Since there was a discussion about the non-presence of Flash on the iPhone back on GD, I thought it would be interesting to post a link to a text Apple has just published regarding Flash:

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

_________________
My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

Interesting. Though, FTA: "Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain."

That's chutzpah - if Apple is an open system, I'm the Honinbo. I agree with them that flash is closed, as I'm all about open source (typing this from my laptop, which runs Ubuntu), but what they do goes beyond the closed-source/open-source issue.

I'm still on Apple's side on this, so long as they don't send the police to raid my house if I do an early review of one of their products.

_________________
KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

Read the rest: they mean open standards.

_________________
My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

I didn't choose my terms widely. Their "closed-ness" goes beyond open/closed standards, though. I understand why they won't work with Flash, but their "we're open, you're closed" argument (with some moral and philosophical shades) is just ironic.

I really admire Apple for this kind of thinking, but...



I really wish they would support the Ogg Theora video codec as well.

Why do you say that? Safari plays Ogg Theora videos, so it's supported by WebKit.

_________________
My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

I got my info from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video#Browser_support.

Since you are saying you have first hand experience to the contrary, I'd be inclined to believe you.

I Went to Wikipedia, looked at a page about Ogg Theora, and loaded a sample video.

_________________
My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

tl;dr: HTML5 > Flash

Preposterous. I assume you mean javascript+html5 > flash, but even so, that is miles from being true. Flash, when you include things like actionscript 3 and flex, is an extremely mature and widely supported development and deployment platform. The notion that all web developers must now abandon all hard earned knowledge and skill in flash and actionscript, for some new upstart, extremely immature, technology, is just so incredibly tiresome, and so frustratingly typical of the computer industry.

None of the the justifications that Jobs gave wash, as far as I'm concerned, especially the one he regarded as the most important (no intermediate platforms). It's just ridiculous to say that flash apps suck on iPhones - they might, but it isn't a given, especially now that Adobe developed the flash->objective C converter.

The only thing I'll accept is that Adobe haven't been all that good at supporting flash on non-windows platforms.

I don't really have any strong feelings about flash either way, but since kirkmc posted a pro-apple article I must come up with something to balance it out.

As with the java article, they list a number of technical arguments that really aren't as convincing as they make it sound.

First of all, flash is used for a lot more than video. All this talk about video only focus on one aspect of flash. Misleading.

Battery life: if you play video with a codec that isn't hardware accelerated it drains the battery faster. Well yes, but leave it as a decision for me what to play mkay? But no, Apple has already decided for you that you can't see those videos.

"We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash." I LOL at the notion that an application can bring down the OS. I hope that's not what they mean but if it is, it means they have made some weird design decisions in the OS.

Touch interfaces have no rollover? Oh come on. How hard can it be to have "drag over" map to "rollover". No multitouch? So just have single touch on flash surfaces then. Technically easy to do.

"We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers." How about choice? If flash suddenly were available that won't mean developers have to use it. Lock-in thinking.

It would be technically easy to put flash on Apples mobile products. But they don't want to leave it up to their users how to use their products. They want to give them a unique and uniform user experience, and they actively prevent technology that have other motives (cross platform) such as java and flash.

I'm not an Apple customer. I like to make my own decisions, not blindly accepting the rules set by Steve. I mean, Steve does not want kgs on iphone/ipad (because it requires java). What more evidence of pure evil do you need

_________________
FusekiLibrary, an opening library.
SGF converter tools: Wbaduk NGF to SGF | 440 go problems | Fuseki made easy | Tesuji made easy | Elementary training & Dan level testing | Dan Tutor Shortcut To Dan

Actually, it's wms who doesn't want KGS on the iPad, because he wants to keep his protocol closed...

_________________
My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

As opposed to Apple who doesn't want anyone coding in anything but Objective C.

Weak attempt of changing the subject, IMO

_________________
To sig or not to sig, that is the question.

LOL, excuse me now while I clean the soda off my keyboard.

_________________
"Play confidently. Make the best of mistakes."
- Janice Kim, Learn to Play Go Vol. 1

That post I wrote didn't reflect my opinion, I just wrote what I felt summed up the letter that Jobs wrote, and I won't go into whether I agree/disagree with his stance. Simply, I just felt this piece of text wrapped up what Jobs wanted to get off his chest:

Your extremely mature development platform just crashed my browser for the third time today.

_________________
KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

Erm, I am not sure the protocol is the issue. More like the programming language. I can't blame wms for not wanting to port the KGS client to ... what is it? Objective C? the only language almighty Apple has blessed for the iPod touches (no matter their size and ability to use cell signals).

Personally, I feel if Apple wants to keep Flash off their devices by default, thats fine. But actively controlling every daggone thing that can be user installed reeks to me.

EDIT: I should probably add we own a mac book, and an ipod touch, both belong to my wife. I *do* like the touch, but...

_________________
Photo Blog:
http://blog.lunchisoptional.com

All I'm trying to express is my profound frustration at this attempt by Apple to sabotage what is the closest we have to a widely deployed, widely supported, cross-platform, cross-browser, rich ui development platform. For all the problems with flash (e.g. no back/forward navigation, no text search etc), it's a great way to develop certain classes of applications. I hate writing html-oriented sites in php or asp.net or struts or jsp or jsf.

I would prefer it if Adobe were encouraged to rather fix the bugs in flash, and were pushed towards open sourcing flash (which they are slowly doing, e.g. Flex is open source).