It always angered me that the 'poster families' the media chooses for its talk shows about special needs cases are almost always photogenic white collar folks whose biggest sacrifice is the extra money they have to spend to let specialists raise their children. If you visit a local meeting of whatever autism or other handicap support organization is in your community, I guarantee this is NOT what you will see. You will meet families struggling to keep their homes and their sanity in the face of impossible demands on their time, health and budget.
Considering I do a lot of advocacy work with families with children that have various disabilities (mainly Autistic Spectrum Disorders) I guess my personal observation has always been that the "photogenic white collar" crowd are generally the ones who are educated enough to know where to start looking for more information about what is going on with their children.
But I think the main thing you're forgetting is that the only thing important to talk show producers is the photogenic part of the equation. Remember If somebody looks/acts weird (and there isn't some sort of obvious physical reason for it) then an audience can't sympathize with them, viewing them as creepy weirdoes and ratings go down as a result.
And despite what many people seem to think, five hundred bucks for a gadget, and another 200 bucks for software, is not a trivial amount of money for a family with special needs kids. Having a special needs child almost automatically consigns many families to a single earner lifestyle, assuming their marriages even survive the experience.
While I agree with your point about the money and relationships piece I think that you might want to remember there are varying degrees of expensive here. Certainly the $700 spent sounds like a lot of money, but when you compare to this to other technologies listed in the article, namely that $7,820 P.O.S. "specialized technology" that is where the savings start to come in.
I'm sure I don't need to tell you about how rare it is to find insurance plans that will even theoretically cover these devices, let alone the amount of time and energy you have to spend dealing with them in order to get them to do in practice what your policy specifies.
My brother is legally blind and has Cerebral Palsy and as a result he is confined to a wheelchair and the amount of time and money that our family has to spend getting the arrangements made to replace his wheelchair every half decade is insane. If we could find a lower cost consumer solution we could pay out of pocket, which is what the iPad is offering in this case, I can guarantee we'd take it in a heartbeat!
Bottom line is no matter what you do, you're going to have to spend some money to be able to accommodate your kid's unique learning style. I'm a big believer in the not being penny wise but pound foolish school of thought, especially where technology is concerned. Ultimately I view time as more valuable then money, so that's why I generally prefer to recommend to my clients to get something that's a bit more pricey up front, but saves them a lot of time and effort in constantly struggling to get it to work when using it in the long run.
My son is autistic. An ipad with this software would probably have been very useful for him when he was younger, and possibly even now...but only if it was built with mll-spec indestructibility. Special needs kids tend to have severe behavioral problems, and violent tantrums are not unusual. They need to be either tougher or cheaper.
I definitely agree with the added durability point you made as I've dealt with computers in special education settings for a long time. However one year in particular comes to mind at a speciality startup school for kids with various Autistic Spectrum Disorders, and let me just say I'm glad it was a Mac shop as I've yet to see a notebook/netbook that can take the amount of puni
Frotz is available for iphone? I thought interpreters were a no-no. Apparently z-code is limited enough that it's okay?
Believe it!
I'd never played Text adventures before as I'm afraid they were a bit before my time, but Frotz sounded interesting enough for me to give it a try (http://goo.gl/I3ja) so I started up and unlike a lot of the other applications I've purchased it has remained loaded on my iPhone for several years now as my game of choice when on the go!
While I understand Amazon's reasoning for wanting to add to the amount of available content unless they offer the ability to load adventures from other sources onto the device, personally, I'd rather stick to my iPhone version of Frotz as it allows me to load new adventures not just directly in app from IFDB, but also via FTP from my computer as well as I now know several folks who create there own Z-Code adventures so I can give them feedback by testing their latest efforts when I'm on the train!
Microsoft has replaced postscript with XPS. IE and Silverlight can display XPS, so goodbye Acrobat. Silverlight does video and RIA. Goodbye Flash. Expression Blend can do what Illustrator does, although it's not as mature.
Please don't confuse offering really bad alternatives with replacing things.
Microsoft's been introducing alternatives for years but even in the 90s most companies doing multimedia and pagination knew better and continued to buy Apple as that's always the area that
Microsoft has never offered anything remotely approaching the functionality of Display PostScript for its operating systems (I still get times even now when I'm working on a client's machine when the OS has problems loading because the resolution settings are so screwed up to the point where Windows can't display anything because the monitor can't correctly output the display settings) nor has it ever provided any built-in support for monitor calibration prior to the introduction of WCS in Vista.
There's a reason that people were still buying Macs even throughout the 90s for multimedia and pagination purposes as Apple first introduced Colorsync back in 1993 and Microsoft has finally started to play catchup, and it only took them 14 years, but they still have a very long to go even with the most recent release of Windows 7!
And with no one giving MS a chance of succeeding in the mobile space, the time may be right to sidestep antitrust issues.
Doubtful, really, as Android has already filled the void for a consumer phone OS to fill the gap, and Microsoft really showed how great they could design a phone with the Kin. If they had managed to acquire Palm I think that would have been a smarter acquisition for them as they could give up on Windows Mobile (the big flaw of which is shown by the name in that Microsoft is still determined to port over a desktop experience to a phone rather than starting from scratch to create an OS specifically geared for mobile devices) and shift over to WebOS but given HP (who was huge driving force for Windows Mobile devices back in the day with its iPaq line) showed how confident they are in Microsoft's ability to create a quality mobile operating system by buying Palm out from under them!
Microsoft gets a migration path from Adobe to Silverlight. Adobe shareholders get $$$'s and not uncertainty.
The uncertainty will come from the government.
I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say with that paragraph as it sounds like you're admitting that Adobe is actually making money from their offerings whereas pretty much the only profitable divisions of Microsoft at this point are Office, Servers, and Windows Desktop OS bundling sales which is really not the best way to support you're point.
Bottom line for me is that Photoshop didn't get to verb status without Adobe doing something right. While I'lll freely admit I've had issues with Adobe's semi-recent trend of rolling out overpriced bloatware more and more quickly in recent years, for the most part the CS line is still the industry standard, so while I would love to see Adobe clean up it's act I don't think allowing Microsoft to acquire Adobe is going to help them in that practice!
You misunderstand me. I don't think "educating users" is a viable alternative to obscuring functionality. I'm talking about improving interfaces so that they actually tell the user in plain english (or whatever language) what the ramifications of selecting an option are, and those selections are actually granular and well formed so that one of them is the option the user wants (like run the software but don't trust it, let it start serving e-mail or look at my address book, or overwrite my files, or use all my network bandwidth, or modify my OS).
You're right, and I apologize as that was something of a knee jerk response on my part as I do agree with you on that point.
I created the directories you mention and timed myself. I'm about twice as fast using the CLI for that task. As for your argument about the difference between Windows and UNIX CLI's, that's not an argument that GUIs are superior, simply that CLI's (like any interface) can be done poorly. Heck you could make the same argument about trying to use Vista via the GUI and thus conclude GUI's suck compared to OS X's CLI.
Again let me state the need for a race here, as I got the opposite results on my end, LOL!
In response to your other point let me just say that I could make that argument but I didn't because my point was that I view GUIs as a way more intuitive UI method for most people than any CLI.
I actually like OS X's integration of GUI and CLI, like that when I move a directory via the GUI, my terminal windows figure it out immediately. Still, for rapid completion of tasks, a CLI interface is usually going to be faster for significant subset of tasks, even if there is more of a learning curve to figure it out.
Honestly, I guess the best concession I could make about that argument is that it maybe it is better that way for someone else, but I think that for me and other folks who aren't programmers, I don't view that as the case.
Both interfaces have their advantages, but for users that perform tasks highly skewed towards one interface or another, certainly there's nothing wrong with using that interface. I don't think many people would argue it is evil to not use a CLI, just that for some tasks it's painful because of the limitations of that type of interface.
Absolutely, by all means, please understand I'm not saying that CLI use is inherently evil!
I think the bottom line of my post is that I get really sick of people saying that GUI use inherently evil (or lazy, or stupid) because you're absolutely right when you say that people should be able to use whatever method is the least painful to get whatever they need to do done and there are limitations for both methods so people should use whatever UI that they feel is the best suited for whatever they need to do.
...but frankly I've never understood how typing cd ~/Desktop/ToBeInstalled/GIMP/Docs/ is supposed to be more efficient than pointing and clicking four times with a mouse?
