Why Apple is betting on HTML 5: a web history - Page 3

Why does AppleInsider feel it has to interject politics into its posts? What do you guys gain from it, except a negative increase of subscribers?

It definitely turns me off.

This argument comes up a lot - "It's not Flash, it's the poor implementations!" Maybe it's possible to author a rich, lightweight, cross-platform web site using Flash, but I've seen very few examples amidst the continents of Flash wrecking-yards.

A while back I was doing some rather web-intensive research and at the end of the day had over 100 browser windows open. My dual-core CPU was completely maxed out and Safari crashed (big surprise there.) I disabled plug-ins in the preferences and reopened all the windows using the history feature. With no Flash getting loaded the CPU was practically idle. I shut down Safari, re-enabled plug-ins and with the exact same windows the CPU jumped back up to 95% utilization. Thanks a lot, Flash.

Now with ClickToFlash I only load it when I want it (not the web designer), and Flash is reduced to being a mere nuisance. The sooner it goes away for good the sooner we can reclaim our own computing resources. I simply don't understand why Flash-advocates are incapable of understanding this.

no offense but some of what you're saying is wrong. First off you're mentioning that Jobs doesn't want Flash to compete with the App Store. That is nonsense. If Jobs had it his way there would be no App Store. Apple really doesn't care about the revenues it receives from there no matter how large they are. Already some of the technologies that they are putting in Webkit would allow for gaming by leveraging the graphics card under HTML5.

As for your last paragraph, we don't exactly know what the CPU resource usage will be but from what I can tell from some pages that are written with HTML5 the usage seems normal unlike Flash. These sites already perform well with the iPhone. For a comparison go look at Engadget's video review of The HTC Android phone with Flash. The video stuttered and even the reviewer said it was "unbearable" while oddly enough still saying it is nice to have. As to your mentioning of hacks, Adobe is already doing it with different versions of Flash, mobile and desktop across many platforms, and it is clearly not working.

I've, uh, told that story many times here.

Two thirds of Adobe's sales are to Windows and linux users. What would Apple gain from owning a large software company that depends on non Apple sales for its existence?

Apple would either have to assure those customers that Apple isn't going to abandon them, and then pour in large sums to support their competitors. Or, they could wind those operations down and lose two thirds of the business, and have to shut down a number of products that are not Mac operable, or spend large sums to make them so, while alienating all those people and companies who are no longer customers.

In reality, it would be even worse. I thought that when Macromedia went on the block, Apple should have bought them instead of letting Adobe do that. But that's water under the bridge now.

There isn't any point in having 64 bit Flash yet. The greatest number of computers and even servers, are still 32 bit. As time goes on, this will obviously change. but as Flash must work with every computer, a 64 bit version would just complicate things while likely not making the use of it any better.

Well thats what a TROLL does. Disagree with everything no matter how wrong they are. They will continue to disagree, and then try to move to other subjects to perpetuate the argument. TROLLS are lonely and they get off on the attention.

Oh, come on Dick, you know better than that. I think we all got the point the article was making.

Since you've never been here before, it must have turned you on.

Its all about what the companies that create and maintain websites want. If HTML5 will give them less headaches , help streamline code and lessen costs, then Flash is toast.

Just seems like HTML will be the way that it goes - less proprietary.

I doubt that Adobe has substandard engineering talent. They probably have substandard management which decides points the business in specific areas. Engineering generally bows down to business.

Put the blame where it should be.

I doubt that Adobe has substandard engineering talent. They probably have substandard management which decides the course that the business takes. Engineering generally bows down to business.

Put the blame where it should be

Thanks, Eluard.



These I tend to let slide because they are easily overlooked when writing fast. If he were writing the article itself, and not just a forum post I would be more critical.


Now, ‘grammer' and ‘akiles' I simply can’t excuse. The former because of the irony the latter because it’s not even close. The spelling of Achilles cracks me up.



That is just crazy, but it is MR. You make great posts here that I enjoy reading but I have doubts that your oeuvre are powerful enough to sway a committee in the GV approval at Apple. If they are, then i suggest you start your own site.



