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Adobe Stops Flash Player Support For Android
New submitter Craefter writes "Adobe has finally seen the same light Steve Jobs did in 2010 and is now committed to putting mobile Flash player in the history books as soon as possible. Adobe will not develop and test Flash player for Android 4.1 and will now focus on a PC browsing and apps. In a blog post, they wrote, 'Devices that don’t have the Flash Player provided by the manufacturer typically are uncertified, meaning the manufacturer has not completed the certification testing requirements. In many cases users of uncertified devices have been able to download the Flash Player from the Google Play Store, and in most cases it worked. However, with Android 4.1 this is no longer going to be the case, as we have not continued developing and testing Flash Player for this new version of Android and its available browser options. There will be no certified implementations of Flash Player for Android 4.1. Beginning August 15th we will use the configuration settings in the Google Play Store to limit continued access to Flash Player updates to only those devices that have Flash Player already installed. Devices that do not have Flash Player already installed are increasingly likely to be incompatible with Flash Player and will no longer be able to install it from the Google Play Store after August 15th.'"
I don't think anyone is gonna sit down here with this plate of crow and some ketchup. But, can anyone deny Jobs's statement was inaccurate now? http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ Just sayin.
Help me, help you. - Jerry McGuire
It's filled a gap, but with better apps, chrome being integrated now, time to let it retire gracefully.
Sure there'll be a way to sideload it just in case it is needed for something in particular.
That's the thing, when Jobs said it should die, many agreed, but to not (at the time) offer an alternative, wasn't the best way to handle it. The web moves on, html5 (and the browsers) are more common, standards are just about standardised.
Bye flash. Take a chair next to the blink tag over there.
Waiting for an amusing sig.
Nothing of value was lost.
Not a day too soon. Flash needs to go the way of the Dodo ASAP, with its one-platform-or-you're-SOL approach.
if it's broke, bin it.
I wouldn't like to imagine what a mess it is, so that they're giving up on fixing it.
In summary, "We have too many customers, too much market share, and wholly believe that's a bad thing, especially in light of the looming competition from open standards such as HTML5."
One of the biggest reasons to get an Android phone.... gone.
Being able to browse the web in full and view flash contents is on of the best features of android phones. Flash has been a useful technology and I don't understand why it's being viewed as a good thing that it's going away. I understand open standards being used opposed to proprietary technology, but this seems more important for developers than end users. I honestly don't care how I get the content as long as I can, but why not continue to develop the technology that sets the phone apart?
If Adobe had given it a stable interface it could have Bern a real and useful standard. Instead, Adobe never setlled its interface which made it unmanageable to support across a variety of devices.
I haven't read what he said, but Flash was a piece of shit that should have been killed LONG before the iphone was even a twinkle in Jobs eyes.
In other words, he was not so much a leader in Flash hate as a very late follower, so what he thought or said about it, not so important.
zero fucks were given
...and without that support, you're screwed for mobile web surfing. One of the major reasons why I didn't go with the iPhone vs the Android was that Flash support. I'm not sure how this was "seeing the light" at all. :-/
Do not disturb. Already disturbed. http://www.teaaddictedgeek.com
I haven't read what he said, but Flash was a piece of shit that should have been killed LONG before the iphone
Then what would you prefer that animators use instead of Flash for their web animations?
Was anyone denying it then?
Jobs was no sage, Flash was known to be utter garbage for many years before he spouted off on the topic.
He did not say those things because he meant them, they were said because if iOS ran flash then applications could have been used on it that were not vetted by Apple.
Except for that fact that NO ONE decided to kill flash from their system. Jobs did. That decision made Jobs a leader.
Awwww man, without flash player, how are people going to rig mobile websites to load viruses onto my phone? It was an even bigger plugin security hole than its PC counterpart.
Amazing that all of the Android fanbois will now say "We never wanted it. It was trash." Even though they touted it as a 'feature'after Apple refused to allow it.
Whatever... ;)
But, can anyone deny Jobs's statement was inaccurate now?
I do not think that means what you think it means.
It seems people are too harsh on Flash, for no reason really.
Personally I see it as a failure of the tech world to understand why some people were stubbornly holding on to Flash.
Flash was a very easy way for product designers to develop some pretty advanced client side technologies, with a plugin that had more than 90% adoption rates. iOS changed that, much to adobe's chagrin.
But like some commenters said, this technology is now being killed without proper replacements. You still can't do socket communications directly from within a browser without using plugins. Definitely not with UDP. This was one of the reasons Flash was awesome. It filled the gap of all those features missing in a browser (or available only in some and not in others).
And let's not even start with the authoring tool - I have yet to see a tool that was as friendly and intuitive as Adobe's for producing Flash apps.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... time... to... die...
He decided to kill it to prevent applications that did not use the iOS store from running on iPhone. It had nothing to do with flash sucking and everything to do with control of the platform.
The feature was being allowed to have it if I wanted, not flash itself. I don't have it installed on my phone, but I do on my tablet. Amazon video for instance uses it. My fear is this will mean online video sites will start making their own apps that do not work on my linux desktops.
I wonder how much Apple had to pay them for this?
Seriously, if you think they are surrendering one of the crown jewels for free, you would be hopelessly naive.
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
Who else had that kind of control over user's systems? In almost all operating systems and browsers, the user had enough freedom that a flash installer could install flash.