Apparently you've also never understood how the tab key works in any OS CLI for at least the last decade, either.
If you're familiar with your task, there is absolutely nothing faster than the CLI. If your task is not familiar, however, it can be torture. That's the real tradeoff between CLI and GUI - familiar, repetative tasks can be several orders of magnitude faster in a CLI, but unfamiliar tasks can be orders of magnitude slower (until the start to become familiar, of course).
This is why highly experienced admins tend to prefer the CLI over the GUI (regardless of the OS, Linux just forces you into it where Windows doesn't), whereas inexperienced admins will hunt the GUI until they find it. If they're smart, they'll then find out how they can do the same thing in the CLI.
Yes, but again my response regarding tab completion remains the same as I still have found that navigating to the directory ( not to mention actually doing basic tasks) is much faster (and way the hell more intuitive for everyone besides programmers) than typing a bunch of repetitive and obscure CLI commands.
Regarding your point concerning the higher efficiency of repetitive tasks using the CLI I disagree completely.
Troubleshooting aside, most basic admin tasks can be accomplished quickly and easily on OS X Server right now using the GUI and I fully expect the ease of use and functionality to get better as time goes on.
Again on other platforms that don't have a decent GUI I can understand the CLI point of view.
But for me personally, when I'm using OS X Server I'd appreciate it if instead of being so quick to blame people who are newer to System Administration for being "lazy" for not wanting to waste their time hunting around to be able to learn a bunch of obscure commands if they can already get most of what they need to be done with a GUI especially if it allows them the ability to gain the time they need to accomplish the many other things that need to be done in the course of their massively overworked and underpaid day!
...but frankly I've never understood how typing cd ~/Desktop/ToBeInstalled/GIMP/Docs/ is supposed to be more efficient than pointing and clicking four times with a mouse?
I'm one of those people who lives in both worlds, GUI and CLI depending upon my needs... but I actually can navigate that directory structure faster using the CLI than the UI. Hitting a few characters then a tab and a slash is really, really fast compared to moving a mouse cursor and clicking, even assuming a responsive GUI (and GUI's still slow down a lot under load on most systems).
Trying to Admin a network sitting around typing in obscure commands all the time strikes me as way more lazy than using a quick get in and get out approach via a GUI but good luck trying to convince the hardcore programmer crowd of that.
Executing commands and changing configurations either using the CLI or GUI can be frustrating due to the obscurity of many commands and interfaces. Switching between various versions of Windows and trying to find even basic configuration settings can be extremely painful... just as painful as trying to parse slightly out of date man pages using a very unintuitive text editor that doesn't support scrolling text, from within a terminal window. GUI interfaces tend to be more learnable because there are fewer permitted combinations (only so many many things to click on instead of combinations of letters to type). CLI interfaces tend to be more portable across OS versions and even OS's (install the right shell on Windows and the "ping" command will work on most any OS you can find).
Don't get me wrong, CLI is a necessity on the client side as it prevents users from getting in and royally screwing up stuff that they shouldn't be trying to play around with
I disagree. I don't think obscurity is a good mechanism for protecting users from making poor decisions. Making interfaces easier and more informative is the key, but that's hard so most people punt and make things hard to use instead.
easy to use is too often equated as dumbed down, perhaps it's important to remember that while they can overlap at times, those two adjectives can be worlds apart...
Absolutely! Usability and functionality can certainly co-exist.
While I'm glad we can find some common ground here, I stand by my point regarding security through obscurity. If you've ever worked tech support for any given length of time (and god knows I wish more FLOSS advocates have seeing as how they do seem to like going on and on about the users should be "educated" about everything), you would know that most are not interested in learning about the details of technology and will not retain any specific information that you give them about it due to that fact.
Regarding CLI file system navigation, setting aside the speed issue (which I think I'll agree to disagree on that barring a race:) while that's great for *NIX systems, using Windows CLI is a bit of a different story.
Actually the main point about GUI administration on servers I was making was really more dealing with OS X server as I strongly agree that using a GUI on any other platform is even more painful than trying to use and administer it on a regular basis in general (and with Windows Server that's really saying something;).
Don't get me wrong, as I believe I said in my original post, I don't think that even OS X server is ready to be administered using just the GUI but I guess my point is if the GUI gets to the pont where it is designed well enough to be able to duplicate the majority of the functionality of the CLI then I don't see the inherent evil in switching and sticking with using just a GUI.
This is also a problem with Max OS X Server. Apple builds their services from open source products and adds a GUI for configuration to make it all clickable and easy to set up. However, many options that can be set on the command line can't be set in the GUI. Even worse, making CLI changes to services can break the GUI entirely.
The hardware and software are both super stable and run really smoothly, so once everything gets set up, it's awesome. Still, it's hard for a guy who would rather make changes on the CLI to get used to.
Prior to Snow Leopard I'd agree with that sentiment, but even though it was billed as an incremental release on the client side, the vast majority of fixes and improvements went into server and with the release and support for Mini so IMHO it's really the best (and cheapest) solution for the SMB market right now. In the interests of full disclosure I should probably add that I'm posting this from my home Mac Mini Server though.
This maybe an age issue on my part but I'll never understand why people have such a hard time letting go of CLI? I mean a lot of programmers seem to love to rant about this subject and how "lazy" it makes everyone, but frankly I've never understood how typing cd ~/Desktop/ToBeInstalled/GIMP/Docs/ is supposed to be more efficient than pointing and clicking four times with a mouse? Trying to Admin a network sitting around typing in obscure commands all the time strikes me as way more lazy than using a quick get in and get out approach via a GUI but good luck trying to convince the hardcore programmer crowd of that.
Don't get me wrong, CLI is a necessity on the client side as it prevents users from getting in and royally screwing up stuff that they shouldn't be trying to play around with, but on the server side, if someone could get all the necessary settings and tools necessary to admin into a well designed GUI (and OS X Server is getting there) I'd start using it in a heartbeat as it saves me a bunch of time from having to script everything out! Considering even Linus Torvalds expressed concern over the fact that easy to use is too often equated as dumbed down, perhaps it's important to remember that while they can overlap at times, those two adjectives can be worlds apart...
The reason that Verizon won't carry them is not because of Microsoft's place in the mobile market, but because none of the manufacturers will have cleared the FCC with CDMA phones until later in the year. Verizon has said they will have them in January. Way to spread the FUD.
Actually I did state in my post above that Verizon "announced they are not going to be carrying any Windows Mobile devices for the rest of this year."
I'm curious to know the source for your claim regarding manufacturers not clearing the FCC, as most of my reading actually indicated that because Microsoft refused to support CDMA in Windows 7 Mobile (good summary here: http://goo.gl/i6rN).
As the article notes, strangely enough though the lack of support was a decision that was supposedly made early this year, the announcement for that came out right after Verizon came out with their press release about dropping Windows Mobile 7 devices.
Also, given that Android devices with CDMA have been announced for release this year clearly the handset makers haven't had any reported problems clearing FCC approval.
So while I freely admit I may have not included as much detail as I should have regarding certain specifics I think my main point in the post above is perfectly valid; Microsoft needs to understand that they are an underdog in the market now and need to be less arrogant and be prepared to start bending to other companies needs.
...That they aren't where they used to be in the mobile market given Verizon has already announced they are not going to be carrying any Windows Mobile devices for the rest of this year (http://goo.gl/TBYb).
I mean they could have gotten away with it back when Palm was the only other major player and they were on the ropes, but I think if their smart, HP and Google will use Microsoft's practices to push handset makers towards alternate OS (namely WebOS and Android).
As for carriers, with Verizon refusing to carry Windows Mobile 7 phones, that's one down, just 3 more to go!
"Given the results of earlier 'corporation rights' cases, such as Citizens United, at some point you wonder if the Supreme Court will also give companies the right to vote directly."
Personally, I actually won't be too surprised when that happens, after all they've already given corporations a ruling that effectively translates into unlimited bidding rights on politicians; why stop there?!
The thing that I love about this is that whenever a story comes up about Apple rejecting an application a lot of Slashdot posters start screaming bloody murder about "walled gardens" but when RIM decides that they are forbidding people from putting up not just Fart applications, but anything they don't feel "adds something to your life."
