if there's no flash support how could Steve promote watching HD YouTube videos?
YouTube is streaming to the iPhone using h264. They'll do the same with their HD videos.
You don't need flash to view YouTube content.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Display of Flash Content in iPad Promo Materials Likely Not Indicative of Actual Flash Compatibility
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
YouTube is streaming to the iPhone using h264. They'll do the same with their HD videos.
You don't need flash to view YouTube content.
I think it needs to be said -- of course iPhone and iPad can display Flash content. They're just not loading the plug-in for it.
The real issue is: at what cost? To the consumer and to Apple? That's what needs to be discussed.
Just because Flash has delivered a rich user experience in several ways through the web doesn't mean that it needs to be supported for that experience to be delivered. HTML5 and efficient codecs like .h246 are now capable of delivering that same (or even a better) experience.
I wish people would be very specific about why they want Flash. List some websites they can't use because of the lack of support on the iPhone and then we can begin to evaluate whether that website could replace its Flash with something that doesn't require a browser plugin.
The real issue is: at what cost? To the consumer and to Apple? That's what needs to be discussed.
Just because Flash has delivered a rich user experience in several ways through the web doesn't mean that it needs to be supported for that experience to be delivered. HTML5 and efficient codecs like .h246 are now capable of delivering that same (or even a better) experience.
I wish people would be very specific about why they want Flash. List some websites they can't use because of the lack of support on the iPhone and then we can begin to evaluate whether that website could replace its Flash with something that doesn't require a browser plugin.
if there's no flash support how could Steve promote watching HD YouTube videos?
Apple worked with Google to build a YouTube app that streams videos via h.264 MPEG-4, which is compatible.
Also, Google now offers a version of YouTube that’s completely without Flash. There’s an HTML 5 beta that works with Firefox, Chrome and Safari. They want to ditch Flash as soon as they can too.
http://www.youtube.com/html5
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)
Screw Flash. Adobe has had years to improve the software and yet we're stuck with a bloated resource hog. The 90s are over, man.
Screw Flash. Adobe has had years to improve the software and yet we're stuck with a bloated resource hog. The 90s are over, man.
Ok this is false advertising. Adverts should at least show a message saying screen imaged are simulated (Microsoft does this on the Windows mobile tv advert)
A point is brought up about sites that I would visit for my kids like Disney.com and various others. It seems to be all flash enabled.
The lack of Flash on the iPad will not keep people from buying it.
There is going to be a LOT of newspapers and magazines that currently have websites that will be making apps designed for the iPad and they will make money doing it. Just as much money as they would make with their website.
I predict "browsing" the internet on the iPad will transition from browser based to app based.
I for one would actually BUY the NY times in app form on the iPad. I am looking forward to this great evolution.
There is going to be a LOT of newspapers and magazines that currently have websites that will be making apps designed for the iPad and they will make money doing it. Just as much money as they would make with their website.
I predict "browsing" the internet on the iPad will transition from browser based to app based.
I for one would actually BUY the NY times in app form on the iPad. I am looking forward to this great evolution.
You're not a true Apple fanboy. If you were you would be defending Apple to the death, and buy the ipad no matter what, and love it.
Dissapointing because it still used as much CPU power as regular flash video. If that's the case, since Flash is getting GPU support which draws a lot less computer power, than HTML5 won't be a good replacement.
An explanation of why Apple does not include Flash would be nice. Maybe then we can better understand why they make the decision. Most people seem to think it is because of Video streaming sites like Hulu and others and maybe that is correct. But it would be nice to hear from Apple on the matter.
h.264 is not an Apple format. They just happened to be one of the first and biggest to use it in their business. h.264 is the latest generate MPEG-4 format, a very efficient at that, perfect for mobile platforms.
About funneling all content through Apple's stores (iTunes, Apps, etc.), I agree with you on that. It would be _nice_ if they had a broader vision, but it's their hardware, software, and business strategy. Their work in so many other ways (open source, pushing the envelope of technology, R&D) makes up for that in my mind.
rpchan, i agree with you about hating flash. I am a graphic designer and I hate flash as well. The number of times it crashed or hung my system outweighs all the times it's actually worked. The lack of multitasking, to me.. is a lot bigger of an issue then not having flash.
my .02
my .02
Well I plan on buying two iPads and I already love it. So does that make me a fanboy ?
Rocket surgeon? I resemble that remark.
Let me be the unlikely one to calm down the fanbois.
I pointed out shortly after the event that the presentation made a POINT to put the lack of flash on the iPad demoed, FRONT AND CENTER, almost full screen for goodness sake. And paused on it for a moment.
A couple of strong possibilities. First the one I like.
