FTC believed to be investigating Apple's anti-Flash stance - Page 9

Funny, that's almost exactly what Adobe said about the iPhone - and we all know how that worked out.


That's right. It's rolled out on a very limited basis to a very tiny number of phones and on those phones, it's buggy, slow, and eats batteries for lunch. IOW, it is NOT a significant part of the mobile Internet at this point - which is exactly what I've been saying all along.

Now, if Adobe ever releases a version of Flash that is capable of running well on IPhone 2 and IPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS class phones (which were the phones around when Adobe promised Flash for the iPhone), then you can say you were right. But so far, after 3 years of trying, there is absolutely no evidence that Adobe will EVER have Flash running on those phones. In fact, the evidence is that even on iPhone 4 class phones, Flash is slow and buggy - and Apple has no desire to have crap running on their phones.

Adobe is the one claiming that they can do it. How about some evidence? The world is through accepting their lies on faith.

No, that isn't 'exactly' how it happened, apple refused to allow it. M$ on the otherhand, is actively working with adobe to include it. Small detail that escaped your notice.



It runs fine here. You can yell buggy all you like, it doesn't make it so. Why don't you entertain everyone with more googled links.


The evidence is out there. You just refuse to see it. If it can run on android well, and jailbroken iphones, it's running. Adobe got it's ass kicked after trying to pass off flash lite, and it's poor flash player at the time.

And the "world", could care less about a handful of deluded forum posters reiterating the same crap over and over boring everyone. IF Adobe is able to roll it out and keep the momentum, the 'world', will want to have it.

VLC is a media player, NOT a plugin. There is a very big difference.


/facepalm
No, every Distro of linux can have totally different drivers, aka totally different ways of accessing the hardware. So yes, while it's open, it would mean that adobe would have to field multiple teams in an attempt to keep up to date to all the different distros of linux.


Actually there is. For one, the marketshare of linux for consumers is abysmal, and there are MULTIPLE versions of Ubuntu, so which one should they select? Yeah, they could get flash working perfectly on a distro that covers... lets say 10% of the consumer linux market. that just pissed the other 90% off.

Motorola droid. 550mhz processor. Runs Flash.


I never said jailbroken devices were a large percentage of phones. Nice try though. What your asking adobe to do is like expecting THQ to spend the time and money to port a PC game to the xbox, but only xboxes that are hacked to run linux (or something similar).

Adobe IS developing flash for blackberry. You do realize that they JUST got an html5 capable browser, right? and it's not even out on any phones yet. And even the Torch is still limited to their youtube player (it cannot play ANY web video)


Maybe if you actually read my posts instead of just assuming that all android users use the same arguments, you would see that I answered this.

For one thing, PalmOS is dead and it has been for years as far as the smartphone market is concerned. The OS isn't even owned by palm/hp anymore. If you mean WebOS, Adobe is actively developing for it, or at least they were until HP bought palm out. haven't heard much of ANYTHING from palm since well before then.

They were developing for winmo, and then dropped it once MS basically gave the finger to winmo 6.x

Symbian? Again, a dying platform. Nokia is moving onto other platforms. Adobe is working with Nokia to bring the software to their devices.

And YOU'RE the one talking about how flash can't run on sub 800mhz processors. All those devices you listed can barely play web video (save for youtube players) let alone playing content in browser. You can't have it both ways. Either Adobe is being "lazy" by not developing plugins for these archaic devices, or those devices were incapable of handling advanced content until recently. So choose one argument, drop the other. The two are mutually exclusive.



Top three android phones in the us:
Motorola Droid (official OTA exists for 2.2 that you can dl and install, already rolling out)
HTC Incredible (slated to get froyo)
HTC Evo (update started going out this week, delayed because of compatibility issues)

Yes, it's only "Currently" available for the N1 and Droid (which has a sub 600mhz processor), but that's not the issue. The fact of the matter is that it IS coming. In fact, it's already here. all it requires is for carriers and handset makers to push out some code. That's a far cry from it only being there for the N1 and no other devices no matter what.

There's a reason att didn't market that phone as android (they pushed it as an advanced feature phone). You buy a glorified feature phone, you'll most likely be stuck on the firmware you got, maybe one upgrade. ATT seems to not care, at all, about android, so unlike Verizon and Sprint, I highly doubt they're pressuring Moto or anyone to push updates. Your phone has 1.5 btw because of ATT's insistance that moto remove most of the google apps from it. All other motoblur devices have 1.6, which should make the transition for them to 2.1 a lot easier.

