Apple strikes back at Adobe, says Flash is 'closed and proprietary'

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  • Reply 241 of 281
    tulkastulkas Posts: 3,757member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post


    It's not obvious that their excuses had merit at all. In fact, their excuses were and are without merit. No 3rd party had access to these APIs previously, yet, it's hard to find graphics software on OSX that sucks as much as Flash. This also doesn't excuse all the Flash related crashes, which this has nothing to do with. So, while there might be advantages to this API, Adobe's lack of access to it doesn't explain the problems with Flash on OSX. But, now, their excuses just got pulled out from under them.



    I also don't think Apple created this API "just for them". It's probably an existing private API that they felt could now be published. Although, I would not be surprised to learn that the motivation for publishing it at this time was to put an end to the excuses. Now, of course, Adobe will no doubt say that they have to "study" the API, and there will be more excuses about why it will take them years to incorporate it, if history is any guide.



    While it doesn't excuse all of their problems, of which there are many, it certainly explains why playing H.264 video through a flash player was the pig it is in CPU usage. There is just no denying that. If other 'graphics' apps had a need to play H.264 video, then yes, they would also have chewed up CPU cycles. More related, other video apps that were doing H.264 would also benefit immensely from access to this API. Adobe never claimed API access to HW accel for H.264 would solve all of their problems. Hell, they don't acknowledge some of their problems. But there is really no denying that the poor performance of Flash when playing H.264 was a direct result of the work all being done in software via the CPU instead of being offloaded to the GPU. That is really just a fact. Obviously there is merit to Adobe's claim that HW accel access would reduce their CPU load when playing H.264 video. How can you possible argue otherwise. That is precisely why Apple developed the API in the first place (H.264, not flash).



    Does Adobe have other problems with Flash? hell yes! Their other apps (of which I have not used many) have all been consistently poor experiences. Even Reader is a POS that I avoid when possible. But my disdain for Adobe doesn't cloud reality.
  • Reply 242 of 281
    john.bjohn.b Posts: 2,742member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by charlituna View Post


    not really sure what kind of drawing you are talking about, but these guys haven't had too much trouble



    Jim Lee Co Publisher for DC Comics

    Manga Artist Yoshitoshi Abe

    Brushes group on Flicker

    and of course Jorge Colombo was already using Brushes on the iphone to make his New Yorker covers.



    plus there are tons of videos on youtube. mostly of brushes on the iphone. but there are some ipad ones also



    Wait, so you're saying artistic talent has something to do with it?



  • Reply 243 of 281
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bulk001 View Post


    Check out the number of Mac users of Aperture v Lightroom:



    http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2009/09...erture_09.html



    the catch there is that most of those professionals are probably locked into Adobe's whole world. they are also using photoshop, illustrator etc. And thus it makes sense that they would use lightroom because it was designed to work with said programs seamlessly, much as all of Apple's ilife and iwork go together.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jareskog View Post


    As a Mac owner, flash is horrid on OSX, but that is not Adobe's doing, it is Apple not allowing Adobe access to OSX's GPU API's to use graphical hardware acceleration. Let the fanboy-ism stop.



    putting the blame on Apple, despite the full truth is the very nature of fanboy-ism so how about you stop first.



    It is fact that Adobe built Flash (actually pretty much all their programs) ground up for Windows, and then added translators for Mac OS X. There's even a statement from Adobe in the last six months or so that the code is almost identical. It's also fact that Carbon was created because Adobe didn't want to have to redo their software for Mac OS X. Eventually they had to because Apple dropped Carbon, but they were not happy about it.



    this is as much to blame as any alleged blocking of access to any APIs, if not more so.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tulkas View Post


    Could you provide some evidence that Apple licensed the GUI from Xerox? Xerox sued Apple for patent infringement and lost. Why would the sue them for a patent that Apple licensed from them?



    Are you sure it was a patent case.



    As I recall they sued for copyright infringement not patent infringement because they didn't have a valid patent at the time. Either because they never got one at all or because it had somehow lapsed. The court actually tossed most of the case because they waited 5 years of awareness of the Apple GUI before filing and because they were trying to claim a copyright on the idea of a GUI and not actual elements, which is what Apple sued Micosoft over (leading to MS using a 'recycle bin' rather than 'trash')
  • Reply 244 of 281
    So Apple's comeback is "I know you are but what am I?"



    Excellent.
  • Reply 245 of 281
    tulkastulkas Posts: 3,757member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by charlituna View Post




    Are you sure it was a patent case.



