Publishers criticize Apple's anti-Flash stance

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Members of the media have expressed disagreement with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' position that ditching Adobe Flash is a "trivial" move for publishers.



Contacts from a variety of media outlets, ranging from newspapers to advertisers to large mainstream media outlets spoke with Valleywag to talk about the difficulties they face in potentially abandoning Flash. The publication referred to comments from Jobs as "anti-Flash propaganda."



The reactions came in response to comments alleged to have been made by Jobs in a meeting with editors of The Wall Street Journal in February. In that meeting, Jobs allegedly said that Flash was a "CPU hog" that was "full of security holes," and called it "old technology." He also said that for the newspaper to abandon Flash entirely would be a "trivial" move.



Kevin Elevin, a Flash developer with a large social networking site, reportedly said that ditching Flash would result in the loss of capabilities not available through HTML5 and Javascript. In addition, he said the development time on projects would increase.



An anonymous online producer with a mid-sized U.S. newspaper said a transition from Flash would be difficult for a publication of that size with limited resources.



"Using Flash for interactive graphics is irreplaceable," the producer "Not just slideshows, but special section graphics and interactive presentations can be embedded on story pages quickly and easily. Oh, sure, just use Javascript: well guess what, we don't have a bunch of code junkies in our newsroom. We do have some great designers who've picked up Flash and enough Actionscript to be very effective."



Another anonymous freelance interactive designer agreed with Jobs that Flash can be unstable and switching could be easy, but added that the switch is not as simple as the Apple co-founder suggested. The designer said developers have become accustomed to the ease of use and integration with Flash, which allows them to be more artistic and less technical.



"Where is my HTML5 development tool?" the designer reportedly said. "Perhaps he needs to try some Flash development first-hand to see what the big deal is."



While some developers are upset about Apple's refusal to allow Flash on the iPhone OS that runs on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, others have seen the massive install base of Apple users as a reason to embrace alternatives. Virgin America ditched Flash when building its Web site to cater to iPhone users who want to check in for flights on their phone.



This week it was discovered that network TV station CBS is testing HTML5 for an iPad-compatible version of its Web site prior to the device's April 3 launch. In addition, In February, it was rumored that Hulu, an online streaming video destination for multiple networks, plans to make its videos available without Flash for the iPad platform as a subscription only service.



Flash has been the subject of increased scrutiny ever since Apple announced its iPad in late January. Following the unveiling, Jobs reportedly disparaged Flash at an internal Apple employee meeting, reportedly calling the company "lazy" and stating that "the world is moving to HTML5."



For more on Apple and Flash, and why the Web format will likely never be available on the iPhone OS, read AppleInsider's three-part Flash Wars series.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 158
    Steve has a point re: Flash on the Mac.



    Whenever I go to a website and it seems to stall and I get a beachball, it's because of Flash. Adobe has never addressed the issue on the Mac and SJ got fed up. I don't blame him.
  • Reply 2 of 158
    Flash? iPad?



    Uh-oh.



    Might as well stop reading right now. This thread is guaranteed to head downhill in no time. The troglodytes will be out in force......
  • Reply 3 of 158
    finetunesfinetunes Posts: 2,065member
    Brace yourselves for another long series (9 pages?) of Flash wars.
  • Reply 4 of 158
    They're just jealous because in reality they're all talentless hacks.



    What they want to do according to this article CAN be done in HTML5 and Javascript.



    They've also become lazy relying on nasty graphical tools to do things quick and easily instead of properly.



    Graphical editors have their uses but code allows more control. HTML and Javascript also allows for more code reuse than Flash seems to allow so I tend to agree that it would be trivial to ditch Flash in favour of something that doesn't kill your system playing an ad.



    Considering ActionScript is based on ECMA Script which is the underlying structure for Javascript it shouldn't take a real developer long to move over at all.



    I guess the people in this article haven't seen what Protocol and JQuery can do, neither have they seen what Sproutcore or Cappuccino can do either.



    I wouldn't be too surprised if Apple releases the next version of iWeb with HTML5 instead of XHTML like it currently does.
  • Reply 5 of 158
    finetunesfinetunes Posts: 2,065member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post


    Flash? iPad?



    Uh-oh.



    Might as well stop reading right now. This thread is guaranteed to head downhill in no time. The troglodytes will be out in force......



    Trolls have started to roll
  • Reply 6 of 158
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TECHSTUD View Post


    It not because of FLASH, it's because of OSX.

    FLASH runs just fine on any low-end PC even Netbooks.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TECHSTUD View Post


    And who said those Apple execs weren't smart to sell stock NOW?

    Seriously, it behooves Steve Jobs and Apple to stop the BS and embrace Flash now.



    Adobe confessed that Flash has been not properly developed for OSX (documented fact in earlier article) and their need to do more work and you come with above comments. As I said you love to hear your own voice.
  • Reply 7 of 158
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TECHSTUD View Post


    It not because of FLASH, it's because of OSX.

    FLASH runs just fine on any low-end PC even Netbooks.