You want someone to be mad at about the Backflip, that's squarely att's fault. Their only decent android offering (the galaxyS variant) is basically being marketed exclusively by Samsung right now, not ATT.. I'm pretty sure they want android to fail.


it isn't apple's fault that there isn't flash for those other OS's, but because of their arrogance it is EXPLICITLY their fault that the iphone isn't getting it, and has no chance of getting it.

I use flash all the time on my macbook, my brother uses it all the time on his macbook pro.
Yes, my macbook has issues, but that's because it has to use the CPU to decode everything (it's also a first generation, so it's quite old)

My brothers macbook pro? It's basically flawless.

Maybe you go to totally different sites than I do, but I can't remember the last time I ever had a browser crash (save for when I test beta builds). And the only time I have real issues with flash crapping out in a window is facebook chat, but facebooks coding is a pile of fail anyway.

So you read the first line and then stopped reading I take it?

I was talking SPECIFICALLY about dumb phones, not smartphones. Even more specifically, I was talking the CDMA disparity. you CANNOT get a throwaway CDMA phone on a post paid network for $50 (if it is new) retail. Period. The MINIMUM you pay is 120, and for most of them, the cost is closer to 180+ (with retail around 200+) So for, Verizon for example, all of their phones cost them between 120-600, which is a REALLY small margin to go from the "Knack" to the "Droid x" So while the upper end is actually pretty cheap, the lower end is very inflated.

Compare that to GSM carriers where you CAN get throwaway phones. or any prepaid carrier where the phones are again, signifigantly cheaper. Yes, there is design and patents to consider, but they don't justify for the cost.




Yes, it's not like DIRECTLY after the WebM announcement they (MPEG-LA) announced that they were going to start selling licenses to people wanting to use webM to protect them from any lawsuits MPEG-LA was going to throw at the new standard.. Yeah, they totally didn't do that.

Is that like the license fees HTC pays Microsoft for the use of Android, you know to cover any lawsuits Microsoft may launch against patents they allege Linux infringes.

Right, it would have to be redesigned anyway to use Gordon and yes, a waste of time.

I personally don't make ads in Flash, I hate how annoying those can get and have Flash blockers on all of my browsers.


Again, personally I don't use a lot of actionscript to begin with, I prefer to have robust html and CSS. I did change all of my Flash run slideshows and videos to be run with javacript and html5 instead. There were solutions already out there so I didn't have to write them at all.

I use html for links and interactivity on my sites, always have (except for some same experiments it Flash) I hate websites that act like video games. All of my clients thus far prefer SEO compatibility to the wow factor of Flash based sites. I have actually been hired more often switch sites from Flash based to html based. With good CSS I can get the sites to look like the Flash sites and if their are small bits of interactivity I will use a small Flash file if I have no other choice. But as of today I have everything either out of Flash or I have coded in a comparable alternative to the Flash file that will run on the iDevices. I never thought Flash was all that great so I am not missing it much.

Yes, you are right about coding Canvas et al. I am hoping that Apple will add that to their Xcode program. I am more interested in learning how to create iAds, so I am assuming they have or will have tools for that.

A client of mine is launching an ad campaign through Comcast, I can submit an animated gif, I don't have to do the ad in Flash. Will it be as tricked out? No. Will people who are using Flash blockers and mobile devices see it? Yes.

It is all a matter of choice and I choose to stay with what I have always done, well coded html, CSS and javascript.

I do whatever the client asks for and often it is Flash. I'm doing a lot of JavaScript/HTML5 now for all the back end CMS stuff. Also a lot of Ajax too. My Flash work mostly involves real applications not just fluff. However Flash is still in high demand for ads. I don't like to view ads anymore than the next person but that is what the clients want.

I don't think Apple is going to allow graphic artists such as yourself to ever create or submit iAds. They sell iAds and create them themselves. They distribute them as they see fit and do not need any input from regular programmers or designers such as you or me.

That's why he said they should release Flash as open source. You know, open source? That stuff that just a little while ago you were arguing everything ought to be so that Mozilla can maintain their ideological purity? How you can on the one hand insist that H.264 is evil because it isn't free, open source and on the other claim that Flash is as pure a part of the web as the driven snow is a bit of a mystery to me.

The bottom line, to which Adobe has no honest answer, is that they never have been able to properly support more than a single platform at a time, and they never will, and they don't even want to, and that's why Flash has no, and ought not have a, future.

But, now you've circled back around and are making arguments that ignore points already made against them. I'd say you were pretty much finished about 4-5 pages ago.