Apple cannot make forward statements. Apple is against Flash in its current incarnation. Adobe is a long time friend of Apple and, let's not forget NeXT before that, with pdf being a primary aspect. Pdf support on iPad was dwelled on. Adobe is working on a version of flash for ARM for the various incarnations out there such as palm, Google, and the like. That's when it will also be available for iPad. iPad (TOS 3.2) Safari accepts plug-ins. Flash is a plug in. The proper software does not exist yet and has not been released.
The one I like less.
Apple does not support Flash on TOS x.x and will not. If you want to operate a CPU crippled device, you must forsake Flash and play games for the platform, view versions of video websites optimized for other codecs, and generally move away from proprietary video file formats such as Flash and AVI.
The good news is when you buy the device you will have full disclosure of all its limits at the time of shipment. It can only get better after that via software updates. But that is hard to predict how or when.
Rocketman
Let me be the unlikely one to calm down the fanbois.
I pointed out shortly after the event that the presentation made a POINT to put the lack of flash on the iPad demoed, FRONT AND CENTER, almost full screen for goodness sake. And paused on it for a moment.
A couple of strong possibilities. First the one I like.
Apple cannot make forward statements. Apple is against Flash in its current incarnation. Adobe is a long time friend of Apple and, let's not forget NeXT before that, with pdf being a primary aspect. Pdf support on iPad was dwelled on. Adobe is working on a version of flash for ARM for the various incarnations out there such as palm, Google, and the like. That's when it will also be available for iPad. iPad (TOS 3.2) Safari accepts plug-ins. Flash is a plug in. The proper software does not exist yet and has not been released.
The one I like less.
Apple does not support Flash on TOS x.x and will not. If you want to operate a CPU crippled device, you must forsake Flash and play games for the platform, view versions of video websites optimized for other codecs, and generally move away from proprietary video file formats such as Flash and AVI.
The good news is when you buy the device you will have full disclosure of all its limits at the time of shipment. It can only get better after that via software updates. But that is hard to predict how or when.
Rocketman
Well I plan on buying two iPads and I already love it. So does that make me a fanboy ?
Yes! JK. It just means you love the product. I love all Apple products I have ever owned. I buy them because I enjoy the product and get use from it. It just happens to be Apple most of the time
Still, Apple doesn't just post the material without going over it, Steve would have absolutely reviewed the promo materials himself. The fact that Flash isn't supported isn't a problem, but they should have just picked another website for the promo.
Flash CANNOT work well on any tablet, and Apple cannot change that. Many/most Flash games, menus, and even video players would not even WORK.
Why? Because they are coded to use button down/up events and rollovers—such as video controls that pop up when you mouse over--that simply have no equivalent in touch. (Imagine what happens when you click a video—it pauses. Versus when you mouse over it without clicking: controls appear. Versus when you right-click—you get a menu with security settings. How does touch distinguish those three? It doesn’t without the Flash content being completely re-done for multitouch—in which case, just re-do it with HTML 5 or as a native app.) Plus Flash games/apps often expect a single-pixel mouse arrow, not a finger touch, so the whole UI, when it does work, would feel imprecise and frustrating. Is every Flash site going to reprogram everything to no longer use mouse-over functions and small button areas? No.
The ONLY “solutions" to the mouseover problem are:
a) Every Flash site is redesigned, by its own programmers, just for touchscreens (whether still in Flash or not) so that it doesn’t use mouseovers. That’s a ton of work, for thousands of parties, and isn’t going to happen. Plus, with many sites, mouseovers are so fundamental that the very concept of the site would be altered, creating a whole different experience that would annoy the site’s users.
b) Gestures or extra physical buttons are created that simulate mouseover—which is absurd since mouseovers, by their nature, are meant to be simpler than a click, not more complex. And meant to be natural, not something new to learn. Not a whole set of habits that violates our desktop habits.
c) Make clicking—the fundamental, constant action--itself MORE complex. Like requiring a double-tap or two-finger tap. (Two taps is how Mobile Safari does JS popup menus: first tap pops it up, second selects.) But Flash apps already use double-click for things, and extra taps only makes sense for certain limited mouseovers (like menu popups). Not for many others, including games. This is an awkward workaround for certain cases, and STILL would require Flash sites to be re-programmed. And how would you know which PARTS of a web page played by these special rules? One part of a page would do fundamental button-clicking differently from another part!
d) Have a mouse pointer near your finger, and not touch things directly. Use Apple track-pad style tap-and-drag gestures. This is not the point of direct finger manipulation. This is “like a laptop but worse” and has little reason to exist. You’d have to keep remembering whether you were in direct touch mode or “drag the arrow” mode.
e) Require extra force for a “real” tap. So you have a light tap vs. a hard tap: extra complexity, non-intuitive, easy for the user to get wrong (even with click feedback, as in Blackberry’s failed experiment), more expensive to build, would complicate the whole device just for the sake of one browser plugin, and would cause cramps that light touches do not.
