Perhaps the one good outcome of this will be at all of Adobe will now collectively see what a resource- and battery-hogging piece of software this is on mobile phones. And, how it works (or does not) on a touch screen. Many of them will have used an iPhone before, and will be able to clearly see points of parity and difference.
As a result, who knows, they might finally come up with something that works. Or they'll finally give up, and the CEO will lose all credibility.
I agree. One additional option is that, in the event they don't adequately surmount the issues, internal forces will propose a parallel project to persuade an alternative direction to executive leadership, i.e., HTML5. One that will improve their current strategic business direction and support immediate tactical developer issues. How will today's decisions affect how well they will participate in the future cloud world.
If Adobe believes that Flash is such a good piece of software, why don't they try making it into a standalone OS that runs a mobile phone! Surely that would solve this problem
Follow on: If this cross platform idea is that good, then why bother with developing Android or Windows Mobile or iPhone OS? Just make something that runs Flash and give it to people to use
Best post I've seen today! FlashOS would be a hilarious idea, it would be so whooshy. Bluescreen crash messages could slide in from the left and bounce when you tapped them! As for the thin-Flash-wrapper-OS concept, I think that was pretty much the way Sun used to view Java; it does actually make some sense, although Flash would be very poorly suited to such a task. Mainly, though, phone handset makers do like to compete on the behaviour of their main UI, so in that sense it would be unlikely that they would all standardise on any particular underlying UI toolkit.
I may be preaching to the choir here, but I don't get the big deal with having Flash on mobile devices. I was trying to convince some friends that even if you had the option of Flash, you probably would want it disabled. Security, resource hogging and stability issues are a given. But perhaps more importantly is *how* Flash is used on the web:
1) Video. Almost all video uses some sort of Flash player. Some articles continue to tout that since 90% of video uses Flash, it therefore won't work on mobile devices without Flash. I did some testing on my iPhone and was pleasantly surprised to find that all the video sites I could think of simply work great on the phone as it downgraded gracefully to a native format that uses hardware decoding.
2) Flash ads. OK, Flash ads suuuck! Boy they are annoying. Enough said.
3) Site navigations. How do you hover to drop down a menu on a touch interface? You can't. Pretty much all decent sites that use Flash navs fall back to conventional navs when Flash isn't available, which is perfect for mobile devices.
4) Games. Most of the better Flash games have free, native app-store equivalents which run better than the Flash version. Games requiring pointers and keyboards to interact would be awkward on a mobile device.
Being a developer, I totally see Jobs' point about not wanting a third party middleware shoe horned into the development environment. Something some folks don't understand is that Flash wouldn't be an alternative to Apple's APIs, it goes on top of it. So as Apple adds features, a Flash developer would have to be at the mercy of Adobe to provide an update to pass that feature through. Lastly, knowing Adobe's track record of security and stability problems with Flash, you know they will have to issue important updates down the road. What would happen to all those apps approved before that update? Would Apple have to pull hundreds/thousands of apps each time an update is issued so the developer can rebuild their app and resubmit it? What about people who already bought those apps? It would be a mess.
One last point. I think it's smart to not even offer the *option* of Flash for a couple reasons: First of all, if its anything like how it works on OS-X, it will crash occasionally and then users will complain and blame Apple. Crashing on a laptop is one thing, but crashing on a mobile device can be especially frustrating. Also, if Flash were optional, it would give developers an excuse for not making native versions of content. So you'd see things like "enable Flash to continue" which would be lame. Don't even make it an option unless it is really going to be 100% useful and stable.
OK, that's my rant I've used on my Android friends. :') Interestingly, they really still want the option of Flash even if the experience may suck. For a while I was in the same boat, but for the reasons outlined above, I think even having the option of something half-baked would be bad news.
Adobe + Google is going to end up in disaster for Adobe eventually. Right now, Google tolerates Adobe and is accepting of this marriage of convenience until they can push Apple's post-PC plans back. Or that Apple brings HTML5 to fruition over the Internet, and they know they've lost.
