Adobe Flash player for iPhone due 'soon' if Apple approves

24

Comments

  • Reply 21 of 71
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by monstrosity View Post


    In the long term believe me, your better off without it.

    The more people realize this, and start to look at alternatives, the quicker the transition will happen.



    Yes, you mean alternatives like AJAX? That's the way to go: an obsolete language on top of an obsolete architecture... Or do you mean solutions like SilverLight, which are not yet mature or cross-platform?

    Flash is 10 times cleaner than AJAX. It lets you do real programming on the client side, with a real object-oriented architecture and an almost decent language.
  • Reply 22 of 71
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2 View Post


    the "real" reality is that most computer users need flash to watch movies on the web only. If not for that, most people could turn off flash entirely and never look back.



    The other reality, is that with the iPhone, Apple is going against mobiles like the Blackberry. It wants to win the corporate market too.

    And on the corporate market, Flash is used neither to watch silly videos or to view "content". It's used to view datas. Even basic tools like Google Analytics use Flash.

    Flex and Air are the killer tool to build Intranets and Extranets that have a lot of data to present to the end user. The alternative is to build native iPhone apps, and that's not cost effective.



    Quote:

    Since there already is a cross-platform, standards compliant way to view videos on the web, the real solution is to convince web designers to use that instead of Flash.



    Which way? Does it work? Does it support streaming? Maybe we should go back to the days video on the web meant RealPlayer? Yuck...

    I mean, if web designers use Flash for that purpose, it is for a reason : it saves money. You're not going to convince companies to spend money on an inferior solution just to please Apple.
  • Reply 23 of 71
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    I agree this benefits Adobe more than the wider web. The iPhone with no flash is a serious threat to it's current dominance. If the iPhone grows into a prominent platform without flash. Its an example to others that tou don't need flash. As HTML and javascript mature developers will create web applications without the use of flash or Adobe Air. Which is pretty much happening already.
  • Reply 24 of 71
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    I'm not a fan of Flash either and do not miss it at all on my iPhone. Flash for the majority of users is known to be used only as a method of delivering ads and in the process, consuming bandwidth and cpu usage. I think even the Flash supporters will agree on this.



    However, as much as I prefer it stay off the iPhone entirely, the opportunity to have it ported to the iPhone in a way that satisfies the corporate users and not irritate the majority-users is huge.



    Perhaps Steve Jobs' distaste for Flash in its current model will get Adobe to finally address the shortcomings that Flash in general has always had. It could have been the grand scheme since the beginning for Jobs. On the other hand, Flash can deliver content and applications outside the control of the App Store which I'm sure is a major sticking-point for Jobs.



    Flash should be implemented like YouTube in which the user has to click on it in order to activate the content. Even in 3G, the bandwidth just isn't there and it's a waste since most ads are flash-based.



    I prefer it stay off, but implemented well and have the user in complete control of its use will get my stamp of approval.
  • Reply 25 of 71
    An Adobe product that's as a big a CPU hog as it is a wallet and market hog?



    Come on... You're all kidding me, right?



    Adobe should just send its last 500 US-based employees to Mumbai and develop for the third world, and just get it over with. They're just another fat, lazy tech company now.



    Flash is useful, yes, but not an absolute necessity for iPhone.



    What's irritating is hearing Adobe people sniff that it's an APPLE issue that their system is so "closed."



    I've found plenty of other (read: NOT Adobe) labels over the years that allow me to design and publish successfully... oh, yeah, and economically too.



    Rarely have I had someone say, "Gee, could you author that with some Adobe product?"
  • Reply 26 of 71
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TenoBell View Post


    Its an example to others that tou don't need flash. As HTML and javascript mature developers will create web applications without the use of flash or Adobe Air. Which is pretty much happening already.



    Javascript and HTML won't mature, they're past maturation and they move onto decomposition.



    Really. ActionScript 3 is what JavaScript *should* be if it was able to actually follow the ECMAScript bleeding edge evolution. Which it is not, since it is plagued with backward compatibility. Actually, the single best thing to come to JavaScript lately was JiT compilation - something that has been available for years on Java and C#. And JiT actually came to JS from Flash...

    Currently, programming in JS is an utter mess. You must pile librairies unto librairies to hope for some cross-browser compatibility. And eventually, these librairies are even heavier than the Flash runtime. Not to mention the various problems when you try to use several librairies together, such as several depending on jQuery and Prototype in the same program.



    As for HTML, that's not better. The language was never meant to build desktop-like applications. And it shows. Badly.



    And CSS is the worst. Maintaining a site to look *exactly* the same on IE6, IE7, IE8, FF2, FF3, Chrome, Opera and Safari is a real nightmare! And some clients still ask for IE5.5 compatibility... And it's going to get worse in the future, Apple is already adding custom extensions to WebKit, we're heading back to the old browser war...