Jobs wasn't right, but his statement was self-fulfilling. Adobe abandoned the mobile Flash Player BECAUSE Apple would never allow it on iOS, and iOS owned too much of the market for Flash to have a chance on mobile without it.
It had nothing to do with Flash being unable to work well on mobile. The benchmarks show conclusively that Flash performs better on Android than HTML5+JS. Further proof of this is that Flash continues to work well and be supported for app development on both iOS and Android. And by "works well," I mean that some of the top selling apps for iOS were made with Flash.
A bony skeletal hand reaches out from a grave and chokes the life out of Flash.
They have only killed it for Linux and Android, and it never existed for iOS. You can still target Windows and OSX users with it, do not despair.
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I work in a company that insists in using Flash and AIR for mobile products - I've tried unsuccessfully to convince the management to switch to native development. With this news, does anyone knows what Adobe is planning in regard to AIR? Some news that Adobe was kicking AIR aside would be wonderful to finally convince them to make the switch.
One wonders why they're bothering to support it on Windows; if they're dropping support for more devices — first all the non-Chrome Linux systems, now all Android devices? Is this some sort of attack on Linux?
But since Flash is becoming less cross-platform I'm imagining that developers will leave in droves, and that at least some of them will be smart enough to avoid Adobe for their next solution...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yeah, until a Flash replacement becomes ubiquitous enough to be used by the majority of online video sites, Flash will have its niche. Dumb move, Adobe.
I don't have the book in front of me, but Jobs issue with flash was personal. As I recall, Adobe didn't do something he had expected years prior. He had a good memory and never would have chosen flash since it was personal.
The headline isn't entirely accurate. Adobe is only supporting flash on Android devices in which it is currently installed. In August, if you don't have flash installed, you ain't gettin' it. They've also come up with a list of "certified" Android hardware whatever in the hell that's actually supposed to accomplish.
Now then, notice that Adobe continues to support and develop Flash for the Windows platform. This is the largest marketshare of desktops out there. If Adobe "saw the light" , and conceeded to some Apple fanboi fantasy land, they would most certainly be dropping all Flash support across the board and declare it "not a profitable direction for the company" or some other such reason.
The fact that Adobe has Nixed the Linux version of Flash for FireFox, and now raising issue with Android, leads me to wonder why they are focused on crippling the two most open and alternative systems out there.
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Dear Adobe, Please focus on your excellent developer tools and let Flash die.
That's a little obtuse. We know that there was a concerted effort within adobe to get flash to run well on mobile and Jobs had an inside look at that effort. The conclusion was that mobile flash was always going to be more buggy than desktop flash and that it was too much of a memory hog to be viable.
Thousands and thousands of games. All playable on Linux. And this is going away :(
What a shame.
Many of these games are crap, but there are some really good ones out there.
The ability to have a single file contain a complete game with audio, graphics, and so, and have that work on all current OSes, which people could play simply by giving them the link to it, no install needed, or download locally and play offline there, was pretty awesome. Those times will be no more :(
YES Jobs statement was inaccurate. But his war on Flash was successful.
I just wished that instead of wasting time trying to kill Flash he had simply fixed the piece of frakking divinely condemned fecal matter that is iTunes. (Sorry for the profanity, but I have NEVER EVER in my life dealt with a worse piece of software.
Bullshit. If Jobs wanted to lead the way to destroying flash he should have banned it from OS X too. The fact that he didn't just proves what everyone has said all along that the real intention of banning Flash on iOS is to eliminate an avenue for people to make money selling stuff without paying an Apple tax.
I just checked on caniuse.com today. SVG+SMIL doesn't work on any version of Internet Explorer (even IE 9) or on existing Android phones (which run Android 2.3), and the page states that it's "not working in HTML files" in Safari on Mac or iOS. And even today, what product should people use to edit SVG+SMIL toons?
HTML5 didn't exist when a lot of the classic Flash toons were first published. HTML5 toons don't play in IE 8 without Chrome Frame, which is far less widely deployed than Flash Player. And even today, what product should people use to edit HTML5 toons or to update their existing Flash toons to HTML5?
Flash is no longer shipped with OSX.
Adobe has always struck me as a company long on luck and short on actual execution. Flash sucks, but in the beginning, it sucked less than the alternatives. Rather than making it suck less over time, they kept making it worse. Eventually it sucked more than the alternatives.
Now, you take the "Most popular" mobile platform in the mobile market which continues to grow, and you abandon it to focus on the desktop computing market which continues to shrink.
Yup, these guys at Adobe really realy know what they are doing. Busness 101, NOT!
But, can anyone deny Jobs's statement was inaccurate now?
I, for one, cannot deny the clear abundance of innacuracy in Steve Jobs's claims.
Such as if anyone here would even bother to look at the summary, which greatly contradicts the title, and notice that Flash is not going away. All that's going away is Adobe's efforts to make an installer for Flash that will work on every stupid Chinese variant of Android.
Steve Jobs:
First, there’s “Open”. Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary.
We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.
HAY GUIZE, THE FOUNDAR OF APPEL IS COMPLAINING THAT ADOBE IS NO FAIR BECUZ FLASCH IS NOT OPEN. OH NOES!
This sucks. I just ordered my first tablet last night, and now the next day I read this. I went with Android because I like to play web games to kill time.
Flash is an annoying dirty whore when used to spam my eyeballs with advertisements and annoying audio, however, it is needed for some things. It's everywhere, works on ancient browsers like IE4, it's nice for video, and how many HTML5 games are out there? One? All the games I play are Flash.
