CSS Animation Coming to Safari, Already in iPhone. Less Dependence on Flash? [Archive]

MacRumors

Feb 6, 2009, 08:14 AM

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/02/06/css-animation-coming-to-safari-already-in-iphone-less-dependence-on-flash/)

The Webkit blog (http://webkit.org/blog/324/css-animation-2/) reports that the latest WebKit builds now support explicit animations in CSS.CSS Animations is one of the enhancements to CSS proposed by the WebKit project that we’ve been calling CSS Effects (eg. gradients, masks, transitions). The goal is to provide properties that allow Web developers to create graphically rich content. In many cases animations are presentational, and therefore belong in the styling system. This allows developers to write declarative rules for animations, replacing lots of hard-to-maintain animation code in JavaScript.The features are presently unique to WebKit but can be viewed by using one of the beta nightly builds (http://nightly.webkit.org/) or simply through your iPhone/iPod Touch. Apple has already implemented these animations, as well as 3D support, within the iPhone's mobile Safari.

Those browsing using an iPhone or a nightly Webkit build can see the sample pages in action: falling leaves (http://webkit.org/blog-files/leaves/index.html) (pictured), bouncing box (http://webkit.org/blog-files/bounce.html), and pulse ("the new blink") (http://webkit.org/blog-files/pulse.html).

These features should eventually make their way into Mac OS X's Safari builds and the features have also been proposed for inclusion into the actual CSS standard. As we've previously detailed (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/06/16/apple-adopting-sproutcore-for-web-applications/), Apple has been making efforts to push web-standard technologies possibly as a way to reduce dependance on Adobe's Flash player. The incorporation of animation into CSS could certainly threaten one of the major uses of Flash on the internet. Apple has also been investing in other core web technologies as the basis for their Mobile Me web applications.

Article Link: CSS Animation Coming to Safari, Already in iPhone. Less Dependence on Flash? (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/02/06/css-animation-coming-to-safari-already-in-iphone-less-dependence-on-flash/)

garybUK

Feb 6, 2009, 08:18 AM

pik.

Feb 6, 2009, 08:20 AM

I think so...or at least I hope so....

nevertheless I use Click to Flash...

I hate Flash....:D

Mal

Feb 6, 2009, 08:20 AM

Great. :rolleyes: Another feature that will be only implemented in some browsers and differently in all that do. Also, I have a feeling we're all going to be really sick of those animations in just a few months after they start being used commonly. (I'm already getting sick of the pulse animation, or is it just making me sick?)

jW

arn

Feb 6, 2009, 08:21 AM

Am I missing something here but what about video? that still leaves another HUGE chunk of uses for flash. Plus if IE doesn't implement this a lot of developers won't take it into account so it will negate the point. That's why Flash is so big it solves problems with browser's poor standards.

You mean this?

http://webkit.org/blog/140/html5-media-support/

Another nice feature from the HTML5 draft specification is now available in the WebKit nightly builds for Mac OS X. The new HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements add native support for embedding video and audio content in web pages.

amac4me

Feb 6, 2009, 08:21 AM

I doubt that we'll see full support in the iPhone version of Safari anytime soon. We'll likely see in the Mac OS X Safari builds first.

kornyboy

Feb 6, 2009, 08:21 AM

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

This is pretty neat but it will not do away with Flash.

arn

Feb 6, 2009, 08:23 AM

I doubt that we'll see full support in the iPhone version of Safari anytime soon. We'll likely see in the Mac OS X Safari builds first.

It's in the iPhone Safari already. Click on those links from your iPhone or iPod Touch. (And read the article more carefully :) )

arn

kastenbrust

Feb 6, 2009, 08:25 AM

so rather than fix flash lets add something else to the mix....great.

stokessd

Feb 6, 2009, 08:27 AM

Hopefully something like adblock will be able to turn this off too. Call me old, but I don't want my web experience to be like a movie with all sorts of transitions and such, I want it to be like a book. A book with limitless pages, but a book.

Plus this does nothing to change the millions of Flash sites out there that I currently can't see on my phone.

Get off my lawn,
Sheldon

sishaw

Feb 6, 2009, 08:28 AM

falling leaves on my iPhone--pretty cool! Definitely effective. Doesn't seem to affect the overall speed one way or the other.

amac4me

Feb 6, 2009, 08:29 AM

It's in the iPhone Safari already. Click on those links from your iPhone or iPod Touch. (And read the article more carefully :) )

arn

My comment about "full" support was made because CSS animations are not yet standardized, it is a proposed enhancement. Thus in my view, we're likely to see the full support in Mac OS X Safari and then in the iPhone version after standardization into CSS.

7egend

Feb 6, 2009, 08:30 AM

gGGg

Feb 6, 2009, 08:32 AM

Safari 4 Developer Preview renders the animations correctly

koobcamuk

Feb 6, 2009, 08:38 AM

andiwm2003

Feb 6, 2009, 08:47 AM

this is very good. it means that either flash gets much better, leaner, reliable or it dissappears. and with 20 million iphones/ipods supporting it already many will support this standard soon. and since it's in the css standard there will soon be a way to switch it off yet you will still be able to read the text unlike with flash.

i wonder if that also will hurt quicktime player....

wheezy

Feb 6, 2009, 08:49 AM

*Sigh* If only M$ would jump on the technology wagon instead of being the trailer that the wagon has to kick and scream to pull along.

CSS3, HTML5 is gonna be great, the developers are taking their time to make sure they deliver a very solid future for the internet. Unfortunately, IE is still going to be the popular limited piece of crap that the majority of users are going to use. I wish M$ would just put Gecko or WebKit into IE as the rendering engine and then force an update. Why we're still fettered by IE6 is just beyond me...

aafuss1

Feb 6, 2009, 08:51 AM

It's a very good alternative to supporting Flash-CSS is better and would work extremely well.

Though, on the other hand, I could not forsee big, major sites that rely on Flash to create a version that could use CSS and be viewable on the iPhone

montyworm

Feb 6, 2009, 08:55 AM

and pulse ("the new blink") (http://webkit.org/blog-files/pulse.html).

And blink was so widely loved, that this is going to be used?

Those who don't learn from history are....
Scratch that. We're all doooooomed.

OldGit

Feb 6, 2009, 08:58 AM

so rather than fix flash lets add something else to the mix....great.

what?! This is good news! GOOD NEWS!

Unless you are a flash developer.

Henriok

Feb 6, 2009, 09:09 AM

This is QUITE cool and I'll be implementing this in my bleeding edge sites soon (80% of visitors are using Safari, WebKit or iPhone already) and is really looking forward to more experimental functionality like this.

However.. CPU load is very high. The first animation example made Safari take 95% CPU of my MacBook Pro. I guess there's some optimization left to do. Impressive like hell though.. Really cool that you can select text and images that are animated!

Eat your heat out Flash. Please die?

Scooby_Doo

Feb 6, 2009, 09:23 AM

garybUK

Feb 6, 2009, 09:35 AM

don't you just love apple apologists who think that because the iphone is too underpowered to support flash then flash is evil.... hahaha flash has some very useful functions.

InkMaster

Feb 6, 2009, 09:38 AM

*Sigh* If only M$ would jump on the technology wagon instead of being the trailer that the wagon has to kick and scream to pull along.

I think its more like Microsoft being the "special" kid in the classroom and the standards for everyone are being lowered just so he doesn't feel as bad about himself.

CSS3, HTML5 is gonna be great, the developers are taking their time to make sure they deliver a very solid future for the internet. Unfortunately, IE is still going to be the popular limited piece of crap that the majority of users are going to use.

And for that simple reason all these great new features of HTML5/CSS3 etc are completely useless if you want a unified browser experience across all browsers - because you will always be stuck with the LCD which is, and has always been IE.

I wish M$ would just put Gecko or WebKit into IE as the rendering engine and then force an update. Why we're still fettered by IE6 is just beyond me...

I wish Microsoft would either put out a browser which #$@%ing works or would please stop #@$%ing trying. IE8 is already on RC2 and its ****** "standards compliant" mode is more broken then IE6s pos default mode.

Right now when I do any sort of coding its always 1 copy of the website for every single browser out there - Safari, Opera, Chrome, Firefox, Camino, Omniweb and whatever else I'm missing. And then I have to do a "special" version for IE7. And a "special" version for IE6. And I have a feeling that once pos IE8 comes out, the amount of work I'll have to do will increase as I'll have to make a "special" version for IE8 also.

Why the @$#% can I make something which works in every single browser from every single company. Yet then I have to do 3x more work just so my work which is 100% standards compliant, is compliant with a non standards compliant pos.

The ONLY reason why IE6 and IE in general are still so popular is - to be blunt about it - dumbass users to whom "the internet" is "the blue e on the desktop". Who don't even understand the concept of what a browser is. Who just buy whatever is in Wal-Mart that day and then click the "remind me later" button, every 5 minutes, for the next 6-7 years on the 2003 Norton Anti Virus trial that they got.