When either of those happens, Google is going to knife Adobe in the back by abandoning it, if not, downright nailing the last nails in the coffin by the "do no evil" clause, which Google is doing by supporting a proprietary platform (which doesn't belong to Google).
Adobe, you had to have known this when you started to have platform aspirations with Flash/Flex/Air, that you were going to have big boy battles with no friends behind your back. You encroached on MS's turf. You encroached on the "open" web turf. You encroach upon Apple's turf. I must believe you have some plan to knife Google in the back if and when the time comes.
Actually, that's a pretty good idea. What better way to subversively show their employees how much they need to improve their products than by forcing them to actually use them.
What a brilliant 'take' on this story! If only it were true! I think more likely it's called, 'unintended consequences!'
When Adobe's CEO is fired, you should apply for the job!
Our broker had a 'web based back office' website designed for our 5,000 agents and it uses Flash extensively....
I couldn't believe at its inception...the first thing we were told was make sure we turned off our 'Pop-up blocker!' What a step backwards! I use a Mac/Safari but I would say 99% of the agents use Windows/IE6. Is there anything more annoying on the internet than 'pop-up' advertising? Sheez!
Also, because of Flash, once you have opened the back office there is no way to 'cut and paste' the nine digit account numbers...so every subject in your email or anything that requires the account number has to be typed-in instead of the much easier, time saving 'copy & paste!' (Can't use copy & paste! Why wasn't this brought during the testing phase...oh, let's just stick it in a capsule and label it 1985!)
i hate opening the website because of this and therefore I don't really update it or for that matter, use it in my day to day business because of Flash! What a waste of money and resources!
I may be preaching to the choir here, but I don't get the big deal with having Flash on mobile devices. I was trying to convince some friends that even if you had the option of Flash, you probably would want it disabled.
Yeah, I use ClickToFlash, mainly for the reasons you'd expect, although with the pleasant side-effect that Flash files which would automatically play audio content (usually with video) no longer interrupt my web surfing.
Quote:
1) Video. Almost all video uses some sort of Flash player. Some articles continue to tout that since 90% of video uses Flash, it therefore won't work on mobile devices without Flash.
It's not really relevant, that 90% is just statistics being akin to "damned lies". All that matters is whether the videos that the user actually watches work - it's not like people google for "video" and then start clicking links at random. Well, maybe 1% of people do.
Quote:
2) Flash ads. OK, Flash ads suuuck! Boy they are annoying. Enough said.
The same is often true of animgif ads, and there are plenty of nasty, ugly, or offensive static image ads. Adverts are all about desperately seeking attention, and being obnoxious is a great way to do that. Without Flash, they would just seek another technology to do the same thing.
Quote:
Being a developer, I totally see Jobs' point about not wanting a third party middleware shoe horned into the development environment. Something some folks don't understand is that Flash wouldn't be an alternative to Apple's APIs, it goes on top of it. So as Apple adds features, a Flash developer would have to be at the mercy of Adobe to provide an update to pass that feature through.
Essentially there isn't a problem with a small minority of developers using poorly-specified-for-the-platform middleware, and I'm sure that both is and will continue to be the case (eg, people writing C code which uses abstraction layers like SDL). The problem arises when a significant proportion of the developers (and there are a great many Flash developers who would gladly pay $99 for the chance to sell their Flash stuff at 99c a pop) are using the middleware and don't even have the opportunity to mix that with direct use of the underlying frameworks (because their middleware doesn't support any language which can send Objective-C messages). If most of the apps you had on your phone couldn't support the features of your phone's OS until say two years after it was released, that would be pretty much equivalent to not having those features at all. The iPhone OS 4 multitask-via-events system will be a good example of that: if you have a cross-compiled Android audio app on your iPhone, it just won't support multitasking properly (will just pause), and so you'd have little reason to believe that your phone had such a feature.
Quote:
Lastly, knowing Adobe's track record of security and stability problems with Flash, you know they will have to issue important updates down the road. What would happen to all those apps approved before that update?