Dislike
So, what is the future? HTML 5 is lacking and even Apple has now admitted that.
Do you really think that everyone will follow Apple and jump to Objective C? Or are you one of the lunatics that think that Java script can be used for everything; processing power/memory/storage is cheap...
I think by Flash apps could compete against iOS apps, and that's why Jobs wanted to kill it.
I just wished that instead of wasting time trying to kill Flash
In what way did Apple "waste time"? Instead, they saved a HUGE amount of time by not having to try and optimize Flash to the point it would work well on a limited chipset, but not having to worry about browser integration.
Apple didn't try to kill flash so much as they said "we see no place for it on mobile" and then proceed to spend resources on other things. So instead of wasting time, you have to ask just what else would have been not quite as well done in order to have Flash support to begin with.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
He decided to kill it to prevent applications that did not use the iOS store from running on iPhone.
Then why did Apple so heavily promote HTML apps, even after the App Store came around... year after year they have added more support to help HTML apps look and feel like native apps and able to use the same APIs.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Spad said this in a comment above, but they also are killing Flash on desktop LInux ! It seems like that should be mentioned, as this is slashdot, maybe the site with most linux users in the world (was there a previous article,maybe?)
From the roadmap linked from the article;
Linux: Adobe has been working closely with Google to develop a single, modern API for hosting plug-ins within the browser. [...] Adobe has been able to partner with Google in providing a "Pepper" [ http://code.google.com/p/ppapi/ ] implementation of Flash Player for all x86/64 platforms supported by the Google Chrome browser [...]For Flash Player releases after 11.2, the Flash Player browser plug-in for Linux will only be available via the "Pepper" API as part of the Google Chrome browser distribution and will no longer be available as a direct download from Adobe. Adobe will continue to provide security updates to non-Pepper distributions of Flash Player 11.2 on Linux for five years from its release.
It's a good thing that Flash use is declining...
If you liked casual games you REALLY should have bought an iPad. Even with flash support games built for desktops do not fare well on a touch-screen device.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Are you refuting that Flash drains battery, runs slow and eats up precious RAM on the phones that support it? How many Android owners actually like to use it when other options exist?
I am guessing you have never tried to get Flash working on an embedded platform....
Flash wasn't work going after in OSX because OSX is a desktop/laptop OS with gobs of memory, swap, and CPU. Running the flash VM in a restricted environment, even with Adobe 'helping', is a nightmare and generally results in poor user experience.. which the user then blames the manufacturer for since 'the website runs fine on my desktop'
No conspiracy theories needed here.. Flash was just a bad idea to support that, when other attempts have been made, results in more pissed off customers if you do support it then if you remove it completely.
Hopefully they dump support everywhere else too. Flash sucks
year after year they have added more support to help HTML apps look and feel like native apps and able to use the same APIs.
Let me know when iOS supports access to the camera and microphone from HTML without having to use PhoneGap (which requires a Mac and a paid dev cert).
Oh but they ARE fixing iTunes.
Haven't you heard? They're adding facebook integration and making iTunes lean toward getting people to use the iCloud.
http://dvice.com/archives/2012/06/itunes-will-get.php
And, in case you missed the memo, iCloud is that platform that desktop apps can only access if they are sold from the Mac App Store.
http://www.macstories.net/stories/the-state-of-icloud-enabled-apps/
Of course, it's all for the benefit of the end-user.
Same thing with killing off Flash. It's not that they thought Flash was a piece of garbage - which in many ways it was - but that they would much rather people develop native apps.
Kill Flash, and what cross-platform alternatives are there? HTML5? Ah, yes... HTML5. Because that's looking like it's such a winner right now (and by 'right now' I mean for many months previous and many more months to come).
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/11/08/16/0248232/hard-truths-about-html5
http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/06/22/186249/the-death-of-an-html5-game-breeds-an-open-source-project
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/12/06/28/1719233/facebook-ios-app-ditching-html5-for-objectivec
While JAVA is perfectly capable, it, too, is not supported on the iDevices.
And, again, users aren't exactly complaining. It's not their problem if a developer has to put in extra work to support multiple platforms just because they can't fully rely on cross-platform app development, but it is their problem if an HTML5 application fails to work because the browser doesn't support what's in the specs yet. It is their problem if their favorite game's sound is laggy, won't play more than a few sounds simultaneously, etc. because the browser->sound system wasn't built for it. It is their problem when they try to use a JAVA-based navigation app only to realize that on the platform chosen, JAVA can't access the system's GPS because the manufacturer believes that's far too dangerous a piece of information to be left in the hands of JAVA developers.
tl;dr: Flash's death would have been better if HTML5 were a more realistic competitor.
games built for desktops do not fare well on a touch-screen device.
Say I've built a platformer for the PC. Its control method depends on left, right, climb, duck, jump, and fire keys. What's the best way to port that to a device with a flat touch screen?
To be honest, if you like casual games, the iPad might have been the better choice. Not sure why anyone cares about IE4 at this point, and video works just fine on my iPad.
As for HTML5 games, seriously? You think there's only one?
http://www.google.com/webhp?q=html5+games
False. When the iPhone was introduced, Adobe didn't make a version of flash for it. Also, there was no app store.
There was no store when the first iPhone was launched. Apple also did invest quite heavily in a (at the time) emerging and badly supported competitor: HTML5 (even going as far as pretenting that it will be the only way to develop for iPhone). Considering the standard of 2007 in mobile browsing (i.e. tiny screen displaying abridged version), they could have gotten away for a lot more control freakiness.