I can't even express how I wish I could kill any support I offer for IE. But with that pos having so much market share.... sigh... hard to do....

aaronsullivan

Feb 6, 2009, 09:39 AM

CSS and HTML are far more extensible now and the battle between standards and IE is the new(old) battle and it's ongoing.

Furthermore, Apple is introducing these features (which are proposed standards) in such a way that adding the features doesn't break functionality of a site if the features aren't implemented. This is easier now that CSS has separated style from content.

The real key here is how Mozilla warms up to this stuff. My guess is that it will hop on board quickly because differentiating between Firefox and IE is paramount to its continued success.

Either way, I'm glad SOMEONE is trying to push the standards forward faster and with vision. The big problem of the past was web standards used to be useless as plug-ins and features were added at 10-15x the rate of HTML improvements. That's a big part of what caused so much fracturing in the early web tech.

Performance arguments and implementation consistency will still be sticking points in getting these next bits ratified, though. That's never going away.

Edit: and yes, somebody please get Microsoft to at LEAST grab something open source and standards compliant as a BASE to IE. What a WASTE of resources. Seriously. It looks like IE8 is going to delay Windows 7... significantly. Only a very large company can make mistakes like that. That said, I don't hate Microsoft. I happen to LOVE the ribbon interface ideas... oh... rambling now... sorry. :D

ranauei

Feb 6, 2009, 09:40 AM

If Apple implements this into official Safari builds, as it seems to have done with the iPhone, how is this any different from the Netscape vs. IE feature wars of old?

Isn't this going to hurt the industry if Apple puts it in official builds before it has been declared official by any standard specification?

No it's much more different approach. This is innovation.
WebKit team introduce new features to webkit and extends css, however they document every feature and propose them to standardization. Plus all the code is open source in a permissive license.
So everyone can reimplement those extensions in our code, mozilla for example...if they want "tomorrow" firefox can have same css effects as WebKit have.
As I said this is innovation. :D

plumbingandtech

Feb 6, 2009, 09:42 AM

Yay!

I hope Flash catches a computer virus and dies.

Sky Blue

Feb 6, 2009, 09:47 AM

Those links work for me already in Safari 10.5.6

jayducharme

Feb 6, 2009, 09:48 AM

Isn't this going to hurt the industry if Apple puts it in official builds before it has been declared official by any standard specification?

I see this as another "flavor" of web design, and that's not a bad thing. Currently if you don't have the latest Flash plug-in, you can't view a lot of content regardless of your browser and system. How different is that from having a browser that doesn't handle the latest CSS scripting? Simply update your browser (unless you're clinging to IE) and you're good to go. I can see Firefox and Opera implementing this. Then Flash would be needed less. But even so, I don't think it will disappear that quickly. There's simply too much Flash content out there. But if the CSS scripting catches on, I could see Flash becoming obsolete in about a decade. And that wouldn't be a bad thing. :)

Hattig

Feb 6, 2009, 09:55 AM

I presume the functions exposed via CSS Animation are actually a subset of the functions available in Core Animation?

Things like scale, rotate, translate, keyframing ...

Thus not only can Safari support them rapidly, but the functions could also be accelerated by the GPU if Core Animation can do that.

pubwvj

Feb 6, 2009, 09:56 AM

Sabenth

Feb 6, 2009, 10:00 AM

Mechcozmo

Feb 6, 2009, 10:01 AM

Those links work for me already in Safari 10.5.6

Right. That's because CSS will gracefully fail if your browser doesn't support a feature. You see a red box for the "bounce" style... but it isn't actually bouncing. If you use a browser that supports the bounce style, then you'll see it move around.

CSS is pretty amazing.

theheadguy

Feb 6, 2009, 10:01 AM

Animation, flashing, blinking, page sounds ruin the web. They are distracting from real content and used as a substitute for quality design.
Agreed. It's like we're going back in time to surf Geocities and Tripod websites. I was glad when we moved on from that... ):

Hattig

Feb 6, 2009, 10:02 AM

Animation, flashing, blinking, page sounds ruin the web. They are distracting from real content and used as a substitute for quality design.

I hope that Apple provide preferences for turning off this sort of junk in Safari on both the Macintosh and iPhone/iPod.

I can see how the CSS Effects like gradients and the like will be very handly, as simple things like this can save a lot of graphics.

If CSS Animation can be used in such a way that the animation is triggered when something becomes visible or before it is made invisible, we could have some interesting user-action driven animation effects that aren't too intrusive. And which will be very easy to write up in the CSS, rather than having to hit Javascript.

I think the examples given are simple for the sake of legibility, not as examples of intended use.

koobcamuk

Feb 6, 2009, 10:03 AM

However.. CPU load is very high. The first animation example made Safari take 95% CPU of my MacBook Pro...

95% load - not good!!

MarkSTi04

Feb 6, 2009, 10:05 AM

Obviously the 3 links are dimos. The falling leaves looks great, and I'm sure that when more people use CSS and create some nice animations with it we will forget about the other 2 dimo boxes. Seeing this on the iPhone does bring a welcome addition that's been a long time awaited. I really hope that more sites use this in the future.

SpinThis!

Feb 6, 2009, 10:10 AM

I wish M$ would just put Gecko or WebKit into IE as the rendering engine and then force an update. Why we're still fettered by IE6 is just beyond me...
IE6? My logs show a few folks who are still on 5.5 or even 5. While I stopped caring about these people since IE7 came out, IE6 is still hanging in there. There's a few rendering bugs you have to work around but c'mon... it's not the hell some people make it out to be.

You know MS people—they want to do their own thing. Microsoft would never adopt WebKit or Gecko... but I think Opera might be a good fit for them. MS is too proud to beg or ask for help. Have you seen the MSDN blog? What a bunch of zealots who cling to their VBScript and conditional tags for older browsers.

It's too bad Microsoft tow the corporate line and break just enough of the standard so companies who are tied into their products refuse to upgrade. Even IT guys I know refuse to upgrade to IE 7 because it's not been tested enough or it's huge hassle to roll it out to the hundreds of desktops they need to support (or are just plain lazy). That's certainly not helping the problem.

dejo

Feb 6, 2009, 10:16 AM

flash has some very useful functions.
Such as?

bytethese

Feb 6, 2009, 10:26 AM

Wow, neat stuff, just tried it on my iPhone. I'm not a fan of the Pulse one, but the leaves rock. :)

michaelvoigt

Feb 6, 2009, 10:27 AM

Flash's biggest fans are the developers, they are a big force in convincing clients to go for a flash based platform. Developers love the platform because it saves them time and things look the same across the board. I don't think anyone will argue that getting stuff done in flash is less programmy then AJAX.

Flash Lite has never really caught on well because it won't play everything and might not just work. Your flash website might or might not work on a flash powered Nokia phone. Plus, your site might become a slide show with very low FPS on phone units. Flash needs to work on the phone like it does on the desktop.

Therefore, I believe that Apple is attempting flash correctly on the iPhone. They are going for a player that is current with the web player. And since they might be attempting a full-fledged player delays and performance problems might be occurring.

... and they might not be able to do it with a 400mhz iPhone CPU.... flash is a anti-aliased vector based animation beast....

If you would like to experience this, visit a heavy flash site and observe your CPU meter on your desktop/laptop...

plumbingandtech

Feb 6, 2009, 10:34 AM

Such as?

Taking 95% of my cpu just to display a banner ad that says:

What year did you graduate?
Find your Highschool friends. CLICK HERE CLICK NOW!

:D

bronxred

Feb 6, 2009, 10:35 AM

Could someone please post this in Flash so we can all see it? Kthx!

SpinThis!

Feb 6, 2009, 10:35 AM

Such as?
Embedding fonts.

carlosbutler

Feb 6, 2009, 10:38 AM

i agree with the previous poster. flash takes up a lot of resources that phones, and other small mobile web browsers dont have (such as iPhone and PSP, even very old computers). i loaded up the demo's on my iPhone and they were very quick to load and looked quite good, especially the leaves on.

if anyone hasnt seen them i took a video and uploaded them here (http://macrumours.forums.media.carlosbutler.com/css/movingCSSLeaves.mov) (leaves) and here (http://macrumours.forums.media.carlosbutler.com/css/movingCSSBox.mov) (moving square).

they loaded very quickly on the iPhone and hope that this css gets put into the CSS standards or whatever its called. im not a big fan of flash, and even though JavaScript animation isnt too hard, it is limited compared to Flash. I guess this css animation will not reach anywhere near Flash's capabilities, but it does mean that less and less adverts on the net will use Flash which i think is an upside. Flash use be used when needed, for example media (YouTube) and games, but not for stupid sites that could easily be done better in HTML with CSS.

Saladinos

Feb 6, 2009, 10:40 AM

so rather than fix flash lets add something else to the mix....great.

Flash is beyond fixing. Not only is it overly bloated, but by Adobe's own admission, it's too heavily dependent on the x86 architecture and doesn't work well on platforms other than Windows. Oh, and it's a proprietary technology, meaning Adobe can basically kick web browsing functionality out of your OS/Browser at a whim. That's what Microsoft did to Netscape.

