Apple strikes back at Adobe, says Flash is 'closed and proprietary' - Page 7

not really sure what kind of drawing you are talking about, but these guys haven't had too much trouble

Jim Lee Co Publisher for DC Comics
Manga Artist Yoshitoshi Abe
Brushes group on Flicker
and of course Jorge Colombo was already using Brushes on the iphone to make his New Yorker covers.

plus there are tons of videos on youtube. mostly of brushes on the iphone. but there are some ipad ones also


or it won't matter. particularly for those groups. They might decide to go with standalone apps at no cost with some advertising or even low costs and no ads. A lot of parents aren't keen on having kids online on the openmarket that is the web. One mistype and a kid could be on a porn site or such. But with an app, that risk lowers. Plus you can take the game with you. I have stopped counting the number of times a game on my iphone has kept my 7 year old nephew from being a total wreck as the only kid at the table eating out. And i'm probably not the only adult that has experienced that.

While it doesn't excuse all of their problems, of which there are many, it certainly explains why playing H.264 video through a flash player was the pig it is in CPU usage. There is just no denying that. If other 'graphics' apps had a need to play H.264 video, then yes, they would also have chewed up CPU cycles. More related, other video apps that were doing H.264 would also benefit immensely from access to this API. Adobe never claimed API access to HW accel for H.264 would solve all of their problems. Hell, they don't acknowledge some of their problems. But there is really no denying that the poor performance of Flash when playing H.264 was a direct result of the work all being done in software via the CPU instead of being offloaded to the GPU. That is really just a fact. Obviously there is merit to Adobe's claim that HW accel access would reduce their CPU load when playing H.264 video. How can you possible argue otherwise. That is precisely why Apple developed the API in the first place (H.264, not flash).

Does Adobe have other problems with Flash? hell yes! Their other apps (of which I have not used many) have all been consistently poor experiences. Even Reader is a POS that I avoid when possible. But my disdain for Adobe doesn't cloud reality.

Wait, so you're saying artistic talent has something to do with it?

the catch there is that most of those professionals are probably locked into Adobe's whole world. they are also using photoshop, illustrator etc. And thus it makes sense that they would use lightroom because it was designed to work with said programs seamlessly, much as all of Apple's ilife and iwork go together.


putting the blame on Apple, despite the full truth is the very nature of fanboy-ism so how about you stop first.

It is fact that Adobe built Flash (actually pretty much all their programs) ground up for Windows, and then added translators for Mac OS X. There's even a statement from Adobe in the last six months or so that the code is almost identical. It's also fact that Carbon was created because Adobe didn't want to have to redo their software for Mac OS X. Eventually they had to because Apple dropped Carbon, but they were not happy about it.

this is as much to blame as any alleged blocking of access to any APIs, if not more so.


Are you sure it was a patent case.

As I recall they sued for copyright infringement not patent infringement because they didn't have a valid patent at the time. Either because they never got one at all or because it had somehow lapsed. The court actually tossed most of the case because they waited 5 years of awareness of the Apple GUI before filing and because they were trying to claim a copyright on the idea of a GUI and not actual elements, which is what Apple sued Micosoft over (leading to MS using a 'recycle bin' rather than 'trash')

So Apple's comeback is "I know you are but what am I?"

Excellent.

yes, I think you are right. Xerox lost a copyright suit against Apple and didn't have an enforceable or valid patent. Neither of which supports the idea that Apple licensed the UI from Xerox.

For some background on how the Mac UI really developed, there used to be a very popular Mac enthusiast site, MacKido. David K. Every used to have some great analysis and opinion, back in the day. At some point he posted a series of letters from Bruce Horn and Jef Raskin about the development of the Mac UI. Very interesting reading.
Letter from Bruce Horn on origins of Macs UI
Response from Jef Raskin
Response from Bruce to Raskins Letter

PS. David, if you read this, bringing back Mackido would be great.

That and the whole legacy Bell Telephone thingy, not to mention a gazillion dollars paid under the table over the years to the guh'mint folks with well-greased palms.

I don't see how you can suddenly declare it meritorious just because Apple publishes an API. It doesn't account for their lack of development effort and the obviously poor quality of the software. It's a badly written piece of code period. The argument uses the assumption that Adobe's claims for the reasons for bad performance are true and then uses that to say, "Look Apple released the API they said they needed, so they were right." More than a bit circular.

But, the ball is definitely in their court, and their reputation depends on them fixing it. If they dont they will have zero credibility and won't exactly look competent, either.

As I said, Flash does suck. They have not put the effort into the Mac platform that it deserves and they deserve no sympathy. Nor should Apple share any of the responsibility for the the vast majority of the problems.