And let's not forget that Adobe has had a love hate relationship with Apple for quite a bit of time and with Flash, they showed a continuous stream of bad quality release and general lack of interest in the platform. (and continue even today - Flash sucks on Mac)
So indeed, that is control of the platform. However, rather than profit motivated, that is the classical control of the platform: avoid your competitor to control your platform or have your user blame you for somebody else mistakes.
Interestingly we can compare that decision with the biggest competitor of the iPhone: Android. Android did support Flash and java. Yet it took 4 years for a highly motivated Adobe to produce a version of flash that run smoothly, but only on an incredibly powerful 1 GHz double core mobile phone (in 2007, people would have laughed at you for thinking that was even possible) And for java, you have Oracle suing Google for not lining enough money in its pocket. Really, as a CEO trying carve a new niche in a highly competitive market, would you like to depend on those 2 (Oracle, Adobe) "partners" ?
So why does Adobe hate Windows so much? Is it some kind of evil plan for sabotage that they're going to keep supporting Flash on Windows?
My guess is they're in cahoots with the malware suppliers who rely on Flash. These must have grown tired of trying to find easy ways into Linux, Android, or iOS, and want to limit their future efforts to the low-hanging fruits in Windows (and maybe OSX).
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
He did not say those things because he meant them, they were said because if iOS ran flash then applications could have been used on it that were not vetted by Apple.
You say that as if that's a bad thing. Maybe it is for third parties, but from Apple's point of view and from the point of view of their users, prohibiting third parties from controlling the development ecosystem of a platform is the only thing that makes sense. Read what Jobs called the "most important reason" for disallowing Flash on iOS:
Sixth, the most important reason. [For not allowing Flash on iOS.]
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.
Also, to address your "fear is this will mean online video sites will start making their own apps that do not work on my linux desktops" I first want to ask why should iOS users and Apple care about Adobe's proprietary solution for your linux desktop. The only proper answer, of course, is *crickets*. The improper answer is that linux and everyone else in the world would be better off if video were (back-)implemented as an open standard which is where HTML5 comes in.
HTML5 will fix this problem of one company single-handedly controlling the future of web-delivered video. The problem was the fault of the big players who tried to corner the video codec market (Silverlight, Quicktime) with their own stupid plugins and losing to a respectable competitor, in this case Adobe.
Now that the battle has been lost Apple (and everyone else) understand that controlling the widget isn't as important as interoperability and you, as a linux user, should understand that fairly well.
Flash is going to die and everyone except for maybe a few Flash software engineers (and that temporarily) are going to be better off as a result.
blog
Yea look at this. http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57463603-263/google-yes-chrome-is-crashing-macbooks/
It should be removed you know you can't fix software it gets old and can never be updated and streamlined. Google should quit while it's a head and concentrate on it's own OSes.
Then you have lived a sheltered life.
Flash is a pig. Good riddance.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Better late than never Adobe.
Now when can we scrap that pos from our personal computers ?
They're all dissembling and denying they ever said any such thing, and when their posts from that time are quoted, they tug their neckbeards and shriek FANBOY! WALLED GARDEN! USB PORT before running off into the night.
I don't mind it. The mobile version seems to be a fair bit more efficient than the desktop version, meaning that some things that stutter on even my 2.53Ghz i3 with 8GB of RAM play just fine on my Atrix 4g. I plug in every other day to charge, whether I've used Flash or not, it doesn't seem to make much of a difference at all.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Apologies, hasty AM typing. Edit inaccurate to accurate. Back to work.
Help me, help you. - Jerry McGuire
But it is able to be installed.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Would like our money back please.
First, Adobe stopped developing Flash for Linux, now they are dropping Android. The irony is that Adobe does not see that by dropping support for platforms, fewer developers will want to use Flash, because it is no longer "cross-platform." And if fewer developers want to use Flash, then fewer people will consume Flash content ... and eventually Adobe will decide to drop support for another platform because fewer people are consuming Flash there. The cycle feeds itself. It's only a matter of time before Flash goes away entirely.
This is not a trend Adobe will want. Adobe is focusing on "the PC", but the market is increasingly moving to "mobile" ... I think we can see where this is going.
Are you presupposing that equivalent HTML5 version woulnd't?
The tests I've seen so far don't usually compare Flash animations/games with HTML5 ones (because there aren't any). This benchmark that does compare them shows that indeed mobile flash is slow. It also shows that HTML5 is much slower.
Yeah! Flash was the worst, except for every other alternative out there.
Jobs (the pretentious, smug ass that he is) is the reason this happens. He said it was the end of flash and everyone thought jobs a industry leader, a legend, a visionary, etc. But the plain and simple fact is he didnt want non ios store programs on his platform because he wanted total control over every thing his paying customers had access to, he didnt want them having the choice to use products he didnt control through the ios store.
This has nothing to do with flash being a bad product or anything at all. Infact its the opposite. Flash has been around so long that its well known and used by millions, it works well because its been integrated into so many products and websites. Hell I used flash just for fun and I think its a good product. There is nothing wrong with it. And the sad part is the alternatives are still new and not proven at all, and there arent many alternatives at all to flash to begin with.
That's fine with me that the Flash plugin goes away - I use AIR and create apps that are truly cross-platform.