To think people complain that Apple's application approval rules are abstract, I mean since it's my life, shouldn't I get to decide what applications are going to add something to it, not RIM?!
But reading through the commentary most people seem to be giving them a free pass just because they're making a "business device," (whatever the hell that means since I find Apple's Exchange integration to be a hell of a lot easier to implement than any BlackBerry models I've ever had to the misfortune to be forced to setup) so for some reason the FLOSS argument suddenly doesn't apply!
I mean if you want to criticize Apple regularly for "Walling their Garden" (Or in Apple's case perhaps orchard is a more fitting term, LOL) then shouldn't you be criticizing RIM for doing the exact same thing here?
I know open source users tend to automatically discount anything Apple says but for all the points I've stated above, while I can't speak for Steve Job's reasons, personally I'd much rather see even a (I'm not familiar with the exact terms of use for HTML so I'll call it semi-open) standard take the place of Adobe's rapidly degrading closed platform, wouldn't you?
Yes, i certainly would. It looks like we're 2 sides going for the same conclusion. I think people need to consider HTML5 as an 'open' Flash.
So for example, security issues don't go away, they simply move from a single runtime to each browser's implementation. Is this beneficial? Probably, you can choose the most secure implementation.
Performance and stability is a different matter, instead of one runtime for each platform (windows, linux, osx, android, etc...) each browser has its own implementation. So certain parts of the standard may perform better or worse and be more or less stable in certain browsers on certain platforms. While this does complicate things but it also means browsers will have to be more competitive.
The annoying, buggy and resource-hog arguments against flash aren't magically going away with HTML5, that's my main point. HTML5 is just as likely to be no better in this regard, however the potential to be better is there though it comes at the cost of possible fragmentation. With such a large standard and such broad functionality it's hard to imagine all the implementors are going to be able to produce viable and conforming implementations. That's really the only benefit i see in flash, it's consistent ( don't read as far as performance;) ) in its implementation of the features across platforms.
I'm glad to see we're finding some common ground here, if our implementation of solutions is a bit different...;)
Ironically most of what you said I'd actually view as arguments towards embracing HTML 5, namely the points regarding on how the competitive nature of browser development would encourage better performance.
That leads us to the key point which I feel you haven't really acknowledged here, which is that because Flash is proprietary everyone is at the mercy of Adobe to provide the platform plug-in development and design (which as I have stated in my posts above I firmly believe they are failing to do).
So if you contrast that to the multiple browser scenario which you laid out above, given the multitude of browsers out there now then surely that will provide a much better solution for me as a user as the competitive nature of browser development will drive browser and web developers towards providing a better experience for me as a user of said technologies?
Not to mention the fact that various niche browsers developed specifically for different Hardware/OS platforms would have the resources to provide development support for implementing HTML 5 on said devices, so wouldn't you agree that rather than having Adobe continue to be overreaching their available resources on development and testing of patches as they need to try to keep the plug-in versions consistent on all devices which impairs their ability to release said patches in a timely manner, it would seem to make more sense to use an open standard to allow development to shift towards web developers that are specifically motivated to develop for said platforms thereby opening the door for a better user experience?
One other point I would also pose to you, is that I know you also claim in your previous post that annoying, buggy and resource-hog arguments against Flash aren't going to go away with HTML 5, but as I said in a post earlier all the issues I experienced HAVE magically gone away whenever I navigate so to the (albeit few but growing) websites that have started implementing HTML 5 so that's really not a rhetorical point for me, that's actually been my experience...;)
But before we jump on that bandwagon, let's not forget practical limitations. A Bluray holds 50 gigabytes of data. Downloading that over my 750k DSL connection would take 7 days, and there are a lot of people who don't have even that speed (still suck on dialup). Plus once I've downloaded the file I'll want to store it somewhere permanent, like a Bluray-R so why not just save some time, go to the store, and get the Bluray already conveniently pressed on disc for me?
Bottom Line - Blurays are not disappearing yet. People like the convenience and instant gratification.
Also Steve Jobs has a bad habit of burying technology while it's still alive & breathing in the coffin. He famously stopped putting floppies in Macs (1999), when people still needed floppies to trade work files, or to access older archived software, or to revive dead systems, thereby forcing Mac users to spend extra for an external drive. NOW it looks like he's doing the same with DVDs and Blurays - declaring them as "not needed" when they still ARE needed.
Gosh, that's so true about how floppy disks will never truly die, but speaking of, that reminds me that I need to finish transferring some files over from a client's older machine his newer one so I'll just eject the floppy disk then put into- Damn it....
This has happened many times since the late 60s and possibly before.
These people are credible enough to handle launching nuclear ICBMs, including one who was a base commander at a foreign base where nuclear weapons were stored, yet some people still doubt their credibility?
It's not just unidentified objects showing up at silos, they've been able to take all of the independent missile systems offline in a very particular way, which shouldn't be possible...In some cases when fighters have been scrambled the objects will lead the fighters many, many miles away then shoot back to where they were in an instant.
I realize that a lot of people like to ridicule this stuff, because they're not used to credible people coming clean about this stuff. But UFOs are a reality, and these events did happen... Back in the 50s UFOs were in the press all of the time, without the added ridicule, there were days in July of 1952 where the capital was swarming with them.
What the UFOs are and where they came from, who knows - but there is something to these reports, so why don't you get all of the facts before you make up your mind. Contempt prior to investigation is a sure way to remain ignorant.
Sure, people will dismiss this and think it's about making money, but there are many, many crews that have stated this going back to the 60s, they're not selling books or anything else.
Actually instances of UFOs monitoring military activities occurred even before the 50s as Foo Fighters were a fairly well documented phenomena during World War II and interestingly enough several of those accompanied at least one of the two flights that dropped the nuclear bombs on the Japanese (I'm not sure about the second flight off the top of my head though)...
The security issues aside (which is really the main reason I would argue for cross platform HTML 5 implementation), let me say that clearly you've never tried to use a Mac browser on several flash sites.
Despite the fact that Apple has provided support for developers for several years now to utilize the GPU via Core frameworks Adobe has never updated Flash and as a result it continues to literally bring Macs to a freezing halt due to excessive CPU use, which quite frankly makes it entirely understandable that Apple really doesn't want it on the iPhone as well.
You are right, i can't recall ever using flash on my mac. However on Windows, Linux, Android and Maemo (the latter 2 both on my N900) I haven't really had any issues with it. Of course every now and then you come across a badly coded site, just as you come across badly coded applications and HTML5 won't solve that. I know access to GPU-accelerated functionality was not made available by Apple for quite some time - it was only quite recently - and with the rift between Adobe and Apple I guess that may have played some part in the delay but I thought the new version of flash introduced hardware acceleration for the mac?
I agree with your point regarding performance issues being dependent on how HMTL 5 is implemented on various websites and that's actually why I find the opinions of the open source community that I have read regarding finally putting pressure on people to discard Flash so frustrating.
The real gripe I have with Flash is Adobe's continuing revisions of the Creative Suite (name Flash) have not translated into improvements, but rather have caused the platform to become bloatware.
In addition to creating more complexity which often times prevents correct implementation of it on websites the added complexity really makes it that much harder to ensure security and roll out patches which is one of the reasons I suspect the security issues are only going to be compounded as time goes on.
While I freely admit I don't remember exactly when the GPU acceleration was added I know it's been around for at least the last two versions of OS X (which is at least 4 years) and given how Adobe has been releasing new versions of CS to the point where I suspect they may start looking at new revisions yearly and have only with the most recent release finally fully redone the CS applications into Cocoa I'm not holding my breath to start adding the necessary revisions into the paid CS versions let alone the freebie players.
I know open source users tend to automatically discount anything Apple says but for all the points I've stated above, while I can't speak for Steve Job's reasons, personally I'd much rather see even a (I'm not familiar with the exact terms of use for HTML so I'll call it semi-open) standard take the place of Adobe's rapidly degrading closed platform, wouldn't you?
The problem with your argument is that you are making the assumption that whatever replaces Flash, be it HTML 5, or some other new standard is going to be worse immediately.
I think he's making the assumption that HTML5 isn't necessarily going to be better, not that it's going to be worse. It would be nice if re-writing a flash website in html5 made it perform better, but there's nothing that i've seen to support such a thing.
The security issues aside (which is really the main reason I would argue for cross platform HTML 5 implementation), let me say that clearly you've never tried to use a Mac browser on several flash sites.
