The reality is there are cases where HTML5 is slow and uses far more CPU then Flash 10.1. There are alot of advantages to Flash 10.1 over the current version the problem is you simply don't understand how the technology works.
Using Chrome under with Windows Flash 10.1 is about 55 to 60% more efficient then HTML5.
Firefox cpu with Windows is about 6% Funny how Safari for Windows using Flash 10.1 is using about 7-8% cpu.
Apple and OSX are the problem not Flash. This entire siuation at this point is nothing more then Steve Job as always attempting to control content.
Whats going to be best is when they get hit with the anti trust.
Your points can be debated. But the "true" point this is not about Flash vs. HTML5! It's about Apple not wanting to rely on third party "Proprietary" tools on its OS. Apple has an interest to its consumers an interest that makes them money which is good for the well being of the company. One of the "Big" success to the iPhone is its App ecosystem! An ecosystem that is very important to Apple. To Apple along with its slick OS (which everyone has now copied) the Apps are a very important feature. So you damn right Apple wants to control that space. It is the game changer in some cases. Look Apple could give a shit about Android or any other mobile OS just like they could give a shit about Apple's OS. It's a battle field and competition is good. Apple is not trying to tell developers how to develop on other mobile OSs. They are just saying how they want development on their OWN OS. But now Adobe is trying to tell every developer how they should develop on ALL PLATFORMS: BY BUYING INTO FLASH AND RELYING ON THEM!! I am sorry that is not an option and Apple thinks so too!! There are other tools. USE THEM!!
A great VIDEO WIN for all of you pro FLASH 'developers'... Here is a GREAT example of what people have to look forward to with the INCREDIBLE marriage of Android + FLASH + Tablet!
Seriously... it's so unexpected... you gotta see it to truly appreciate it.
Jobs suggested that Flash is old technology better suited for mouse and keyboard PCs.
A number of Flash developers have also said this. And at the moment it is pretty much true.
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Lynch said he doesn't think Apple's issue with Flash has to do with the software's reliability at all.
this from the company that is the number one reason why Carbon ever existed. And a company that has never hidden that they took apps made for Windows and just wrapped them to make them work on Macs.
Their iphone arguments are based on the same 'all systems are the same' fallacy
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While Apple has kept Flash off of its Web browsers,
Erroneous. Apple does NOT block Flash on Safari for the desktop.
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it also recently changed the iPhone developer agreement to ban third-party tools that would allow software to be ported from other formats,
Not really a change since they never allowed Flash or Java apps. They just clarified that said are not allowed in any form, wrapped or not.
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This week it was revealed that Apple's changes to its developer agreement could result in an antitrust inquiry from the U.S. federal government.
Nothing you sign with Apple says you can't make a version of your apps for someone else. Apple has no market power to abuse. and since when were companies banned from doing right by their customers/products and instead have to make it easy for folks to 'spread the wealth'. Does this mean that from now on my xbox games will play on my PSP etc.
Holy Crap Adobe.. Flash is like a decade old.. it was great while it lasted but get over it. Move on. They remind me of the record labels pretending cd sales will somehow comeback if they go after downloading hard enough.
Steve Jobs is holding the door open for you, but he won't forever. Embrace the next generation.
In the end, it's not a legal battle; it's a profit battle. Adobe has a lot at stake so of course they're going to say everything and anything they can to protect it. Neither company's tactics should be fooling anyone.
Yep. if folks jump on the ipad etc bandwagon and make apps or switch to HTML5 they have no cause for Adobe's software
you might find this an interesting read. I particularly like his comment that Apple would only be potentially hurting themselves restricting what developers use cause those that dislike the rule will not make an iphone version.
On the one hand, Apple's stance is forcing Adobe to make Flash better.
However, apple is deliberately trying to kill Flash and to harm Adobe.
Hmm... no. Although Apple is taking a hard line on just how pants Flash really is, Adobe know that even if it performed almost as well as native apps, Apple would still not want it. Unlike the Mac, Apple are not in any way constrained by PC hardware or software conventions with their iP* devices. That lets them move fast and make a product that's innovative (relatively speaking) and distinct from the competition. If Apple had allowed any-old-software in the first place, do you think that answering a call when you were in an app would work? Would most of your software be usable without a keen eye, a steady hand, and a stylus? So Apple are a bit fussy about what to accept, they have their complicated HIG, and they reject outright anything which was made without due consideration for the usability in the device's context and the functionality of the user's device itself.
I doubt Apple has any strong interest in killing Flash; they'd be quite happy if it just wasn't relevant to their users, for example HTML5 which falls back to Flash if you've got an older browser. No problem there.
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I have been a fan of Apple and it's decisions for a while. Bought my first Mac in 2005. Love it. bought the iPhone when it came out as I saw a winner from the beginning. Was VERY disappointed it couldn't run flash, which means I could not enjoy half the websites I frequented.
I've had Macs since 2001, and I wouldn't say that makes me "a fan for a while". There's nothing wrong with criticising Apple, but owning Apple products for a few years doesn't make you more entitled to do so.
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Flash is ubiquitous across the web. The extra interactivity it provides far exceeds even the video h.264 integration in HTML5 as you can have much more interactivity with a video and causing it to start and stop and transition just as you like. Since the iPhone, many have rushed to make their sites compatible an the once interactive slideshows have become simply static pictures moving from right to left. Much of the extra interactivity and content presentation is lost.
