Apple on Flash

[psk31]

What more evidence of pure evil do you need

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

[Solomon]

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.

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:

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

[fwiffo]

Flash, when you include things like actionscript 3 and flex, is an extremely mature and widely supported development and deployment platform.

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

[sumiyaka]

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

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...

[quantumf]

Flash, when you include things like actionscript 3 and flex, is an extremely mature and widely supported development and deployment platform.

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

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).

[CarlJung]

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

I suspect that wms is relying on the default xml serialization of java objects (I'm speculating, I don't know java or kgs well). This means that the protocol, if documented would be a complete nightmare to work with in any other language than java. Even in another java client it would be a mess since you would have to implement a whole bunch of objects that you don't know how they are supposed to interact with each other in order to get the serialization to work. I believe anyone could reverse the protocol today if they wanted, it's just a matter of sniffing the network traffic. Like they do on igs. But it will be a lot harder because it's not designed to be a human readable protocol. Once again, I'd like to point out that I'm speculating. But it makes sense in my head at least.

But this technical aspect is not the main reason for no open kgs protocol and does not factor in when Steve Jobs decide to not support widely used technology such as java and flash.

[kirkmc]

Flash, when you include things like actionscript 3 and flex, is an extremely mature and widely supported development and deployment platform.

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

It's the only thing that ever causes my browser to crash as well. I recently installed ClickToFlash because of that; too many sites use Flash in insidious ways, as elements that aren't important, or for ads.

[CarlJung]

This just in: Google’s Andy Rubin on Everything Android

Mr. Rubin also addressed many other topics — like whether consumers actually care if their mobile phone software is “open” or not. He insisted that they would, comparing closed computing platforms to totalitarian governments that deprived their citizens of choice. “When they can’t have something, people do care. Look at the way politics work. I just don’t want to live in North Korea,” he said.
...
He also promised that full support for Adobe’s Flash standard was coming in the next version of Android
...
Sometimes being open “means not being militant about the things consumer are actually enjoying,” he said.

[fwiffo]

He also promised that full support for Adobe’s Flash standard was coming in the next version of Android

Bummer!

[CarlJung]

You are given the choice.
You don't have to use it!

But with Apple, you are not trusted to make your own decisions.

[fwiffo]

I trust myself, but I don't trust other people. Other people will use it, which means web sites will continue to use it, which means I'll eventually be forced to use it.

[flOvermind]

I trust myself, but I don't trust other people. Other people will use it, which means web sites will continue to use it, which means I'll eventually be forced to use it.

No, you're not. You only have to use it if you want to use the applications written in it. You could still decide to use alternatives that don't use flash. And if those alternatives don't exist, you can decide to not use it at all. Or you can decide that the service is more important to you than your dislike of flash.

The key point here is that you can *decide*. Right now, your only alternative is to not use it at all, so you're missing out on features when there is no alternative available. Yes, in a perfect world we would have everything available using open standards. But we're not living in a perfect world, and some applications just need Flash or Java or whatever, and there are no alternatives available (most prominent example: KGS).

A badly implemented feature is better than not having the feature at all.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of open: Java is an open standard. The iPhone API is not.

[kirkmc]

A badly implemented feature is better than not having the feature at all.

Oh, I strongly disagree with that...

[flOvermind]

Ok, let's say you have a device. Let's call it xPad.

On this device, there are native apps, written in an obscure language called Objective-X. Nobody really knows what this language is about, but you are able to produce apps with a really great user experience. And there is also the possibility to write apps in a cross-platform language called Xava. Programmers really like Xava, but the programs written in it don't integrate so well with the rest of the xPad.

Now let's say there is a go server, called XGS. You really like to play on that go server. But unfortunately, it is written in Xava. XMS, the writer of the go server, doesn't have enough time to port it to Objective-X. After all, that's just XMS's hobby project.

Would you rather:
a) Use XGS, even though it doesn't fit in well with the UI of the xPad. But at least it works.
or
b) Don't use XGS, even though there is an app available.

I'm aware that you would rather use the Objective-X implementation of XGS. But when that option is not available, which one would you prefer?

[ChradH]

Nice one
Of course I'd like to have XGS on my xPod touch (which I really like, UI-wise). Some time ago I even considered buying an xPhone but now it's definitely going to be an xdroid device.