Now that Flash is out of the browser, let's examine the hype notion that has become 'Web apps' - which jump through all kinds of weird hoops to try to pretend they're real apps, even though according to Gardner and other analysts, people see a huge difference between the two.
Web designers, stick to making web pages - you don't really make apps, you make 'apps'.
You mean 1 million Androids a day are not enough to support Flash?!?! Oh noes!!! Just how much bloat does Flash need if it couldn't even survive on 1 million Androids a day?!
If those online video sites are smart they'll use HTML5 and "encourage" individuals of older browsers (e.g. IE 5.5) to upgrade to HTML5-capable ones (e.g. Chrome/Firefox).
Moof!
FANBOY! WALLED GARDEN! USB PORT
*runs off into the night*
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
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You aren't solely dependent on the charity of a single profit-making company in order to have it function, so there's no reason to expect it to disappear. Has HTML1 disappeared? see where I'm going?
when Jobs announced flash wouldn't be supported on the iOS platform.
He was right, this forum was wrong.
it was a proprietary 3rd party extension that could be neglected or dropped at any time by Adobe for a given platform. How did that prediction turn out for Android?
We need to fund free software and GNU/Linux friendly competitors.
This issue is not just about Adobe Flash. The GNU/Linux community is at war with non-free software and digital restrictions. We are losing the battle because the majority of users and developers don't care or understand the problem. Most are ultimately reliant on non-free software. It may be wrong to promote non-free software although none of us are perfect. Even if you write non-free code you can actively push free software. Freedom doesn't happen overnight. It starts small and grows. The more users who care about freedom and put money where it counts the better the GNU/Linux support will get.
We all need to help fight this war. It'll take every single one of us to win it. Individually we should all be members of at least one organisation furthering the objectives of free software. While most of us are more realistic we aren't necessarily against free software. However most don't understand how use of non-free web sites, services, and computers (Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, the NFL, Apple, and others) negatively impacts the development of free solutions.
http://trisquel.info/en/member
http://www.fsf.org/associate/
And if you absolutely hate freedom then go get a membership with one of the distributions which bundle non-free software (although I hate to break it to you- but the majority of these developers are still pushing for freedom-they just aren't quite as perfect as distributions like Trisquel or fighting to the extent the FSF is):
http://www.linuxmint.com/sponsors.php
Then there is also ThinkPenguin.com- a company which has the largest catalog of hardware for GNU/Linux and free software users. They don't ship anything dependent on non-free software. They have made great progress in improving the support and availability of GNU/Linux friendly hardware. They are tackling the free software issues via business development and coordination. Regardless of how you make a purchase this company is actively funding free software advocacy groups and free software developers: From Linux Mint to Trisquel (a completely free distribution) to the Free Software foundation. http://libre.thinkpenguin.com/ (this version of the site even removes all documentation and other information on distributions which include non-free software- it also results in 25% of the profits going to the Trisquel project- a completely free distribution).
We announced last November that we are focusing our work with Flash on PC browsing and mobile apps packaged with Adobe AIR.
An Update on Flash Player and Android
Flash isn't going away.
It is Flash in the mobile browser that is going away.
Adobe is focused on the app store because the app store is the future of mobile, not the browser.
You can see the same thing happening in Metro and Windows 8.
The start page tiles are dynamic, they draw your attention away from the browser.
But the browser has been one of the few unqualified success stories for FOSS on the mass market platforms.. *
Supporting Flash was a small price to pay for that.
____
"Round up the usual suspects!"
Your list will be different from mine, but both should number about a dozen.
It can be a bit of a stretch:
"Filezilla: Solid podcasting client." Open Source Windows
drop HTML5 to go native?
Because native apps are better.
And even the previous "native" app was HTML 5, they are just realizing that use of native API's directly is better.
But it changes not a whit the fact that Apple is perfectly happy and supportive of apps that do not come from the app store. Just not NATIVE apps and the resulting possible security issues (which we have ample demonstration of in the Android ecosystem, showing that Apple's fear is well-grounded).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Maybe they should ignore browsers the don't support standards?
Ignoring a fraction of the market as large as IE 8's market share is business suicide.
If people want their product, then they will upgrade.
Upgrading from IE 8 to newer IE often requires buying a new computer. If viewing a specific web site required buying a new computer, would you buy the new computer, or would you instead vote with your feet for the competitor's web site that did not require buying a new computer?
I bet people who use wax cylinders are pissed that they aren't the standard anymore, so what?
What is the standard for authoring vector animation now?
Who do you think you are? You are a consumer, what you think doesn't matter. Your sole purpose in life is to line the pockets of uber wealthy people. Wipe that Linux stuff immediately! Buy new Apple machines, you too can be kewl in the fruity cult. You'll never have to think for yourself again. If some anonymous prick at Apple decides you don't need something because they personally don't like it, you win, just go with the flow and you'll never had to concern yourself with choice ever again!
Back on topic, flash being dropped now is because webm is in new hardware, along with h.264, and html5 has drm schemes available. We don't need flash wrappers for locked media. As long as Chrome works on your linux machine, you should be ok once the media distributors catch up. Providing Apple and MS haven't signed "agreements" with them to lock out choice again.
IE 8 is over 3 years old
And three years later, it is still the latest IE for Windows XP. There is no further update for IE on XP, apart from replacement with something other than IE.
With the new browser wars 2.0 you wont see grandmas and corporations hang on to browsers for 10 years
Windows XP has been out for ten years, yet "grandmas and corporations" are still using it and will continue to use it until the day of its end of life in April 2014.
as devices and competitors get new releases every 6 weeks.