I think that sounds like you have great interactivity with your videos. Not really stuff I'd use though - I'm more a play, pause, scrub man. All of that works just fine in YouTube's HTML5 beta. I think interactive transition control sounds fun, but I think video is fine without it.
The lack of presentation you're talking about is because the slideshows in question are HTML4, not HTML5, and the developers are unimaginative. Even in HTML 4 you can do more than just one-direction movement. Interactivity in HTML5 can be much higher, of course, because it integrates directly into the page, but that doesn't mean everyone will do a good job of it.
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Flash is an amazing technology. Sure, it isn't always implemented in the best way, but the solution to that is to educate, not eradicate. Now, one of the best things about the web is marginalized simply because one company who does many things well is making the devices most people want - and they are abusing that power to force their will upon the entire workings of the internet.
Stop Apple. just stop. and make Flash work.
Wow. You really love Flash don't you? But that doesn't mean everyone else does. In fact, most users probably have no clue that it even exists. They just go to "the YouTube" and click on something, and a video starts playing. If you want to suggest that Flash is great, that's okay, but it'd be nice to have technical arguments for why that is necessarily the case.
Apple do not, at all, make devices that most people want. It might be true that most people own mobile phones, but if most people wanted iPhones, most people - or a very significant proportion thereof - would have them. They don't. Lots of people like iPhones. Not most, just lots.
You can argue that Apple are abusing their power if you want (although you should explain why it is abuse and not use), but to suggest that they are trying to manipulate the entire internet - or even would be able to do so, after all Microsoft never really managed it - is quite without foundation. I should hope that it is also retrospectively obvious to you that it's not Apple's job to make Flash work (and thus make Adobe richer) in any context.
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Originally Posted by 9secondko
Apple needs to do things better. Adobe stood by them when they were dying. Now, they repay the favor by trying to kill Adobe. Eh?
The Adobe Creative suite is one of the only reasons people buy Macs. Most artists like Macs due to their style and the CS is a good fit for the OS versus Windows. However, if Adobe simply decides to stop updating the CS for Mac, Apple will be in bigger trouble than they realize.
If you're going to assert that Adobe was a white knight to Apple in the past, you should at least vaguely allude to the matter you're thinking of. I imagine you mean that Adobe continued to sell their software to people who wanted to buy it?
As for the amazing influence that Adobe CS somehow has on people to make them buy a Mac (and then pay as much again for Adobe's software) instead of a Windows computer, please provide evidence of this. Even anecdotes will do! I can say that I know six people who have definitely had a Mac in recent years, none of whom have had Adobe CS. So there's a number for you: 0% take-up rate.
In fact, I'll find some numbers on the interweb for you. Adobe says in a recent quarterly earnings release that they took about $800M in "products" in one quarter. It looks like CS is in the region of $1800 each. 800M / 1.8K = 444K, which suggests "up to" 444,000 instances of CS sold in the quarter (Adobe do sell other things!); meanwhile, Apple's quarterly report says that they sold 2.94M computers in a quarter. So there's a take-up rate for you: an estimated maximum of 444K/2.94M = 15% of new Mac buyers also bought CS, assuming that no Windows users bought CS at all and Adobe sold no other software. I think you can be reasonably sure that the actual number will be close to 5%.
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Originally Posted by rcfa
Adobe is totally backwards. Just got CS5: you can't install it on a case-sensitive file system. What?
That's very random! I suppose it shows that they're all really Windows-heads. Admittedly I don't think you get a case-sensitive filesystem by default on a Mac, so they can get away with it.
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Talk about LAZY!
In programming, there is no laziness, only deadlines. If Adobe were aware of this (and it does seem like the kind of thing that someone would bug-report), they would have made a quick decision about whether the number of people involved was consequential, not so much to examine a straight cost/benefit ratio as to draw a line below which are features and fixes which are considered beyond the scope of the budget. Yes, the budget will have been far far below the expected profit, but they are a business after all, they're here to take developers' money.
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And they say something about 19th century? Their code is still written as if we all were using teletypes...
You've seen their code? In my experience, everyone writes bad code (even relatively high-profile software); as long as it isn't shocking, it's acceptable. Bad code in itself isn't really related to performance, that's more about lack of good code.
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I wish Apple would set up a team to create some serious competition to the Creative Suite software. $40bn should go a long way towards writing a decent layout software, drawing program, web site creation software and photo editor.
If Apple wants to do that, they'll just buy Adobe's biggest competitor. It's much easier to buy in a bunch of people who already know what they're doing and already have a working product than to whip something up from scratch. It's not beyond the realms of possibility for professional image editing (Photoshop) and vector graphics (Illustrator), but they would still need a Dreamweaver and a Flash, and you should keep in mind that Apple are not a software company - they really only produce software to improve the Mac owning experience where it would otherwise be deficient. I can imagine the only reason Keynote exists (and Pages and Numbers) would be, hypothetically, a rant from SJ about how terrible Powerpoint is.
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Originally Posted by foad
- Adobe won't stop updating a product suite on a platform that comprises of 50% of their annual sales. Their shareholders would lose their collective minds.
Specifically, any CEO who tried that would be fired by their own board. Their job is to act in the shareholders' interests, always.