    As I recall they sued for copyright infringement not patent infringement because they didn't have a valid patent at the time. Either because they never got one at all or because it had somehow lapsed. The court actually tossed most of the case because they waited 5 years of awareness of the Apple GUI before filing and because they were trying to claim a copyright on the idea of a GUI and not actual elements, which is what Apple sued Micosoft over (leading to MS using a 'recycle bin' rather than 'trash')



    yes, I think you are right. Xerox lost a copyright suit against Apple and didn't have an enforceable or valid patent. Neither of which supports the idea that Apple licensed the UI from Xerox.



    For some background on how the Mac UI really developed, there used to be a very popular Mac enthusiast site, MacKido. David K. Every used to have some great analysis and opinion, back in the day. At some point he posted a series of letters from Bruce Horn and Jef Raskin about the development of the Mac UI. Very interesting reading.

    Letter from Bruce Horn on origins of Macs UI

    Response from Jef Raskin

    Response from Bruce to Raskins Letter



    PS. David, if you read this, bringing back Mackido would be great.
  • Reply 246 of 281
    zanshinzanshin Posts: 350member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by guinness View Post


    The only reason AT&T has any market share, is because of the iPhone.



    That and the whole legacy Bell Telephone thingy, not to mention a gazillion dollars paid under the table over the years to the guh'mint folks with well-greased palms.
  • Reply 247 of 281
    anonymouseanonymouse Posts: 6,857member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tulkas View Post


    While it doesn't excuse all of their problems, of which there are many, it certainly explains why playing H.264 video through a flash player was the pig it is in CPU usage. There is just no denying that. [...]



    I don't see how you can suddenly declare it meritorious just because Apple publishes an API. It doesn't account for their lack of development effort and the obviously poor quality of the software. It's a badly written piece of code period. The argument uses the assumption that Adobe's claims for the reasons for bad performance are true and then uses that to say, "Look Apple released the API they said they needed, so they were right." More than a bit circular.



    But, the ball is definitely in their court, and their reputation depends on them fixing it. If they dont they will have zero credibility and won't exactly look competent, either.
  • Reply 248 of 281
    tulkastulkas Posts: 3,757member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post


    I don't see how you can suddenly declare it meritorious just because Apple publishes an API. It doesn't account for their lack of development effort and the obviously poor quality of the software. It's a badly written piece of code period. The argument uses the assumption that Adobe's claims for the reasons for bad performance are true and then uses that to say, "Look Apple released the API they said they needed, so they were right." More than a bit circular.



    But, the ball is definitely in their court, and their reputation depends on them fixing it. If they dont they will have zero credibility and won't exactly look competent, either.



    As I said, Flash does suck. They have not put the effort into the Mac platform that it deserves and they deserve no sympathy. Nor should Apple share any of the responsibility for the the vast majority of the problems.



    But, you are mis-stating the logic. Adobe claimed a lack of the APIs hindered their performance for H.264. This is unquestionable true. If you are doing h.264 decoding, using Apple's API to gain HW is obviously going to be faster than using software decoding through the CPU. Now that Apple has released their API, it proves Adobe was right when they said they did not have access.



    As I first said, some people were trying to discount Adobe's claims of lack of access to the API. They said things like "other apps run well" "Adobe has everything they need to make it run fast, just like other apps". These excuses to hate on Adobe were simply poorly thought out. It really should be clear as day to anyone that off loading the decoding to the GPU would benefit any app that does h.264 decoding. Adobe has not had this ability. Other apps, trying to to do h.264 would similarly be CPU hogs when trying to do h.264 decoding...because without this access, they have to use the CPU.



    The faulty logic would be for someone to believe that because Adobe Flash is crap and Adobe has been negligent of their Mac products, anything they claim must be a lie. Their claim of not having API access was 100% true, even it others wanted to claimed this was not true. Having GP access makes a difference, even if others want to claim this can only be true for Apple apps and not for Adobe apps.



    Now that Apple has granted them access, the ball is indeed in their court. They could very well still produce a version that has crap performance, even when using the new API. But that doesn't change the fact that they did not previously have this access, nor the fact that using the GPU to do the h.264 decoding (the reason for the API) is specifically meant to improve performance of these types of apps.