Even if you ignore battery, slowdowns and crashes (and these are real), you CANNOT design a touchscreen to use current Flash sites well. It’s not that Apple has refused. It cannot, logically, be done. A finger is not a mouse, and Flash sites are designed to expect a mouse pointer in vital, fundamental ways.
So there IS NO GOOD solution to Flash on a touchscreen right now. If not having Flash is unacceptable, then so is having Flash that doesn’t work! No tablet, from Apple or Android or anyone, can make that go away.
But the market won’t reject the iPad over Flash any more than they did the iPhone and iPod. They will snap it up despite the lack of Flash, and get good value from it, and enjoy real games instead of Flash games, and wait for a real Hulu app (which is supposedly coming).
The vocal minority of Flash defenders will continue to complain—but they’ll still have no good, intuitive solution to offer for the mouseover problem. They themselves would HATE Flash on the iPad if they actually tried it. Many sites couldn’t work anyway (they NEED a mouse) and what did run would be slow and crashy and burn battery.
(And yes, these videos are a big embarrassment! Dumb. Unless they know those specific sites are moving to a non-Flash solution! Sooner or later they’ll have to.)
Why? Because they are coded to use button down/up events and rollovers—such as video controls that pop up when you mouse over--that simply have no equivalent in touch. (Imagine what happens when you click a video—it pauses. Versus when you mouse over it without clicking: controls appear. Versus when you right-click—you get a menu with security settings. How does touch distinguish those three? It doesn’t without the Flash content being completely re-done for multitouch—in which case, just re-do it with HTML 5 or as a native app.) Plus Flash games/apps often expect a single-pixel mouse arrow, not a finger touch, so the whole UI, when it does work, would feel imprecise and frustrating. Is every Flash site going to reprogram everything to no longer use mouse-over functions and small button areas? No.
The ONLY “solutions" to the mouseover problem are:
a) Every Flash site is redesigned, by its own programmers, just for touchscreens (whether still in Flash or not) so that it doesn’t use mouseovers. That’s a ton of work, for thousands of parties, and isn’t going to happen. Plus, with many sites, mouseovers are so fundamental that the very concept of the site would be altered, creating a whole different experience that would annoy the site’s users.
b) Gestures or extra physical buttons are created that simulate mouseover—which is absurd since mouseovers, by their nature, are meant to be simpler than a click, not more complex. And meant to be natural, not something new to learn. Not a whole set of habits that violates our desktop habits.
c) Make clicking—the fundamental, constant action--itself MORE complex. Like requiring a double-tap or two-finger tap. (Two taps is how Mobile Safari does JS popup menus: first tap pops it up, second selects.) But Flash apps already use double-click for things, and extra taps only makes sense for certain limited mouseovers (like menu popups). Not for many others, including games. This is an awkward workaround for certain cases, and STILL would require Flash sites to be re-programmed. And how would you know which PARTS of a web page played by these special rules? One part of a page would do fundamental button-clicking differently from another part!
d) Have a mouse pointer near your finger, and not touch things directly. Use Apple track-pad style tap-and-drag gestures. This is not the point of direct finger manipulation. This is “like a laptop but worse” and has little reason to exist. You’d have to keep remembering whether you were in direct touch mode or “drag the arrow” mode.
e) Require extra force for a “real” tap. So you have a light tap vs. a hard tap: extra complexity, non-intuitive, easy for the user to get wrong (even with click feedback, as in Blackberry’s failed experiment), more expensive to build, would complicate the whole device just for the sake of one browser plugin, and would cause cramps that light touches do not.
Even if you ignore battery, slowdowns and crashes (and these are real), you CANNOT design a touchscreen to use current Flash sites well. It’s not that Apple has refused. It cannot, logically, be done. A finger is not a mouse, and Flash sites are designed to expect a mouse pointer in vital, fundamental ways.
So there IS NO GOOD solution to Flash on a touchscreen right now. If not having Flash is unacceptable, then so is having Flash that doesn’t work! No tablet, from Apple or Android or anyone, can make that go away.
But the market won’t reject the iPad over Flash any more than they did the iPhone and iPod. They will snap it up despite the lack of Flash, and get good value from it, and enjoy real games instead of Flash games, and wait for a real Hulu app (which is supposedly coming).
The vocal minority of Flash defenders will continue to complain—but they’ll still have no good, intuitive solution to offer for the mouseover problem. They themselves would HATE Flash on the iPad if they actually tried it. Many sites couldn’t work anyway (they NEED a mouse) and what did run would be slow and crashy and burn battery.
(And yes, these videos are a big embarrassment! Dumb. Unless they know those specific sites are moving to a non-Flash solution! Sooner or later they’ll have to.)
Care to back that up with some hard numbers?
I played the sample video and CPU usage for WebKit (the latest nightly) hovered around 40%. Not enough to get my fans going like Flash does, even simple rotating banners on websites.
I wonder why Apple doesn't do their own advertising. Seems like it would save them money.