Speaking of security threats. I wonder if OpenGL may eventually cause a problem and have to blocked the way Flash is on secure computers. I have no specific scenerios, but giving your web browser direct hardware access could potentially be a security risk, I think.

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http://www.khronos.org/news/press/re...phics-internet

That is pretty much every article by Daniel Eran Dilger, aka Prince Mclean. The historical parts of the articles tend to be either loved or hated, as you can see from the posts. I’ve read it all before many times so I just tend to skip over it, but I’m glad DED takes the time to included it as there are new readers every day that don’t know the history of computing. One side effect of these AI’s articles compared to other sites that tend to only post a 100 word blurb is that it tends to keep a more mature crowd in the audience and in the forums.



It does suck to scroll in Flash. QuickTime X and HTTP Streaming seem to be better, but I haven’t tested it enough to be certain. One of my biggest peeves is that if i send someone a link to a video clip they have to watch the entire thing or I have to inform them of the times in which to start (and sometimes stop it).

This is so nettling to me that I wrote Ian Hickson a letter suggesting humbly that the new video tags in HTML5 also have attributes that can tell the streaming server to pull from a specific time in the video and end a specific time. Essentially doing an instant streaming crop of the video if you were to add it to your site, like how YouTube videos are posted on other’s webpages. I even suggested built in HTML5 controls that that can disabled by the site owners, but if turned on can allow self cropping of the video streaming in the URL so that you can send the link to a friend without them having to watch the entire video.

For instance, say an entire video of Family Guy, which is 22 minutes is posted on Hulu’s new, all HTML, CSS, and JS revision, but I wanted to post a link here about a specific scene that reminds me of NonVendorFan being obtuse, I could do that without having the rigamarole of me informing everyone of appropriate start time. On top of that, Hulu doesn’t have to edit their videos to allow for these excerpts as they can now just have the one video on there servers and simply point a link to it in HTML5 using the video and attribute tags to have the start and stop times appear when they choose them. This save a lot of storage space and editing time for the content distributers.

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http://www.hulu.com/watch/72489/family-guy-being-obtuse

No one here said that it was just about Flash being a resource hog nor that other processes don’t use resources. WebKit uses a lot less resources than Flash. A lot less does not mean none. Flash Lite is what it is because no phone HW can reasonably take the Flash on desktop OSes. Flash Lite can’t play video from sites like Hulu, which seems to be the biggest reason I hear as to why people want Flash on their phone, despite it not making sense.

Your reasoning that Flash Lite will affect Apple’s App Store is not sound. Apple is pushing very lightweight web apps with HTML5 that can be cached and played locally with the standard’s new DB function. Simple games and other apps that can be added to the home screen as a Web Icon are more likely to affect the App Store than anything Flash Lite can produce, especially once OpenGL get utilized. But more importantly, Flash Lite is no match for Cocoa. It’s a great platform to code for that keeps getting better and better since the first iPhone SDK release back in March 2008.

My point, though thinly disguised, is why clutter up an, otherwise, interesting article with politics or bias against MS, Adobe, etc.

There are many assertions of "fact" in this article-- some are true, some are not. The author does himself, and his readers, a disservice by including half-truths that support his multiple, personal, agendas (and ignoring, or glossing over, facts that do not).

I generally like Apple and Apple products-- but they are far from perfect.

I generally dislike MS but they are not all bad.

I dislike Flash (my experience is only on Macs). Flash has evolved to be overly complex and a resource hog. To take some liberty with a stated goal of Flash RIAs-- they provide Rich, Reach and Retch!

When I was developing web sites, I preferred ColdFusion, as it was high-level, efficient and self documenting.

I do not think technical articles or technical web sites are the proper forum for personal politics or personal bias.

Technical history can be an interesting read, but it is only as good as the research and the objective presentation of "facts". Even then, different people come at a given set of "facts" from different perspectives and have different interpretations, as a result. (You and I had quite a discussion, a while back, of our different interpretations of some historical facts).