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- If Microsoft doesn't support the canvas tag, they will be relegating IE to a second class browser. They are trying to push IE 9 as a standards based browser and if they can't at least match the main browsers, they will continue to lose market share.
Somewhat like the iPhone with Flash, Microsoft will probably only be interested in <canvas> once everyone else (ie, web sites) are commonly doing it. There's not really any risk for them until that happens, and that's relatively unlikely as long as MSIE remains in the majority.
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- Firefox will most likely cave in and support H.264. Regardless of the fact that Firefox is free, the Mozilla Foundation makes a ton of money. Their reported revenue for fiscal 2008 was almost $79 million. That was a pretty sizable increase compared to their fiscal 2007 revenue. They have assets in the 9 figures.
I seem to recall that H.264 usage won't require actual money up-front. Their concern will strictly be the pure-open-source kind; probably they will end up putting support in, disabling it by default in the build, but bundling it in all the binary versions. It's actually pretty stupid that it doesn't support H.264 now!
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- As of right now, no mobile phone supports Flash and when they do, we'll see how they perform. Until then, it's all talk from Adobe.
I think there are "mobile flash" versions around, but I gather they are cut-down versions.
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- There are no grounds for the Feds to sue Apple. They are only looking into potentials and I am pretty sure Apple's legal team thought the changes to the terms pretty thoroughly.
Yes, I've noticed the "Feds starting antitrust proceedings, maybe, in the future" stories and wondered what qualified them as "news". Surely any time anything has even the slightest possibility of being an antitrust matter (as reported by some complainant) they have to at least pursue an initial inquiry to see if there's any merit to the allegation and so decide whether to start court proceedings? I'm sure Microsoft get that all the time. It's certainly not the end of the world.
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Originally Posted by bdkennedy1
Adobe certainly knows about that 19th century. That's how old the code is in their software.
You know, there probably are a handful of 19th-century algorithms in common use in modern software (algorithms intended for manual use at the time, of course). I have no idea what they'd be, but the idea of 19th-century code isn't as ludicrous as it sounds! Consider the humble "for" loop: I'm sure that there will be precedent for that kind of set-state, do-work, alter-state, go-back-if-something-is-true algorithm in written instructions, going back centuries.
Holy Crap Adobe.. Flash is like a decade old.. it was great while it lasted but get over it. Move on. They remind me of the record labels pretending cd sales will somehow comeback if they go after downloading hard enough.
Steve Jobs is holding the door open for you, but he won't forever. Embrace the next generation.
Actually Flash is over 15 years old. It was originally called SmartSketch. SmartSketch was ported to Windows and the Mac OS. Then it was called FutureSplash, then it was purchased by Macromedia and rereleased as Flash in 1996. The core tech is quite old. Like the days of multimedia CDs old. Also, Flash hasn't truly ever been good. It was convenient. It helped things move along but it has been stagnant for so long, it's ridiculous.
Adobe's arguments are becoming more and more bizarre.
Especially if you know US railroad history. Part of the gauge problem was due to the fact that some railroads got their stock from overseas and had to go with what ever gauge the company they were dealing with used. Even though the UK had established the Stephenson (Standard) gauge in 1845 the Gauge Act allowed companies to repair and expand using other gauges as well as Ireland and the colonies (called the Indian Gauge--the Bay Area Rapid Transit system in the US still uses this gauge) to use total different gauges so even buying from our brothers across the pond didn't guarantee a common gauge.
Then you had other countries adopting popular regional US gauges such as Russia adopting the most common gauge used in the South at that time.
You have much the same thing with video formats today on the web: Flash vs WMV vs QT vs AVi.
Adobe just needs to shut up about it and move on. If they are right, they have NOTHING to worry about because Apple will fail. They will win because everyone in the world needs to have Flash....which seems a bit of a reach when millions don't have access on any non-beta platforms now and seem to do very well.
Apple needs to do things better. Adobe stood by them when they were dying. Now, they repay the favor by trying to kill Adobe. Eh?
Try again. Adobe has spent years demanding that Apple bend over for them. When the iphone came out Jobs put a stop to that game.
Adobe's software for Macs has been an optimized Windows version half ass ported to Macs. And sometimes even with features missing.
Adobe is why Carbon was created. they were too lazy to redo their lazy Mac versions
And so on.
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The Adobe Creative suite is one of the only reasons people buy Macs.
try again. I know a lot of folks that don't do professional apps on their Macs. and a lot of artists that don't have a speck of Adobe software on their Macs. and those that do loathe having to use it and will try out any software that might be half as good just so they can deAdobe their computers stat
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if Adobe simply decides to stop updating the CS for Mac,
Adobe will lose 50-60% of their sales. And a number of smaller companies will finally take off in sales with their just as good software.
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Stop Apple. just stop. and make Flash work.
not Apple's job. Adobe are the ones that need to make it better. By finally sitting down and writing an actual Mac version instead of a Windows one with a few pasted on lines to make it work 'well enough'
1) If I'm Adobe's board I seriously consider replacing narayen and lynch. In Narayan, they've got someone that is anything but a business leader, in lynch they've got someone that has lead their technology down a monolithic path.
2) If Apple wants to play competitor to CS, perhaps they start a new company ala Filemaker, and make it a cross-platform solution.