The same is true of any common libraries at all, although admittedly to a lesser extent. If there was a widespread security problem, Apple could remotely revoke the applications in question, but normally you could expect the same as with desktop applications which have libraries in the bundle: occasional updates purely to update the libraries.
Quote:
OK, that's my rant I've used on my Android friends. :') Interestingly, they really still want the option of Flash even if the experience may suck. For a while I was in the same boat, but for the reasons outlined above, I think even having the option of something half-baked would be bad news.
My experience with Android users is that they want all the features possible, even ones that they can't or shouldn't use (root shell access, for example), and that's what attracted them to Android over iPhone OS in the first place. I'm sure some would even get excited over the possibility of ActiveX support!
Adobe + Google is going to end up in disaster for Adobe eventually. Right now, Google tolerates Adobe and is accepting of this marriage of convenience until they can push Apple's post-PC plans back. Or that Apple brings HTML5 to fruition over the Internet, and they know they've lost.
When either of those happens, Google is going to knife Adobe in the back by abandoning it, if not, downright nailing the last nails in the coffin by the "do no evil" clause, which Google is doing by supporting a proprietary platform (which doesn't belong to Google).
That's a great story, but I don't think it's reflected in reality. Google's integrating Flash into Chrome will be all about getting rid of Adobe's crappy code (from Google's perspective; I doubt they would bother with something that's fine on its own) while accepting that users actually do currently want to run Flash. Google's interest in Flash on Android will also be strictly pragmatic, just about users' demands. There's no marriage or alliance of any kind there, and in fact I think Chrome was conceived by Google as a way to push modern (eg. HTML5) standard features to Windows users, since Gears was not effective at doing so. If Google were at all interested in courting Adobe, then Google Maps would use Flash.
In fact, at the moment, it's much more the other way around: Adobe doesn't want to risk any browser with more than a few percent market share not having Flash, because then people would be inclined to make their content "backwards compatible" and so lessen the motivation for users to have Flash in the first place. They also desperately want to be competitive in the mobile phone market because that's where the money is nowadays, and if the nigh-omnipresent WebKit on smartphones actually gets people developing major website features in HTML5, then Microsoft will move to implement those features, then content-heavy web sites will start to move to HTML5 and fewer web site developers will need to buy Adobe CS.
Quote:
Originally Posted by christopher126
Also, because of Flash, once you have opened the back office there is no way to 'cut and paste' the nine digit account numbers...so every subject in your email or anything that requires the account number has to be typed-in instead of the much easier, time saving 'copy & paste!' (Can't use copy & paste! Why wasn't this brought during the testing phase...oh, let's just stick it in a capsule and label it 1985!)
That's an excellent example of the kind of problem SJ was alluding to - a normal user trying to paste would just assume that the functionality was broken on their computer. I can't imagine what Adobe's excuse for not building in copy and paste functionality is, but it's probably no more than "we haven't got around to it".
Oprah to audience: "if you look under your chairs, each of you will find a mobile phone running the Google Android OS, along with Adobe Mobile Flash.... So you can enjoy the "complete web" for an entire day, we have also included an extra battery:" *
* Optional [shoulder] carrying-strap available in 2 colors (orange and black)
Actually at this point, Flash is not even available for Android.
That's what I said. They are developing a working version of Flash for that system, the only mobile OS (I consider symbian a dumb phone OS, even their smartphone variants can only compete with KIN) that actually wants to work with Adobe. Chrome OS is gonna have flash built in I'm assuming so will android once flash for mobile become available.
The reporting in the media regarding the Adobe/Flash issue related to the iPhone - along with message boards - has been atrocious. First of all they have depicted it as "Steve Jobs slams Adobe Flash". He did not "slam" Flash (well maybe it sounded that way in his emailed retort to the issue of Apple ever using Flash} but then he took time to present a very thoughtful, rational and cogent summary of the issues Apple had for Adobe Flash on the iPhone and iPad. Microsoft seems to have recognized that assessment as a fairly accurate description of the issues. Adobe seems to definitely - as do a cadre of Flash developers - believe this is definitely a threat to one of it's major revenue sources for the company and it's livelihood therefore have turned this into a "pissing match" . . . with the media quickly following in their footsteps. It appears that Adobe is doing everything possible to keep this story alive. At this point we should all just ignore their temper tantrum and move on!!