So, I like to examine everything I read and ask myself: "What is being said, and why is being said that way?"

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The only reason why "major" TV and media sites use flash is because they have no choice at the time. Regardless of what you say, flash will continue to be a resource hog. The worst part about it is "accessibility" and the sloppy use of Flash via lazy designers. Plus, it is very cumbersome to work on other designer's code to implement new content.

I'm a "New Media" designer and lately I've rarely used Flash. Instead I've focused on HTML5, CSS3, DOM, and AJAX, because they separate content from design and the "accessibility".

I don't agree with the assertion that they are half truths. I think that they are truths. It's pretty well known where these companies put their money. It's also pretty well known what they have on the line here. I think he nailed it.

Then Adobe management has a lot to answer for with Acrobat. That piece of bloatware is as bad as Flash in terms of poor performance and resource use. (And then there are all the execrable installers associated with their various software packages...)

If what you claim is true, then the engineers at Adobe should stage a revolt and clear out the executive suites. I doubt that's the sole source of their problems, though.

Yeah, you might say spelling was his vulnerability!


Interesting thought!


That's a very good request! You used to be able do something like that with non-streamed video and Quicktime using SMIL. Your solution is even better because it reduces bandwidth to the minimum, both for the length of content and quality of the connection.

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What you're claiming is an exaggeration. You don't need to do that to make a point.

Tell me how apple is supposed to hardware accelerate flash (thus reduce battery drain for playing video) the way they hardware accelerate h.264 decoding?

I'll revisit my original citation:


...American NCSA, which had been funded by congressman Al Gore...

Giving the author the benefit of the doubt, this is a half-truth at best. The last time I looked, the House Ways and Means committee appropriates "funding". This is then voted by the entire House and Senate, signed by the President, and paid for (funded) by the taxpayers.

I don't mean to belittle Al Gore's contribution, but to give him credit, as above, is a real stretch!

DED Knows this!

So I ask myself: Why did he do it, and why in that way?

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Adobe added H.264 support in Flash Player 9 Update 3 back in December 2007. In Flash 10 they added hardware acceleration to compete better with Silverlights hardware acceleration. Im guessing this doesnt help with the resources used by Flash itself, but it does help with the streaming content. Its better than nothin.

For what hardware did they add the acceleration? My question is how does Apple add support for their own custom hardware? The answer is they can't, they are dependent on Adobe to do it. Why should Apple, or any other vendor, be dependent on a 3rd party for something as basic as video playback when there are now clear standards that allow them to implement and optimize the playback themselves?

It's just completely backwards to have a structure where implementation of a standard is considered incomplete without a proprietary 3rd party plugin that may have security issues that the browser designers cannot fix themselves. This simply will not continue indefinitely.

I assumed that any H.264 encoded video in Flash 10 running on any machine with a chipset that decode H.264 in the hardware would automatically benefit from this.

Because, as is well known, Al Gore first introduced legislation to create and fund the work that was done. He sponsored that legislation, and it was passed. He deserves credit for his foresight in this area, though I know it's fun for people who didn't know how this happened, and his part in it, to belittle his contributions, because of some silly remarks once made about it. Gore was always interested in technology and research. I don't understand why some people think its funny when he gets credit for what he did.

And if you're saying that you're merely trying to be accurate, then you could have stated what I just did.

You can't back up ANYTHING you say. Besides you don't even remotely have the tech background that the author has.

For the interested, but unaware, this from Vint Cerf, one of the internet pioneers: http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-A.../msg00311.html

I'm curious, what phone are you going to replace it with?

Once you're rid of your iPhone, does it mean you won't feel the need to troll around here anymore?

Having a different viewpoint is fine, as long as you actually have something to contribute, which is unfortunately not your case.

Ill buy everything Apple product he owns at original retail price if he promises never to return under any alias to these forums.

Actually, I prefer to frame my thoughts and state my opinions in my own way, with my own words.

If DED had made his citation as you did above (with a few references) I would have had no issue (except maybe, verbosity and relevance).