Doing this in CSS markup means it's open for implementations on any platform, by anybody, and can be tweaked for each OS/Browser by the people who made it, not when Adobe feel like it.

lftrghtparadigm

Feb 6, 2009, 10:45 AM

Anything and everything to make Flash go away permanently.

CSS blows it away. And it has since before the first iPhone.

No one should ever be talking about "when will Flash be on the iPhone,", but rather "When will Flash finally die its long overdue death and make way for lighter better web standards?"

Screw Flash and the horse it rode in on.

Saladinos

Feb 6, 2009, 10:49 AM

I haven't been following the HTML5 and CSS3 specifications too closely.

If Apple implements this into official Safari builds, as it seems to have done with the iPhone, how is this any different from the Netscape vs. IE feature wars of old?

Isn't this going to hurt the industry if Apple puts it in official builds before it has been declared official by any standard specification?

Because this isn't just going in to Safari - it's going in to Chrome Desktop, Android Chrome, Symbian, and the Palm Pre (whose interface is HTML based, and rendered by WebKit and hence will benefit directly from animation support). Assuming they update their versions of WebKit, that is.

overcast

Feb 6, 2009, 10:55 AM

Embedding fonts.

That's not a feature.

Darkroom

Feb 6, 2009, 11:05 AM

Flash is a thing of the past, people who have disabilities like to be able to view websites and websites composed entirely of flash are nearly impossible for them to navigate. By using CSS it allows them to view the site, and have descriptions of what is going on through their text reader etc.

Not to mention with bandwidth caps becoming rampant, I think we will see flash fade away and CSS will provided for a cleaner and better user experience in the long run.

you couldn't possible be more wrong...

treat yourself to some education and google "SWFAddress", and you might want to also google "SWFObject" before you consider another false argument like "flash site's have an inherent disability to be crawled by search bots"...

CSS animation is suitable for fading and scrolling, the end... everything else is jagged and ugly.

finally, you can get a whole lot of complex animation out of a .swf that has very little load time (under 200k), and that's without compression...

nagromme

Feb 6, 2009, 11:17 AM

Just a week ago I added JavaScript to all my site's MANY Flash animations, to deliver WebKit CSS animation instead for iPhone users. Some effects I wanted were glitchy and had to be avoided, but in the end the results were great.

There's no way this can do everything Flash can do--and certainly not as easily and with broad Mac-PC browser compatibility. Flash is around to stay and I'd love to see it made efficient enough for iPhone. But in the meantime, this is a nice option for your iPhone visitors!

CSS animation is suitable for fading and scrolling, the end... everything else is jagged and ugly.

Not so. CSS in no way compares to Flash, it's merely a tool that can fill in for certain purposes. But jagged and ugly it is not. I animate bitmaps on my site, and they remain smooth--and animated at a MUCH higher frame rate than I use in Flash (because high Flash framerates put a burden on dialup and cell-modem users). CSS animated at the full speed of your device--which on the iPhone means "smooth as glass"--with little change in file size no matter how long the animation is. Flash animation files get bigger the more frames you have (except when I use code-based procedural animation--which is time-consuming to develop and only suitable for certain things).

Someone visited my site from an iPod Touch and said the animation looked better than my Flash version. They're right--although some effects I did in Flash I didn't even attempt in WebKit CSS.

It doesn't have to be either-or. Flash and CSS are both nice tools, and I hope to see both have a long (and cross-platform) future on computers and phones alike.

min_t

Feb 6, 2009, 11:24 AM

The General

Feb 6, 2009, 11:26 AM

so rather than fix flash lets add something else to the mix....great.

What aren't you understanding about this? It's already in MobileSafari.

dizzy13

Feb 6, 2009, 11:33 AM

alFR

Feb 6, 2009, 11:48 AM

The Webkit blog (http://webkit.org/blog/324/css-animation-2/) reports that the latest WebKit builds now support explicit animations in CSS.

Well, I guess that's a few more pr0n publishers that'll be moving away from Flash. :)

mdriftmeyer

Feb 6, 2009, 12:00 PM

Just finish SVG for WebKit.

http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/WG/wiki/Roadmap

Looks like most of the stuff is coming to fruition this year, regarding recommendations.

Hopefully, Apple will have WebKit ready to go, plus there easy hooks within CSS.

dernhelm

Feb 6, 2009, 12:06 PM

As a web developer it would be nice to have more features in CSS, but like others have said I have to make a website the works and looks the same in all browsers and IE. If IE would just die my life would be so much easier, but we know that isn't going to happen so I have to keep crippling my ideas / innovation for website design because of IE.

I do think flash is pretty crap, overweight, beast... so if all browsers support a nice new CSS / HTML standard I would be in web dev heaven! :D

The good news is that it is (or soon will be) part of the HTML5 SPEC. And if opera and webkit browsers start pwning mobile browsing (which they do), it will bump the overall number of people browsing with a standards compliant browser. Not because they care about HTML standards, but because the best mobile devices for web-surfing just so happen to be using a compliant browser.

That means that eventually websites will start being built to take these standards into consideration in order to produce compelling experiences on mobile devices too. Eventually MS will have to start paying attention and making IE compliant too.

Whether or not this is some kind of Flash killer, this benefits everyone.

BRLawyer

Feb 6, 2009, 12:19 PM

Will this make Safari snappier ?

Just by comparing with the ridiculously sluggish and CPU-demanding performance of Flash in both Macs and PCs, I would say that Apple is doing a great thing.

Apple is showing Adobe that they cannot continue with their incompetent, bloated and often-discriminatory coding; I more than welcome any alternative to the crap that Flash represents.

BRLawyer

Feb 6, 2009, 12:21 PM

Such as?

I know two:

1 - Showing neverending animated ads about products that you will never buy;

2 - Giving jobs to the developers that work with that crap.

Darkroom

Feb 6, 2009, 12:38 PM

Sky Blue

Feb 6, 2009, 12:41 PM

Right. That's because CSS will gracefully fail if your browser doesn't support a feature. You see a red box for the "bounce" style... but it isn't actually bouncing. If you use a browser that supports the bounce style, then you'll see it move around.

CSS is pretty amazing.

Nope, I see it bounce, I see leaves fall etc.

AlmostThere

Feb 6, 2009, 01:08 PM

even as a flash site developer, you won't hear try to defend annoying flashing banner ads produced in flash. but this is not what flash is about.

i see and hear all these people talking about CSS3 and HTML5 and the bright road to the future, but the future is already happening in well developed flash sites. take a look at some of these flash sites: http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/showcase/

sure, Adobe could certainly be doing more with their $3.4 billion acquisition of macromedia's products, but web developers could be doing a hell of a lot more as well.

It's not just for websites - look at the functionality Flex and AIR bring to the Flash platform. These are, to all extents and purposes, desktop applications offering desktop levels of functionality and the ease of development of a consistent platform. Not to mention the opening of the format and performance in Flash 10.

Browsers, Javascript, CSS are literally a quagmire of incompatibility problems and this just adds to the pile.

If the browser, js and css are really so great, why do I need a YouTube app, a Facebook app or an eBay app for my iPhone? These should be serving up the appropriate content directly through Safari.

ThunderSkunk

Feb 6, 2009, 01:10 PM

Great. Glad they're putting all this effort into CSS Animations, to bring us even more annoying advertising.

Now if only they could figure out how to get safari to OPEN NEW LINKS IN TABS!!!

The whole point of tabbed browsing is so you don't have to hunt around through a half dozen windows. Why in the hell would you want tabbed browsing that still opens new windows every time you click a link. It's as if they simply threw some tack-on code in there so they could say "Tabbed browsing, oh yes we have that." even though they don't expect anyone to be able to use it.

Gee it's so convenient. To actually use tabbed browing,

I can (starting with the mouse) right click on the link, select copy link, (move to keyboard) hit command + t simultaneously to open a new blank tab, (move back to mouse) get the cursor into the address bar, (move back to keyboard) paste the link in with command + v, and hit enter.

Or I can do it all with the mouse, and can open a web page in only seven clicks, where firefox & iExploder take a whopping one.

Awesome.

WTF.

twoodcc

Feb 6, 2009, 01:25 PM

glad to see this. though i wonder why apple doesn't like flash?

Enuratique

Feb 6, 2009, 01:47 PM

Yvan256

Feb 6, 2009, 01:52 PM

[...] Now if only they could figure out how to get safari to OPEN NEW LINKS IN TABS!!! [...]

Command + click.

Digitalclips

Feb 6, 2009, 02:03 PM

don't you just love apple apologists who think that because the iphone is too underpowered to support flash then flash is evil.... hahaha flash has some very useful functions.

Isn't that kind of like M$ telling so many PC owners who can't run Vista their PC is under powered. Apple's approach to finding the best way to write code enables not only my 8 Core Mac Pro but also an ancient iBook G4 to run OS X Leopard.

hayesk

Feb 6, 2009, 02:11 PM

don't you just love apple apologists who think that because the iphone is too underpowered to support flash then flash is evil.... hahaha flash has some very useful functions.

No, I think the fact that the iPhone is perfectly capable of displaying video, audio, animation, etc. but not flash means that flash is a bloated, inefficient pig of an animation system. If flash was actually optimized, less people would hate it.