That's what I said. They are developing a working version of Flash for that system, the only mobile OS (I consider symbian a dumb phone OS, even their smartphone variants can only compete with KIN) that actually wants to work with Adobe. Chrome OS is gonna have flash built in I'm assuming so will android once flash for mobile become available.
Can you list please the reasons why you believe that a Symbian phone cannot be classed as a smartphone?
Comments
Perhaps the one good outcome of this will be at all of Adobe will now collectively see what a resource- and battery-hogging piece of software this is on mobile phones. And, how it works (or does not) on a touch screen. Many of them will have used an iPhone before, and will be able to clearly see points of parity and difference.
As a result, who knows, they might finally come up with something that works. Or they'll finally give up, and the CEO will lose all credibility.
I agree. One additional option is that, in the event they don't adequately surmount the issues, internal forces will propose a parallel project to persuade an alternative direction to executive leadership, i.e., HTML5. One that will improve their current strategic business direction and support immediate tactical developer issues. How will today's decisions affect how well they will participate in the future cloud world.
Some notes:
Best post I've seen today! FlashOS would be a hilarious idea, it would be so whooshy. Bluescreen crash messages could slide in from the left and bounce when you tapped them! As for the thin-Flash-wrapper-OS concept, I think that was pretty much the way Sun used to view Java; it does actually make some sense, although Flash would be very poorly suited to such a task. Mainly, though, phone handset makers do like to compete on the behaviour of their main UI, so in that sense it would be unlikely that they would all standardise on any particular underlying UI toolkit.
1) Video. Almost all video uses some sort of Flash player. Some articles continue to tout that since 90% of video uses Flash, it therefore won't work on mobile devices without Flash. I did some testing on my iPhone and was pleasantly surprised to find that all the video sites I could think of simply work great on the phone as it downgraded gracefully to a native format that uses hardware decoding.
2) Flash ads. OK, Flash ads suuuck! Boy they are annoying. Enough said.
3) Site navigations. How do you hover to drop down a menu on a touch interface? You can't. Pretty much all decent sites that use Flash navs fall back to conventional navs when Flash isn't available, which is perfect for mobile devices.
4) Games. Most of the better Flash games have free, native app-store equivalents which run better than the Flash version. Games requiring pointers and keyboards to interact would be awkward on a mobile device.
Being a developer, I totally see Jobs' point about not wanting a third party middleware shoe horned into the development environment. Something some folks don't understand is that Flash wouldn't be an alternative to Apple's APIs, it goes on top of it. So as Apple adds features, a Flash developer would have to be at the mercy of Adobe to provide an update to pass that feature through. Lastly, knowing Adobe's track record of security and stability problems with Flash, you know they will have to issue important updates down the road. What would happen to all those apps approved before that update? Would Apple have to pull hundreds/thousands of apps each time an update is issued so the developer can rebuild their app and resubmit it? What about people who already bought those apps? It would be a mess.
One last point. I think it's smart to not even offer the *option* of Flash for a couple reasons: First of all, if its anything like how it works on OS-X, it will crash occasionally and then users will complain and blame Apple. Crashing on a laptop is one thing, but crashing on a mobile device can be especially frustrating. Also, if Flash were optional, it would give developers an excuse for not making native versions of content. So you'd see things like "enable Flash to continue" which would be lame. Don't even make it an option unless it is really going to be 100% useful and stable.
OK, that's my rant I've used on my Android friends. :') Interestingly, they really still want the option of Flash even if the experience may suck. For a while I was in the same boat, but for the reasons outlined above, I think even having the option of something half-baked would be bad news.
When either of those happens, Google is going to knife Adobe in the back by abandoning it, if not, downright nailing the last nails in the coffin by the "do no evil" clause, which Google is doing by supporting a proprietary platform (which doesn't belong to Google).