Android Browser for Android 2.3 is still missing key features, and old Android devices tend not to get new operating systems. New releases of devices cost hundreds of dollars to people who choose not to wait for the 24-month scheduled replacement that the cellular companies foist.
XP's final year is next year anyway so there is no excuse.
True, the final full year of Windows XP is 2013, but that's in addition to the last six months of 2012 and the first three months of 2014.
The point here is that Flash is never the right answer in mobile.
Mobile has a pretty harsh download cap compared to wired access from a home PC, and a lot of places still can't get a 4G signal at all. This makes the order-of-magnitude overhead of conversion to H.264 not the best answer either. So what method of delivering vector animations is "the right answer in mobile"? You point out "plenty of ways to get a job done better"; what are they?
>>>>>if iOS ran flash then applications could have been used on it that were not vetted by Apple.
>>
>>You say that as if that's a bad thing. Maybe it is for third parties, but from Apple's point of view and from the point of view of their users, prohibiting third parties from controlling the development...
When did people stop believing in freedom? I should be able to run any program on my computer or my handset (which is just a small 4" computer) that I desire. If I want to run a program, for example a game, that is flash-based then I should be able to. It's MY computer and I will do whatever the hell I want with it. You people who enjoy bowing down and saying, "No I don't want freedom to run any program. You know better than me. Praise daddy warbucks" make no sense to me? It's as if you ENJOY being children. (Grow up.)
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Fully supporting still images in SVG format is not the same as fully supporting SVG that is animated with SMIL.
Jobs did the right thing and yes he hated flash and wanted a more open web ecosystem.
In 2007 Safari did not have the same HTML 5 support to be a flash replacement yet on the Mac. Did it even support any HTML 5 at all on the mac when the Iphone came out??
In 2007 1 out of 5 users still used IE 6 and much of the internet would not work properly if you used any other browser still. This was a threat to his phone and the Mac ecosystem. HTML 5 and rapid web development started as a result of this as now desktops have inferior browsing experience compared to phones because webmasters had to cater to ancient versions of IE still. It forced IE 9 to be standards compliant and gave a much better open standard where one could now use Linux for web development again, where before you had to use only Windows/Mac because Adobe's tools were monopolizing the content creation market.
People are more forgiving on their phones if only some of the videos on youtube work versus telling all Mac Users you need a Windows PC to get that full experience etc.
http://saveie6.com/
Among people reading this, who has used Adobe's toolkit and evaluated its results?
How many Android owners like it when NO other options exist?
Yes, Flash on phones is horrible. It's only slightly less horrible on tablets. And many SWFs designed for keyboard-and-mice-toting desktop PCs are useless.
All these problems, plus the poor battery life and general sluggishness of Flash, were certainly convenient scapegoats. They're even true. But Jobs wasn't an idiot. He knew that if Flash had been available in iOS, legions of developers would have used it to do an end-run around the app store's restrictions. That's not about money (what Apple makes from the app store is trivial compared to what it makes on hardware) but about protecting the brand. Jobs foresaw a future where Flash became the default development platform for the iPhone, with all the crappy performance it exhibits on Android, and he didn't want that reputation for his product. The iPhone was already taking enough heat from at first requiring devs to make HTML apps; remember that Jobs didn't want native apps available at all.
And for the record, I own no iOS devices, am not an Apple fan, and can completely see where Jobs was coming from.
People are never as simple as their stereotypes. This applies equally to Christians, Muslims, and Emacs-lovers.
Adobe just has to have someone to fight with publicly. It was Apple, and now that they are sleeping together, it is Google. Nothign to see here...move along.
Once again, Adobe sucks at communicating. Flash on mobile is not dead. Flash is a platform, and Adobe's Flash-based tools - Flash Builder and the Adobe Air SDK - can continued to be used to build Flash, Flex, and ActionScript-based applications that compile as native applications that run on iOS, Android, and Blackberry mobile platforms (Why not Microsoft Windows Phone? I have no idea).
Flash hasn't been completely killed off on Android just yet. If the device you're getting isn't on the select list of supported devices, you'll probably still be able to hunt down an apk for it anyway.
just like youtube
You mean the "this video is not available on mobile" YouTube? YouTube displays advertisements on partner videos and on videos that trigger Content ID by making transformative use of a copyrighted work. These advertisements didn't work in HTML5 the last time I checked.
Sounded like a hundred thousand fandroid geeks all screaming at once
> Jobs did the right thing and yes he hated flash and wanted a more open web ecosystem.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Windows 8 Metro on ARM will support it.
While Flash on a phone is dumb now, it wasn't so dumb back when the iPhone came out and you couldn't watch 99% of the videos on the Internet.
I think the big story here is Adobe telling people their product sucks and forcing them to use something else.
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Considering the standard of 2007 in mobile browsing (i.e. tiny screen displaying abridged version)
I thought the "standard" of mobile browsing in 2007 was, for instance, Blazer on the Treo: not necessarily an abridged "mobile site" (how I loathe those) but rather a browser that was reasonably good at rearranging a page's layout to fit the screen better.
Bow-ties are cool.
Steve Jobs:
First, there’s “Open”. Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary.
We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.
HAY GUIZE, THE FOUNDAR OF APPEL IS COMPLAINING THAT ADOBE IS NO FAIR BECUZ FLASCH IS NOT OPEN. OH NOES!