Specifically, any CEO who tried that would be fired by their own board. Their job is to act in the shareholders' interests, always.
Very true.
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I seem to recall that H.264 usage won't require actual money up-front. Their concern will strictly be the pure-open-source kind; probably they will end up putting support in, disabling it by default in the build, but bundling it in all the binary versions. It's actually pretty stupid that it doesn't support H.264 now!
Actually, I think you're right. I think that Windows and Mac OS X provide native H.264 playback through the OS, getting rid of the need for developers to pay licensing fees to MPEG-LA for playback purposes. Microsoft and Apple pay the fees. Mozilla could just enable that hook without having to pay the fees. It might be somewhat of a gray area though. I think they are primarily doing it on principal, more than technical or financial concerns.
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I think there are "mobile flash" versions around, but I gather they are cut-down versions.
Flash Lite exists, but it only contains a small subset of features of the mobile Flash player that Adobe is touting right now. Flash Lite was a half-hearted attempt to get Flash on mobile platforms.
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Yes, I've noticed the "Feds starting antitrust proceedings, maybe, in the future" stories and wondered what qualified them as "news". Surely any time anything has even the slightest possibility of being an antitrust matter (as reported by some complainant) they have to at least pursue an initial inquiry to see if there's any merit to the allegation and so decide whether to start court proceedings? I'm sure Microsoft get that all the time. It's certainly not the end of the world.
They are just click generating headlines. As you said, inquiries are constantly launched, but they are far from formal charges being filed.
Both just need to come together and fix it once and for all. It can be done, but egos are always going to get in the way. No matter what anyone thinks, Flash isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
The do not NEED to come together. This is a straight fight over who will control the largest, most lucrative platform in modern mobile computing. If this were not the case, Adobe wouldn't be so peeing-their-pants desperate about this.
There will be collateral damage but Apple doesn't owe anyone a bloodless fight. If you don't agree with Apple then you vote them out of your wallet and vice versa. For those that don't know what the hell is going on, they either won't care or won't notice or someone will tell them why they can't play Farmville on their iOS device.
The reality is that the last 2 years has moved the ball tremendously in terms of Flash independence. 75% of sites may use flash but most have a non-flash fallback that is acceptable or non-flash alternative media e.g. YouTube, Vimeo, BBC (and soon Hulu). Apple is using its power to move the market and it seems to be successful so far. How much longer before Zynga looks into flash-free versions? Given that the economic demographics of iOS users are so strong (they earn more, spend more on apps/content etc.) it is a market that cannot be overlooked. Next year there should be getting on for 150M iOS devices sold and well over 100M still in use. For reference, RIM has 41M active users after all these years and they spend far less on apps/content etc. Flash is definitely going away, the question is how fast.
"All the innovation coming from all those companies will dwarf what's coming from the one company that isn't participating," he said.
Those are some bold words considering Apple's trend.
Apple updates iPhone OS with new major (arguably) features every year. They want people using it right away, not years later. Look at Flash, how many sites/games are deployed using Flash 10 only features. Doubt many, most people use older software. Apple has done an amazing job keeping its devices software all relatively new. Whereas Android and nearly every other device/software struggles getting new updates adopted. Adobe wants people to make applications that have the lowest common denominator. Features present on all devices. Apple wants people taking advantage of hardware and software specific features they put in their devices.
This whole farrago is getting embarrassing for Apple and Adobe and they need to stop this idiotic back and forth. I've been a fan of both of these companies and think they should work together to amicably settle the matter.
The back and forth may be idiotic and beneath both parties but the stakes are real and burying the hatchet is out of the question. If it weren't so important, they wouldn't descend into this pathetic public pettiness. Remember that this fight is largely visible only to a few million geeks and nerds who mostly already have their opinions and know how to work around most issues.
Apple needs to do things better. Adobe stood by them when they were dying. Now, they repay the favor by trying to kill Adobe. Eh?
The Adobe Creative suite is one of the only reasons people buy Macs. Most artists like Macs due to their style and the CS is a good fit for the OS versus Windows. However, if Adobe simply decides to stop updating the CS for Mac, Apple will be in bigger trouble than they realize.
I don't think Adobe wants to do that. When they stopped delivering Premiere for the Mac, Final Cut Pro filled the void. Now that Premiere is back on the Mac, nobody cares. I imagine the same would happen for the rest of the Adobe suite if they took that route. I think most people agree that Adobe needs to make Flash incredible for every (other) mobile platform. They should then demonstrate Flash running on an iPhone and prove Apple wrong. Short of this, I don't see Apple budging on their No Flash stance. By the way, Apple has been equally as stubborn with regards to Java on the iPhone.
"The technology issue I think Apple has with us is not that it does work, but when it does work," he said. "We don't want to play technology games when Apple is playing a legal game. We're focusing on everybody else. There's a huge wave of innovation, there's going to be a wide range of devices."
"We'ere not focusing on Apple or fixing Flash so it will work better with Macs."
Comments
The argument, Apple is killing Adobe by not allowing code compiled by non-Apple tools! Right?
So if this is the case then is the following not also true?
- Google might NOT be killing Adobe (whenever they release Froyo)
- RIM might NOT be killing Adobe (sometime later in 2010 ... maybe)
- Microsoft Xbox is killing Adobe?
