Steve Jobs pans Flash on the iPhone

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  • Reply 21 of 160
    ajmasajmas Posts: 594member
    I can remember having a P4 based PC at work, with 2 GB RAM, which would slow to a crawl when opening certain web pages. Flash adverts can be very CPU intensive, having been designed in certain cases by people with a notion of design, but little notion in good programming. Now add five of these CPU hogs to one page and you have a computer that is suffering for nothing.



    I often find sites that have been written in Flash that have everything in presentation, but nothing that you want to see. Certain things like games and movies players are acceptable.



    BTW One up and coming technology is SVG. These is not necessarily a Flash alternative, but since you can mix it with Javascript, certain things can be approximated.
  • Reply 22 of 160
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,649member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by <2cents View Post


    Screw Flash. In fact, can someone recommend a good way to disable Flash in Safari?



    Generally speaking, Adobe products have gotten worse on the Mac. Everything seems so bloated now, sort of like Microsoft products.



    I agree. In fact, if Apple only had a photo editor half as powerful as PS I would not need anything from Adobe these days.
  • Reply 23 of 160
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr. H View Post


    This is not necessarily true.



    Adobe Flash, like most modern desktop software, is a horribly bloated, convoluted, memory-leaking, CPU-hogging piece of crap.



    I seem to recall having a 300 MHz G3 with 192 MiB of RAM (in 1999) that ran Macromedia Flash just fine. The iPhone's processor runs at 600 MHz and has 1 GiB of RAM.



    What exactly has been added to flash since 1999, functionality wise? The only significant thing I can think of is H.264 support, and the iPhone is clearly capable of handling H.264.



    So actually, Adobe really should focus on streamlining and optimising Flash. It is possible to make full-blooded Flash work on the iPhone, they'd just have to make the underlying architecture "not shit (TM)". Of course, this would benefit desktop users as well as iPhone users. I guess the problem is that Adobe would have to hire decent software programmers, and it seems like there's probably only 3 in the entire world.



    I think we can all assume your G3 still had a working fan in it to keep it cool.

    Now that we're done with that, forget about flash on the iPhone.

    Just move along, nothing to see here.....
  • Reply 24 of 160
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,649member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by allblue View Post


    @Mr H



    Much as I respect your effort, I'm not sure your sig is quite right. 'It has' becomes the possessive pronoun spelt 'its' i.e 'belonging to it' doesn't it? In which case, you're going to have to change your sig there, otherwise they're going to get it wrong in their posts aren't they?







    ... and let's not forget the complications that arise when names ending with 's' get possessive and plural possessive... I never remember how to do this ... is it 'Jobs' new black shirt' and 'Jobs's new black shirts'? Or am I totally lost here? What about the entire Jobs family? 'All the Jobs's new black shirts'. Is that right? If you tell me I shan't get it wrong again. Or is that sha'n't? \
  • Reply 25 of 160
    s10s10 Posts: 107member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post


    ... and let's not forget the complications that arise when names ending with 's' get possessive and plural possessive... I never remember how to do this ... is it 'Jobs' new black shirt' and 'Jobs's new black shirts'? Or am I totally lost here? What about the entire Jobs family? 'All the Jobs's new black shirts'. Is that right? If you tell me I shan't get it wrong again. Or is that sha'n't? \



    Yep, It has been raining = the rain belongs to it.
  • Reply 26 of 160
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr. H View Post


    What's with the modern obsession of putting an apostrophe before any letter "s" that appears at the end of a word? The man's name is "Jobs".



    Apostrophes are simple - they are used to indicate either missing letters or possession. Missing letters take precedence. So:

    \t?\tit's = it is or it has, its = belonging to it

    \t?\tIf it's plural, it doesn't have an apostrophe



    One April Fools day, MacRumors changed all the nicknames they assign to posters to a "pirate" theme: cabin boy, buccaneer, etc.



