Apple strikes back at Adobe, says Flash is 'closed and proprietary' - Page 6

Yeah, I guess from your side of the discussion, there's really nothing left to say.

But, just in case anyone was wondering, this is exactly what SJ is talking about when he says Adobe is lazy. They want Apple to give them unfettered access to the hardware so they can take their Windows code and get it running on the Mac with as few changes as possible. They don't care that this could destabilize the OS or display subsystems -- i.e., they don't care that this might compromise the user experience -- all they care about is keeping their Flash empire alive with the minimal effort. So, the fact that Adobe is lazy and won't bother to rewrite Flash on the Mac using the more than adequate APIs provided, is exactly the sort of thing that SJ referred to as having been through before.

Adobe's behavior around Flash on the Mac is exactly the reason they are being kept off the iPhone. They can whine all they want about how it's unfair and that Apple is being mean to them, but everything that's happened is a consequence of their own actions, which they won't accept responsibility for. Typical alcoholic behavior from a company addicted to money for nothing.

HTML5 is the future. Flash will decay; it is a question of the rate of decay.

Google also supports H.264 which is not open and full of patents. Hopefully, Apple will join Google in supporting the VP8 video codec that Google plans to make open.

Every application Google has is open standards and works in any modern browser on any platform. Google unlike Apple is just giving its users and developers and choice to also consume/develop flash.

I know, I know I mentioned that strange word "choice", unheard of in Apple universe. This is really "Apple vs. choice" and nothing else. Not Adobe, not Google etc. I for one don't like being locked and tied down by a single vendor be it Microsoft, Apple or anyone else. It seems Apple won't be happy until they are the only ones allowed to develop software for their phones or OS X. I think it's time to ditch Apple now, at least that's what I'm doing.

That's not laziness. That's working smarter, not harder.

If Apple is unwilling to provide the API's for hardware acceleration, how do you expect Adobe to implement it? Hmm. Perhaps turn Flash into a virus that finds a security hole to root Mac OSX and use the hole for direct hardware access? Get real!

I'm with the guy who posted that Flash is much more than banner ads. It is a real programming and run time environment to do real work. I understand Apple being grumpy that the Flash runtime has poor performance on Mac OS. But the Flash development tools are worthwhile and professional grade. Blocking the cross-compiler is just petty. I hope Apple shoots themselves in the foot by also blocking very popular engines like Unity, MonoTouch, and others. And gets in some kind of legal trouble if they selectively enforce the "no cross-compiler" rule.

- Jasen.

LOL'ing at grahamw's edits!

Firewire was mostly used for external hard drives, cameras and music equipment. With the advent of USB2 the speeds got to the point where they were close enough that for most people it didn't matter. Only a few computer companies (Sony's IEEE1394 ports come to mind) besides Apple ever really got behind Firewire much. As USB has spread so much, the number of products sold with Firewire still included have shrunk even more. Music interfaces can use USB2 and ASIO drivers to achieve 0 latency, so its even becoming less needed in one of its last few holdouts.

As a musician, the main advantage that FireWire has over USB is that -- by design -- USB "steals" CPU cycles from the rest of the system to move data around.

The result is that a USB-based audio interface is far more likely to introduce noise (i.e.: those Rice Krispy "krackles") encoding a complex audio stream (or streams) on-the-fly while simultaneously moving the encoded digital data to storage.

FireWire handles data transfer to storage by itself, instead of depending on the CPU to do it, which is what makes it so much more reliable. And also more expensive to implement.

You get what you pay for.

When your contruibution to this disussion is stuff like "blah blah blah .... blah blah blah" it is not a "discussion" - you are just trolling. So yes, there is nothing left to say to you.

No, it's just being lazy. How's that "working smarter" working out for them?

As far as APIs go, they have access to the APIs they need, they just don't want to use them. This whole Adobe doesn't have access to the APIs they need is just a Big Lie from Adobe, a lie which you and others seem to have been taken in by. It's basically the same as me telling a system administrator that I can't check my email because I don't have root access to the mail server, when I have a perfectly good mail client available to use.

Actually, I said, "Blah blah blah, Flash 10.1, blah blah blah," which is very much to the point, unless you are determined to ignore the point. All this blather, yes blather, about Flash 10.1 and how great it is and how it will be so wonderful on mobile devices is just that... blather. Flash 10.1 is at this moment vaporware, so what truthfully can be said about it? Nothing.

Oh, yes, and it's dishonest of you to suggest that all I said was, "blah blah blah .... blah blah blah." Perhaps this will jog your memory:

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showp...&postcount=165

Of course it is a computer, but so is the iPhone and iPod Touch. They are sub $500...not to mention awesome, and not even close to being "junk".