- Sony PSP is killing Adobe?
- Nintendo Wii is killing Adobe?
- Nintendo DS is killing Adobe?
Also Adobe seems to also have some odd positions...
Adobe bans its Media Player from digital-signage devices
Yes this is why they have no case because if Adobe wins. All gaming consoles lose. Hey even Reich says it's crap and nothing will come of this.
The reality is there are cases where HTML5 is slow and uses far more CPU then Flash 10.1. There are alot of advantages to Flash 10.1 over the current version the problem is you simply don't understand how the technology works.
Using Chrome under with Windows Flash 10.1 is about 55 to 60% more efficient then HTML5.
Firefox cpu with Windows is about 6% Funny how Safari for Windows using Flash 10.1 is using about 7-8% cpu.
Apple and OSX are the problem not Flash. This entire siuation at this point is nothing more then Steve Job as always attempting to control content.
Whats going to be best is when they get hit with the anti trust.
Your points can be debated. But the "true" point this is not about Flash vs. HTML5! It's about Apple not wanting to rely on third party "Proprietary" tools on its OS. Apple has an interest to its consumers an interest that makes them money which is good for the well being of the company. One of the "Big" success to the iPhone is its App ecosystem! An ecosystem that is very important to Apple. To Apple along with its slick OS (which everyone has now copied) the Apps are a very important feature. So you damn right Apple wants to control that space. It is the game changer in some cases. Look Apple could give a shit about Android or any other mobile OS just like they could give a shit about Apple's OS. It's a battle field and competition is good. Apple is not trying to tell developers how to develop on other mobile OSs. They are just saying how they want development on their OWN OS. But now Adobe is trying to tell every developer how they should develop on ALL PLATFORMS: BY BUYING INTO FLASH AND RELYING ON THEM!! I am sorry that is not an option and Apple thinks so too!! There are other tools. USE THEM!!
Seriously... it's so unexpected... you gotta see it to truly appreciate it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hqFTx8rLsg
You can't help but smile knowingly when you hear the guy say... "This one does FLASH" you couldn't have timed things that well if you tried.
Jobs suggested that Flash is old technology better suited for mouse and keyboard PCs.
A number of Flash developers have also said this. And at the moment it is pretty much true.
Lynch said he doesn't think Apple's issue with Flash has to do with the software's reliability at all.
this from the company that is the number one reason why Carbon ever existed. And a company that has never hidden that they took apps made for Windows and just wrapped them to make them work on Macs.
Their iphone arguments are based on the same 'all systems are the same' fallacy
While Apple has kept Flash off of its Web browsers,
Erroneous. Apple does NOT block Flash on Safari for the desktop.
it also recently changed the iPhone developer agreement to ban third-party tools that would allow software to be ported from other formats,
Not really a change since they never allowed Flash or Java apps. They just clarified that said are not allowed in any form, wrapped or not.
This week it was revealed that Apple's changes to its developer agreement could result in an antitrust inquiry from the U.S. federal government.
Nothing you sign with Apple says you can't make a version of your apps for someone else. Apple has no market power to abuse. and since when were companies banned from doing right by their customers/products and instead have to make it easy for folks to 'spread the wealth'. Does this mean that from now on my xbox games will play on my PSP etc.
Steve Jobs is holding the door open for you, but he won't forever. Embrace the next generation.
In the end, it's not a legal battle; it's a profit battle. Adobe has a lot at stake so of course they're going to say everything and anything they can to protect it. Neither company's tactics should be fooling anyone.
Yep. if folks jump on the ipad etc bandwagon and make apps or switch to HTML5 they have no cause for Adobe's software
you might find this an interesting read. I particularly like his comment that Apple would only be potentially hurting themselves restricting what developers use cause those that dislike the rule will not make an iphone version.
Seriously... it's so unexpected... you gotta see it to truly appreciate it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hqFTx8rLsg
A train-wreck. In so many ways.
I'll stick to my iPad.
Hard to argue with Adobe on this.
Hard for you does not imply hard for everyone.
On the one hand, Apple's stance is forcing Adobe to make Flash better.
However, apple is deliberately trying to kill Flash and to harm Adobe.
Hmm... no. Although Apple is taking a hard line on just how pants Flash really is, Adobe know that even if it performed almost as well as native apps, Apple would still not want it. Unlike the Mac, Apple are not in any way constrained by PC hardware or software conventions with their iP* devices. That lets them move fast and make a product that's innovative (relatively speaking) and distinct from the competition. If Apple had allowed any-old-software in the first place, do you think that answering a call when you were in an app would work? Would most of your software be usable without a keen eye, a steady hand, and a stylus? So Apple are a bit fussy about what to accept, they have their complicated HIG, and they reject outright anything which was made without due consideration for the usability in the device's context and the functionality of the user's device itself.
I doubt Apple has any strong interest in killing Flash; they'd be quite happy if it just wasn't relevant to their users, for example HTML5 which falls back to Flash if you've got an older browser. No problem there.
I have been a fan of Apple and it's decisions for a while. Bought my first Mac in 2005. Love it. bought the iPhone when it came out as I saw a winner from the beginning. Was VERY disappointed it couldn't run flash, which means I could not enjoy half the websites I frequented.