    The next day the old nicknames were back: demi-god, guru, newbie...



    One poster said that he was sorry that MR had abandoned the seafaring names because:



    "he didn't want to leave his shipmate's behind."
  • Reply 27 of 160
    dmberdmber Posts: 204member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post


    ... and let's not forget the complications that arise when names ending with 's' get possessive and plural possessive... I never remember how to do this ... is it 'Jobs' new black shirt' and 'Jobs's new black shirts'? Or am I totally lost here? What about the entire Jobs family? 'All the Jobs's new black shirts'. Is that right? If you tell me I shan't get it wrong again. Or is that sha'n't? \



    punctuate it how you say it.



    Jobs's



    "jobziz"



    his last name isn't Job. so it's not jobz. it's jobziz.
  • Reply 28 of 160
    delanydelany Posts: 51member
    While this article makes some interesting points - there is obviously more to this than technical constraints.



    - There are certain applications that Steve/Apple, for whatever reason, have never really supported - games perhaps being the biggest of these - and these coincide rather neatly with the areas in which Flash is strong. Casual gaming on the web is simply a non starter without Flash. While I can see Jobs? point when it comes to Mac computers, I think this is a fairly foolish oversight when it comes to portable devices that are intended as 'fun' media hubs. Casual gaming should be bang slap in the middle of the iTouch market and restricting it to bespoke games (delivered through iTunes?) is, I believe, a big error.



    - If recent reports are to true, Steve J wants to control development and delivery of applications on the iPhone. Allowing Flash completely undermines this policy. Adobe is strongly pushing Flash based technologies for RMA and, whatever Flash's origins and current weaknesses, this is an area Adobe is aggressively pursuing. Allowing Flash essentially allows a parallel application development platform - one that has a much more flexible distribution model, speedy development and low technical barrier to entry. For the consumer these characteristics may be good, they may be bad - but for Jobs they're a spanner in the works.



    Personally, I believe that the these are the real issues here - while there are certainly technical constraints (though I'd really don't agree with this article on the extent of them), I feel sure, if they really wanted to, Apple and Adobe could have solved these before now.
  • Reply 29 of 160
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr. H View Post


    What's with the modern obsession of putting an apostrophe before any letter "s" that appears at the end of a word? The man's name is "Jobs".



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post


    ... and let's not forget the complications that arise when names ending with 's' get possessive and plural possessive... I never remember how to do this ... is it 'Jobs' new black shirt' and 'Jobs's new black shirts'? Or am I totally lost here? What about the entire Jobs family? 'All the Jobs's new black shirts'. Is that right? If you tell me I shan't get it wrong again. Or is that sha'n't? \



    You dasn't give up so easily... I think that Jobs' is the correct form of the plural, possessive, and plural possessive
  • Reply 30 of 160
    thttht Posts: 4,991member
    Flash is abysmal on my iBook G3, gen 1, with 500 MHz and 256 MB RAM.



    There definitely are technical challenges to put Flash 9 on the iPhone. It'll be stupid too. Flash Lite 3 is doable. However, there are definitely strategic interests for Apple not to support Flash. It's a proprietary technology in control of a de facto Internet video "standard" for personal computers. In their mind, they'd rather have H.264 with Web 2.0 (AJAX, HTML5, etc), which are open standards. So, there is opportunity in the mobile space to still make it so. Hence Apple's push for Web 2.0 apps and the lack of Flash and Java.



    If they can make H.264 as the video standard and Web 2.0 technologies as the development standard for mobile phones, there's a chance they can move to the desktop/laptop space and displace Flash.



    Still, I bet Apple is hedging its bets and probably does have a version of Flash 8/9 or Flash Lite 2/3 working on the iPhone...
  • Reply 31 of 160
    vinney57vinney57 Posts: 1,162member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by allblue View Post


    @Mr H



    Much as I respect your effort, I'm not sure your sig is quite right. 'It has' becomes the possessive pronoun spelt 'its' i.e 'belonging to it' doesn't it? In which case, you're going to have to change your sig there, otherwise they're going to get it wrong in their posts aren't they?