    Really, JS + CSS + HTML is obsolete for anything but the good old web. It's not meant to build applications. You complain about Flash being a ressource hog? Have you tried using GMail on an old PC or on a browser without a super-optimized JS engine? And GMail is written by the unlimited ressources at Google and has a very streamlined interface. Yahoo Mail is far worse. And keeping these applications maintainable is a struggle against the platform rather than coming naturally with it.



    The future lies with applications built on a markup language (enriched XML) and a modern language. I don't really care if it's Flex, Silverlight or something built on Ruby+XML/YAML. Really. But anything but the current mess.
  • Reply 27 of 71
    lorrelorre Posts: 396member
    None of you guys ever visited a mainstream musician, video game or blockbuster movie site? Those are pretty much exclusively done in Flash. Sure, a lot of crap is made in Flash but that's not Adobe's fault.



    Just look at this for an example:



    http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/



    Only Flash can make websites like that. Sure, it makes one of my cores go to 100% but you gotta admit that's one amazing looking webpage.



    Also, Flex is pretty awesome as a development environment for RIA's.



    That being said, I fully agree Adobe should do some serious work on the flash engine, considering how far along javascript engines have come.
  • Reply 28 of 71
    I hear (elswhere, not in these comments) a lot of people wanting Flash on the iPhone, mostly for "all those cool Flash-based games". I have one question for them: how will you play those games without a keyboard and a mouse? Do you expect every developer to adapt them to the iPhone?



    And don't talk to me about Flash video. This one should be sealed into a high-security capsule and catapulted into the Sun. An video player that requires more CPU for the interpreter than for the video codec? That can't scrub properly? Gimme a break. Developers should allocate their time on a solution to make Windows not be the only platform unable to play (ISO standard) MPEG-4 out of the box instead.
  • Reply 29 of 71
    Flash is:



    -an excellent attack vector, with numerous security issues that have been exploited in the past

    -would promote the use of a proprietary, non-standard format



    I think that the people that was Flash to be added are envisioning a world where Flash content would be recreated to work properly for the completely different user-input model that the iPhone (compared with how users interact with Flash on computers). This would happen ONLY for a small fraction of the Flash content out there.



    So, the vast majority of the Flash content you would get access to:

    a) are ads

    b) look totally crappy on the iPhone (as they are mini-applications)

    c) work poorly, as most of them have tiny controls that work OK for mouse controls, but poorly for a touch UI (unless you zoom in, but then you can't see the content).



    I expect Adobe to trot out a custom Flash application, and then demo a custom, iPhone-specific Flash "app" that looks and works great on the iPhone and then declare "See, Flash can work great on the iPhone". And then demo some well-known site (maybe even YouTube) that they've directly worked with to also have custom iPhone-specific Flash to do a "see, all internet Flash could/will look like this on the iPhone".
  • Reply 30 of 71
    It seems the only place online that I really miss having a Flash plug-in on my iPhone are mainly restaurant sites that use it as their sole method of navigation when I'm out with friends and I want to look at a menu ahead of time.
  • Reply 31 of 71
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Lorre View Post


    None of you guys ever visited a mainstream musician, video game or blockbuster movie site? Those are pretty much exclusively done in Flash. Sure, a lot of crap is made in Flash but that's not Adobe's fault.



    Just look at this for an example:



    http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/



    And that's an example of... ???



    How about this:



    http://unscrewamerica.org/



    Lots of fun, but totally impractical on the iPhone. Only a dedicated iPhone version would be worth the trouble of "fingering" through the easter eggs.



    gc
  • Reply 32 of 71
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Lorre View Post


    None of you guys ever visited a mainstream musician, video game or blockbuster movie site? Those are pretty much exclusively done in Flash. Sure, a lot of crap is made in Flash but that's not Adobe's fault.



    Just look at this for an example:



    http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/



    Only Flash can make websites like that. Sure, it makes one of my cores go to 100% but you gotta admit that's one amazing looking webpage.



    Also, Flex is pretty awesome as a development environment for RIA's.



    That being said, I fully agree Adobe should do some serious work on the flash engine, considering how far along javascript engines have come.



    Good point. These sites are uber awesome, but require some serious talent at all levels.
  • Reply 33 of 71
    I think there's gonna be a fair few angry people out there if what I think's gonna happen...happens.



    Flash would be difficult to add to iphone because it specifically adds onto the safari application. Apple fire their laser at anyone trying to do such a thing through the app store. Therefore, there's a high possibility of flash being released in the next iphone/ipod touch update (i.e. pre-installed with on/off option in safari options).



    The only other way I can see this working is if adobe created their own mini browser that uses safari to connect to net, but has flash (thus not connecting to the safari app itself, but apple will want people using plain old safari, so no dice).



    Who know's how it's gonna end. All I know is: I don't care.
  • Reply 34 of 71
    All I can say is, bring it on.



    If you don't like it, turn it off! Honestly, what's the issue.