Adobe, you had to have known this when you started to have platform aspirations with Flash/Flex/Air, that you were going to have big boy battles with no friends behind your back. You encroached on MS's turf. You encroached on the "open" web turf. You encroach upon Apple's turf. I must believe you have some plan to knife Google in the back if and when the time comes.
Actually, that's a pretty good idea. What better way to subversively show their employees how much they need to improve their products than by forcing them to actually use them.
What a brilliant 'take' on this story! If only it were true! I think more likely it's called, 'unintended consequences!'
When Adobe's CEO is fired, you should apply for the job!
I couldn't believe at its inception...the first thing we were told was make sure we turned off our 'Pop-up blocker!' What a step backwards! I use a Mac/Safari but I would say 99% of the agents use Windows/IE6. Is there anything more annoying on the internet than 'pop-up' advertising? Sheez!
Also, because of Flash, once you have opened the back office there is no way to 'cut and paste' the nine digit account numbers...so every subject in your email or anything that requires the account number has to be typed-in instead of the much easier, time saving 'copy & paste!' (Can't use copy & paste! Why wasn't this brought during the testing phase...oh, let's just stick it in a capsule and label it 1985!)
i hate opening the website because of this and therefore I don't really update it or for that matter, use it in my day to day business because of Flash! What a waste of money and resources!
Can I safely say that some people will be glad to get a Flash blocker for Android?
Anyone wanna take bets on which will come first... Flash on Android or FlashBlock for Android?
I may be preaching to the choir here, but I don't get the big deal with having Flash on mobile devices. I was trying to convince some friends that even if you had the option of Flash, you probably would want it disabled.
Yeah, I use ClickToFlash, mainly for the reasons you'd expect, although with the pleasant side-effect that Flash files which would automatically play audio content (usually with video) no longer interrupt my web surfing.
1) Video. Almost all video uses some sort of Flash player. Some articles continue to tout that since 90% of video uses Flash, it therefore won't work on mobile devices without Flash.
It's not really relevant, that 90% is just statistics being akin to "damned lies". All that matters is whether the videos that the user actually watches work - it's not like people google for "video" and then start clicking links at random. Well, maybe 1% of people do.
2) Flash ads. OK, Flash ads suuuck! Boy they are annoying. Enough said.
The same is often true of animgif ads, and there are plenty of nasty, ugly, or offensive static image ads. Adverts are all about desperately seeking attention, and being obnoxious is a great way to do that. Without Flash, they would just seek another technology to do the same thing.
Being a developer, I totally see Jobs' point about not wanting a third party middleware shoe horned into the development environment. Something some folks don't understand is that Flash wouldn't be an alternative to Apple's APIs, it goes on top of it. So as Apple adds features, a Flash developer would have to be at the mercy of Adobe to provide an update to pass that feature through.
Essentially there isn't a problem with a small minority of developers using poorly-specified-for-the-platform middleware, and I'm sure that both is and will continue to be the case (eg, people writing C code which uses abstraction layers like SDL). The problem arises when a significant proportion of the developers (and there are a great many Flash developers who would gladly pay $99 for the chance to sell their Flash stuff at 99c a pop) are using the middleware and don't even have the opportunity to mix that with direct use of the underlying frameworks (because their middleware doesn't support any language which can send Objective-C messages). If most of the apps you had on your phone couldn't support the features of your phone's OS until say two years after it was released, that would be pretty much equivalent to not having those features at all. The iPhone OS 4 multitask-via-events system will be a good example of that: if you have a cross-compiled Android audio app on your iPhone, it just won't support multitasking properly (will just pause), and so you'd have little reason to believe that your phone had such a feature.
Lastly, knowing Adobe's track record of security and stability problems with Flash, you know they will have to issue important updates down the road. What would happen to all those apps approved before that update?
The same is true of any common libraries at all, although admittedly to a lesser extent. If there was a widespread security problem, Apple could remotely revoke the applications in question, but normally you could expect the same as with desktop applications which have libraries in the bundle: occasional updates purely to update the libraries.