I've had Macs since 2001, and I wouldn't say that makes me "a fan for a while". There's nothing wrong with criticising Apple, but owning Apple products for a few years doesn't make you more entitled to do so.
Flash is ubiquitous across the web. The extra interactivity it provides far exceeds even the video h.264 integration in HTML5 as you can have much more interactivity with a video and causing it to start and stop and transition just as you like. Since the iPhone, many have rushed to make their sites compatible an the once interactive slideshows have become simply static pictures moving from right to left. Much of the extra interactivity and content presentation is lost.
I think that sounds like you have great interactivity with your videos. Not really stuff I'd use though - I'm more a play, pause, scrub man. All of that works just fine in YouTube's HTML5 beta. I think interactive transition control sounds fun, but I think video is fine without it.
The lack of presentation you're talking about is because the slideshows in question are HTML4, not HTML5, and the developers are unimaginative. Even in HTML 4 you can do more than just one-direction movement. Interactivity in HTML5 can be much higher, of course, because it integrates directly into the page, but that doesn't mean everyone will do a good job of it.
Flash is an amazing technology. Sure, it isn't always implemented in the best way, but the solution to that is to educate, not eradicate. Now, one of the best things about the web is marginalized simply because one company who does many things well is making the devices most people want - and they are abusing that power to force their will upon the entire workings of the internet.
Stop Apple. just stop. and make Flash work.
Wow. You really love Flash don't you? But that doesn't mean everyone else does. In fact, most users probably have no clue that it even exists. They just go to "the YouTube" and click on something, and a video starts playing. If you want to suggest that Flash is great, that's okay, but it'd be nice to have technical arguments for why that is necessarily the case.
Apple do not, at all, make devices that most people want. It might be true that most people own mobile phones, but if most people wanted iPhones, most people - or a very significant proportion thereof - would have them. They don't. Lots of people like iPhones. Not most, just lots.
You can argue that Apple are abusing their power if you want (although you should explain why it is abuse and not use), but to suggest that they are trying to manipulate the entire internet - or even would be able to do so, after all Microsoft never really managed it - is quite without foundation. I should hope that it is also retrospectively obvious to you that it's not Apple's job to make Flash work (and thus make Adobe richer) in any context.
Apple needs to do things better. Adobe stood by them when they were dying. Now, they repay the favor by trying to kill Adobe. Eh?
The Adobe Creative suite is one of the only reasons people buy Macs. Most artists like Macs due to their style and the CS is a good fit for the OS versus Windows. However, if Adobe simply decides to stop updating the CS for Mac, Apple will be in bigger trouble than they realize.
If you're going to assert that Adobe was a white knight to Apple in the past, you should at least vaguely allude to the matter you're thinking of. I imagine you mean that Adobe continued to sell their software to people who wanted to buy it?
As for the amazing influence that Adobe CS somehow has on people to make them buy a Mac (and then pay as much again for Adobe's software) instead of a Windows computer, please provide evidence of this. Even anecdotes will do! I can say that I know six people who have definitely had a Mac in recent years, none of whom have had Adobe CS. So there's a number for you: 0% take-up rate.
In fact, I'll find some numbers on the interweb for you. Adobe says in a recent quarterly earnings release that they took about $800M in "products" in one quarter. It looks like CS is in the region of $1800 each. 800M / 1.8K = 444K, which suggests "up to" 444,000 instances of CS sold in the quarter (Adobe do sell other things!); meanwhile, Apple's quarterly report says that they sold 2.94M computers in a quarter. So there's a take-up rate for you: an estimated maximum of 444K/2.94M = 15% of new Mac buyers also bought CS, assuming that no Windows users bought CS at all and Adobe sold no other software. I think you can be reasonably sure that the actual number will be close to 5%.
Adobe is totally backwards. Just got CS5: you can't install it on a case-sensitive file system. What?
That's very random! I suppose it shows that they're all really Windows-heads. Admittedly I don't think you get a case-sensitive filesystem by default on a Mac, so they can get away with it.
Talk about LAZY!
In programming, there is no laziness, only deadlines. If Adobe were aware of this (and it does seem like the kind of thing that someone would bug-report), they would have made a quick decision about whether the number of people involved was consequential, not so much to examine a straight cost/benefit ratio as to draw a line below which are features and fixes which are considered beyond the scope of the budget. Yes, the budget will have been far far below the expected profit, but they are a business after all, they're here to take developers' money.
And they say something about 19th century? Their code is still written as if we all were using teletypes...
You've seen their code? In my experience, everyone writes bad code (even relatively high-profile software); as long as it isn't shocking, it's acceptable. Bad code in itself isn't really related to performance, that's more about lack of good code.
I wish Apple would set up a team to create some serious competition to the Creative Suite software. $40bn should go a long way towards writing a decent layout software, drawing program, web site creation software and photo editor.
If Apple wants to do that, they'll just buy Adobe's biggest competitor. It's much easier to buy in a bunch of people who already know what they're doing and already have a working product than to whip something up from scratch. It's not beyond the realms of possibility for professional image editing (Photoshop) and vector graphics (Illustrator), but they would still need a Dreamweaver and a Flash, and you should keep in mind that Apple are not a software company - they really only produce software to improve the Mac owning experience where it would otherwise be deficient. I can imagine the only reason Keynote exists (and Pages and Numbers) would be, hypothetically, a rant from SJ about how terrible Powerpoint is.