    Mr H is correct.



    Flash is the worst thing to ever happen to the internets I say. All those stupid f'ing arty animated websites that say NOTHING. And don't get me started on those intrusive advertising banners.



    Kill it I say, KILL IT!
  • Reply 32 of 160
    I don't mind not having Flash as much as I would like Apple to open up more Bluetooth profiles like A2DP or the File Transfer protocol. When are we going to get some news on that?
  • Reply 33 of 160
    vinney57vinney57 Posts: 1,162member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post


    You dasn't give up so easily... I think that Jobs' is the correct form of the plural, possessive, and plural possessive



    Also correct.
  • Reply 34 of 160
    vinney57vinney57 Posts: 1,162member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by johnny76 View Post


    I don't mind not having Flash as much as I would like Apple to open up more Bluetooth profiles like A2DP or the File Transfer protocol. When are we going to get some news on that?



    You are getting angry about something totally irrelevant to the discussion in hand. You are clearly a woman.
  • Reply 35 of 160
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Last word on the slightly OT apostrophe business:

  • Reply 36 of 160
    gqbgqb Posts: 1,934member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by libmanj View Post


    When it all comes down to it, the iPhone does not provide the "full internet" as promised, and what keeps it from doing so is the absence of Flash.



    Add me to the list of those who suggest that Apple and Adobe should get together and figure this one out.



    While I understand the need of some to get their fill of battery sucking, animated ads on their iPhone, I must object to defining 'full internet experience' as obligatory support of proprietary extensions.

    Last time I looked, Flash was not an open, internet standard and doesn't get to define what the 'full internet experience' is any more than ActiveX components did.
  • Reply 37 of 160
    Big Apple fan here, but little things like this, which can add up, do get very frustrating. Especially since I use Flash on my PSP all the time. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to keep waiting until 3G, Flash support, games, and shooting video are actually incorporated into the iPhone making it the no-brainer purchase I always thought it was going to be.
  • Reply 38 of 160
    The author is misinformed or misleading his readers, and Steve Jobs may not be stupid, but he is lying through his teeth about Adobe Flash Player.



    If anyone does even a few minutes of research, they would find a host of ARM devices that are running full desktop implementations of Flash just fine, and with a touchscreen. The Archos 605 Wifi is just one example, the Chumby is another. Archos is running full desktop player version 7 on their device and Chumby runs Flash Lite. Both devices have touchscreens, slower processors, and less RAM. But somehow they can MAGICALLY play back Flash animations smoothly. The Archos can view YouTube, MySpace and other Flash sites without problem and neither Adobe or Archos had to jump through technical hoops to make this work. The player isn't "too bloated", or a "cpu and memory hog" like many misonformed people seem to think...it runs perfectly smooth on these devices. You can define all the "standards" you want, but the fact is, a huge portion of the web is now based on Flash and web developers aren't running for AJAX or any of the other alternatives any time soon....



    So what is Apple's problem with using Flash on iPhone?



    The REAL reason that Flash isn't on iPhone is because Apple wants to control the application stack on the iPhone....it has nothing to do with the bullcrap reasons that Steve Jobs or the author give.
  • Reply 39 of 160
    kontrakontra Posts: 6member
    I explained why WebKit is Apple's answer to Flash, Silverlight and JavaFX here:



    Runtime wars (1): Does Apple have an answer to Flash, Silverlight and JavaFX?

    http://counternotions.com/2007/11/15/runtime-wars/



    Runtime wars (2): Apple’s answer to Flash, Silverlight and JavaFX

    http://counternotions.com/2007/11/15...time-answer-2/
  • Reply 40 of 160
    eriamjheriamjh Posts: 1,522member
    So how do other phones do flash in the internet?
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