If the iPad had additional things that gave it a traditional computer form, such as a keyboard, mouse, and hard drive, and a more complex enclosure including a hinge, it would quickly become a $1k computer. Removing alot of these traditional features allows them to bring an excellent "computer" to market at $500 (depending on features).

The patents to H.264 are well understood and easily licensed. Which is what's important to a manufacturer.

H.264 is also widely hardware accelerated, all the way down to mobile devices, while VP8 isn't. Which is what's important to users.

Flash is the most unstable application on my Macs, by a long shot.

And you want the Flash team at Adobe to have access to OSX at the kernel level?

Not just "no", but "hell no!"

There is nothing dishonest about the quote - you notice the '...' - those signify that part of the quote was left out. What was left out did not materially affect the point I was making that you had brought nothing of value to the 'conversation' and your latest little rant (quoted in full for you) just affirms that.

This whole $500 thing is just fodder for trolling. But, just for perspective, consider the context of Jobs' comments. He was asked if Apple were going to introduce a netbook. In the context of his comments, computer == netbook. So he engaged in a little misdirection. It's not like he was going to say, "No, you can't make a decent traditional laptop-style computer like a netbook for $500 that isn't junk. But, we have this really cool tablet we are calling an iPad under development. Can't tell you any more right now, but it's going to be insanely great."

Fabulous. More dishonesty by omission. What about the part of my post you didn't indicate you left out? Did that also, "not materially affect the point [you were] making?"

You have no response because, from your position, there is no rational response possible, not because I was sarcastic.

The jitterbug of smartphones? Oxymoron much? It is interesting how you relate the jitterbug, perhaps the dumbest of all dumbphones, with one of the smartest phones of all time? I certainly won't argue that the iphone is the most open handset on the market, but a jitterbug it is not in any form of reality.

This conversation of open vs. closed is kindof ridiculous. I have never felt my iPhone was limited just because flash doesn't work or because I can't load on a million different custom apps. I could care less. And I don't remember ever seeing the little missing flash white box on a website that I navigated to. Maybe I don't go to the same sites as you.

Not only can I do everything I need to with my iPhone, but there are tons of apps and other web-based features/abilities that I haven't even tried yet, but could do so at any given time if I have the need. Lack of flash doesn't limit me at all. Personally I like that Apple keeps the iPhone ecosystem running like a well-oiled machine. If there were no back end approval process, then I could download some bogus virus enabled app from some site in Peru and hose my phone. No thanks. Adding inefficient crapware that drains my battery and causes crashes are not features I need, not to mention viruses.

I think this all really comes down to some people's dislike and defiance of authority. The minute they are told they cannot do something, they suddenly need to have it so badly that they do whatever necessary to achieve it, even if it means resorting to illegal practices.

What they want to call it and spin it for PR and what it actually is are two wholly separate things.

Q. How many Android phones ship with Flash support?

A. Zero.

It's not a crappy 3g network like AT&T is the one actually. The only reason AT&T has any market share, is because of the iPhone.

I'm somewhat bemused by Apple's closed and proprietary comment regarding Flash, while HTML5 is open, it's not finalized, and the H.264 video codecs aren't open either, Apple wants to control that down the road.

My only beef with the Apple vs Flash argument, is that it's stupid - I would say what's the harm in giving users choice, but that would break Apple's locked system. I just got a Pre Plus on Verizon, and Web OS will be getting Flash this year - I don't know how often I'll use it, but I'll have the option to install it. This is just a bunch of billion dollar companies, fighting over who gets to control content, the user never wins. Screw Apple, screw Adobe, screw Google, MS, etc...Apple is not your friend, just like Adobe isn't.

But I don't like Apple's approach of just saying screw it, wait for HTML5...

Yawn. I'll give you the last rant.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black... And, H.264 is not open. IMHO neither will JS after Oracle is done.

Also, everything Jobs said about advertising being "lame" on the iPhone is because there is no flash support. Everything he showcased can be performed with Flash on the web, and the multitasking was primarily included to add iAd support. Everyone would be furious if an iAd closed your app to run. Why else wait 4 years for something that everyone requested in the first installment. The latest update is simply to let Apple cash in on the advertising money.

I'm with guinness, these companies are not your friends, but I prefer Google's approach, which is open, closed, proprietary, free; we will support it all and will let the consumer decide.

What does Oracle have to do with JavaScript? JavaScript (well ECMA script) is standard, open scripting language and has nothing to do with Java the platform/language which Oracle has acquired with purchase of Sun, other than they both have the word "java" in their names.

However, before Sun got bought by Oracle, they open sourced Java implementation, so Oracle can't screw it up. Also, Java the platform is just too important to a lot of players including IBM that it simply can't fail no matter what Oracle tries to do with it.

Three words: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish...

No one thought that Microsoft could hijack HTML either, but almost two decades later I still cannot completely remove IE from my computer because of some business related websites like the Department of Revenue and Wachovia's business site.