    Flash does a lot more than H.264 playback. Their other problems cannot be attributed to a lack of access to this API. No one said they would. That is simply a strawman, but not a good one. I, for one, am sure that Flash will still suck, but the onus is now on them.
  • Reply 249 of 281
    anonymouseanonymouse Posts: 6,857member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tulkas View Post


    ... Their claim of not having API access was 100% true, even it others wanted to claimed this was not true. ...



    Well I don't think anyone that I can recall ever claimed that they had direct access to the hardware for decoding. Technically, they don't have that now, they only have access through a now official API. So, yes, in that trivial sense, their claim was true, and in fact still is.



    It still doesn't make their claim that this is why flash performance sucked at all times. It doesn't say anything about why it crashes constantly. It doesn't explain why Flash generally sucks overall. And it does not explain the fact that other software got decent performance, compared to Flash, not using this particular API, but other existing APIs. All this does is make it so they are now on the spot to prove that they can make a decent piece of software for the Mac with this API. But, even if they do, it doesn't mean that this was the only thing holding them back.



    So, they are out of excuses. Although. at this point, it's pretty much a non-issue. Flash's days are already numbered for reasons that aren't related to Mac performance and stability. If they were smart, they'd stop committing their future to it and get on board with the future that's going to happen.



    Edit: I was just looking at a Flash item on a page that I loaded. It was kind of funny that there was a checkbox in the Settings... that was labeled: Enable hardware acceleration. Really!? That was fast. Or is that setting just left over from the Windows version?
  • Reply 250 of 281
    tulkastulkas Posts: 3,757member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post


    Well I don't think anyone that I can recall ever claimed that they had direct access to the hardware for decoding. Technically, they don't have that now, they only have access through a now official API. So, yes, in that trivial sense, their claim was true, and in fact still is.



    It still doesn't make their claim that this is why flash performance sucked at all times. It doesn't say anything about why it crashes constantly. It doesn't explain why Flash generally sucks overall. And it does not explain the fact that other software got decent performance, compared to Flash, not using this particular API, but other existing APIs. All this does is make it so they are now on the spot to prove that they can make a decent piece of software for the Mac with this API. But, even if they do, it doesn't mean that this was the only thing holding them back.



    So, they are out of excuses. Although. at this point, it's pretty much a non-issue. Flash's days are already numbered for reasons that aren't related to Mac performance and stability. If they were smart, they'd stop committing their future to it and get on board with the future that's going to happen.



    Edit: I was just looking at a Flash item on a page that I loaded. It was kind of funny that there was a checkbox in the Settings... that was labeled: Enable hardware acceleration. Really!? That was fast. Or is that setting just left over from the Windows version?



    That 'trivial' sense, was the only way it was meant to be true. As in they now have access to HW acceleration for H.264. Sort of like a guy honestly saying his car has no gas. Once it is proven that he has no gas, that is just as true in a 'trivial sense'. Although it might still be a piece of shit that is also missing a battery, oil and spark plugs and won't run anyway, it was still true that it had no gas.



    I think the actual claims were something like, other graphics apps aren't pigs like Flash, so Adobe is just bitching when the say they need HW acceleration, cuz other apps don't. This ignores that most of the apps mentioned wouldn't benefit from H.264 decoding on the GPU, but was used anyway. Apps that actually do h.264 decoding and are therefore relevant for comparison, would also benefit by having access to this API...but only for their .264 decoding. If they are a poor performers in other ways, then this won't help. Just. Like. Flash.



    No one claimed HW accel was a cure all for all of Flashes problems. I certainly never did. I don't even think Adobe said it could improve every aspect of their performance. That is another strawman. What they did say was"In Flash Player 10.1, H.264 hardware acceleration is not supported under either Linux or Mac OS X. Linux currently lacks a developed standard API that supports H.264 hardware video decoding, and Mac OS X does not expose access to the required APIs." i.e. Access to the API for h.264 decoding was not available. 100% true. Some people just want to ignore this and set up and argue against arguments that no one actually made. It is easy to argue against those that say this will help make everything about Flash great, mainly only because no one actually said that (no one with a sane argument anyway).



    Again, to repeat, this ain't gonna help anything in Flash but h.264 decoding.
  • Reply 251 of 281
    anonymouseanonymouse Posts: 6,857member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tulkas View Post


    ... Apps that actually do h.264 decoding and are therefore relevant for comparison, would also benefit by having access to this API...



    Or they could just use the standard Cocoa frameworks and get the same benefit.
  • Reply 252 of 281
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gwklam View Post


    but when browsers like firefox are not upgrading to h264 codecs, it could become difficfult.