Geez, it even causes the fans of my MacBook to spin up just leaving a window with flash open - it's ridiculous the amount of CPU and RAM it takes.

esposimi

Feb 6, 2009, 02:13 PM

Safari 4 Developer Preview renders the animations correctly

This is true, I just tried it. Uses a lot of processing power, though.

eliotschreiner

Feb 6, 2009, 02:27 PM

Just give us flash already! I'll actually get use of my data plan.

stanton

Feb 6, 2009, 02:35 PM

Is it just me or are all these things strictly for webkit and future webkit browsers? A major reason people code in flash is for cross-platform availability. Flash tends to look the same in IE, FireFox, Safari, Opera, etc... Apple needs to come down from it's high horse. Honestly, either everyone must support your new additions, or use what the rest of the people already do use. I guess that's just my two cents though. Sadly, most of the people I know and myself use FireFox on thier Apples. ;)

pubwvj

Feb 6, 2009, 02:46 PM

don't you just love apple apologists who think that because the iphone is too underpowered to support flash then flash is evil.... hahaha flash has some very useful functions.

It has nothing to do with being an Apple apologist. I hate moving, blinking, animated web pages. It doesn't matter if it is on a desktop computer, a notebook computer, an iPhone, an iPod Touch, a Mac or Windows. Glitz glares.

Red text on green backgrounds is another awful experience. Busy backgrounds destroy web pages too. People need to do better design rather than making up for poor design with glitz.

*LTD*

Feb 6, 2009, 02:47 PM

don't you just love apple apologists who think that because the iphone is too underpowered to support flash then flash is evil.... hahaha flash has some very useful functions.

Have you seen THE REST of the iPhone UI? You know, the one the competition is scrambling to imitate (poorly)??

Flash is really nothing special compared to what you get as a total package in the iPhone.

pubwvj

Feb 6, 2009, 02:48 PM

Obviously the 3 links are dimos.

I don't know if that is a typo or not by I love it! "Dimos" = Dumb Demos? :)

plumbingandtech

Feb 6, 2009, 02:55 PM

I looked it up in the dictionary...

Dimo:

A programmer on the Adobe Flash Team

rockosmodurnlif

Feb 6, 2009, 03:23 PM

Yes! I am for anything that brings flash closer to death.

morespce54

Feb 6, 2009, 03:48 PM

Yes to CSS, No to Flash! Yes to CSS...

END3R

Feb 6, 2009, 03:50 PM

Such as?

You know, I love Apple, I really do but all you dolts that discredit Flash because you say you don't need it or because it doesn't work on the iPhone (yet) are denying the inevitable. Flash isn't going anywhere but up and I would love to have it on my iPhone (and not kill it, of course). I would love to be able to go to a site and actually WATCH the video on it OR interact with a Flash site and not see the Plugin icon laughing in my face. I don't know the percentage of Flash compared to Quicktime content on the web but I guarantee Flash dwarfs it.

You need to pull your head out and take the blinders off. I'm really starting to hate the Apple community and being clumped together and categorized with the snobby, uneducated people in it. I know we're not all like that but those that are elitists need to go.

dejo

Feb 6, 2009, 03:59 PM

You know, I love Apple, I really do but all you dolts that discredit Flash because you say you don't need it or because it doesn't work on the iPhone (yet) are denying the inevitable. Flash isn't going anywhere but up and I would love to have it on my iPhone (and not kill it, of course). I would love to be able to go to a site and actually WATCH the video on it OR interact with a Flash site and not see the Plugin icon laughing in my face. I don't know the percentage of Flash compared to Quicktime content on the web but I guarantee Flash dwarfs it.

You need to pull your head out and take the blinders off. I'm really starting to hate the Apple community and being clumped together and categorized with the snobby, uneducated people in it. I know we're not all like that but those that are elitists need to go.
Insulting people by calling them dolts, snobs and uneducated is not really going to help your argument.

The reason I was asking "such as?" was that I was trying to get the poster that said "flash has some very useful functions" to explain their case further. A good argument comes with supporting information. That is what I was fishing for. Congratulations on perceiving that as trying to discredit Flash, etc.

Digitalflick

Feb 6, 2009, 04:22 PM

The Webkit blogreports that the latest WebKit builds now support explicit animations in CS

Oh Really? ;)

END3R

Feb 6, 2009, 04:25 PM

Insulting people by calling them dolts, snobs and uneducated is not really going to help your argument.

The reason I was asking "such as?" was that I was trying to get the poster that said "flash has some very useful functions" to explain their case further. A good argument comes with supporting information. That is what I was fishing for. Congratulations on perceiving that as trying to discredit Flash, etc.

Point taken. I will have to say that those that want Flash to die or are so against it need to really open their eyes. And yes, I did take your comment as a derogatory one, my mistake.

DaBrain

Feb 6, 2009, 04:27 PM

DaBrain

Feb 6, 2009, 04:30 PM

Those links work for me already in Safari 10.5.6

Wow all kinds of good news here today! Please tell me where I can get Safari 10.5.6? ;):D

Eric5h5

Feb 6, 2009, 04:42 PM

Now if only they could figure out how to get safari to OPEN NEW LINKS IN TABS!!!

If only you could figure out how to open preferences in Safari and look at the "tabs" tab instead of going off on a profoundly ill-informed rant. Either middle-click or Cmd-click...this isn't rocket science, Sherlock!

--Eric

kalafalas

Feb 6, 2009, 04:56 PM

the lack of anti-aliasing in the pulse one pisses me off

also, i believe this made safari "snappier"

lazyrighteye

Feb 6, 2009, 05:17 PM

so safari on ipone etc is not the same as that of on mac or pc? Yet were lead to believe its the net on a phone. What a load of waffle even my nokia dose flash for Christ sakes. Apple is really far behind on what we use on the net. Never used an iPhone nore touched one but seems rather pathetic to me that they claim its the net.

Wow.
The above represents some of my favorite kind of forum "participation."
Someone who has "never used an iPhone" yet rants about how "Apple is really far behind on what we use on the net" because their "Nokia does flash."

:rolleyes:

It's like IE is Microsoft's lone passive-aggressive card they're playing to keep them "in the game" - which is beyond annoying. How can they sit there in Redmond and feel good about what they have to offer the web?
Oh wait, they have Silverlight.
Yah...

I welcome the day that IE is no more. Or at least open.

JackAxe

Feb 6, 2009, 05:36 PM

You mean this?

http://webkit.org/blog/140/html5-media-support/

Ouch, the tiny video on the page is a CPU hog.

ckinyc

Feb 6, 2009, 05:46 PM

Will this make Safari snappier ?

Am I the only one that is soooo tried of this joke?!?!

berealaboutit

Feb 6, 2009, 05:54 PM

Flash is a thing of the past

Flash is on 98% of all computers and hundreds of millions of devices besides the iphone and you think it's going away? really?

dizzy13

Feb 6, 2009, 06:29 PM

The good news is that it is (or soon will be) part of the HTML5 SPEC. And if opera and webkit browsers start pwning mobile browsing (which they do), it will bump the overall number of people browsing with a standards compliant browser. Not because they care about HTML standards, but because the best mobile devices for web-surfing just so happen to be using a compliant browser.

That means that eventually websites will start being built to take these standards into consideration in order to produce compelling experiences on mobile devices too. Eventually MS will have to start paying attention and making IE compliant too.

Whether or not this is some kind of Flash killer, this benefits everyone.
Let's hope so, but I'm not holding my breath that MS will change their ways from being the least complaint browser :(

Flash is on 98% of all computers and hundreds of millions of devices besides the iphone and you think it's going away? really?

Yes, if they keep putting out the same crap. Just like IE will suffer (hopefully very painfully) if they keep refusing to comply with web standards.

Yes to CSS, No to Flash! Yes to CSS...

I'll second that

If the browser, js and css are really so great, why do I need a YouTube app, a Facebook app or an eBay app for my iPhone? These should be serving up the appropriate content directly through Safari.

Youtube uses flash. Other apps are nice to have native because you can do more with it, like better graphics, location services, etc. Plus the stuff discussed here isn't really out in the wild yet, so I'm sure in the future web devs like me will start to take advantage of these new tools.

Belly-laughs

Feb 6, 2009, 06:57 PM

wtf is wrong with a bit of flash glory? as if graphic artist will ever go beyond the wysiwyg of flash. it´s a bit like linux pretendign to be like mac osx… spare me. css, flash, whatevr, all have their place in the tool kit, fimd

maharajah

Feb 6, 2009, 07:05 PM

Ouch, the tiny video on the page is a CPU hog.

That video is about 10-13% on my Mac Pro, an equivalent flash video is about 7-10%. Hopefully it be cut in half before release.

Habakuk

Feb 6, 2009, 07:17 PM

I have the fall(ing) leaves (the real animation) on my MBP's display using "iPhone Simulator" (comes with SDK). Looks identically like on the iPhone (even a bit larger).