OK, that's my rant I've used on my Android friends. :') Interestingly, they really still want the option of Flash even if the experience may suck. For a while I was in the same boat, but for the reasons outlined above, I think even having the option of something half-baked would be bad news.
My experience with Android users is that they want all the features possible, even ones that they can't or shouldn't use (root shell access, for example), and that's what attracted them to Android over iPhone OS in the first place. I'm sure some would even get excited over the possibility of ActiveX support!
Adobe + Google is going to end up in disaster for Adobe eventually. Right now, Google tolerates Adobe and is accepting of this marriage of convenience until they can push Apple's post-PC plans back. Or that Apple brings HTML5 to fruition over the Internet, and they know they've lost.
When either of those happens, Google is going to knife Adobe in the back by abandoning it, if not, downright nailing the last nails in the coffin by the "do no evil" clause, which Google is doing by supporting a proprietary platform (which doesn't belong to Google).
That's a great story, but I don't think it's reflected in reality. Google's integrating Flash into Chrome will be all about getting rid of Adobe's crappy code (from Google's perspective; I doubt they would bother with something that's fine on its own) while accepting that users actually do currently want to run Flash. Google's interest in Flash on Android will also be strictly pragmatic, just about users' demands. There's no marriage or alliance of any kind there, and in fact I think Chrome was conceived by Google as a way to push modern (eg. HTML5) standard features to Windows users, since Gears was not effective at doing so. If Google were at all interested in courting Adobe, then Google Maps would use Flash.
In fact, at the moment, it's much more the other way around: Adobe doesn't want to risk any browser with more than a few percent market share not having Flash, because then people would be inclined to make their content "backwards compatible" and so lessen the motivation for users to have Flash in the first place. They also desperately want to be competitive in the mobile phone market because that's where the money is nowadays, and if the nigh-omnipresent WebKit on smartphones actually gets people developing major website features in HTML5, then Microsoft will move to implement those features, then content-heavy web sites will start to move to HTML5 and fewer web site developers will need to buy Adobe CS.
Also, because of Flash, once you have opened the back office there is no way to 'cut and paste' the nine digit account numbers...so every subject in your email or anything that requires the account number has to be typed-in instead of the much easier, time saving 'copy & paste!' (Can't use copy & paste! Why wasn't this brought during the testing phase...oh, let's just stick it in a capsule and label it 1985!)
That's an excellent example of the kind of problem SJ was alluding to - a normal user trying to paste would just assume that the functionality was broken on their computer. I can't imagine what Adobe's excuse for not building in copy and paste functionality is, but it's probably no more than "we haven't got around to it".
Oprah to audience: "if you look under your chairs, each of you will find a mobile phone running the Google Android OS, along with Adobe Mobile Flash.... So you can enjoy the "complete web" for an entire day, we have also included an extra battery:" *
* Optional [shoulder] carrying-strap available in 2 colors (orange and black)
.
Actually at this point, Flash is not even available for Android.
That's what I said. They are developing a working version of Flash for that system, the only mobile OS (I consider symbian a dumb phone OS, even their smartphone variants can only compete with KIN) that actually wants to work with Adobe. Chrome OS is gonna have flash built in I'm assuming so will android once flash for mobile become available.
Hey I found this Android phone running Flash in a bar. Anyone want to buy it?
No hands raised.
"Adobe reportedly has not yet decided with Android phone?" Which??
Ooh aren't you clever.
Video. Almost all video uses some sort of Flash player.
http://www.youtube.com/html5
Stupid is as stupid does! Run Adobe! Run!!
That's what I said. They are developing a working version of Flash for that system, the only mobile OS (I consider symbian a dumb phone OS, even their smartphone variants can only compete with KIN) that actually wants to work with Adobe. Chrome OS is gonna have flash built in I'm assuming so will android once flash for mobile become available.
Can you list please the reasons why you believe that a Symbian phone cannot be classed as a smartphone?