Good old single issue Groovetube. Still full of it, I see. What's that? Oh, well, if you actually had a point I might respond to it, but your tired old arguments are so weak that it's really not worth the effort. Nice to see you have the hate throttled up to about 8.

typical troll response. Blah blah you have no point blah blah if you said something worthwhile yadda yadaa yadda you're a HATER.

Oh yeah I'm a real HATER genius.

says it all right there.

That is a bit of an exaggeration. Honestly the same thing could be said for Apple, especially a decade ago. Adobe has been the one thing that has kept the Mac alive. Without the creative professionals the Mac would have died a long time ago - and creative professionals use what software almost exclusively? Right.

Flash is like a wild teenage brother. You don't want him dead, you want him to grow up.

yep. Funny how people forget things.

[QUOTE=mstone;1692735]That is a bit of an exaggeration. Honestly the same thing could be said for Apple, especially a decade ago. /QUOTE]

The difference is that Apple isn't trying to get the FTC to force their products on people who don't want them.


What does that have to do with it? A lot of Apple users have used some good Adobe software in the past so Apple is somehow obligated to use crappy Adobe software?

That doesn't even make sense at first glance, much less reasonable consideration.

[QUOTE=jragosta;1692810]
You are mistaken. Adobe wants their users to be able to create applications that run on iPhone. You are not obligated to download any program that you don't want.

Sorry my original post was slightly off topic as I was replying to someone who made a general comment about Flash and not about the investigation.

It's not an exaggeration at all. And, you are probably correct, Apple probably couldn't support some software product adequately on as many platforms as Adobe would need to support Flash on, which is all platforms. Probably no one could. Combine that with the argument that some platforms aren't big enough to justify the cost is exactly the point of why closed proprietary technologies like Flash have no business on the web. The correct model for these things is multiple vendors support various platforms, coding to open standards, and even the smallest most "insignificant" platforms like Linux* will get decently performing browsers supporting HTML5, but they will never get decently performing Flash.


Or, the Mac has been the one thing that has kept Adobe alive, over the years, depending on how you look at it.


Flash is more like your neighbor's drunken 40 year-old son who pukes in your driveway every night: you don't want him dead, you just want him to move out already, preferably to another state.


* This characterization is that of those who, in this thread, have argued that Linux doesn't deserve to be a full class web citizen, and is not a view I share.

No only the platforms they wish to support. Like iTunes. Linux users decided to use that OS knowing full well that iTunes and Flash and QuickTime and lots of other stuff will not be available.

And if Mac users don't want to use Flash they don'y have to. If every Mac user stopped using Flash today, it would not diminish the prevalence of Flash on the web one bit.


However amusing your characterization, Adobe has only had control of Flash for a few years so I would give them the benefit of the doubt. They are making a sincere effort to move the platform in a much more business oriented direction with Flex and Air. I my opinion it is the 40 year old advertising exec and the teenage dork who have given Flash a bad name.

Sure their are some performance issues that have been reported, but they have rarely if ever caused any significant inconveniences to me and I use Flash on a Mac all the time. Until someone comes up with a suitable replacement to the functionality that Flash offers, a web minus Flash would be much less interesting. I would venture to say that anything you can do with an iPhone app you can also do with Flash. It is a full fledged application development environment which can create applications that run in a browser. Aside from Java nothing else can do that. The reason it doesn't need to be open standards based is exactly for that reason, It creates APPLICATIONS, not web pages.

iTunes is not the web, it's a software product intended to support Apple's iDevices. But, your comment simply reinforces my point, and weakens yours. A closed proprietary technology like Flash has no place as part of the web.


Well, I don't see how since, as we've seen from the examples of "Top Flash Sites" that have been posted to this thread that a) they really aren't all that interesting, and b) they aren't really very functional. A web without Flash can only become more interesting, freed from the bad site design that Flash seems to encourage.

You obviously have a very exclusionary concept of what is and is not the web. I think anyone should be able to publish anything they want in any format and let the end users decide if it is part of the web or not. You are free to use whatever technology you like, just like everyone else. I happen to think hip hop and rap are not part of music but that is just my opinion, others are free to enjoy whatever they like. If a car playing that kind of music pulls up next to me, I'm annoyed, but I don't organize a lynching party and go after them.

No, what I have is a very strong concept that the web ought not be privatized, and users cut off at the whim of controlling companies. Whether that's Adobe or Google/Verizon, it's an attack on the web, on the Internet, and, ultimately, on us. Open standards and net neutrality keep the web free and open. Flash keeps it under Adobe's thumb. If you like that fine, but many of us have a different vision.

oh I doubt that very much. As designers we loved and used the industry standards photoshop and illustrator. And as creatives we also preferred to use those tools, on a mac. But at the end of the day, it was photoshop and illustrator we used to produce our work. If apple went belly up which they came very close to doing, we all would have continued to use photoshop and illustrator on windows if that were the case. We wouldn't have loved it, but life goes on. So no, apple didn't keep adobe alive at all, that's utter nonsense. Most definitely, the other way round.