But, you are mis-stating the logic. Adobe claimed a lack of the APIs hindered their performance for H.264. This is unquestionable true. If you are doing h.264 decoding, using Apple's API to gain HW is obviously going to be faster than using software decoding through the CPU. Now that Apple has released their API, it proves Adobe was right when they said they did not have access.

As I first said, some people were trying to discount Adobe's claims of lack of access to the API. They said things like "other apps run well" "Adobe has everything they need to make it run fast, just like other apps". These excuses to hate on Adobe were simply poorly thought out. It really should be clear as day to anyone that off loading the decoding to the GPU would benefit any app that does h.264 decoding. Adobe has not had this ability. Other apps, trying to to do h.264 would similarly be CPU hogs when trying to do h.264 decoding...because without this access, they have to use the CPU.

The faulty logic would be for someone to believe that because Adobe Flash is crap and Adobe has been negligent of their Mac products, anything they claim must be a lie. Their claim of not having API access was 100% true, even it others wanted to claimed this was not true. Having GP access makes a difference, even if others want to claim this can only be true for Apple apps and not for Adobe apps.

Now that Apple has granted them access, the ball is indeed in their court. They could very well still produce a version that has crap performance, even when using the new API. But that doesn't change the fact that they did not previously have this access, nor the fact that using the GPU to do the h.264 decoding (the reason for the API) is specifically meant to improve performance of these types of apps.

Flash does a lot more than H.264 playback. Their other problems cannot be attributed to a lack of access to this API. No one said they would. That is simply a strawman, but not a good one. I, for one, am sure that Flash will still suck, but the onus is now on them.

Well I don't think anyone that I can recall ever claimed that they had direct access to the hardware for decoding. Technically, they don't have that now, they only have access through a now official API. So, yes, in that trivial sense, their claim was true, and in fact still is.

It still doesn't make their claim that this is why flash performance sucked at all times. It doesn't say anything about why it crashes constantly. It doesn't explain why Flash generally sucks overall. And it does not explain the fact that other software got decent performance, compared to Flash, not using this particular API, but other existing APIs. All this does is make it so they are now on the spot to prove that they can make a decent piece of software for the Mac with this API. But, even if they do, it doesn't mean that this was the only thing holding them back.

So, they are out of excuses. Although. at this point, it's pretty much a non-issue. Flash's days are already numbered for reasons that aren't related to Mac performance and stability. If they were smart, they'd stop committing their future to it and get on board with the future that's going to happen.

Edit: I was just looking at a Flash item on a page that I loaded. It was kind of funny that there was a checkbox in the Settings... that was labeled: Enable hardware acceleration. Really!? That was fast. Or is that setting just left over from the Windows version?

That 'trivial' sense, was the only way it was meant to be true. As in they now have access to HW acceleration for H.264. Sort of like a guy honestly saying his car has no gas. Once it is proven that he has no gas, that is just as true in a 'trivial sense'. Although it might still be a piece of shit that is also missing a battery, oil and spark plugs and won't run anyway, it was still true that it had no gas.

I think the actual claims were something like, other graphics apps aren't pigs like Flash, so Adobe is just bitching when the say they need HW acceleration, cuz other apps don't. This ignores that most of the apps mentioned wouldn't benefit from H.264 decoding on the GPU, but was used anyway. Apps that actually do h.264 decoding and are therefore relevant for comparison, would also benefit by having access to this API...but only for their .264 decoding. If they are a poor performers in other ways, then this won't help. Just. Like. Flash.

No one claimed HW accel was a cure all for all of Flashes problems. I certainly never did. I don't even think Adobe said it could improve every aspect of their performance. That is another strawman. What they did say was"In Flash Player 10.1, H.264 hardware acceleration is not supported under either Linux or Mac OS X. Linux currently lacks a developed standard API that supports H.264 hardware video decoding, and Mac OS X does not expose access to the required APIs." i.e. Access to the API for h.264 decoding was not available. 100% true. Some people just want to ignore this and set up and argue against arguments that no one actually made. It is easy to argue against those that say this will help make everything about Flash great, mainly only because no one actually said that (no one with a sane argument anyway).

Again, to repeat, this ain't gonna help anything in Flash but h.264 decoding.

Or they could just use the standard Cocoa frameworks and get the same benefit.

H.264 isn't open. It's not free. Apple owns it. That's why it's not in Firefox. The codec is only in Safari (b/c Apple owns it) and Chrome (because Google pays for it).

It's fine to say we should all embrace new technology. I'm all about that. But don't be fooled. Apple's is just looking out for their market share on this one -- not their users, and certainly not open source development.

