Score: 1

Of course. I don't use it often, but it's there when I need it and always works.

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We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace

Re:But, but... by Bing+Tsher+E · 2011-11-09 10:54 · Score: 1

And that's a good thing, because you get to go stand in a line at the Apple Store when your battery gets killed....

Security leading to turn over by DrYak · 2011-11-09 12:53 · Score: 1

Then, there are all the clueless users, who want to upgrade their PCs, because the old one has become "Too Slow(tm)". ...which, most of the time, doesn't mean that the machine can't handle modern software's workload. It only means that the machine is so much ridden with viruses, spyware and other malware, that few cycle are left for legitimate work.

Among all reasons for upgrade, there are all these which could be averted, had the user received better help or had the user used correct anti-malware tools.

On the other hand, these clueless users are the source which provide us geeks with a constant flow of only 2-years old (and still plenty functionnal) hardware that we can revive, pending a good software-scrubing or Linux installation.

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"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]

Re:Security leading to turn over by hairyfeet · 2011-11-09 17:05 · Score: 2

That is why while everyone else is moaning at the XP EOL I'm like "happy day, oh happy day!" because I'm starting to see newer and newer XP machines that rather than see if they could just, you know, actually install 7 on the thing? They go out and buy a new box.
My last load brought in by one of my suppliers had nearly a dozen late P4 as well as 4 dual cores, and a half a dozen Pentium Mobile and Athlon Mobile laptops, all in pretty damned good shape, know what I paid? $100 for all 15 boxes and because I'd need to replace the batteries $10 each for the laptops! Once he left I was practically giggling like a schoolgirl!
Hell all I had to do was wipe and reinstall which since I have automated discs was nothing, I had to replace two power adapters on the lappies and one turned out to be toast, bad screen. Big fricking whoop I got $75 a pop for the desktops as fast as I could load them in the window and I didn't have to pay shit for batteries because at $100 each for the laptops folks didn't care! I called one old time customer and when he heard what i had he bought two of the laptops sight unseen, so he'd have one for his GF and a spare!
So while I personally put a good AV and build my machines to last the idiots out there really do make me happy sometimes. I don't know why but folks just go insane for cheap laptops. Hell I have a 900Mhz P3 laptop with 256Mb of RAM and a 20Gb HDD and a guy handed me his number and has called 4 times wanting to make sure i take his $90 for it when the new power adapter gets here! Man I can't wait until the next load!

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

Another option bites the dust by rbadgirl · 2011-11-09 20:04 · Score: 1

... because people believe flash = video - though it ain't so. While HTML-5 is nice and dandy, it's the consumer's choice. Flash, like Java, enables browser based plugins to deliver more. We are using flash and Java for client-side encryption, large file uploading, video and audio conferencing. Every option taking from the markets limits the choices we, as developers, have to deliver solutions. So - I am not celebrating. I personally don't like flash that much. But it was a tool in my box which is no longer available. mm.

Re:Strange sites by jbolden · 2011-11-09 22:42 · Score: 1

Slashdot is not a bad example of incredible amounts of javascript. Washington Post, Huffington Post. Frum Forum has become unusable even with dual core, 4gs ram....

Re:Obvious. by ytpete · 2011-11-09 22:55 · Score: 1

Flash has had hardware-accelerated video decoding for quite a while now. That's why it DOES play back 720p and 1080p... even on mobile devices (see: Xoom, PlayBook).

Also, I don't know what makes you say Flash was "designed for mouse" (other than the fact that Steve Jobs said it first). Flash is like any other interactive platform. It gives you mouse events, keyboard events... and on mobile, things like accelerometer and multi-touch/gesture events. You can make content that's optimized for mouse, touch, or both. Complaints about Flash and the mouse are essentially complaints about legacy content in general, which applies to basically any website that predates mobile devices. What Jobs should have said is that all websites need a rewrite to support small-screen, touch-only mobile phones well. (Don't want / can't afford a rewrite? Tough -- that's been Apple's mantra since way before iPhones were around).

I don't want Flash ads to be replaced w/ HTML5 ads by Hemi+Rodner · 2011-11-10 01:52 · Score: 1

I don't like Flash (mostly because of its non-free nature), but paradoxically, I worry what would happen when it dies.

Currently, ALL the annoying ads are in Flash. So I just block Flash with FlashBlock (and click on the Flash objects that I want to see, which are usually embedded videos). That makes the web very tolerable for me.

What will I do when Flash dies, and everyone moves to HTML5 ads? Will it be easy to block them as well? I suspect it'll be much easier for publishers to make it hard-to-block ads, now when it's all in the HTML.

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hemi

This is not really such a good idea by hyphz · 2011-11-10 05:50 · Score: 1

.. Yes, Flash is kind of bloated and slow.

But, oh boy, it will be NOTHING compared to the JavaScript-based frameworks to do the same things Flash does now on HTML5 canvasses.

Removing slow native functionality can be a decent idea, but replacing it with the same functionality but running through an interpreter isn't likely to fix anything..

Re:But, but... by ytpete · 2011-11-10 06:27 · Score: 1

crashed on my phone or used lots of CPU and killed my battery

Fwiw, that only hard data I've ever seen totally contradicts what you're saying. In performance tests, Flash runs 2x as fast as equivalent "HTML5" content, so it's actually more CPU efficient. This means it's probably more battery-efficient too. Another test shows an older, less optimized version of Flash running up to 4x faster but only using 10% more battery than HTML.

I can't find any statistics on crashing, but anecdotally... for a year I've owned three mobile devices that run Flash, and it has never crashed on any of them. Not once. Meanwhile I also have an iPad, and Safari crashes on it once every several weeks. Safari doesn't need Adobe's help to be crashy :-)

Verb tense matters not much by tepples · 2011-11-10 09:30 · Score: 1

Then please allow me to rephrase with different verb tenses: If there is no Flash today, in what format should new works in roughly the same style as Homestar Runner, Weebl and Bob, and the cartoons on Newgrounds be produced?

Re:But, but... by gwking · 2011-11-10 10:08 · Score: 1

In a benchmark Flash may be more efficient/faster, but browser improvements (especially hardware acceleration) will help continue making HTML/CSS/JS more efficient/faster also. But my concern with Flash is not during the time its being used to watch a video, display an ad, or play a game. The problem I have with Flash is that when I'm not watching the video or ad, or using the game, or even (worst of all) Flash navigation, even then it is running and wasting CPU cycles. I notice my browser running 5% - 15% higher CPU constantly when I have a browser open with Flash content. That's why one reason I run FlashBlock in Firefox and why I don't miss Flash on my iPhone and I have no problem with Apple not having Flash installed by default on Lion. As for crashes, perhaps you've been lucky, but Mozilla, Apple, Google, and others have all pointed to Flash as a source of crashes. Firefox has never crashed on me since they isolated Flash in it's own process.

Troll? Really?! by jo_ham · 2011-11-10 12:10 · Score: 1

Hilarious, slashdot. All about the discussion... yeah...

*shakes head sadly*

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Adobe Ends Development of Flash On Mobile Browsers

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