At that time it was adobe, and macromedia, two very different companies, with different attitudes. I preferred adobe of that period. I never had much like for macromedia.

Maybe that's the adobe Steve Jobs misses. I can't disagree there.

oh, BTW, I HATED apple sooo much, that I renewed my iphone plan today and ordered the iphone4 32gb.

I seig hieled and screamed down with steve jobs during the order to seal my hate. All while typing on my brand new i7 MBP tricked out.

hate I do, hate.

So you are ok with Flash as long as it isn't on the web?

No Flash on the web is an inconvenience to users.

Flash does some very unique things that nothing else can do, and I for one do not want to give that up until a new equivalent technology is available. If HTML5/Canvas/SVG/Javascript is going to be the solution then fine, I'll wait for the IDE and then it might be a fair fight. Rolling your own integration of those technologies is not a viable method. Right now Flash has every other wannabe totally whipped.

Photoshop is an industry standard... Illustrator is most definitely NOT! Adobe was allowed to purchase Freehand under spurious circumstances... and killed it (effectively speaking, since they don't upgrade it). More vector designers actually LOVED Freehand much more so than Illustrator. I'm pretty safe in stating that as a fact. http://www.freefreehand.org/


I'll leave that quote, and even agree with you, since there are no development tools that easily integrate all of the technologies into a usable, productive, designer-friendly program.

However... just throwing something out there:

What's stopping Adobe from creating an App like Flash Player for iOS? So that if there is something that you want to see that is in Flash, you can do so by clicking the container, and opening the App to do so.

Why does it have to be a plug-in for a browser?

Three pages back, was a listing of Flash Websites. Each "could" be opened in the Flash Player.

I seriously don't think the experince with any of them would be very exciting, and I like the analogy of "I would rather have a root canal" to sum up my expectations quite well.

So from that list of sites here... can any Android Froyo/10.1 Flash Beta using poster here, please report their experience? I'm curious... very curious.

Even IF Flash were available for iOS... what is it that is so important that a majority of people need it for. My guess is simply video, which was debated for some 4-odd pages already. IMHO: video should be handled the same as static images, as a tag... meaning HTML5.

Regardless of the codec, which more than likely if there comes the day where more than one is fighting for superiority, an App will be available, similar to the xvid app CineXPlayer recently released.


Again: why has Adobe not created an actual App to run SWF applications? Why does Adobe insist on a Flash plug-in within the browser? The majority of the sites I reviewed above, are all self contained Apps. So if Apple doesn't want them on THEIR Store, why doesn't Adobe give their developers a platform/App to run them in?

PS: I suppose I appear stupid in that (I think) SWF's are considered executables and the EULA specifically forbids Apps to run external code. HOWEVER... wouldn't it be easier for Adobe to approach this from this angle, rather than a plug-in? At the very least, it would be available as a Jailbreak App... as is Frash, which is an unauthorized hack I think. Then the market would decide if it's needed, or worth jailbreaking to get it.

PSS: Any more info regarding Silverlight coming to iOS devices? There was some speculation a few months back.

I am aware of that, though it was my peers who were using it not me. But I was just addressing the idea that apple apparently was adobe's lifeline.




It's called adobe air.

@ Groovetube - oh yes... how could I forget. However, it's still in Beta and hasn't been released, even though at the top of the blog http://blogs.adobe.com/air/2010/04/a...r_on_ipad.html , they state that it looks great.

And as someone named Warren stated, and I would also like to know:

"All I want to know is as a consumer (and not a developer) who wants to run an Air based app on an iPad, how am I going to be able to do this?

Do I need to wait for the app developer to convert the app to run on the iPad, or is Adobe going to step up with either an app to run Air apps, or an end user converter?"

OK. So maybe I should rephrase my question:

When is Adobe going to release something to run Flash content, preferably that is not still in Beta.

NOTE: There are some people that use Adobe's progs for double-digit hours a day as I do, that would say that a number of progs in the CS5 suite are still in Beta. Still waiting for fixes to some of the bugs since CS2.

I'm just not all that cozy with the idea that Adobe can accomplish anything at the moment. Last time I stated that, was on a post regarding the stupid Conde Nast publications that were just huge JPEGs in a slide-show and weighed in at 650mb. Can't remember which one it was now... whatever.... a slide-show doesn't cut it either.