It's easy like that:

1. Register as an iPhone software developer here at Apple (http://developer.apple.com/)

2. Download and install Software Development Kit (it's huge - 1,75 GB) - for free

3. Search with Spotlight for "iPhone Simulator" (here the desired result shows up after the i already)

4. Start iPhone Simulator.app and you'll get a nice vivid picture of an iPhone on your big screen. - And it works! (You can't make phone calls admittedly.) You can rotate it to landscape view.

5. Go to Simulator's Safari (this one is REALLY snappy!) and open MacRumors.com's article CSS Animation Coming to Safari, Already in iPhone. Less Dependence on Flash? (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/02/06/css-animation-coming-to-safari-already-in-iphone-less-dependence-on-flash/) Type "www.macrumors.com" with the original simulated virtual ;-) iPhone keyboard (mouse/trackpad) or with your "real" one. Enjoy the impression of having an iPhone with some kind of a bluetooth keyboard (without copy & paste of course) :-)

6. Follow the link in the article or directly here: falling leaves (http://webkit.org/blog-files/leaves/index.html) (pictured) and save it as a simulator bookmark for showing it to friends next time.

7. Voilà! CSS Animation on your big computer with "Safari Simulator" ;-)

There are dozens of other very interesting things you can accomplish with SDK even if you never plan to develop. P. e. taking screenshots from your USB-attached (real) iPhone or iPod touch directly on your Mac with "Organizer" ("Window" menue tab in Xcode). I think you can actually restore the iDevice from there without iTunes (never tried). Have a look at your iPhone's "Crash Logs" too ;-)

inkswamp

Feb 6, 2009, 07:25 PM

Am I missing something here but what about video? that still leaves another HUGE chunk of uses for flash.

Riiiiight. Because prior to Flash, there was no way to stream video on the Web. :rolleyes:

inkswamp

Feb 6, 2009, 07:39 PM

Originally Posted by garybUK
flash has some very useful functions.

Such as?

Convincing web monkeys that they know how to program.

You know, I love Apple, I really do but all you dolts that discredit Flash because you say you don't need it or because it doesn't work on the iPhone

Oh goodness. Where to begin?

It has nothing to do... now let me repeat this part... nothing to do with the fact that it's Apple and the iPhone. It's got everything to do with the fact that Flash is a very intrusive technology, is inefficient in the way it runs on many computers and is completely overhyped and overused by a horde of web developers who don't know any better way to achieve certain effects than stampeding toward the Flash icon in their Dock.

Want to see what I mean? Go find some page with a Flash thing embedded with links in it and right-click on the link to open it in a new window. What happens? Nothing. You can't right-click it. You can't Apple+click it to open a new tab. You can't right-click to bookmark. Why? Because Flash is its own self-contained little world that doesn't play well with the browser and I, personally, hate that. I despise it. I hated it when it was Java applets doing that to me in the late 90s and I hate it now that it's Flash.

And it has @#$%*-all to do with Apple other than the dim hope I have that Apple will have the fortitude to launch the iPhone into a formidable new platform without ever bringing that sad sack of technology detritus called Flash over to it. And perhaps that will pave the way for others to realize how completely unnecessary Flash really is.

vidzzzz

Feb 6, 2009, 08:20 PM

don't you just love apple apologists who think that because the iphone is too underpowered to support flash then flash is evil.... hahaha flash has some very useful functions.

Dont blame them ...the only "flash" they know are the flash ad banners (most of the time really annoying ):)
Flash is really a GREAT tool for developers , designers. online artists, illustators, comic artists etc etc.

Gordon Werner

Feb 6, 2009, 08:36 PM

flash is better than Java

JackAxe

Feb 6, 2009, 09:02 PM

That video is about 10-13% on my Mac Pro, an equivalent flash video is about 7-10%. Hopefully it be cut in half before release.

I'm running an older MacBookPro 17" 2.33, so it's not as efficient as the newer Intels. It eats up 80 - 85% CPU. I tried it on my PC, which is a 45nm Quad and it uses 2 - 3% CPU.

Even if they cut it in half, it only works in Safari right now, so it has a long ways to go. :o

Marlor

Feb 6, 2009, 09:35 PM

I've boycotted Flash since it was introduced... let's just hope this CSS extension manages to be less annoying, intrusive, buggy and inefficient.

ThunderSkunk

Feb 6, 2009, 11:26 PM

If only you could figure out how to open preferences in Safari and look at the "tabs" tab instead of going off on a profoundly ill-informed rant. Either middle-click or Cmd-click...this isn't rocket science, Sherlock!

--Eric

Well look at the big brain on Eric. And the big feckin mouth too. Since you're so smart, perhaps you can do a nice little screencapture and put a bigass red circle for us drooling retards, where it gives you the option to just use tabbed browing, and open all links in tabs instead of windows, without having to hold down modifier keys to tell it to use a tab on every single link you ever click ever. No you can't, because the option doesn't exist. It's not simpler, nor more convenient to have to use two hands and two devices just to navigate pages in a freakin web browser.

forty-two

Feb 6, 2009, 11:52 PM

Well look at the big brain on Eric. And the big feckin mouth too. Since you're so smart, perhaps you can do a nice little screencapture and put a bigass red circle for us drooling retards, where it gives you the option to just use tabbed browing, and open all links in tabs instead of windows, without having to hold down modifier keys to tell it to use a tab on every single link you ever click ever. No you can't, because the option doesn't exist. It's not simpler, nor more convenient to have to use two hands and two devices just to navigate pages in a freakin web browser.

Actually, the option does exist. In fact, I'm using it right now!
All you have to do is open up a Terminal window and paste in:
defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

That will make all links that would normally open a new window open in a new tab (without having to hold down a button).

Cromulent

Feb 7, 2009, 01:06 AM

you couldn't possible be more wrong...

treat yourself to some education and google "SWFAddress", and you might want to also google "SWFObject" before you consider another false argument like "flash site's have an inherent disability to be crawled by search bots"...

God knows what you are talking about, but the person you quoted was talking about people who are disabled finding it hard to navigate flash sites.

JackAxe

Feb 7, 2009, 06:25 AM

God knows what you are talking about, but the person you quoted was talking about people who are disabled finding it hard to navigate flash sites.

God does know, but that's not me... ;) He did provide an answer, but as you noted, most won't know what these things are.

SWFAddress is a JavaScript which can tie any link with in the SWF into the address bar. This makes the refresh, back, and next buttons behave as one would expect, as long as the developer knows how to make it work.

SWFobject can be just as important for accessibility as it is for making a Flash site searchable by web bots. I'm not sure how best to explain this, so here I go:

First off, it's function is to embed the SWF onto the page, if the requested version of Flash is present, it writes the object into a targeted DIV. This all happens instantly.

OK, in that mentioned DIV, one can put important links and copy for that page.

Now why this is important, is that if someone doesn't have FLash, that content will show up and the user can navigate a basic version of the site, but more importantly, that information is all searchable by a web bots, or readable by any tech that can see HTML, so any descriptions and so on.

Now that HTML content that's is hidden by Flash, can then be pulled into the SWF and rendered in absolutely any way imaginable with any font. Compared to just HTML and CSS, Flash has absolutely no limits -- but of course this can lead to bloat when a developer is inexperienced.

I'm probably not being clear enough, but It's good practice of any Flash site, to make sure all their content is accessible like any other HTML site. SWFObject just allows one to put all their content in HTML, where anything can find it, but that content will be hidden in its basic form to anyone that has Flash installed.

Anyways, Adobe has had several articles on accessibility over the years. It's completely possible to go way beyond CSS/HTML with FLash, but this all falls on the developer.

-----
Just a general comment, I think it's ironic that most see Flash a bandwidth hog, when it can do more with less than any other tech, but of course that all falls on the developer's experience -- too many are lacking in this area and they work for larger agencies.

djellison

Feb 7, 2009, 07:14 AM

Flash is a thing of the past,

You keep telling yourself that. It's not true though.

BRLawyer

Feb 7, 2009, 07:24 AM

You need to pull your head out and take the blinders off. I'm really starting to hate the Apple community and being clumped together and categorized with the snobby, uneducated people in it. I know we're not all like that but those that are elitists need to go.

Most people here are voiced their rejection of Flash as it stands today; Flash is slow, bloated and adds little value to the ordinary web experience. It SUCKS, and anything that poses an alternative is more than welcome.

As for hating the Apple community, we are the ones that have kept the company alive in its darkest years...no other company receives this kind of support in the world. So if you are not happy to be part of it, just go buy a commodity PC...before they all disappear, of course.

Digitalclips

Feb 7, 2009, 08:10 AM

RE: Flash is soon to be gone: You keep telling yourself that. It's not true though.

Ultimately what does it matter if something better were to come along? I am not saying it has yet but simply wondering why the defenders are as adamant Flash is here to stay as the attackers are to see it go. The same always seems to happen in this industry so I shouldn't be surprised, remember the 'Keep Mac OS 9 we hate OS X" threads? Progress from Apple, tend to work out for the best in my 30+ year Apple using experience, 'Sugar Water Sculley' era aside ;).

beg_ne

Feb 7, 2009, 08:18 AM

Embedding fonts.