You so hit the nail on the head. Most of our differences are wetware based, not hardware or software.

At least until Android 2.2 is released, currently said to be mid-May

I guess Apple will ditch their Dock Connector and replace it with end-to-end USB connections then? And scrap Quicktime along the way?

That is, of course, nonsense. Apple has APIs to enable hardware acceleration and Adobe refuses to use them in Flash. They want access to the hardware itself - which is forbidden for very good reasons.

Think about it this way. Adobe Photoshop can sling around multiMB images with 16 or 24 bit color depths in fractions of a second. Why is it that Flash can't even put up a 640x480 8 bit image without maxing out the CPU and stuttering? Obviously, Adobe's Flash and Photoshop teams have access to the same APIs. Why can the Photoshop team do something far more demanding than the Flash team if Apple is blocking all the important APIs?

The same thing is true of other (non-Adobe) software packages. There are a ton of packages that do a lot more than Flash that get by just fine with the public APIs.


Not quite true. You'll need Android 2.2 AND a version of Flash 10.1 for Android - which isn't due until June at the earliest.

In any event, it's irrelevant. Adobe isn't whining about Apple not supporting FUTURE products, they're whining about Apple not supporting Flash today. Since there IS no full version of Flash for mobile devices today, Adobe's whining is misguided.

hardly. Verizon is a totally different tech than the iphone.

the iphone could be unlocked but still GSM and with a radio that can cover the right bands T-Mobile could pick it up. and thus no single carrier in the US.

but no Verizon (which is CDMA)


that statement was also 3 years ago. which is a lifetime in tech.

plus they haven't made a computer so much as the Ipad is a mobile internet device. it actually is closer to a 'netbook' than most computers with that name. because they focused on the net, not on being a mini laptop.

also keep in mind that the ipad starts at $499 and goes up. for most 'netbook' lines, $500 is the max you'd pay.

and few folks call the ipad 'a piece of junk' even with only the wifi currently out and only in the US for another 4 weeks. sales have been 500k+, colleges are looking to give them to students, hospitals are talking use, major artists are out in the wild drawing and such and tweeting about it. just today I saw a youtube of a piano virtuoso Lang Lang walking out for an encore during a concert perhaps 3 days ago, ipad in hand and using it to perform a major piece (Flight of the Bumblebees I believe it was)

All of course very true. However, now it's really time for Adobe to put up or shut up:

http://developer.apple.com/mac/libra...10/tn2267.html No more excuses. No more whining.

sorry but you are wrong. Because Adobe isn't just about Flash. It's a small part of their business. And an easy half of the sales of their software are to Mac users. Many of those users are Flash developers among other things. Lose them and Adobe could find themselves in a world of hurt.


Not really. Flash is equal in terms of quality.

Most folks will continue to use Flash because those 'current' standards are new and require starting over from scratch. That's time and money. So until they are forced to change they won't.

I see this all the time. AVID was an awesome non linear editing solution and a lot of folks learned it and it was THE thing. Then Final Cut came along. Just as good, perhaps even better in terms of being cheaper and running on standard equipment etc. But the old regime refused to switch because they didn't want to go back to school and lose time they could be making money. Final Cut was the young pups program and as more and more youngsters came out of film schools and such, FCS has become the thing. Not the old school is being forced to learn it because no one wants to pay the higher costs of going with AVID running companies.

Same thing with Flash v HTML5, same thing with digital downloads and SD cards v pressed disks, and so on.


Apple hasn't helped Adobe because the latter has been clear that their Mac OS tactic with the desktops was to wrap the Windows version in a translation layer rather than a native code bottom up version.

Also Flash isn't a native touch tech. It's a mouse tech. Again to really function well, it needs a bottom up coding. Adobe hasn't shown interest in doing that much work.


and so does everyone else.


you really think that's why. I suppose the first shot suits by HTC, Nokia etc were just an attempt to stall Apple so they could get their stuff out first.


a 'monopoly' that is completely legal and benefits the customers in this case because Apple's further development of the mobile OS wouldn't be hampered by concerns of breaking potentially 1000s of Flash cored apps

Interesting thing is that companies that created Flash based online games aren't so bothered by this. Only in the last couple of days was it announced that Farmville will soon be released as an ipad app and you can bet that the companies other games will soon follow. probably still linked to facebook so you can keep your 'neighbors' and leaderboards and such


the major problem, admitted by more than one Flash developer,is that Flash is not a native touch tech. you would have to rewrite it,which Adobe hasn't and doesn't seem to want to do, or add a a translation layer, which means bloat and more changes for bugs.


no royalty payment is publicly declared for anything but you can bet money was paid. if only for the software to build Flash. which is not cheap. Adobe is known for using their dominance in many realms to jack up their software prices to very high prices.