Well, not really. It's more like he's saying "I will not allow Flash to become a de-facto part of the iPhone development platform, because Adobe would then be in a position in effect to delay deployment of enhancements to the platform."
Bow-ties are cool.
He decided to kill it to prevent applications that did not use the iOS store from running on iPhone. It had nothing to do with flash sucking and everything to do with control of the platform.
No, he really didn't. He killed it because it was dog slow, resource intensive and crashed all the damn time (on the desktop). His vision for the mobile user experience meant that it simply wouldn't look good or work at all well. He was anal about the user experience, and Flash simply would not perform on a mobile power and CPU/GPU budget.
The iOS app store thing was just a bonus (and unlikely, given how they also promoted and supported HTML5 apps that you can get outside of the app store in exactly the same way as you'd get hypothetical flash apps).
Jobs didn't have the ability to ban anything from MacOS. That "feature" is still being worked on.
Bullshit. If Jobs wanted to lead the way to destroying flash he should have banned it from OS X too. The fact that he didn't just proves what everyone has said all along that the real intention of banning Flash on iOS is to eliminate an avenue for people to make money selling stuff without paying an Apple tax.
Except that the app store did not exist on the iPhone when it launched and didn't arrive for a some time afterwards. Apple didn't even realise that the app store would be something that would take off so heavily - hence all the marketing into HTML5 apps around that time (a development method that is still supported).
But that sort of attitude also prevents users from controlling their own devices.
OK, Adobe kills Flash 11.3 on Linux for non-Google Chromium browsers, but now they are killing Android support?
Trying to wrap my head around the logic here that doesn't involve money...
Yep, you replaced a program that the owner didn't mind if you made a FOSS version with one controlled by patent trolls and which is in bed with MSFT and Apple, two companies with a LONG history of locking down and not playing nice...congrats.
Mark my words FOSS lovers, you are gonna look back one day soon and go "WTF was we thinking?" because MPEG-LA will end up royally fucking you over. H.265 is coming and guess what? To replace platforms like Flash and Silverlight its gonna be a DRM delight and YOU won't be able to play the content. Nobody is gonna make FOSS DRM and with Apple and MSFT behind H.26x you're gonna get royally buttfucked. Adobe never said boo, let you bundle flash with any distro royalty free, even left the Gnash guys alone, you think MPEG-LA is gonna be that nice? BWA HA HA HA HA, they are patent trolls!
So congrats to the whiners that have wanted flash to die because the Linux version was buggy, just remember when web video becomes as locked down as the iPhone whose fault it is, which would be YOU! You should have refused to abandon flash until a FOSS codec like WebM or Theora was chosen as the minimum for HTML V5 but you didn't, instead you are gonna hand the entire web over to Apple, MSFT, and Google who will end up locking down Android so they can play H.265. After all they can afford to pay the $699 license fee, you can't. Boy did y'all get scammed!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Amazon already doesn't work with Linux (Chromium, Firefox, etc...) unless you use Chrome. It refuses to play because the player is out of date, but there are no more updates for Linux :/. Unfortunately, Chrome has rendering issues on my machine... sigh.
I like to play web games to kill time.
SuperKendall wrote the following, with which Quiet_Desperation agreed:
If you liked casual games you REALLY should have bought an iPad.
Belial6 wrote:
[Platformers] universally suck for touch screens.
If platformers aren't casual games, let's get the definition clash out of the way first: what are casual games? Or what should a fan of platformers have bought instead of an iPad or an Android tablet?
You've obviously never dealt with some of the patch deployment platforms i have.... including one (that will go un-named) that actually forced me to restore 2 servers from backups because i had the audacity to let someone install it.... the same one even killed network connections on a couple of servers because it wanted to re-implement windows firewall
A lot of fanboys laughed at Apple and thought their Android phone was goign to be 10 times better because it will have flash. I've never put flash on my android and I can't think of anyone I know that uses it because it's shit. It's shit on the desktop but it's even shittier on mobiles.
If people keep giving up on Flash then an alternative will come sooner. Sitting on Flash until something comes will lead to nothing ever coming.
Are you refuting that HTML V5 drains battery, runs slow and eats up precious RAM on the phones that support it? FTFY
And on the desktop frankly HTML V5 is WAY worse than flash, i have a 1.8GHz Sempron I use as a nettop here at the shop and I can watch SD flash all day no problem, while HTML V5 is a slideshow and completely unwatchable.
Whether you wish to accept it or not HTML V5 isn't a "magic bullet" and things like video, web animations, and interactive content are frankly gonna suck RAM I don't give a damned WHAT format you use. Oh and let us not forget that for many jobs such as animations frankly HTML V5 doesn't have anything that qualifies as more than beta software, it also requires much more work to do the same things that would be trivial in flash.
Personally I wish they'd BOTH die, as while its obvious that thanks to the will of Jobs flash on mobile won't be going anywhere frankly HTML has been stretched and twisted so far beyond what it was originally designed to do it ain't even funny. what we need is a new format, designed from the ground up to be light, both on size and bandwidth, to be easily secured, and that is TRULY open, no relying on patented up the ass formats like H.26x to watch videos.
sadly what we'll get instead is most likely a DRMed up the butt format based around H.265 that will kill any competition for the big three and will probably have a nice dose of planned obsolescence as well. want to play the latest content? Sorry but your iPad 6 doesn't support superduper (TM) protected path, time to buy a new one! Ugh, the next couple of years are gonna be a mess, i just know it.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Have you actually used Flash on Android? it doesn't drain the battery, slow down the phone, or eat up RAM. If you visit a website with Flash embedded in it, the Flash element is drawn as a letter F. You have to tap on the F to actually load and play the Flash. Apple just tossed up those strawmen (which any competent coder could work around in 5 minutes) to avoid talking about the real reason they were prohibiting Flash.