Old News...http://webkit.org/blog/124/downloadable-fonts/

kdarling

Feb 7, 2009, 09:14 AM

Ultimately what does it matter if something better were to come along? I am not saying it has yet but simply wondering why the defenders are as adamant Flash is here to stay as the attackers are to see it go. The same always seems to happen in this industry so I shouldn't be surprised, ...

Exactly. The older and wiser people in this group have seen many things come and go, that at first we thought would stay forever.

(I can't count the number of programming languages that were predicted to change the world, for instance. Or recording formats.)

So defending something is fine. But defending (or bashing) it to the exclusion of anything else, is almost certain folly. A year or five or ten down the line, the arguments for or against, will be hard to remember.

The Phazer

Feb 7, 2009, 11:17 AM

pdpardue

Feb 7, 2009, 12:11 PM

Safari 4 dev beta seems to support these anitmations

djellison

Feb 7, 2009, 01:04 PM

A year or five or ten down the line, the arguments for or against, will be hard to remember.

I agree. In 10 years, flash may be dead and buried.

But today, now, it's a vital element of the modern browsing experience.

Doug

Mr Fusion

Feb 7, 2009, 02:09 PM

I agree. In 10 years, flash may be dead and buried.

But today, now, it's a vital element of the modern browsing experience.

Doug
Exactly. I'm all for Apple creating a future new alternative to Flash, but RIGHT NOW I need Flash to run a lot of things. Put Flash on the iPhone already!

Eric5h5

Feb 7, 2009, 02:30 PM

No you can't, because the option doesn't exist.

Like I said: middle-click. Why is that hard? You don't do anything; it just works. That way it's equally easy to open links in new windows (because occasionally you still want to) as it is in new tabs.

--Eric

Xian Zhu Xuande

Feb 7, 2009, 03:18 PM

Flash is not well-loved in the web design community. And there are many people who disable it specifically because it slows things down and is used primarily for advertisement. It is also controlled by a single company, which isn't cool for our go-to animation solution. It badly needs to be replaced and some gears are already slowly propelling us in that direction.

this is very good. it means that either flash gets much better, leaner, reliable or it dissappears. and with 20 million iphones/ipods supporting it already many will support this standard soon. and since it's in the css standard there will soon be a way to switch it off yet you will still be able to read the text unlike with flash.
You'll only see things like this, for quite some time, in applications specifically made to be viewed on Apple computers or on the iPhone. This stuff isn't really going to creep into general web use until it is standardized, web designers know they can degrade it gracefully to old browsers, and until they've got a cross-platform benefit (perhaps Safari/Firefox) to consider it. Internet Explorer probably won't come around to supporting these things for a very long time.

And the HTML 5 video tag won't be used until they can find a way to display video properly in older browsers, or until it has been supported by all current browsers for quite some time. Object embedding is a mess right now even without the introduction of new solutions—but a standard simple solution really would be nice to have around.

BlueRevolution

Feb 7, 2009, 03:57 PM

For the 1% of the forum population without an iPhone or iPod Touch, you may be interested in a video (http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/68829/css-animations.avi) [21.9 MB] of the animations. Sorry, I don't know what the codec is, just whatever my camera uses.

I'll remove the video from my dropbox after a couple of weeks, so the link may be broken for latecomers.

mackmgg

Feb 7, 2009, 04:11 PM

It's in the iPhone Safari already. Click on those links from your iPhone or iPod Touch. (And read the article more carefully :) )

arn

its also been in my Safari 4 Developer, not the nightly build, not updated within the last month.

pooryou

Feb 7, 2009, 05:53 PM

Awesome we have finally caught up with Netscape Navigator 4.0 from 1997.

dante@sisna.com

Feb 7, 2009, 06:21 PM

It's got everything to do with the fact that Flash is a very intrusive technology, is inefficient in the way it runs on many computers and is completely overhyped and overused by a horde of web developers who don't know any better way to achieve certain effects than stampeding toward the Flash icon in their Dock.

Perhaps so, BUT Flash is very valuable for merging Dynamically Generated Data with rich media objects and video.

. . .the dim hope I have that Apple will have the fortitude to launch the iPhone into a formidable new platform without ever bringing that sad sack of technology detritus called Flash over to it. And perhaps that will pave the way for others to realize how completely unnecessary Flash really is.

Oh, come on now. Flash is far from "completely unnecessary."

Case in point: Right now my company is building a dynamically generated flash movie -- Unique user data such as first and last name and telephone number is merged and realistically blended with Flash video in real time. The result is that it appears as if the user's name is part of movie -- Specifically this project is for Season Ticket Holders of a Major League Sports team to motivate them to renew. In the video it appears as if the user is being drafted to the team. At the end of the Video the user receives an actual call (recorded) from the team's head coach. All metrics—such as initial play, finish video, telephone call received, and forwarding via email to a friend (and friend's data if they opt in)—are captured to the database.

Flash handles the entire process for both HTTP use, and for stand-alone use in a Kiosk in the sports area.

Program that -- using live video -- without flash.

. . . Yah, I thought so. (not so 'unnecessary' now)

Your tirade against flash and 'web monkeys' might have one critical flaw. It's sounds like the perspective of a programmer who has myopically distanced himself/herself from the reality that the marketplace, the needs of the end user client, drives technology implementation at least as much as programming efficiencies.

Here is a link to see the technology in action (and don't tell me that this kind of marketing is not needed -- as developers, that's not our decision to make: the marketplace decides this). Notice I have personalized this link for MAC RUMOR'S:

http://www.sun7news.com/index.php?code=7gY2xI3tei40xNM52819&CMP=OTC-WWYCOVS1001

Dante

We Twitter: http://twitter.com/FireCatCreative

leonstafford

Feb 8, 2009, 01:28 AM

Here is a video I captured for those who can't see the animation in their browsers: CSS Animations in WebKit Video (http://www.leonstafford.com/wp/css-animations-on-webkit-video-capture.html)

Flash is a thing of the past, people who have disabilities like to be able to view websites and websites composed entirely of flash are nearly impossible for them to navigate. By using CSS it allows them to view the site, and have descriptions of what is going on through their text reader etc.

Not to mention with bandwidth caps becoming rampant, I think we will see flash fade away and CSS will provided for a cleaner and better user experience in the long run.

I think that sadly for visually impaired people, there will never be a way to keep them accurately informed of multiple animated effects,events and activities happening at once. It would distract them more than a line which says "Animation of falling leaves behind shop X logo". Better they can get on with reading the real content.

As a Flash developer, I know its downfalls quite well, and most Flash developers don't think its by any means the perfect solution. However, for animation on the web, I think it is the BEST SO FAR. Try doing blurred, motion animations with multiple interactive movie clips in CSS and see your CPU explode, not to mention your browser crash and you eating a box of comfort cookies to numb the pain....

IMHO, if Flash was on the iPhone, no one would be paying Apple money for iPhone games and software when they could have better Flash ones for free... I think Apple likes money as much as any of us and doesn't want to lose that revenue stream.

h.21

Feb 8, 2009, 02:10 AM

It's in the iPhone Safari already. Click on those links from your iPhone or iPod Touch. (And read the article more carefully :) )

arn

How about, read the TITLE more carefully? You may be getting trolled, something like that is hard to overlook.

swagi

Feb 8, 2009, 04:12 AM

Perhaps so, BUT Flash is very valuable for merging Dynamically Generated Data with rich media objects and video.

Oh, come on now. Flash is far from "completely unnecessary."

Case in point: Right now my company is building a dynamically generated flash movie -- Unique user data such as first and last name and telephone number is merged and realistically blended with Flash video in real time. The result is that it appears as if the user's name is part of movie -- Specifically this project is for Season Ticket Holders of a Major League Sports team to motivate them to renew. In the video it appears as if the user is being drafted to the team. At the end of the Video the user receives an actual call (recorded) from the team's head coach. All metrics—such as initial play, finish video, telephone call received, and forwarding via email to a friend (and friend's data if they opt in)—are captured to the database.

Flash handles the entire process for both HTTP use, and for stand-alone use in a Kiosk in the sports area.

Program that -- using live video -- without flash.

. . . Yah, I thought so. (not so 'unnecessary' now)

Your tirade against flash and 'web monkeys' might have one critical flaw. It's sounds like the perspective of a programmer who has myopically distanced himself/herself from the reality that the marketplace, the needs of the end user client, drives technology implementation at least as much as programming efficiencies.

Here is a link to see the technology in action (and don't tell me that this kind of marketing is not needed -- as developers, that's not our decision to make: the marketplace decides this). Notice I have personalized this link for MAC RUMOR'S:

http://www.sun7news.com/index.php?code=7gY2xI3tei40xNM52819&CMP=OTC-WWYCOVS1001

Dante

We Twitter: http://twitter.com/FireCatCreative

Now thanks for this nice and informed post about Flash. I'm by no way a Flash-hater, but I have to tell you one little thing, that Flash really sucks in - performance.