Despite the fact that Apple has provided support for developers for several years now to utilize the GPU via Core frameworks Adobe has never updated Flash and as a result it continues to literally bring Macs to a freezing halt due to excessive CPU use, which quite frankly makes it entirely understandable that Apple really doesn't want it on the iPhone as well.
Despite everyone's whining about HTML 5 performance issues every HTML 5 page I've loaded doesn't cause my machines or my user's machines to grind to a freaking halt!
As for not seeing anything to support superior performance, personally the pages that I've used with HTML 5 (including the much maligned Google bouncing logo page) have loaded and worked with far superior performance to Flash and really made me impressed with the potential development future.
Frankly I think the real question here isn't why has Apple not supported Flash, but rather why haven't they gotten rid of it sooner...
Because Firefox users have no need for flash or Ad blockers do they.
I presume you are implying that the reason people use Flash blocking tools is because all Flash content inherently needs to be blocked. This isn't true.
The overly-prevalent mindset on Slashdot that "Flash is evil", "Flash needs to die", and "Flash is only used for bad things" is just plain wrong and broken. Flash is used in many places to greatly enhance things beyond what browsers are normally capable of. Games are an obvious example, but other applications such as Google Finance and Amazon's song previews are simple but effective examples. As is usually the case, the technology itself isn't really good or bad, but what people do with it can be. And people, as a rule, are decidedly good at making technology do bad things.
This then leaves the question: Why do people block flash? Almost entirely it falls into two categories:
- Flash is used in the most perverse and annoying advertisements that contain video and audio and which load the CPU unnecessarily - Flash has security concerns
Consider these. People champion HTML5 as some kind of messiah which will bring the end to Flash's evil reign. Okay, what would that result in? I'll give you a hint: HTML5 blockers. Why? Because soon we'll transition to:
- HTML5 is used in the most perverse and annoying advertisements that contain video and audio and which load the CPU unnecessarily - HTML5 has security concerns
Personally, Flash doesn't really bother me, but that's largely because it can be controlled. I use NoScript, partially to block Flash, and that tamed beast can do useful work. I think most people who yearn for its demise either don't understand that the void Flash leaves behind will be filled with something (at least as "bad" as Flash, if not worse), or they're just mindless zealots regurgitating Jobs' claims.
At the risk of being called a mindless zealot I'd like to respond to your points above,
The problem with your argument is that you are making the assumption that whatever replaces Flash, be it HTML 5, or some other new standard is going to be worse immediately.
The point that Steve Jobs has repeatedly stated is that "Flash was good in it's day," but because Adobe has let development of it lapse (particularly in never producing a version of Flash for a mobile device that would run effectively not just for iOS devices but for desktop machines as well) and continually failing to close security holes in a timely fashion, I think the point he was making was that Apple is trying to move (and encourage others to move as well) to a newer standard that is starting to emerge rather than sticking to a platform that has pretty much stagnated.
When whatever standard that replaces Flash starts to stagnate then you can expect them to switch again...
I'm worried because in all the years I've had a Google mail account I haven't had any issues, yet a month after getting an Android 2.1 phone, despite being really careful about only installing high rated applications with tens of thousands of users and mostly keeping an eye on what they're allowed to access, my gmail account was hacked and used to send out a spam email via a mobile device in canada.
I've never had an email account hacked before, so I'm pretty convinced that some phone app has leaked my account details (as it's the gmail account tethered to my phone).
Admittedly Google immediately suspended my account due to suspicious activity (access from Mobile Canada (71.17.214.49), I live in the UK), and a token to my mobile phone was how I unlocked it and changed my password, but I'm still rather wary now despite how much I love my Galaxy S mobile.
I have bought apps I don't want to lose wiping the phone, and I have no real way to tell what it may have been that leaked my data.
I have droidsecurity antivirus installed now, but wish google could offer some stronger post-install controls on what an app's allowed to do.
It's interesting that most journalists covering technology news make a habit of making predications about how the wait time for the iOS application development submission review process adds so much to development costs that it will (supposedly) cause application developers to jump ship to other platforms, but I find what they tend to overlook is the fact that the more laissez-faire approach taken in the Android Marketplace causes that cost to end up being passed onto the customer in the form of having to pay for anti-spyware/malware subscriptions...
Excel and Powerpoint aren't great, but their main brand was Microsoft Office until they got brand recognition on their own.
Incorrect and backwards.
Excel and PowerPoint had both been successful stand-alone products for several years before "Microsoft Office" was conceived, as a bundle (with Word) of three popular, name-brand products at a lower total price. At the time, Excel had just overtaken 1-2-3 as the best-selling spreadsheet program, and this was an effort at coattails-style marketing synergy, as avid Word users would become Excel and PowerPoint users, Excel fans would switch to Word and Powerpoint, etc. What Microsoft would lose in revenue they'd gain in market share, a tactic that contributed to the decline of WordPerfect, Borland, and Lotus, and Microsoft's near-monopoly on commercial office suites.
This was around the same time that Microsoft started making "Microsoft" part of the official names of the applications, amalgamating its line of popular individual software products into a monolithic brand: not just "Microsoft's spreadsheet program, Excel" but "the spreadsheet program Microsoft Excel". This went further as "Microsoft Excel" became "Microsoft Office Excel". (And if not for the anti-vertical-integration court cases, I suspect it would be bundled as "Microsoft Office Windows Excel" by now.)
What most people tend to forgot is that ironically the first version of Excel was actually released for the Mac in 1985 before making its debut on the PC...
web security experts are warning that the sprawling new web standard may favor functionality over security, enabling a new generation of powerful web-based attacks.
MS will Embrace and Extend, but not Extinguish the potential for security holes.
Apple will probably do much the same, but might do the enhanced functionality bit also.
The BSD and *nix variants will only take on the functionality, most foolishly (using MBA "forced-upgrade-income" definition).
Mac OS X is *NIX variant though so I'm not sure what you mean when you refer to Apple in your post?
...Someone contact Annie Walker at the CIA, the rogue IRA cell has now restarted their transmissions in Russia! I'd do it myself but just because I'm paranoid, it doesn't necessarily mean that the CIA has actually revoked their standing kill order on me...
...Let's try to get it off Laptops/Desktops as well!
The reason I really dislike is that it kills performance on the Mac side by causing massive overuse of the CPU as others have mentioned. The bitter irony here is that despite what reason #3 may state, the reason that Flash is such a CPU resource hog on the Mac is because Adobe has yet to rewrite it so that it uses the Mac's Core frameworks that are specifically setup to allow developers to use GPU hardware acceleration rather than continually tying up the CPU (which makes it especially ironic that Adobe has yet to grasp this given the history of the development of Quartz)!
As for reason #1, regarding Android use of Flash, that's great, I mean it's not like the platform wasn't fragmented enough, now we get to add yet another potential division between OS versions depending on whether or not the phone hardware supports Flash!
As if the rest of the article wasn't idiotic enough, I love how the writer thinks that Silverlight could still potentially dominate the market, given how many major companies have bailed from using it for the past year!
The sooner HTML5 is finalized as a standard the better as far as I'm concerned....
...WHY Google allows so much potential access of personal data to installed Extensions?!
I mean every time I tried to install an extension on Chrome I got the warning that it could potentially access my user data and or browser history, and I still don't see any reason that extensions should (even potentially) be allowed access to that information!
...I tend to have with Scientists relates to how I would view the difference between Scientists and Engineers:
Scientists are visionary thinkers is that tend to get too caught up with their grand sweeping ideas for changing the world which wouldn't by itself wouldn't be so bad, except that Engineers (and by Engineers I mean me;) are usually the ones that get stuck trying to ground them in the here and now reality of the projects we're working on.
Between that difference and the fact that we Engineers also have to waste a bunch of time trying to be tactful to the Scientists by not overemphasizing the fact that we view the majority of their ideas to have way too many impracticalities associated with them to ever be effectively implemented in real life so we do find ourselves puzzled why Scientists have to go on and on about them in Thursday afternoon meetings that seem to last forever, when some of us actually have real work to do, but at least with the advent of smart phone use in meetings you can pretend you're doing something useful!
Admittedly, I should add that most Engineers that I know (including myself for that matter) tend to view tact as huge waste of time as in general...