OP is correct. Apple's decision not to support Flash was to prevent the distribution of apps which can run on iOS bypassing the App Store. They have a very clear policy on all apps in the App Store - No Code Interpreters. And Flash is a doozy of a code interpreter. The only code interpreters Apple allows (due to a recent policy change) are ones where you can't download code.
Now, this isn't a one-sided profit thing. Yes it lets them take a cut of any iOS program which you might sell. But it also helps them control and prevent the spread of malware on iOS.
It will finally be complete once Adobe pulls the plug on Flash on all desktop systems for good. They've already put Linux users at a disadvantage; and for that, being a Linux user who will no doubt be affected by this move eventually, Flash can just fucking die. In fact, I hate Flash and can't stand using it to begin with, but there are just so many sites that just refuse to display everything/properly without Flash. Once Flash is finally unnecessary for the proper loading and viewing of web sites, I'm removing the garbage. It's happening--slowly--but it would be nice if something would accelerate the process. Lack of cell phone support may speed it up for sites like YouTube and porn sites, but who knows how long it'll take for music bands to stop relying on Flash for their official sites.
When did people stop believing in freedom? I should be able to run any program on my computer or my handset (which is just a small 4" computer) that I desire.
I don't see you picketing Adobe, you hypocrite.
Jobs wasn't right, but his statement was self-fulfilling. Adobe abandoned the mobile Flash Player BECAUSE Apple would never allow it on iOS, and iOS owned too much of the market for Flash to have a chance on mobile without it.
And imagine, people actually predicted the iPhone would fail because it didn't have Flash.
Yeah, because using Flash on my phone every day for the past two years really shows how "accurate" Steve Jobs was.
Fucking morons. Given enough time, all prediction like this could eventually be said to be accurate. This was over two years ago, practically an eternity when it comes to technology.
Was anyone denying it then?
Yes, actually, they were quite a lot of people denying it. Adobe of course, but also a whole chorus of Flash "developers"--remember, there really are a lot of those people out there. Some of them will move on to better technologies, and some of them will be saying "would you like fries with that" ;-)
Just to be clear, Flash Player is being killed off, and Adobe AIR will be the way to deliver Flash content to mobile. Flash still exists (and will be updated) for mobile, just not through the browser.
You can install flash on any idevice... just jailbreak it and install "frash" from Cydia...
works great, plays all of newsground stuff / homestar runner without any problems on my ipod touch.
just cause "Jobs" said this or said that don't mean shit. He's a moron and the only real reason to get an iDevice is to jailbreak it so you have full control and install what you want.
or go all out and toss in the http://cydia.hackulo.us/ repository into Cydia and download Installous and tell all the iapps to piss off if ya wanted.
But yea... just install frash on your idevice and you have flash... there is even an app in the official appstore that gives you flash content "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/skyfire-web-browser-flash/id384941497?mt=8" course Skyfire browser is server side and more an experimental thing but it's in the official app store and delivers newsground/homestarrunner flash animations officially on all idevices.
Re:Where are all those Flash is the Future ppl now? Still here, making real world object oriented UIs for people that are nit-picky about pixel perfection and decent user experience... I guess all of us lame Flex programmers will have to migrate to JavaScript - the "wave of the future". I can't get excited enough about the prospect of having to use JavaScript (a classless prototype language) to do real app development (actual big-boy work). Nothing like having to step back 5 years to move forward 1. JavaScript is for kids - thanks Apple fan-boys!
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We all stop support for Adobe. Isn't there some better way that isn't a huge pain in the ass to watch video on various devices? I mean, seriously...
thank you. this needs to be shouted from the rooftops. steve is dead. long live steve.
Flash died because Jobs killed it. Jobs killed it because it competed with his app store, regardless of his words to the contrary.
Love Flash or hate Flash, let's call it what it was: one company with a superior market position strong-arming the technology of another company out of the way because it threatened their profits.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
LOL, maybe if the control freaks opened up their APIs to Adobe, they could have made a good product.
Flash video requires it to render frames to a buffer so it can be manipulated by Flash code. The control freaks only offered this API starting late last year. After that? Guess what happened to the efficiency?
I've used Flash on a 1GHz single core Nexus One, and Flash games designed for desktop almost run well. Mobile optimized? They run fantastic. I've put desktop flash games on a dual core 1GHz and had no issues whatsoever.
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Are you saying that the other options won't drain the battery and run slow... and eat up RAM? Or, are you saying Flash does it less efficiently? Video/audio will definitely take up extra resources no matter how you present it.
If the former, then you are wrong. If the latter, I'm curious to the extra consumption. Have any links? I'm just seeing iOS > Android in performance. Apples to oranges there.
I'd like to check out some HTML5 toons. Which can you think of as examples that make HTML5 look good?
When Jobs first released the iPhone there was no App Store and there was no intention of building one.
In the original plan, how were web applications supposed to use the device's camera and microphone? Safari doesn't support HTML Media Capture, and I'm told that won't come until at least iOS 6.
So we agree that not all animation is cheesy. But is all vector animation, such as that delivered in the SWF format, necessarily cheesy?