It doesn't matter, if Flash is installed on 98% of the computers. If 50% of these computers are older than 3 years, then they usually are screwed. Try to view your link on a G4 equipped computer for instance. I tried, my PB G4 1.5 Ghz wont give me a nice experience on your page.

So basically I guess you would agree with me, that Flash developers tend to have their head high in the clouds only cross-checking on current machines. They rarely try tro imaginge some people using 5yr old tech to view the page.

And honestly, my Powerbook could do webvideo just fine all these years. Then Apple messed up Quicktime, Adobe messed up Flash-Video. But I refuse to buy a new comp, just to watch FLV in acceptable framerate.

Point in case for you, as the other posters seem to imply, that those CSS animation will be even more messy and CPUintensive.

Razziesca

Feb 8, 2009, 08:11 AM

Apple, video,we need flash u guys are the haters 498dollars
No more iphone full page advertisment.

kurosov

Feb 8, 2009, 09:38 AM

Apple, video,we need flash u guys are the haters 498dollars
No more iphone full page advertisment.

Pointless post by someone who does not even understand the topic being discussed.

iPhoneJoe

Feb 8, 2009, 12:28 PM

cool but useless unless it becomes a css standard

ethweg

Feb 8, 2009, 12:53 PM

I don't really understand what this is about, it sounds like flash which Safari Supports. Can someone explain? Thanks! :apple:

kurosov

Feb 8, 2009, 01:14 PM

I don't really understand what this is about, it sounds like flash which Safari Supports. Can someone explain? Thanks! :apple:

Basically this is allowing animation of layers and objects on a webpage to be animated via css (you will have to read up on css if you want more information).

unlike flash a css animation does not require a a file such as an .swf to be embedded in the page, it can target any layer, frame, table, image, text etc on a webpage for animation.
This means accessability software for blind people can still use the site without having an extra non-flash page made up for example. It also means smaller filesizes and a cutting down on pre-loaders (the "now loading" things).
Instead of a seperate plugin, if this makes standard then every web browser will be expected to have built-in rendering, once again cutting down on loading times, drive space etc

Currently it is as cpu intensive as flash, but it should be optimised before completion to significantly cut down on resource use. At the moment it seems to be running a "use all available resources" setting.

With the way css works you could also be able to easily add such features to a current website or have the ability for users to be able to choose the level of animation and interactivity of a page without having to create seperate physical pages. Much like the ability to allow users to choose a style or theme for the site (once again for usually used for accessability in the case of colourblindness).

This will cut down on the need for javascript, applets and embedded objects on pages effectively streamlining webpages into a more rebust package.

This really is much more to this than you see here at face value. As a designer i am eagerly awaiting the chance to build more interactive and intuitive sites with all that html5 and future css has to offer.

Moi un Mouton

Feb 8, 2009, 01:15 PM

Look, despite all this purism, the fact remains that I want to be able to check in online for my several-times-a-week flights using my iPhone. I wanted to view the US election results as they were happening. It would be nice to see video clips on the BBC website before I get home. I want to know my favourite singer's upcoming concerts around Europe.

Apple is saying to me, "well tough f*&^%$ing *****. You can't if you use an iPhone, we don't think it's nice. You can have all the internet, except that, because we don't approve."

I know it uses my battery, just give me the option please. Give me an App that toggles flash on and off. Then it's my choice. Like the web should be.

slughead

Feb 8, 2009, 02:16 PM

CSS animation is suitable for fading and scrolling, the end... everything else is jagged and ugly.

finally, you can get a whole lot of complex animation out of a .swf that has very little load time (under 200k), and that's without compression...

Thank you! Everyone's talking about "the end of flash".. yeah, that's really going to happen when probably 80% of the media on the internet use it...

Also, any web developer will tell you that CSS is different on just about any browser. Even simple things get mashed up very easily. I'd hate to manually punch out all that CSS animation code only to have it work on half the browsers out there.

Finally, someone talked about IE finally coming into compliance. Wow! write that on a piece of paper and mail it to 2012, because that's how long it's going to take for people to stop using IE 6.

I'm really impressed with people here having a hardon for the latest iPhone cop-out.

I remember when Apple announced the iPhone and said NO NATIVE APPS BECAUSE YOU DON'T NEED THEM. Anyone else remember the boards here? Same phenomenon: fanbois making excuses/saying it's adequate... up until Apple actually started selling apps... anyone out there still think that? didn't think so.

I can't wait to see flash for iPhone--and by the way, it IS coming. All the fanbois are going to drop the CSS animation idea like a rock.

kurosov

Feb 8, 2009, 02:36 PM

Also, any web developer will tell you that CSS is different on just about any browser. Even simple things get mashed up very easily. I'd hate to manually punch out all that CSS animation code only to have it work on half the browsers out there.

Well it's not often a developer comes into contact with css anyway. A designer on the otherhand...

Darkroom

Feb 8, 2009, 02:55 PM

I've boycotted Flash since it was introduced... let's just hope this CSS extension manages to be less annoying, intrusive, buggy and inefficient.

how do you boycott Flash?

jayducharme

Feb 8, 2009, 03:11 PM

I noticed something odd with my iPhone: the leaves looked great for about a minute. Then some of them began turning into blocky blue question marks (some were even reversed). Anyone else notice that?

NeoMayhem

Feb 8, 2009, 04:55 PM

Trajectory

Feb 8, 2009, 05:12 PM

I am not a big fan of sites that only use Flash, so, the CSS animation sounds very interesting. BUT, this will only become a good alternative to Flash if EVERY browser rendered CSS the exact same way, because right now, it's a total pain to create CSS for sites that work on all major browsers. Just look at IE, it has never rendered CSS properly simply because MS refuses to follow the same CSS Box Model that all other browsers adhere to (because it is the standard). Then you have Safari and Firefox which do things differently as well, although MSIE is the worst offender.

I can't imagine how miserable it would be to extend the current CSS rendering mess to animation and interface design. For that reason alone, I hate to admit that Flash provides a standard platform that helps to greatly reduce development time because you don't have to spend hours and hours just fine-tuning one CSS element to look alike in 6 different browsers.

However, developers who create sites that use ONLY Flash and provide no alternative for those who have it turned off should not be in the business of building websites for any commercial venture.

mdriftmeyer

Feb 8, 2009, 06:20 PM

cool but useless unless it becomes a css standard

It is in the standard for CSS 3 Animation.

http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/current-work

The work draws upon the SVG 1.1 and SVG1.2 Tiny specs.

http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/
http://www.w3.org/TR/SVGTiny12/

With OpenCL/GrandCentral you'll see SVG be much more of a reality, especially OpenCL.

stainlessliquid

Feb 8, 2009, 06:49 PM

Flash is a lot more than just animated webpages. Flash is... flash. There is no substitute because so many websites use flash. Having animated CSS doesnt mean you can now access one of the thousands of flash sites on the iphone.

The iphone/pod still needs flash.

kurosov

Feb 8, 2009, 07:31 PM

this will only become a good alternative to Flash if EVERY browser rendered CSS the exact same way

The main issue here is with IE. It is a bad browser that has always been the last to adopt new standards (see 32bit png transparency). Because of this designers have had to skip using new techniques most of the time because the most common browser does not render them correctly.

Because IE is the noly browser installed on a windows machine from the start a large number of users do not even know alternatives exist, meaning IE's terrible update schedule controls the web design industry.

This is why you see more personal sites turning to a no IE compatability test mode combined with a "designed for use with firefox" or whatnot banner these days. Unfortunatly a professional cannot use this route because their customers want maximum exposure.

If microsoft would pay more attention to the direction the industry is taking and plan ahead with IE developments then this problem would be no where near as bad. Personally i think it is time they decided to cut their losses and scrap IE then bundle a variety of browsers in the windows7 install for the user to choose from.

vidzzzz

Feb 8, 2009, 08:12 PM

Darkroom

Feb 8, 2009, 09:48 PM

thedarkhorse

Feb 8, 2009, 10:21 PM

yeah this just seems like a cop-out for not supporting flash.
Instead of supporting a huge chunk of the web, lets just make a new standard and hope every site jumps ship.

Swift

Feb 8, 2009, 10:35 PM

Did you see the code? Nobody would need a player, a big hunk of proprietary, bloated code on their site. Just start <video, etc., and off you go. The page would load quickly. All browsers would have to support all formats.

I'm sure Flash would survive, but in many instances, it would be much ligher weight, and faster, just to make the HTML call.

Codemonkey

Feb 8, 2009, 11:39 PM

I'd be willing to bet most of you defending Flash are probably Flash Developers or Designers.

Epic Fail:

- if your _business_ (i.e. what you are trying to *sell*) requires the installation of a piece of proprietary software.
- If your business will not work in major corporate environments.
- If your business relies on a third party company to fix security holes (Flash player) on top of a third part company (MS/Mozilla/Apple) to fix *their* holes.
- If you need to switch media delivery methods to communicate via alternative means (such as email, mobile)

Those are just a couple show-stoppers off the top of my head. Yes, there is still a need for Flash, as it has been mentioned - Variable Data Video and some others, depending on your campaign/audience etc... The reality is that as a Web Designer, generally you either pick or influence the choice of delivery method/product/technology (the right tool for the job) - if you are desperately clinging on to Flash, no questions asked: you need to wake up.