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It always angered me that the 'poster families' the media chooses for its talk shows about special needs cases are almost always photogenic white collar folks whose biggest sacrifice is the extra money they have to spend to let specialists raise their children. If you visit a local meeting of whatever autism or other handicap support organization is in your community, I guarantee this is NOT what you will see. You will meet families struggling to keep their homes and their sanity in the face of impossible demands on their time, health and budget.
Considering I do a lot of advocacy work with families with children that have various disabilities (mainly Autistic Spectrum Disorders) I guess my personal observation has always been that the "photogenic white collar" crowd are generally the ones who are educated enough to know where to start looking for more information about what is going on with their children.
But I think the main thing you're forgetting is that the only thing important to talk show producers is the photogenic part of the equation. Remember If somebody looks/acts weird (and there isn't some sort of obvious physical reason for it) then an audience can't sympathize with them, viewing them as creepy weirdoes and ratings go down as a result.
And despite what many people seem to think, five hundred bucks for a gadget, and another 200 bucks for software, is not a trivial amount of money for a family with special needs kids. Having a special needs child almost automatically consigns many families to a single earner lifestyle, assuming their marriages even survive the experience.
While I agree with your point about the money and relationships piece I think that you might want to remember there are varying degrees of expensive here. Certainly the $700 spent sounds like a lot of money, but when you compare to this to other technologies listed in the article, namely that $7,820 P.O.S. "specialized technology" that is where the savings start to come in.
I'm sure I don't need to tell you about how rare it is to find insurance plans that will even theoretically cover these devices, let alone the amount of time and energy you have to spend dealing with them in order to get them to do in practice what your policy specifies.
My brother is legally blind and has Cerebral Palsy and as a result he is confined to a wheelchair and the amount of time and money that our family has to spend getting the arrangements made to replace his wheelchair every half decade is insane. If we could find a lower cost consumer solution we could pay out of pocket, which is what the iPad is offering in this case, I can guarantee we'd take it in a heartbeat!
Bottom line is no matter what you do, you're going to have to spend some money to be able to accommodate your kid's unique learning style. I'm a big believer in the not being penny wise but pound foolish school of thought, especially where technology is concerned. Ultimately I view time as more valuable then money, so that's why I generally prefer to recommend to my clients to get something that's a bit more pricey up front, but saves them a lot of time and effort in constantly struggling to get it to work when using it in the long run.
My son is autistic. An ipad with this software would probably have been very useful for him when he was younger, and possibly even now...but only if it was built with mll-spec indestructibility. Special needs kids tend to have severe behavioral problems, and violent tantrums are not unusual. They need to be either tougher or cheaper.
I definitely agree with the added durability point you made as I've dealt with computers in special education settings for a long time. However one year in particular comes to mind at a speciality startup school for kids with various Autistic Spectrum Disorders, and let me just say I'm glad it was a Mac shop as I've yet to see a notebook/netbook that can take the amount of puni
Frotz is available for iphone? I thought interpreters were a no-no. Apparently z-code is limited enough that it's okay?
Believe it!
I'd never played Text adventures before as I'm afraid they were a bit before my time, but Frotz sounded interesting enough for me to give it a try (http://goo.gl/I3ja) so I started up and unlike a lot of the other applications I've purchased it has remained loaded on my iPhone for several years now as my game of choice when on the go!
While I understand Amazon's reasoning for wanting to add to the amount of available content unless they offer the ability to load adventures from other sources onto the device, personally, I'd rather stick to my iPhone version of Frotz as it allows me to load new adventures not just directly in app from IFDB, but also via FTP from my computer as well as I now know several folks who create there own Z-Code adventures so I can give them feedback by testing their latest efforts when I'm on the train!
If all that isn't enough for you, it's free too!
Microsoft has replaced postscript with XPS. IE and Silverlight can display XPS, so goodbye Acrobat. Silverlight does video and RIA. Goodbye Flash. Expression Blend can do what Illustrator does, although it's not as mature.
Please don't confuse offering really bad alternatives with replacing things.
Microsoft's been introducing alternatives for years but even in the 90s most companies doing multimedia and pagination knew better and continued to buy Apple as that's always the area that
Microsoft has never offered anything remotely approaching the functionality of Display PostScript for its operating systems (I still get times even now when I'm working on a client's machine when the OS has problems loading because the resolution settings are so screwed up to the point where Windows can't display anything because the monitor can't correctly output the display settings) nor has it ever provided any built-in support for monitor calibration prior to the introduction of WCS in Vista.
There's a reason that people were still buying Macs even throughout the 90s for multimedia and pagination purposes as Apple first introduced Colorsync back in 1993 and Microsoft has finally started to play catchup, and it only took them 14 years, but they still have a very long to go even with the most recent release of Windows 7!
And with no one giving MS a chance of succeeding in the mobile space, the time may be right to sidestep antitrust issues.
Doubtful, really, as Android has already filled the void for a consumer phone OS to fill the gap, and Microsoft really showed how great they could design a phone with the Kin. If they had managed to acquire Palm I think that would have been a smarter acquisition for them as they could give up on Windows Mobile (the big flaw of which is shown by the name in that Microsoft is still determined to port over a desktop experience to a phone rather than starting from scratch to create an OS specifically geared for mobile devices) and shift over to WebOS but given HP (who was huge driving force for Windows Mobile devices back in the day with its iPaq line) showed how confident they are in Microsoft's ability to create a quality mobile operating system by buying Palm out from under them!
Microsoft gets a migration path from Adobe to Silverlight. Adobe shareholders get $$$'s and not uncertainty.
The uncertainty will come from the government.
I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say with that paragraph as it sounds like you're admitting that Adobe is actually making money from their offerings whereas pretty much the only profitable divisions of Microsoft at this point are Office, Servers, and Windows Desktop OS bundling sales which is really not the best way to support you're point.
Bottom line for me is that Photoshop didn't get to verb status without Adobe doing something right. While I'lll freely admit I've had issues with Adobe's semi-recent trend of rolling out overpriced bloatware more and more quickly in recent years, for the most part the CS line is still the industry standard, so while I would love to see Adobe clean up it's act I don't think allowing Microsoft to acquire Adobe is going to help them in that practice!
You misunderstand me. I don't think "educating users" is a viable alternative to obscuring functionality. I'm talking about improving interfaces so that they actually tell the user in plain english (or whatever language) what the ramifications of selecting an option are, and those selections are actually granular and well formed so that one of them is the option the user wants (like run the software but don't trust it, let it start serving e-mail or look at my address book, or overwrite my files, or use all my network bandwidth, or modify my OS).
You're right, and I apologize as that was something of a knee jerk response on my part as I do agree with you on that point.
I created the directories you mention and timed myself. I'm about twice as fast using the CLI for that task. As for your argument about the difference between Windows and UNIX CLI's, that's not an argument that GUIs are superior, simply that CLI's (like any interface) can be done poorly. Heck you could make the same argument about trying to use Vista via the GUI and thus conclude GUI's suck compared to OS X's CLI.
Again let me state the need for a race here, as I got the opposite results on my end, LOL!
In response to your other point let me just say that I could make that argument but I didn't because my point was that I view GUIs as a way more intuitive UI method for most people than any CLI.
I actually like OS X's integration of GUI and CLI, like that when I move a directory via the GUI, my terminal windows figure it out immediately. Still, for rapid completion of tasks, a CLI interface is usually going to be faster for significant subset of tasks, even if there is more of a learning curve to figure it out.
Honestly, I guess the best concession I could make about that argument is that it maybe it is better that way for someone else, but I think that for me and other folks who aren't programmers, I don't view that as the case.
Both interfaces have their advantages, but for users that perform tasks highly skewed towards one interface or another, certainly there's nothing wrong with using that interface. I don't think many people would argue it is evil to not use a CLI, just that for some tasks it's painful because of the limitations of that type of interface.
Absolutely, by all means, please understand I'm not saying that CLI use is inherently evil!
I think the bottom line of my post is that I get really sick of people saying that GUI use inherently evil (or lazy, or stupid) because you're absolutely right when you say that people should be able to use whatever method is the least painful to get whatever they need to do done and there are limitations for both methods so people should use whatever UI that they feel is the best suited for whatever they need to do.
...but frankly I've never understood how typing cd ~/Desktop/ToBeInstalled/GIMP/Docs/ is supposed to be more efficient than pointing and clicking four times with a mouse?