I supposed you have the patent numbers and dates to back that up. Probably not since you don't actually do any research on your 'facts'


i did. which is why I know you are full of crap about the whole thing.

Trademarks require use to keep them. Cisco bought the mark and device and discontinued it. they wait until their last extension to restart use was almost up and when they found out Apple wanted to grab the mark when it lapsed, they announced a new product that wasn't released until months after the iphone. The courts deemed that the announcement and delayed release didn't qualify as use. But Apple was nice enough to let them use the name on the released device without fear of lawsuit. But if that device was ever dropped, Cisco couldn't release anything new with the name.

Suppose you also think that Microsoft 'bailed out' Apple rather than the truth which was that they lost a suit over a 'look and feel' violation


Name one suit where Apple was faulted with filing a bogus suit. Compared to say Psystar that tried to file an Anti-trust suit claiming that Macs are a market in and of themselves. Which by the by was a reaction to being served a suit for creating unauthorized clones


None, because there aren't any. Not on a professional use level. Same as the Mac.

Adobe cornered the market through creating the best product at that time and buying out smaller companies. Everyone in graphic designed flocked to Photoshop, Illustrator etc and now Adobe has such a stronghold that they can do what they want. they 'update' and provide only a handful of new tricks and toys and people buy. And pay. Photoshop is great but is it really worth $700 an upgrade. Not really. But folks are so invested in that world that they will pay.

And yet I don't see a lot of rants against this. but Apple does the same thing with hardware prices, using their legal right to tie the OS to their stuff and it's like Steve Jobs is Satan Incarnate.


Now is it not good. iAd gives app developers a native way to put in ads without fear of bugs and crashes. Plus they get a cut of the money, thus encouraging them to put in ads. increasing the potential for views. On several million iphones and ipod touches and almost a million ipads (before 3g hits the US and anything hits the rest of the world). for the advertisers, that's freaking awesome

Quoted for truth! (AI didn't like my original reponse: QFT)

But, doesn't that imply that Adobe hasn't then had access to hardware acceleration until now? I recall people here claiming that Adobe has had access and was lying when they said that this HW access is what allows 10.1 on Windows to run so well.

It is time now for Adobe to put up or shut up about this. Flash on the Mac sucks. But it probably also time for those that put all of the blame on Adobe's shoulders for the performance to acknowledge that there was at least a kernel of truth to their statement that they needed access to the hardware. This appears to have now been provided.

They already have had access to other APIs that should allow them to do graphics programming that runs at something other than a crawl. Pretending that they didn't and that only this would do (even though no other 3rd party had it either and most graphics software, including Photoshop, on OSX did not suck like Flash) was pretty much a lie. Also, regardless, the code they do currently have crashes constantly, which isn't related to this. However, there's not really much they can complain about at this point. They have no excuses to hide behind anymore.

Looks like it was released on 3/29/2010.

The other APIs would not expose H.265 video hardware acceleration. That is why Apple posted this tech note. There was no need for them to pretend that didn't have it since they did not have access, nor did any other app that would have benefitted from hardware acceleration for H.264 video...except Quicktime. Access to any other API obviously would not provide the same advantages, which is why Apple used them for Quicktime. If they weren't advantageous, do you think Apple would have wasted the effort in creating and then using them?

As I said, it is now time for Adobe to put up or shut up. No more excuses....but that doesn't mean the excuses had no merit. Obviously, they did.

It's not obvious that their excuses had merit at all. In fact, their excuses were and are without merit. No 3rd party had access to these APIs previously, yet, it's hard to find graphics software on OSX that sucks as much as Flash. This also doesn't excuse all the Flash related crashes, which this has nothing to do with. So, while there might be advantages to this API, Adobe's lack of access to it doesn't explain the problems with Flash on OSX. But, now, their excuses just got pulled out from under them.

I also don't think Apple created this API "just for them". It's probably an existing private API that they felt could now be published. Although, I would not be surprised to learn that the motivation for publishing it at this time was to put an end to the excuses. Now, of course, Adobe will no doubt say that they have to "study" the API, and there will be more excuses about why it will take them years to incorporate it, if history is any guide.

http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations...oid_platf.html

How is AIR and Flash fostering open standards Mario? "Are your content are belong to us" is what proprietary runtimes like Flash offer. Yes choice seems good to a liberty loving human but it's abstract from whether choice is good or not overall.

Though your point is fallacious on multiple levels. There are a multitude of "choices" in which to develop iPhone apps. Flash just so happens to be not one of them. I do think it's time for you to ditch Apple. Success always brings carpet baggers who fly in like locust looking to capitalize.

Apple's success didn't come on the backs of Flash or its minions and I for one will not be sorry to see them pack up and move their half baked crap to Android.