There are a lot of readers, here, who are not familiar with the history of the Internet/web.


It would be just as misleading to state that Ross Perot is responsible for the web/browser, because it is well known that it was developed on a NeXT computer, and he funded NeXT..

DED handled the NeXT citation properly, IMO.


Here is the proper DED citation on NeXT;

"The resulting system, prototyped using the advanced development tools of the NeXT Computer, became known as the World Wide Web".


Here is an improper citation-- the bold words are mine, and add nothing to the story:

"The resulting system, prototyped using the advanced development tools of the NeXT Computer, which had been funded by Ross Perot became known as the World Wide Web".


Here is DED's citation-- the bold words are his, and add nothing to the story, IMO:

"He cited the Mosiac browser being developed at the American NCSA, which had been funded by congressman Al Gore as a part of a broad effort to promote the development of high performance computing and communications by leveraging the power of market forces using strategic government investmen "


What the hell does Al Gore or Ross Perot have to do with the topic of this article?

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[QUOTE=solipsism;1485610]
Hey I like your posts too.

Of a side note

Since silverlte and flash are for video , L felt i could mention two incredible sites which have fantastic video play back on my 15"MBP3,92GHz;

The first is the ABC-TV Video player . Nothing beats this. I even streamed two of the same shows from ABC-TV and HULU side by side >>and hulu looked pretty shabby ,.

And next story well i missed the NY JETS game and on monday bought A season pass from NFL>FILMS .Well i was forced to get firefox and let me say that f-ing sucked i love safari .
WHOA nelly !!! Once installed within a minute i was watching the finest football game ever .
I watch movies all day at work.i watched all nine seasons of the x files on my various macs
So a whoa nelly is big deal . I even did some slo-mo's and the resolution was mind boggling

So was it firefox or NFL GAMES that made such an incredible player ??

New QT player May equal these 2 others ,but not better ,

9

Very good. I wasn't aware of that letter, even though Cerf had made statements in support of Gore in public.

It was about the history. As his contributions were an essential part of that history, he was mentioned. If you've gotten to CurtisEMayle's post, and his link, which I didn't know about earlier, you will see why Gore was so important to the development of the internet. If he hadn't done what he did over time, who knows what, if anything, it would be today?

And if you can't believe Cerf in this matter, then you can't believe anyone.

Which part is an exaggeration? Acrobat is no lightweight for viewing PDFs. Granted, it offers more functionality that Preview (although not much for most tasks), but in terms of startup times and memory footprint it can certainly tax lesser machines that handle Preview just fine.

And don't get me started on Adobe's installers...

Keep your hands above the keyboard next time .
rdtube is your speed

It works well enough. It also has a pretty good feature set.

Somewhat slow, but not a real problem.

So I might give it a rating of 7.5 out of 10. Not fantastic, but not bad either.

Including this little gem:

Flash security vulnerability exploited in PDFs

If nothing else, read the very first comment.

Yeah, I know about it. Tell me about all the OS's and software that don't have serious software vulnerabilities.

Security experts say that OS X has more vulnerabilities than Windows. Did you drop OS X for Windows because of that?

How about the fact that Windows users are still a thousand times more likely be get caught in one?

The point is that almost no one will see a problem because of this. much of it is exaggerated. And these problems get fixed.

Mmmm... FWIW, 3 members of the Keating five were co-sponsers of the enabling legislation

and you still don't get the significant flaw, do you?

The video is H.264 - a standard anyone can adopt
It's being played on an html web page - also a standard anyone can adopt

but there is a needless extra proprietary layer that is not a standard, and that doesn't run on EVERY browser, called Flash, that is required to play much of the content. This isn't required because flash is doing something special, it's required because the html standard was missing functionality. part of the enhancement to html5 eliminates the need for this proprietary plugin.

To play flash based H.264 video, a browser has to adopt a proprietary 3rd party plugin and all of it's baggage.
To play h.264 video in an HTML5 browser, no plugin is needed.