Apparently you've also never understood how the tab key works in any OS CLI for at least the last decade, either.
If you're familiar with your task, there is absolutely nothing faster than the CLI. If your task is not familiar, however, it can be torture. That's the real tradeoff between CLI and GUI - familiar, repetative tasks can be several orders of magnitude faster in a CLI, but unfamiliar tasks can be orders of magnitude slower (until the start to become familiar, of course).
This is why highly experienced admins tend to prefer the CLI over the GUI (regardless of the OS, Linux just forces you into it where Windows doesn't), whereas inexperienced admins will hunt the GUI until they find it. If they're smart, they'll then find out how they can do the same thing in the CLI.
Yes, but again my response regarding tab completion remains the same as I still have found that navigating to the directory ( not to mention actually doing basic tasks) is much faster (and way the hell more intuitive for everyone besides programmers) than typing a bunch of repetitive and obscure CLI commands.
Regarding your point concerning the higher efficiency of repetitive tasks using the CLI I disagree completely.
Troubleshooting aside, most basic admin tasks can be accomplished quickly and easily on OS X Server right now using the GUI and I fully expect the ease of use and functionality to get better as time goes on.
Again on other platforms that don't have a decent GUI I can understand the CLI point of view.
But for me personally, when I'm using OS X Server I'd appreciate it if instead of being so quick to blame people who are newer to System Administration for being "lazy" for not wanting to waste their time hunting around to be able to learn a bunch of obscure commands if they can already get most of what they need to be done with a GUI especially if it allows them the ability to gain the time they need to accomplish the many other things that need to be done in the course of their massively overworked and underpaid day!
...but frankly I've never understood how typing cd ~/Desktop/ToBeInstalled/GIMP/Docs/ is supposed to be more efficient than pointing and clicking four times with a mouse?
I'm one of those people who lives in both worlds, GUI and CLI depending upon my needs... but I actually can navigate that directory structure faster using the CLI than the UI. Hitting a few characters then a tab and a slash is really, really fast compared to moving a mouse cursor and clicking, even assuming a responsive GUI (and GUI's still slow down a lot under load on most systems).
Trying to Admin a network sitting around typing in obscure commands all the time strikes me as way more lazy than using a quick get in and get out approach via a GUI but good luck trying to convince the hardcore programmer crowd of that.
Executing commands and changing configurations either using the CLI or GUI can be frustrating due to the obscurity of many commands and interfaces. Switching between various versions of Windows and trying to find even basic configuration settings can be extremely painful... just as painful as trying to parse slightly out of date man pages using a very unintuitive text editor that doesn't support scrolling text, from within a terminal window. GUI interfaces tend to be more learnable because there are fewer permitted combinations (only so many many things to click on instead of combinations of letters to type). CLI interfaces tend to be more portable across OS versions and even OS's (install the right shell on Windows and the "ping" command will work on most any OS you can find).
Don't get me wrong, CLI is a necessity on the client side as it prevents users from getting in and royally screwing up stuff that they shouldn't be trying to play around with
I disagree. I don't think obscurity is a good mechanism for protecting users from making poor decisions. Making interfaces easier and more informative is the key, but that's hard so most people punt and make things hard to use instead.
easy to use is too often equated as dumbed down, perhaps it's important to remember that while they can overlap at times, those two adjectives can be worlds apart...
Absolutely! Usability and functionality can certainly co-exist.
While I'm glad we can find some common ground here, I stand by my point regarding security through obscurity. If you've ever worked tech support for any given length of time (and god knows I wish more FLOSS advocates have seeing as how they do seem to like going on and on about the users should be "educated" about everything), you would know that most are not interested in learning about the details of technology and will not retain any specific information that you give them about it due to that fact.
Regarding CLI file system navigation, setting aside the speed issue (which I think I'll agree to disagree on that barring a race :) while that's great for *NIX systems, using Windows CLI is a bit of a different story.
Actually the main point about GUI administration on servers I was making was really more dealing with OS X server as I strongly agree that using a GUI on any other platform is even more painful than trying to use and administer it on a regular basis in general (and with Windows Server that's really saying something ;).
Don't get me wrong, as I believe I said in my original post, I don't think that even OS X server is ready to be administered using just the GUI but I guess my point is if the GUI gets to the pont where it is designed well enough to be able to duplicate the majority of the functionality of the CLI then I don't see the inherent evil in switching and sticking with using just a GUI.
This is also a problem with Max OS X Server. Apple builds their services from open source products and adds a GUI for configuration to make it all clickable and easy to set up. However, many options that can be set on the command line can't be set in the GUI. Even worse, making CLI changes to services can break the GUI entirely.
The hardware and software are both super stable and run really smoothly, so once everything gets set up, it's awesome. Still, it's hard for a guy who would rather make changes on the CLI to get used to.
Prior to Snow Leopard I'd agree with that sentiment, but even though it was billed as an incremental release on the client side, the vast majority of fixes and improvements went into server and with the release and support for Mini so IMHO it's really the best (and cheapest) solution for the SMB market right now. In the interests of full disclosure I should probably add that I'm posting this from my home Mac Mini Server though. This maybe an age issue on my part but I'll never understand why people have such a hard time letting go of CLI? I mean a lot of programmers seem to love to rant about this subject and how "lazy" it makes everyone, but frankly I've never understood how typing cd ~/Desktop/ToBeInstalled/GIMP/Docs/ is supposed to be more efficient than pointing and clicking four times with a mouse? Trying to Admin a network sitting around typing in obscure commands all the time strikes me as way more lazy than using a quick get in and get out approach via a GUI but good luck trying to convince the hardcore programmer crowd of that. Don't get me wrong, CLI is a necessity on the client side as it prevents users from getting in and royally screwing up stuff that they shouldn't be trying to play around with, but on the server side, if someone could get all the necessary settings and tools necessary to admin into a well designed GUI (and OS X Server is getting there) I'd start using it in a heartbeat as it saves me a bunch of time from having to script everything out! Considering even Linus Torvalds expressed concern over the fact that easy to use is too often equated as dumbed down, perhaps it's important to remember that while they can overlap at times, those two adjectives can be worlds apart...
The reason that Verizon won't carry them is not because of Microsoft's place in the mobile market, but because none of the manufacturers will have cleared the FCC with CDMA phones until later in the year. Verizon has said they will have them in January. Way to spread the FUD.
Actually I did state in my post above that Verizon "announced they are not going to be carrying any Windows Mobile devices for the rest of this year." I'm curious to know the source for your claim regarding manufacturers not clearing the FCC, as most of my reading actually indicated that because Microsoft refused to support CDMA in Windows 7 Mobile (good summary here: http://goo.gl/i6rN). As the article notes, strangely enough though the lack of support was a decision that was supposedly made early this year, the announcement for that came out right after Verizon came out with their press release about dropping Windows Mobile 7 devices. Also, given that Android devices with CDMA have been announced for release this year clearly the handset makers haven't had any reported problems clearing FCC approval. So while I freely admit I may have not included as much detail as I should have regarding certain specifics I think my main point in the post above is perfectly valid; Microsoft needs to understand that they are an underdog in the market now and need to be less arrogant and be prepared to start bending to other companies needs.
...That they aren't where they used to be in the mobile market given Verizon has already announced they are not going to be carrying any Windows Mobile devices for the rest of this year (http://goo.gl/TBYb). I mean they could have gotten away with it back when Palm was the only other major player and they were on the ropes, but I think if their smart, HP and Google will use Microsoft's practices to push handset makers towards alternate OS (namely WebOS and Android). As for carriers, with Verizon refusing to carry Windows Mobile 7 phones, that's one down, just 3 more to go!
"Given the results of earlier 'corporation rights' cases, such as Citizens United, at some point you wonder if the Supreme Court will also give companies the right to vote directly." Personally, I actually won't be too surprised when that happens, after all they've already given corporations a ruling that effectively translates into unlimited bidding rights on politicians; why stop there?!
The thing that I love about this is that whenever a story comes up about Apple rejecting an application a lot of Slashdot posters start screaming bloody murder about "walled gardens" but when RIM decides that they are forbidding people from putting up not just Fart applications, but anything they don't feel "adds something to your life."
To think people complain that Apple's application approval rules are abstract, I mean since it's my life, shouldn't I get to decide what applications are going to add something to it, not RIM?!