Sigh.

lol, must be i'm using flash 10.1 RC2

Do you use Apple products? iPod is simply better than ANY competing player. Use it for a day and you will never buy a different brand. Same with iPhone...

P.S. is there a study that shows how many iPhone users switch to a different brand?

Apple without Adobe applications? Hahaha, I don't think so. Apple isn't actually capable of writing anything similar to Adobe products, in fact all they are able is to playing with interface wrappers around other people's code. Lamers. I wish Adobe would just cancel all this CrApple shite.

Our trolls tend to be a little more resourceful and clever than this; "CrApple" usually means we're dealing with a 12 year old or a shut in of some sort.

I suggest channeling your bitterness and rage into elaborate alt personas with so many layers of misdirection no one can tell where you're coming from, which is a popular trolling strategy hereabouts. Failing that you might try "concern trolling" wherein you sadly acknowledge that Apple has had a good run and done some good work in their day, but are now being eclipsed by more nimble, geek friendly entities and will soon be but a footnote, as much as it pains you to admit.

Your choice, of course, but straight up "nya nya nya ya'll suck" brings shame on our tradition of motivated Apple hate.

I don't hate Apple per se,
I hate their demagogique big balls.

Really? Mind sourcing any of the APIs available through Cocoa that would have allowed Adobe to access the GPU for H.264 acceleration? To my knowledge this was only available through the Quicktime (X) API and is only now become a public API for use by third parties like Adobe. If what you say is true, could you provide any evidence to back it up, or are you just stating that since it fits with your view?

No other third party apps had access to an Apple API to allow H.264 acceleration, but Adobe did? I didn't realize Adobe and Apple had become so chummy again that Apple would give them exclusive access.

Actually I guess you stated that the 'standard Cocoa' APIs would provide the same benefit. Someone should alert Apple, because the certainly didn't think so and hence created a private (until now) API just for this purpose. It was only available in Quicktime, but now is available to all third parties. They really should stop wasting time creating brand new APIs that duplicate existing APIs.

What is now AT&T Mobility doesn't exactly have a direct lineage to the old Bell Labs... Though I'm sure they'd want people to think that.

Apple feigning umbrage at another company's product being "closed and propreitary"?

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Heaven forbid a company actually listen to what its customers want. If Android users want flash on their devices, why shouldn't Google facilitate that? Only the most ardent fanboy would see Google meeting a customer demand as an attack on the open internet. It's not like Google has stopped supporting HTML 5. They simply don't think that they should stop supporting Flash right now. There are still some out there who actually want to be able to access any website they want on their mobile device. Good on Google for giving their customers what they want.

QTKit has been out for a while.


I'm not really sure what this means or is in response to.


Well, maybe they released this now because they were tired of Adobe's whining.

Bang on. As a consumer, I care about being able to access the internet. The whole internet. Do I care about the geek war in the background over whether a proprietary plug-in or open standard is better? Probably not. I just want a page to load well and for me to be able to access any content I want. Unfortunately, neither Apple (there's also their stance on JavaFX) or Adobe is making it easier for consumers right now.

Hey addabox, he's taking your advice!

As I said, it has been available through Quicktime. QTKit would require them to only support the formats that Quicktime supports. Flash renders video differently than Quicktime. So, they would have to rewrite their rendering engine and thereby only support the formats that QuickTime supports. In essence they would simply be a Quicktime wrapper. This is not the same all having access to an API to access the GPU acceleration for H.264. NVIDIA's VP3 is meant to provide H.264 acceleration not just Quicktime acceleration.


probably. And anyone else that wanted to add hardware acceleration for H.264 playback. Quicktime is not the be all and end all of video play back on the Mac. Fortunately there are 3rd party apps that fill some of the gaps. You might even have used some of them. Now they too can add acceleration for their h.264 playback for formats other than Quicktime supported.

From the article:


So from that description it seems there are fees in place now, and no one knows how much those fees will increase in 2016.

And:

"More of this tired nonsense? This is just the most ridiculous, baseless claim out of Adobe ever. Adobe has had access to all the APIs they need to make Flash not suck on Macs. That they aren't using them is no one's fault but their own. I can't believe Adobe can actually get anyone to believe this stuff they put out." (anoymouse)
---

It means that just because you say that Adobe has access to all the API's they need to make flash run efficiently does not make it so. Now that they do, let's see what difference it makes.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/20...-apple-api.ars

According to this article:

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=18207

Apple has just released a new API that will allow for Adobe to finally offer hardware accelerated Flash on Mac computers.

Which should mean that Adobe simply could not hardware accelerate Flash on OSX, not that they have chosen not to do so.