    It's because Flash Player on Mac O S X sucks and also Flash Player on any Windows 64 bit doesn't work at all because there isn't one. At least Mac OS X can play 32 bit apps on it's OS as opposed to having to have specific versions for 32 bit and 64 bit.
  • Reply 8 of 158
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by FineTunes View Post


    Brace yourselves for another long series (9 pages?) of Flash wars.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by FineTunes View Post


    Trolls have started to roll



    You need to leave this discussion thread, if you calling anantksundaram a troll, now I know you just want to start crap!
  • Reply 9 of 158
    originalgoriginalg Posts: 383member
    Stop feeding the troll people. If he doesn't want to agree with what came directly from Adobe, he'll never make worthwhile points.



    What I get from this article is that media outlets just want a HTML5 development tool that will make designing the same functionality just as easy. Apple should have made one of those freely available when they first started this offensive against Adobe. Media outlets don't want to get rid of their flash devs or want to retrain them. Which falls in line with them never wanting to get with the times. All the more reason they're doomed if keep doing things the same way.
  • Reply 10 of 158
    Funny thing is, even Adobe in promoting their latest CS package uses Javascript instead of Flash.



    http://cs5launch.adobe.com/



    Telling?
  • Reply 11 of 158
    rot'napplerot'napple Posts: 1,839member
    If Adobe is as lazy as Steve says. If Flash is a data hog as Apple says. If Flash hasn't been updated for Mac as some posters have said resulting in endless beach balls on the Mac while the improved Flash for PC works great, even on Netbooks... Then maybe it is time Apple created its own "version" to satisfy all those squeaky wheel iPad wannabe content providers and Apple can call this new 'flash'-like software... drumroll please:



    'Gone in a Flash!'
  • Reply 12 of 158
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TECHSTUD View Post


    It not because of FLASH, it's because of OSX.

    FLASH runs just fine on any low-end PC even Netbooks.



    You're seriously out of your depth.
  • Reply 13 of 158
    What about the argument that even if Flash were allowed on the iPad (and iPhone / iPod touch), that it might in many cases offer a "not what the designer intended" experience since there are no mouse-overs to trigger actions like there are with a typical computer and mouse cursor?
  • Reply 14 of 158
    mjtomlinmjtomlin Posts: 2,673member
    It's always been difficult to push people forward into new areas when they've entrenched themselves in one specific technology with no clear path to move away from. This usually only happens with proprietary tech. For some odd reason it's a lot easier to replace open/standards based tech.
  • Reply 15 of 158
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    I'm having a hard time squaring the story with the headline.



    "Publishers", which suggests the top brass at big online media outlets, turns immediately, in the first sentence of the story, into the completely meaningless "members of the media" which within a few words is further downgraded to "contacts from various media outlets" which finally proves to be (at least as far as the AI story would have it) a Flash developer, an anonymous online producer and an anonymous designer.



    OK, and now I've looked at the linked story and that really is pretty much it, save for one named ad agency guy. If that's "push back" from "publishers", it seems pretty low key.



    Maybe a better headline would be "Valleywag manages to find a few critics of Apple's Flash stance."



    Oh yeah, but that wouldn't be sufficiently click whore-ish.
  • Reply 16 of 158
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Another anonymous freelance interactive designer agreed with Jobs that Flash can be unstable and switching could be easy, but added that the switch is not as simple as the Apple co-founder suggested. The designer said developers have become accustomed to the ease of use and integration with Flash, which allows them to be more artistic and less technical.



    "Where is my HTML5 development tool?" the designer reportedly said.



    Get to it Apple (or Adobe, or ANYBODY). Roll out the HTML 5 development tool. Roll out a purpose built tool for creating interactive video / slideshow ads or content. This niche is waiting for takers. (My bet is it wont be long before such a tool will appear)
  • Reply 17 of 158
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by souliisoul View Post


    You need to leave this discussion thread, if you calling anantksundaram a troll, now I know you just want to start crap!



    I think he was actually agreeing with me! (Or so I'd like to naively believe).
  • Reply 18 of 158
    elliots11elliots11 Posts: 290member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by OriginalG View Post


    Stop feeding the troll people. If he doesn't want to agree with what came directly from Adobe, he'll never make worthwhile points.



    What I get from this article is that media outlets just want a HTML5 development tool that will make designing the same functionality just as easy. Apple should have made one of those freely available when they first started this offensive against Adobe. Media outlets don't want to get rid of their flash devs or want to retrain them. Which falls in line with them never wanting to get with the times. All the more reason they're doomed if keep doing things the same way.



    I agree 100%. If Apple or even Adobe want to sell some software that lets you do the same thing a with a different type of file export, then more power to them. Obviously there's an impasse here, someone write a solution and make some cash.
  • Reply 19 of 158
    emulatoremulator Posts: 251member
    Wow, 22 comments and not one from the "kill flash" bloke?
  • Reply 20 of 158
    finetunesfinetunes Posts: 2,065member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by souliisoul View Post


    You need to leave this discussion thread, if you calling anantksundaram a troll, now I know you just want to start crap!



    You should know me better than that. I have no problem with anantksundaram, I respect the person too much, and If I offended anantksundaram, my most sincere apologies. But if you look below anantksundaram's posting two consecutive postings of one known troll--on my ignore list.
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