But reading through the commentary most people seem to be giving them a free pass just because they're making a "business device," (whatever the hell that means since I find Apple's Exchange integration to be a hell of a lot easier to implement than any BlackBerry models I've ever had to the misfortune to be forced to setup) so for some reason the FLOSS argument suddenly doesn't apply!
I mean if you want to criticize Apple regularly for "Walling their Garden" (Or in Apple's case perhaps orchard is a more fitting term, LOL) then shouldn't you be criticizing RIM for doing the exact same thing here?
Nice to know that the head of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce is finally getting the public recognition that the job deserves!
I know open source users tend to automatically discount anything Apple says but for all the points I've stated above, while I can't speak for Steve Job's reasons, personally I'd much rather see even a (I'm not familiar with the exact terms of use for HTML so I'll call it semi-open) standard take the place of Adobe's rapidly degrading closed platform, wouldn't you?
Yes, i certainly would. It looks like we're 2 sides going for the same conclusion. I think people need to consider HTML5 as an 'open' Flash.
So for example, security issues don't go away, they simply move from a single runtime to each browser's implementation. Is this beneficial? Probably, you can choose the most secure implementation.
Performance and stability is a different matter, instead of one runtime for each platform (windows, linux, osx, android, etc...) each browser has its own implementation. So certain parts of the standard may perform better or worse and be more or less stable in certain browsers on certain platforms. While this does complicate things but it also means browsers will have to be more competitive.
The annoying, buggy and resource-hog arguments against flash aren't magically going away with HTML5, that's my main point. HTML5 is just as likely to be no better in this regard, however the potential to be better is there though it comes at the cost of possible fragmentation. With such a large standard and such broad functionality it's hard to imagine all the implementors are going to be able to produce viable and conforming implementations. That's really the only benefit i see in flash, it's consistent ( don't read as far as performance ;) ) in its implementation of the features across platforms.
I'm glad to see we're finding some common ground here, if our implementation of solutions is a bit different... ;)
Ironically most of what you said I'd actually view as arguments towards embracing HTML 5, namely the points regarding on how the competitive nature of browser development would encourage better performance.
That leads us to the key point which I feel you haven't really acknowledged here, which is that because Flash is proprietary everyone is at the mercy of Adobe to provide the platform plug-in development and design (which as I have stated in my posts above I firmly believe they are failing to do).
So if you contrast that to the multiple browser scenario which you laid out above, given the multitude of browsers out there now then surely that will provide a much better solution for me as a user as the competitive nature of browser development will drive browser and web developers towards providing a better experience for me as a user of said technologies?
Not to mention the fact that various niche browsers developed specifically for different Hardware/OS platforms would have the resources to provide development support for implementing HTML 5 on said devices, so wouldn't you agree that rather than having Adobe continue to be overreaching their available resources on development and testing of patches as they need to try to keep the plug-in versions consistent on all devices which impairs their ability to release said patches in a timely manner, it would seem to make more sense to use an open standard to allow development to shift towards web developers that are specifically motivated to develop for said platforms thereby opening the door for a better user experience?
One other point I would also pose to you, is that I know you also claim in your previous post that annoying, buggy and resource-hog arguments against Flash aren't going to go away with HTML 5, but as I said in a post earlier all the issues I experienced HAVE magically gone away whenever I navigate so to the (albeit few but growing) websites that have started implementing HTML 5 so that's really not a rhetorical point for me, that's actually been my experience...;)
>>>-with me just renting it.
Pretty much.
But before we jump on that bandwagon, let's not forget practical limitations. A Bluray holds 50 gigabytes of data. Downloading that over my 750k DSL connection would take 7 days, and there are a lot of people who don't have even that speed (still suck on dialup). Plus once I've downloaded the file I'll want to store it somewhere permanent, like a Bluray-R so why not just save some time, go to the store, and get the Bluray already conveniently pressed on disc for me?
Bottom Line - Blurays are not disappearing yet. People like the convenience and instant gratification.
Also Steve Jobs has a bad habit of burying technology while it's still alive & breathing in the coffin. He famously stopped putting floppies in Macs (1999), when people still needed floppies to trade work files, or to access older archived software, or to revive dead systems, thereby forcing Mac users to spend extra for an external drive. NOW it looks like he's doing the same with DVDs and Blurays - declaring them as "not needed" when they still ARE needed.
Gosh, that's so true about how floppy disks will never truly die, but speaking of, that reminds me that I need to finish transferring some files over from a client's older machine his newer one so I'll just eject the floppy disk then put into-
Damn it....
This has happened many times since the late 60s and possibly before.
These people are credible enough to handle launching nuclear ICBMs, including one who was a base commander at a foreign base where nuclear weapons were stored, yet some people still doubt their credibility?
It's not just unidentified objects showing up at silos, they've been able to take all of the independent missile systems offline in a very particular way, which shouldn't be possible...In some cases when fighters have been scrambled the objects will lead the fighters many, many miles away then shoot back to where they were in an instant.
I realize that a lot of people like to ridicule this stuff, because they're not used to credible people coming clean about this stuff. But UFOs are a reality, and these events did happen... Back in the 50s UFOs were in the press all of the time, without the added ridicule, there were days in July of 1952 where the capital was swarming with them.
What the UFOs are and where they came from, who knows - but there is something to these reports, so why don't you get all of the facts before you make up your mind. Contempt prior to investigation is a sure way to remain ignorant.
Sure, people will dismiss this and think it's about making money, but there are many, many crews that have stated this going back to the 60s, they're not selling books or anything else.
Actually instances of UFOs monitoring military activities occurred even before the 50s as Foo Fighters were a fairly well documented phenomena during World War II and interestingly enough several of those accompanied at least one of the two flights that dropped the nuclear bombs on the Japanese (I'm not sure about the second flight off the top of my head though)...
The security issues aside (which is really the main reason I would argue for cross platform HTML 5 implementation), let me say that clearly you've never tried to use a Mac browser on several flash sites.
Despite the fact that Apple has provided support for developers for several years now to utilize the GPU via Core frameworks Adobe has never updated Flash and as a result it continues to literally bring Macs to a freezing halt due to excessive CPU use, which quite frankly makes it entirely understandable that Apple really doesn't want it on the iPhone as well.
You are right, i can't recall ever using flash on my mac. However on Windows, Linux, Android and Maemo (the latter 2 both on my N900) I haven't really had any issues with it. Of course every now and then you come across a badly coded site, just as you come across badly coded applications and HTML5 won't solve that. I know access to GPU-accelerated functionality was not made available by Apple for quite some time - it was only quite recently - and with the rift between Adobe and Apple I guess that may have played some part in the delay but I thought the new version of flash introduced hardware acceleration for the mac?
I agree with your point regarding performance issues being dependent on how HMTL 5 is implemented on various websites and that's actually why I find the opinions of the open source community that I have read regarding finally putting pressure on people to discard Flash so frustrating.
The real gripe I have with Flash is Adobe's continuing revisions of the Creative Suite (name Flash) have not translated into improvements, but rather have caused the platform to become bloatware.
In addition to creating more complexity which often times prevents correct implementation of it on websites the added complexity really makes it that much harder to ensure security and roll out patches which is one of the reasons I suspect the security issues are only going to be compounded as time goes on.
While I freely admit I don't remember exactly when the GPU acceleration was added I know it's been around for at least the last two versions of OS X (which is at least 4 years) and given how Adobe has been releasing new versions of CS to the point where I suspect they may start looking at new revisions yearly and have only with the most recent release finally fully redone the CS applications into Cocoa I'm not holding my breath to start adding the necessary revisions into the paid CS versions let alone the freebie players.
I know open source users tend to automatically discount anything Apple says but for all the points I've stated above, while I can't speak for Steve Job's reasons, personally I'd much rather see even a (I'm not familiar with the exact terms of use for HTML so I'll call it semi-open) standard take the place of Adobe's rapidly degrading closed platform, wouldn't you?
The problem with your argument is that you are making the assumption that whatever replaces Flash, be it HTML 5, or some other new standard is going to be worse immediately.
I think he's making the assumption that HTML5 isn't necessarily going to be better, not that it's going to be worse. It would be nice if re-writing a flash website in html5 made it perform better, but there's nothing that i've seen to support such a thing.