    I lead a team of Flash programmers and we all use AS3 and PureMVC as a framework. I'm not going to be modest, we're damn good programmers. The idea that Flash is just for "bad programmers" is a terribly short-sighted opinion.
  • Reply 35 of 71
    adjeiadjei Posts: 738member
    How many other touchscreen phones have flash in them, it's not as easy as it looks, Apple will incorporate it when they can finally get it right and it suits, they shouldn't be moved by pressure, lately by doing this, some of their products haven't been working as well as they should. Even the new Blackberry Storm coming out doesn't have flash and it's a touchscreen device.
  • Reply 36 of 71
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Lictor View Post


    Yes, you mean alternatives like AJAX? That's the way to go: an obsolete language on top of an obsolete architecture... Or do you mean solutions like SilverLight, which are not yet mature or cross-platform?

    Flash is 10 times cleaner than AJAX. It lets you do real programming on the client side, with a real object-oriented architecture and an almost decent language.



    Im on the side of having flash but can't really agree about it being 10 times cleaner and that it lets you do real programming. As a developer I hate using flash to do any real programming, the tools to build in it are just awful as their so geared towards designers rather than developers. Compare that to doing AJAX in .NET I always go with AJAX. The .NET framework makes it so easy to implement you can do so much in a very short space of time. The real future though I would have to say will come when SilverLight matures, so far it looks like all the good bits of Flash mixed with .NET to make a developers dream environment. Microsoft may not be doing so well with Windows at the moment but their tools for developers are the best by far.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2 View Post


    Since there already is a cross-platform, standards compliant way to view videos on the web, the real solution is to convince web designers to use that instead of Flash. Not having Flash on the iPhone is a part of that effort to persuade web designers to stop using Flash for movies. Ergo, if Flash *does* come to the iPhone, it will be a giant step backwards for cross-platform compatibility and web standards.



    So what isn't cross-platform about Flash? Not to mention over 90% of the computers accessing the web have Flash, thats more than any browser! Having flash also doesn't just mean more money for Adobe. People don't pay for the flash player and you don't have to buy Adobes development tools to build a Flash movie, their are other tools around, some of which are free.
  • Reply 37 of 71
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jowie74 View Post


    If you don't like it, turn it off! Honestly, what's the issue.



    Some of you just aren't thinking it through (or perhaps have your own personal agenda for wanting Flash, i.e. Flash devs)



    EVERYONE JUST READ THIS: The more broadly available Flash is, the more broadly it will be used (and abused, as is often the case now). That means more and more sites that I can't/won't be able to use. So yes, it *does* affect others.



    If a new, popular platform exists that does not and will not run Flash, then more sites will be forced to consider using standards-based, non-proprietary, non-sandbox-bypassing, non-CPU-gorging technology.



    I guess you might as well say: If you don't like heroin, just don't use it. The problem is there are a lot of ramifications that may affect others.
  • Reply 38 of 71
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BlackSummerNight View Post


    Well something is wrong with your computer. BRING ON FLASH!



    Nothing is wrong with his computer. My Multicore CPU with 4GB Ram pegs at 99% for the main core since Flash isn't Multicore aware and furthermore even with the 32bit shared libs for 64bit Linux it's butt ass slow.



    Flash routinely locks up Opera 9.52 and 9.60 beta.



    When pressed for the 64 bit clean Flash on Linux we get a retort about the 32 libs are just fine.



    Well guess what: The same bull will happen with OS X 10.6.



    http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2....html#comments
  • Reply 39 of 71
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jowie74 View Post


    All I can say is, bring it on.



    If you don't like it, turn it off! Honestly, what's the issue.



    I lead a team of Flash programmers and we all use AS3 and PureMVC as a framework. I'm not going to be modest, we're damn good programmers. The idea that Flash is just for "bad programmers" is a terribly short-sighted opinion.



    Show me your usage of MVC with Cocoa/Core Data/KVC and CoreGraphics and I'll judge whether or not you're a "damn good programmers."
  • Reply 40 of 71
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by johnqh View Post


    My CPU (C2D) goes to close to 100% when I visit some websites.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Lictor View Post


    Yes, and most game are slow like a snail on my PIII-700, this shows how bad C++ is as a programming language...

    Really, the problem is with your computer, not the platform.



    Egads, don't be stupid. Games are apps that you buy/use/run for a specific purpose, and you choose to use them (or not) based in part on the computer/GPU power you have.



    Flash embedded in web sites forces crap down people's throats just because they're browsing around the web looking for info. This is not the same thing at all.



    I guess you must not use a laptop, or you'd know how bad Flash craplets can chew CPU. Not because it's performing some useful functionality for me, but most likely because it's pushing distracting animated garbage in front of my face (or would be if I didn't run with it completely disabled). Not to mention the browser security mechanisms that get bypassed...



    One can always argue that it's not the technology, but the "bad guys" that misuse it. But you know what? It doesn't matter! The technology enables people to make my browsing experience (and battery life) suck, so it gets turned off. The more widely it's supported, the more sites will become "invisible" to those of us who either choose to disable Flash or who use alternate platforms, like the iPhone.



    Please Steve, do NOT let Flash onto the iPhone.
Sign In or Register to comment.