Interesting timing by Apple, by the way. Trying to kill Flash last traces of on iDevices, while opening more to Flash on desktops. What gives?

If that were true, why does Flash suck even worse on Linux? They have all the access on that platform that they could ever want. Maybe it's because the Flash team can't be bothered?

really ?? you lost an app??


No .
FireWire is still the fastest game in town <<i think >>,<<E-SATA ??>>>anyway
I port over 300 g files all the time.
and by FIVE WIRE its takes hrs
by USB2 if it does not crash its takes 2x AS LONG.

Since 85 percent of all itunes users and ipad /iphone. ipod itouch owners are birthed and will die in the wintel msft bloat world .AND since they will never know the pure joy of snowy love . .err err hmm . well i forget what i was saying
anyway
APPLE to save money is using THEIR standard of USB . and not its own standard .
APPLE THINKS about non mac users in the fire wire debate .

APPLE woke up and put FW back ..thank god


get a room guys


Really!!!
That's an amazing factoid .

Damn you to zune accessory world dude
you forced me to read 6 pagers of junk before you supply a great topic ending point .
good one ..

And apple has a simple game plan that states if you fuck with UI in anyway bad way like battery draining banner ads or 30 second web page opening time lags then APPLE will create equal or better work arounds.

IE; APERTURE was a direct response to repeated 18 month or longer delays in ADOBE upgrading APPLE SW programs like photo shop or other creative suites. ADOBE even started to port some SW over rather fresh re writes. SCum bubbles

AD0BE felt THAT had apple by the balls ,,AND THEY DID !! for a time.
10 yrs down the road and adobe still acts like they are the kings of the hill .
Apple has moved to light speed futuristic devices that warrant 2015 type innovations. HTML5 is only the ground floor to what will be needed >>
Low power Fast loading Tiny devices demand this >>If they are to do things like stream hulu live on a wrist watch and still get a 7 hrs battery charge. Adobe IS being licked and dragged into the new brave wortld of PERFECT UI type computing.

ADOBE IS A FINE FINE COMPANY
NO ONE CAN TOUCH WHAT THEY DO
and if you do something they can't then they will buy your company and kill the the product or stamp the ADOBEE moniker on it.
LIKE THAT GREAT SW GO LIVE . That was so great until adobe bought them up ....any way my rant over flows >>> My point is ADOBE could create 5 or 6 app's for the IPAD that could be game changing for the whole market ... whole creative world down to 3rd graders,,

instead adobe pouts like a bit//////
move on ..ok ..

Adobe has to bow and serve apple ... its master //and lose its ego ....


peace


9


sorry for long rant


GO APPLE

I guess they learned how
but it required thinking outside the box

it's not a tradtional any computer it's a computer extension

tell me if html5 can make a simple flash site like this http://www.avatarmovie.com/ , i'm betting no, so flash will never die.....

you should use html5 and flash together to make a website, and as for iphone os, make a dedicated html5 page for it then(you know, do a browser detection, its not hard for php.)

there is a place for flash....at a great distance flash won't die but will be balanced

we are watching another technology being replaced or get a strong competitive push aside
htlm5 will grow because flash will always hog resources, besides desktop, plugged in laptop OK
mobile phones devices cya, don't let the door hit you in your crash battery sapping, virus portal arse

It looks pretty good on an iPhone and has all the information I need.

I can even buy the DVD they are selling, which is really the whole point of the site.

Which has nothing to do with Apple "owning" the format.

I never said USB2 had gotten to be faster than Firewire, but it was way faster than original USB and was fast enough for most people. I'm guessing it was also cheaper/easier to add USB than Firewire b/c more and more devices supported while Firewire was on less and less. USB is VHS, Firewire is Betamax. Happens all the time

You say that like it's a bad thing.


Just because Apple gave them the API they were demanding, doesn't mean that Flash could not have sucked without it. But, this does shut up their whining.

Flash is dead. Adapt or find a new career.

Edit: And, let's assume that Flash can't not suck without this API. A 3rd-party technology that must dictate hardware design and what APIs must be made public, has no place on iPhone, iPad, Macs, or anywhere else. Flash needs to die so technology and the web can progress in a way that's best, not a way that is best for Adobe.

Yes, I do have iPhone 3Gs. However I also had Creative Zen. I gave it to a relative when I got iPhone - I don't need 2 MP3 players - but I did like it. Some things - simple drag&drop, freedom to organize music as you want - were, for me, preferable to how iPhone/iTunes are organizing things. Audio quality was good, as was battery life for such a small device. I really didn't see it inferior to price comparable iPod at the time (was it iPod Mini?).



Not that I am aware of, but that is actually interesting question. If I came across any, I'll link it here.