UI development that includes single-document-interfaces, rich media/interactivity has been present in the web world for about 5 years now, *without* the use of the "ubiquitous Flash player", and it's only getting better.

And, I know that the iPhone not having Flash support is completely hurting it's sales!</sarcasm>

Sorry guys, but we all need to be more agile than just unconditionally clinging to a technology. Fact: jQuery, Scriptaculous, Mootools etc. have brought lean, cross-browser, technology independent rich interfaces to the mainstream. That, combined with CSS animation could mean that transitioning from Flash to HTML/CSS/Javascript might be a better long-term solution.

Or... better yet... you keep using Flash...:cool:

Could the iPhone/iPod Touch benefit from Flash support? Sure. Is it contingent on the success of the mobile web? Not in a million years. (Do I miss it? Heck no). Do I think that CSS animation support should come first? That's up to Apple's bean counters.

dejo

Feb 8, 2009, 11:48 PM

I remember when Apple announced the iPhone and said NO NATIVE APPS BECAUSE YOU DON'T NEED THEM.
Except they never said that.

stanton

Feb 9, 2009, 06:27 AM

Sorry guys, but we all need to be more agile than just unconditionally clinging to a technology. Fact: jQuery, Scriptaculous, Mootools etc. have brought lean, cross-browser, technology independent rich interfaces to the mainstream. That, combined with CSS animation could mean that transitioning from Flash to HTML/CSS/Javascript might be a better long-term solution.
Honestly, that's all fine and dandy, and a good thing to look forward to. My objection is that most people do need something right now to design/code in. But feel free to show your client a wonderful animated website with embedded videos, but make sure you let them know it will only show up on about 7% of the browsers out there: link (http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp)

Browser Statistics for January 2009 Red = Webkit
IE7 25.7%
IE6 18.5%
IE8 0.6%
Fx 45.5%
Chrome 3.9%
Safari 3.0%
Other 2.3%

The Phazer

Feb 9, 2009, 07:16 AM

No chance of this replacing Flash anytime soon. Not in IE6 = not mainstream enough for most users.

Flash are also doing a lot of work in building in DRM to prevent video/audio stream ripping which will continue to push Flash to the top of the queue for professional media companies and broadcasters.

Phazer

Just to reinforce how important this is, Channel 4 have just announced (http://blogs.channel4.com/platform4/2009/02/06/a-new-catch-up-player-on-the-horizon/)that they're going to be switching from WMV streams to Flash 9 - good news for Apple owners. But their blog *explicitly* rules out doing an iPhone version in the manner of the BBC, because the content is too easy to permanently capture and they're beholden to third party rights holders to prevent that.

The embed video tag would be just as unsecure to permanent captures as making available an unprotected iPhone H264 stream. Indeed, probably less so. And hence that solution is no use to broadcasters whatsoever, which is why Flash will still own that market. The only realistic alternative is Silverlight, and be careful what you wish for there.

Phazer

Razziesca

Feb 9, 2009, 09:20 AM

You are pointless yes to flash real talk

slughead

Feb 9, 2009, 10:41 AM

Except they never said that.

Steve Jobs specifically said web 2.0 "apps" (he even used the term "app", :rolleyes: ) are just as "functional" as native--totally ignoring any questions about 3rd party apps until months later. One of the reasons apple released safari for windows for for iPhone "web app" (HAHA ... app) development.

If they were even considering 3rd party native apps at the time, they would not have bothered trying to compete on the Windows platform. Not to second-guess these guys, but please? ANOTHER browser for Windows? The ONLY good use for Saf on windows is testing websites for iphone compatibility.

More important than Apple's response, however, was the response here: Mostly fanbois saying how versatile web apps are and how it's almost unnecessary. Yeah, not everyone was saying that, but most of the self-labeled "tech experts" were saying how Javascript and CSS could mimick apps like Word and such. Hilarious.

Mark my words: when flash comes out for iPhone, "CSS animation" will go the way of the "Web App" (HAHAH .. app); at least for the really complex stuff.

dizzy13

Feb 9, 2009, 11:01 AM

Mark my words: when flash comes out for iPhone, "CSS animation" will go the way of the "Web App" (HAHAH .. app); at least for the really complex stuff.

Ok, noted :p

kurosov

Feb 9, 2009, 11:02 AM

Mark my words: when flash comes out for iPhone, "CSS animation" will go the way of the "Web App" (HAHAH .. app); at least for the really complex stuff.

Very unlikely. The iPhone is simply an early adopter, it will not be the main driving force of css animation.

dejo

Feb 9, 2009, 01:09 PM

Steve Jobs specifically said web 2.0 "apps" are just as "functional" as native
Which is not the same thing as saying "you don't need them". That's just your interpretation.

jennyp

Feb 9, 2009, 02:06 PM

Took a look at the leaves on my iPhone's Safari, and with one other text-only page open it was struggling.

russ99

Feb 9, 2009, 02:36 PM

As a web developer it would be nice to have more features in CSS, but like others have said I have to make a website the works and looks the same in all browsers and IE. If IE would just die my life would be so much easier, but we know that isn't going to happen so I have to keep crippling my ideas / innovation for website design because of IE.

I do think flash is pretty crap, overweight, beast... so if all browsers support a nice new CSS / HTML standard I would be in web dev heaven! :D

As a designer, there's no way anything involving coding is going to replace such a powerful and well put-together design environment like Flash. This is just developers trying to take over and water down the design process, as usual.

I think Flash is awesome, and not overweight and a beast, if created and implemented properly. I do agree some people go overboard, though. And it's a shame it doesn't have the same overall acceptance here in the U.S. than in other countries.

And if so many devices, including ones with less powerful processors support Flash Lite, there's no reason Apple can't, other than that they want to control what goes on their system.

seanhess

Feb 11, 2009, 11:20 PM

Umm.... no. The whole reason I want flash on my iphone is to view sites that are already written in flash, not to introduce a way for some idiot to animate my web pages. As others have said introducing another animation technology is not going to take us anywhere.

And what about applications? Flash isn't just about banner ads, people. I'm a full-time flex developer and the demand for flex in business and commerce is HUGE. It would take years and compromises that won't happen to bring html/css/js to a point where it can compare with flex for developing RIAs.

So... yeah, dumb idea, and my prediction is -- no one will ever really use it.

dizzy13

Feb 11, 2009, 11:38 PM

Funny to see web developers rip'n on flash guys and the flash guys rip'n on web devs :D

Guess it's just human nature. Only time will tell, but if I was a betting man standards are what are going to win out in the big scope, although flash isn't going to go away completely.

seanhess

Feb 12, 2009, 07:11 AM

Funny to see web developers rip'n on flash guys and the flash guys rip'n on web devs

Well, I do both, and would never want to see either go away. But neither would I want to use html and css for some of the stuff I have to do with Flex. Not so much for the graphical capability, but because javascript lacks so much for complicated projects.

ravenvii

Feb 24, 2009, 09:08 PM

Heh, those CSS animations work great on Safari 4.

Jus' sayin'.

indiekiduk

Mar 2, 2009, 07:30 AM

Heh, those CSS animations work great on Safari 4.

Jus' sayin'.

Except CPU usage is a major problem. The leaves demo uses 90% CPU and fans go full blast!

ppc750fx

Mar 2, 2009, 08:47 AM

Except CPU usage is a major problem. The leaves demo uses 90% CPU and fans go full blast!

Compare and contrast to Flash where...

Oh.

Damn. :D

Kidding aside, CSS-based animations, etc. are still in their infancy. I expect that there will be quite a few optimizations made as the technology matures.

ppc750fx

Mar 2, 2009, 08:48 AM

So... yeah, dumb idea, and my prediction is -- no one will ever really use it.

'course lots of people said that about AJAX not so long ago...

As a designer, there's no way anything involving coding is going to replace such a powerful and well put-together design environment like Flash. This is just developers trying to take over and water down the design process, as usual.

Come again? If "coding" is such nonsense, what's ActionScript?

I think Flash is awesome, and not overweight and a beast, if created and implemented properly. I do agree some people go overboard, though. And it's a shame it doesn't have the same overall acceptance here in the U.S. than in other countries.

No, it's a good thing. Many US based sites are opting to use ECMAScript, (X)HTML, and CSS -- three standards for which there are a number of different implementations available -- instead of Flash, for which there is only a single vendor's implementation. (Excluding gnash -- we can count that when it's compliant with the last couple versions of the Flash spec.)

And if so many devices, including ones with less powerful processors support Flash Lite, there's no reason Apple can't, other than that they want to control what goes on their system.

I have one of those devices that supports Flash Lite (Nokia E71). It's got a 390MHz ARM chip (or thereabouts). Flash sucks on it. It's god-awful slow, and is basically unusable for anything other than small animations and banner ads. I've turned off Flash support in my browser as a matter of fact -- it makes the browser so slow and unresponsive that I'd rather do without. I am, however, able to use a number of AJAX web apps just fine.