- Adobe won't stop updating a product suite on a platform that comprises of 50% of their annual sales. Their shareholders would lose their collective minds.
Specifically, any CEO who tried that would be fired by their own board. Their job is to act in the shareholders' interests, always.
- If Microsoft doesn't support the canvas tag, they will be relegating IE to a second class browser. They are trying to push IE 9 as a standards based browser and if they can't at least match the main browsers, they will continue to lose market share.
Somewhat like the iPhone with Flash, Microsoft will probably only be interested in <canvas> once everyone else (ie, web sites) are commonly doing it. There's not really any risk for them until that happens, and that's relatively unlikely as long as MSIE remains in the majority.
- Firefox will most likely cave in and support H.264. Regardless of the fact that Firefox is free, the Mozilla Foundation makes a ton of money. Their reported revenue for fiscal 2008 was almost $79 million. That was a pretty sizable increase compared to their fiscal 2007 revenue. They have assets in the 9 figures.
I seem to recall that H.264 usage won't require actual money up-front. Their concern will strictly be the pure-open-source kind; probably they will end up putting support in, disabling it by default in the build, but bundling it in all the binary versions. It's actually pretty stupid that it doesn't support H.264 now!
- As of right now, no mobile phone supports Flash and when they do, we'll see how they perform. Until then, it's all talk from Adobe.
I think there are "mobile flash" versions around, but I gather they are cut-down versions.
- There are no grounds for the Feds to sue Apple. They are only looking into potentials and I am pretty sure Apple's legal team thought the changes to the terms pretty thoroughly.
Yes, I've noticed the "Feds starting antitrust proceedings, maybe, in the future" stories and wondered what qualified them as "news". Surely any time anything has even the slightest possibility of being an antitrust matter (as reported by some complainant) they have to at least pursue an initial inquiry to see if there's any merit to the allegation and so decide whether to start court proceedings? I'm sure Microsoft get that all the time. It's certainly not the end of the world.
Adobe certainly knows about that 19th century. That's how old the code is in their software.
You know, there probably are a handful of 19th-century algorithms in common use in modern software (algorithms intended for manual use at the time, of course). I have no idea what they'd be, but the idea of 19th-century code isn't as ludicrous as it sounds! Consider the humble "for" loop: I'm sure that there will be precedent for that kind of set-state, do-work, alter-state, go-back-if-something-is-true algorithm in written instructions, going back centuries.
Holy Crap Adobe.. Flash is like a decade old.. it was great while it lasted but get over it. Move on. They remind me of the record labels pretending cd sales will somehow comeback if they go after downloading hard enough.
Steve Jobs is holding the door open for you, but he won't forever. Embrace the next generation.
Actually Flash is over 15 years old. It was originally called SmartSketch. SmartSketch was ported to Windows and the Mac OS. Then it was called FutureSplash, then it was purchased by Macromedia and rereleased as Flash in 1996. The core tech is quite old. Like the days of multimedia CDs old. Also, Flash hasn't truly ever been good. It was convenient. It helped things move along but it has been stagnant for so long, it's ridiculous.
Adobe's arguments are becoming more and more bizarre.
Especially if you know US railroad history. Part of the gauge problem was due to the fact that some railroads got their stock from overseas and had to go with what ever gauge the company they were dealing with used. Even though the UK had established the Stephenson (Standard) gauge in 1845 the Gauge Act allowed companies to repair and expand using other gauges as well as Ireland and the colonies (called the Indian Gauge--the Bay Area Rapid Transit system in the US still uses this gauge) to use total different gauges so even buying from our brothers across the pond didn't guarantee a common gauge.
Then you had other countries adopting popular regional US gauges such as Russia adopting the most common gauge used in the South at that time.
You have much the same thing with video formats today on the web: Flash vs WMV vs QT vs AVi.
Adobe just needs to shut up about it and move on. If they are right, they have NOTHING to worry about because Apple will fail. They will win because everyone in the world needs to have Flash....which seems a bit of a reach when millions don't have access on any non-beta platforms now and seem to do very well.
++. I can't ++ this enough. QFT.
Yep.
Apple needs to do things better. Adobe stood by them when they were dying. Now, they repay the favor by trying to kill Adobe. Eh?
Try again. Adobe has spent years demanding that Apple bend over for them. When the iphone came out Jobs put a stop to that game.
Adobe's software for Macs has been an optimized Windows version half ass ported to Macs. And sometimes even with features missing.
Adobe is why Carbon was created. they were too lazy to redo their lazy Mac versions
And so on.
The Adobe Creative suite is one of the only reasons people buy Macs.
try again. I know a lot of folks that don't do professional apps on their Macs. and a lot of artists that don't have a speck of Adobe software on their Macs. and those that do loathe having to use it and will try out any software that might be half as good just so they can deAdobe their computers stat
if Adobe simply decides to stop updating the CS for Mac,
Adobe will lose 50-60% of their sales. And a number of smaller companies will finally take off in sales with their just as good software.
Stop Apple. just stop. and make Flash work.
not Apple's job. Adobe are the ones that need to make it better. By finally sitting down and writing an actual Mac version instead of a Windows one with a few pasted on lines to make it work 'well enough'
2) If Apple wants to play competitor to CS, perhaps they start a new company ala Filemaker, and make it a cross-platform solution.