The security issues aside (which is really the main reason I would argue for cross platform HTML 5 implementation), let me say that clearly you've never tried to use a Mac browser on several flash sites.
Despite the fact that Apple has provided support for developers for several years now to utilize the GPU via Core frameworks Adobe has never updated Flash and as a result it continues to literally bring Macs to a freezing halt due to excessive CPU use, which quite frankly makes it entirely understandable that Apple really doesn't want it on the iPhone as well.
Despite everyone's whining about HTML 5 performance issues every HTML 5 page I've loaded doesn't cause my machines or my user's machines to grind to a freaking halt!
As for not seeing anything to support superior performance, personally the pages that I've used with HTML 5 (including the much maligned Google bouncing logo page) have loaded and worked with far superior performance to Flash and really made me impressed with the potential development future.
Frankly I think the real question here isn't why has Apple not supported Flash, but rather why haven't they gotten rid of it sooner...
Because Firefox users have no need for flash or Ad blockers do they.
I presume you are implying that the reason people use Flash blocking tools is because all Flash content inherently needs to be blocked. This isn't true.
The overly-prevalent mindset on Slashdot that "Flash is evil", "Flash needs to die", and "Flash is only used for bad things" is just plain wrong and broken. Flash is used in many places to greatly enhance things beyond what browsers are normally capable of. Games are an obvious example, but other applications such as Google Finance and Amazon's song previews are simple but effective examples. As is usually the case, the technology itself isn't really good or bad, but what people do with it can be. And people, as a rule, are decidedly good at making technology do bad things.
This then leaves the question: Why do people block flash? Almost entirely it falls into two categories:
- Flash is used in the most perverse and annoying advertisements that contain video and audio and which load the CPU unnecessarily
- Flash has security concerns
Consider these. People champion HTML5 as some kind of messiah which will bring the end to Flash's evil reign. Okay, what would that result in? I'll give you a hint: HTML5 blockers. Why? Because soon we'll transition to:
- HTML5 is used in the most perverse and annoying advertisements that contain video and audio and which load the CPU unnecessarily
- HTML5 has security concerns
Personally, Flash doesn't really bother me, but that's largely because it can be controlled. I use NoScript, partially to block Flash, and that tamed beast can do useful work. I think most people who yearn for its demise either don't understand that the void Flash leaves behind will be filled with something (at least as "bad" as Flash, if not worse), or they're just mindless zealots regurgitating Jobs' claims.
At the risk of being called a mindless zealot I'd like to respond to your points above,
The problem with your argument is that you are making the assumption that whatever replaces Flash, be it HTML 5, or some other new standard is going to be worse immediately.
The point that Steve Jobs has repeatedly stated is that "Flash was good in it's day," but because Adobe has let development of it lapse (particularly in never producing a version of Flash for a mobile device that would run effectively not just for iOS devices but for desktop machines as well) and continually failing to close security holes in a timely fashion, I think the point he was making was that Apple is trying to move (and encourage others to move as well) to a newer standard that is starting to emerge rather than sticking to a platform that has pretty much stagnated.
When whatever standard that replaces Flash starts to stagnate then you can expect them to switch again...
I'm worried because in all the years I've had a Google mail account I haven't had any issues, yet a month after getting an Android 2.1 phone, despite being really careful about only installing high rated applications with tens of thousands of users and mostly keeping an eye on what they're allowed to access, my gmail account was hacked and used to send out a spam email via a mobile device in canada.
I've never had an email account hacked before, so I'm pretty convinced that some phone app has leaked my account details (as it's the gmail account tethered to my phone).
Admittedly Google immediately suspended my account due to suspicious activity (access from Mobile Canada (71.17.214.49), I live in the UK), and a token to my mobile phone was how I unlocked it and changed my password, but I'm still rather wary now despite how much I love my Galaxy S mobile.
I have bought apps I don't want to lose wiping the phone, and I have no real way to tell what it may have been that leaked my data.
I have droidsecurity antivirus installed now, but wish google could offer some stronger post-install controls on what an app's allowed to do.
It's interesting that most journalists covering technology news make a habit of making predications about how the wait time for the iOS application development submission review process adds so much to development costs that it will (supposedly) cause application developers to jump ship to other platforms, but I find what they tend to overlook is the fact that the more laissez-faire approach taken in the Android Marketplace causes that cost to end up being passed onto the customer in the form of having to pay for anti-spyware/malware subscriptions...
Incorrect and backwards.
Excel and PowerPoint had both been successful stand-alone products for several years before "Microsoft Office" was conceived, as a bundle (with Word) of three popular, name-brand products at a lower total price. At the time, Excel had just overtaken 1-2-3 as the best-selling spreadsheet program, and this was an effort at coattails-style marketing synergy, as avid Word users would become Excel and PowerPoint users, Excel fans would switch to Word and Powerpoint, etc. What Microsoft would lose in revenue they'd gain in market share, a tactic that contributed to the decline of WordPerfect, Borland, and Lotus, and Microsoft's near-monopoly on commercial office suites.
This was around the same time that Microsoft started making "Microsoft" part of the official names of the applications, amalgamating its line of popular individual software products into a monolithic brand: not just "Microsoft's spreadsheet program, Excel" but "the spreadsheet program Microsoft Excel". This went further as "Microsoft Excel" became "Microsoft Office Excel". (And if not for the anti-vertical-integration court cases, I suspect it would be bundled as "Microsoft Office Windows Excel" by now.)
What most people tend to forgot is that ironically the first version of Excel was actually released for the Mac in 1985 before making its debut on the PC...
web security experts are warning that the sprawling new web standard may favor functionality over security, enabling a new generation of powerful web-based attacks.
MS will Embrace and Extend, but not Extinguish the potential for security holes.
Apple will probably do much the same, but might do the enhanced functionality bit also.
The BSD and *nix variants will only take on the functionality, most foolishly (using MBA "forced-upgrade-income" definition).
Mac OS X is *NIX variant though so I'm not sure what you mean when you refer to Apple in your post?
...Someone contact Annie Walker at the CIA, the rogue IRA cell has now restarted their transmissions in Russia! I'd do it myself but just because I'm paranoid, it doesn't necessarily mean that the CIA has actually revoked their standing kill order on me...
...Let's try to get it off Laptops/Desktops as well!
The reason I really dislike is that it kills performance on the Mac side by causing massive overuse of the CPU as others have mentioned. The bitter irony here is that despite what reason #3 may state, the reason that Flash is such a CPU resource hog on the Mac is because Adobe has yet to rewrite it so that it uses the Mac's Core frameworks that are specifically setup to allow developers to use GPU hardware acceleration rather than continually tying up the CPU (which makes it especially ironic that Adobe has yet to grasp this given the history of the development of Quartz)!
As for reason #1, regarding Android use of Flash, that's great, I mean it's not like the platform wasn't fragmented enough, now we get to add yet another potential division between OS versions depending on whether or not the phone hardware supports Flash!
As if the rest of the article wasn't idiotic enough, I love how the writer thinks that Silverlight could still potentially dominate the market, given how many major companies have bailed from using it for the past year!
The sooner HTML5 is finalized as a standard the better as far as I'm concerned....
...WHY Google allows so much potential access of personal data to installed Extensions?!
I mean every time I tried to install an extension on Chrome I got the warning that it could potentially access my user data and or browser history, and I still don't see any reason that extensions should (even potentially) be allowed access to that information!
...I tend to have with Scientists relates to how I would view the difference between Scientists and Engineers:
Scientists are visionary thinkers is that tend to get too caught up with their grand sweeping ideas for changing the world which wouldn't by itself wouldn't be so bad, except that Engineers (and by Engineers I mean me ;) are usually the ones that get stuck trying to ground them in the here and now reality of the projects we're working on.
Between that difference and the fact that we Engineers also have to waste a bunch of time trying to be tactful to the Scientists by not overemphasizing the fact that we view the majority of their ideas to have way too many impracticalities associated with them to ever be effectively implemented in real life so we do find ourselves puzzled why Scientists have to go on and on about them in Thursday afternoon meetings that seem to last forever, when some of us actually have real work to do, but at least with the advent of smart phone use in meetings you can pretend you're doing something useful!
Admittedly, I should add that most Engineers that I know (including myself for that matter) tend to view tact as huge waste of time as in general...