    H.264 isn't open. It's not free. Apple owns it. That's why it's not in Firefox. The codec is only in Safari (b/c Apple owns it) and Chrome (because Google pays for it).



    It's fine to say we should all embrace new technology. I'm all about that. But don't be fooled. Apple's is just looking out for their market share on this one -- not their users, and certainly not open source development.
  • Reply 253 of 281
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jeffles View Post


    H.264 isn't open. It's not free. Apple owns it. That's why it's not in Firefox. The codec is only in Safari (b/c Apple owns it) and Chrome (because Google pays for it).



    It's fine to say we should all embrace new technology. I'm all about that. But don't be fooled. Apple's is just looking out for their market share on this one -- not their users, and certainly not open source development.



    Sigh.
  • Reply 254 of 281
    gwklamgwklam Posts: 17member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by CDonG4 View Post


    Where are you getting this statistic from. It performs better in Safari over Firefox in Mac OS X.... other way around on Windows.



    lol, must be i'm using flash 10.1 RC2
  • Reply 255 of 281
    soskoksoskok Posts: 107member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nikon133 View Post


    Except that Zen was never selling as good as Android is.



    I was actually curious about sales numbers and was looking around a bit. This came out:



    http://industry.bnet.com/technology/...ching-iphones/



    If data is accurate, 1 year after it's introduction (end of 2009) Android was selling 5.4 million per quarter.



    1 year after iPhone introduction, highest quarter was 2.3 million... that was actually 3rd quarter, 4th was only 1.7 million but one can argue sales were going down due to 2nd iPhone launch. As per following graph:







    If you consider that iPhone had no competition (in the same league) while Android has mighty iPhone to compete against... I'd say Android will do so much better than Zen did relative to iPod. So much better.



    Do you use Apple products? iPod is simply better than ANY competing player. Use it for a day and you will never buy a different brand. Same with iPhone...



    P.S. is there a study that shows how many iPhone users switch to a different brand?
  • Reply 256 of 281
    gescomgescom Posts: 69member
    Apple without Adobe applications? Hahaha, I don't think so. Apple isn't actually capable of writing anything similar to Adobe products, in fact all they are able is to playing with interface wrappers around other people's code. Lamers. I wish Adobe would just cancel all this CrApple shite.
  • Reply 257 of 281
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    Our trolls tend to be a little more resourceful and clever than this; "CrApple" usually means we're dealing with a 12 year old or a shut in of some sort.



    I suggest channeling your bitterness and rage into elaborate alt personas with so many layers of misdirection no one can tell where you're coming from, which is a popular trolling strategy hereabouts. Failing that you might try "concern trolling" wherein you sadly acknowledge that Apple has had a good run and done some good work in their day, but are now being eclipsed by more nimble, geek friendly entities and will soon be but a footnote, as much as it pains you to admit.



    Your choice, of course, but straight up "nya nya nya ya'll suck" brings shame on our tradition of motivated Apple hate.
  • Reply 258 of 281
    gescomgescom Posts: 69member
    I don't hate Apple per se,

    I hate their demagogique big balls.
  • Reply 259 of 281
    tulkastulkas Posts: 3,757member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post


    Or they could just use the standard Cocoa frameworks and get the same benefit.



    Really? Mind sourcing any of the APIs available through Cocoa that would have allowed Adobe to access the GPU for H.264 acceleration? To my knowledge this was only available through the Quicktime (X) API and is only now become a public API for use by third parties like Adobe. If what you say is true, could you provide any evidence to back it up, or are you just stating that since it fits with your view?



    No other third party apps had access to an Apple API to allow H.264 acceleration, but Adobe did? I didn't realize Adobe and Apple had become so chummy again that Apple would give them exclusive access.



    Actually I guess you stated that the 'standard Cocoa' APIs would provide the same benefit. Someone should alert Apple, because the certainly didn't think so and hence created a private (until now) API just for this purpose. It was only available in Quicktime, but now is available to all third parties. They really should stop wasting time creating brand new APIs that duplicate existing APIs.
  • Reply 260 of 281
    john.bjohn.b Posts: 2,742member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by zanshin View Post


    That and the whole legacy Bell Telephone thingy, not to mention a gazillion dollars paid under the table over the years to the guh'mint folks with well-greased palms.



    What is now AT&T Mobility doesn't exactly have a direct lineage to the old Bell Labs... Though I'm sure they'd want people to think that.
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