Specifically, any CEO who tried that would be fired by their own board. Their job is to act in the shareholders' interests, always.
Very true.
I seem to recall that H.264 usage won't require actual money up-front. Their concern will strictly be the pure-open-source kind; probably they will end up putting support in, disabling it by default in the build, but bundling it in all the binary versions. It's actually pretty stupid that it doesn't support H.264 now!
Actually, I think you're right. I think that Windows and Mac OS X provide native H.264 playback through the OS, getting rid of the need for developers to pay licensing fees to MPEG-LA for playback purposes. Microsoft and Apple pay the fees. Mozilla could just enable that hook without having to pay the fees. It might be somewhat of a gray area though. I think they are primarily doing it on principal, more than technical or financial concerns.
I think there are "mobile flash" versions around, but I gather they are cut-down versions.
Flash Lite exists, but it only contains a small subset of features of the mobile Flash player that Adobe is touting right now. Flash Lite was a half-hearted attempt to get Flash on mobile platforms.
Yes, I've noticed the "Feds starting antitrust proceedings, maybe, in the future" stories and wondered what qualified them as "news". Surely any time anything has even the slightest possibility of being an antitrust matter (as reported by some complainant) they have to at least pursue an initial inquiry to see if there's any merit to the allegation and so decide whether to start court proceedings? I'm sure Microsoft get that all the time. It's certainly not the end of the world.
They are just click generating headlines. As you said, inquiries are constantly launched, but they are far from formal charges being filed.
Both just need to come together and fix it once and for all. It can be done, but egos are always going to get in the way. No matter what anyone thinks, Flash isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
The do not NEED to come together. This is a straight fight over who will control the largest, most lucrative platform in modern mobile computing. If this were not the case, Adobe wouldn't be so peeing-their-pants desperate about this.
There will be collateral damage but Apple doesn't owe anyone a bloodless fight. If you don't agree with Apple then you vote them out of your wallet and vice versa. For those that don't know what the hell is going on, they either won't care or won't notice or someone will tell them why they can't play Farmville on their iOS device.
The reality is that the last 2 years has moved the ball tremendously in terms of Flash independence. 75% of sites may use flash but most have a non-flash fallback that is acceptable or non-flash alternative media e.g. YouTube, Vimeo, BBC (and soon Hulu). Apple is using its power to move the market and it seems to be successful so far. How much longer before Zynga looks into flash-free versions? Given that the economic demographics of iOS users are so strong (they earn more, spend more on apps/content etc.) it is a market that cannot be overlooked. Next year there should be getting on for 150M iOS devices sold and well over 100M still in use. For reference, RIM has 41M active users after all these years and they spend far less on apps/content etc. Flash is definitely going away, the question is how fast.
"All the innovation coming from all those companies will dwarf what's coming from the one company that isn't participating," he said.
Those are some bold words considering Apple's trend.
Apple updates iPhone OS with new major (arguably) features every year. They want people using it right away, not years later. Look at Flash, how many sites/games are deployed using Flash 10 only features. Doubt many, most people use older software. Apple has done an amazing job keeping its devices software all relatively new. Whereas Android and nearly every other device/software struggles getting new updates adopted. Adobe wants people to make applications that have the lowest common denominator. Features present on all devices. Apple wants people taking advantage of hardware and software specific features they put in their devices.
This whole farrago is getting embarrassing for Apple and Adobe and they need to stop this idiotic back and forth. I've been a fan of both of these companies and think they should work together to amicably settle the matter.
The back and forth may be idiotic and beneath both parties but the stakes are real and burying the hatchet is out of the question. If it weren't so important, they wouldn't descend into this pathetic public pettiness. Remember that this fight is largely visible only to a few million geeks and nerds who mostly already have their opinions and know how to work around most issues.
Yep.
Apple needs to do things better. Adobe stood by them when they were dying. Now, they repay the favor by trying to kill Adobe. Eh?
The Adobe Creative suite is one of the only reasons people buy Macs. Most artists like Macs due to their style and the CS is a good fit for the OS versus Windows. However, if Adobe simply decides to stop updating the CS for Mac, Apple will be in bigger trouble than they realize.
I don't think Adobe wants to do that. When they stopped delivering Premiere for the Mac, Final Cut Pro filled the void. Now that Premiere is back on the Mac, nobody cares. I imagine the same would happen for the rest of the Adobe suite if they took that route. I think most people agree that Adobe needs to make Flash incredible for every (other) mobile platform. They should then demonstrate Flash running on an iPhone and prove Apple wrong. Short of this, I don't see Apple budging on their No Flash stance. By the way, Apple has been equally as stubborn with regards to Java on the iPhone.
"The technology issue I think Apple has with us is not that it does work, but when it does work," he said. "We don't want to play technology games when Apple is playing a legal game. We're focusing on everybody else. There's a huge wave of innovation, there's going to be a wide range of devices."
"We'ere not focusing on Apple or fixing Flash so it will work better with Macs."
You have much the same thing with video formats today on the web: Flash vs WMV vs QT vs AVi.
Flash, QT and AVI are not really video formats., They are containers for video (h.264, mpeg1, mpeg2, mpeg4, WMV and others)