Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple Corrects iPad Promo Video to Show No Flash Capability

sohelpme said:
And who do you think actually initiated the widespread adoption of USB? FireWire? It was ENTIRELY driven by Apple. Until Apple shipped an iMac that only had USB/FireWire ports and no legacy ports [and I don't think any of the major PC manufacturers were even generally including USB ports at all], nobody was making USB devices. After Apple shipped the iMac, suddenly all kinds of mice, keyboards, printers and all kinds of other devices started having USB connections, and now everybody's desktops are covered in USB cables and knickknacks. If Apple had gone with the backwards-compatibility route by including adb and serial ports, it would have been YEARS and YEARS later before USB would taken off, just because there would be no reason for existing devices to change.
Click to expand...
I'm sure AidenShaw can chime in with more detailed information about the 96-97' era but USB was out before it was ever on the iMac. Everyone else was holding out for Windows 98 native support of it over the just barely supported with the OSR2 updates. You remember OSR2 right?
 
bilbo--baggins said:
Flash causes so many problems. I hope that Apple's stance will continue to discourage companies from using Flash on their sites. I used Flash CS3 just to produce a simple slide show once, it's a really horrible experience just to do some really basic tasks.
Click to expand...

You don't know how to author in Flash and so you blame it? I hope you realize that makes no sense.
 
Paulyboy said:
However, what are all the non-tech savvy people who buy these easy-to-use portable computing devices going to think when page after page of websites come up with blank boxes in them?
Click to expand...

Very true. Your linked Fraser Speirs article makes a good point too. The original iPod was quite limited and had its problems.

The lack of flash is going to hurt iPad a lot more than say, lack of camera, USB or multi-apping. Probably not a big deal for a large part of the (initial) intended market, ie. the baby boomers. But the other part of the initial intended market, the younger part of the gen Y (always a rich vein for Apple iProducts) will very quickly turn if they can't access their favourite sites (and from the links provided by others in this thread, it looks like that is a high probability). This generation is much more highly co-ordinated as a consumer group because of heavy use of social networking that the internet brings. In short, word spreads fast.

I presume that Apple will be banking on the Apps making up for this. That is, flash sites being reinvented as Apps. It's a big gamble. If the iPad is going to take off, Flash has to come, unless Flash is on the decline (I don't see any evidence for that).

But the only things that are set in stone with the iPad are:
1. screen resolution and aspect
2. minimum cpu/memory/gfx environment as provided on iPad 1.0.
3. iPhone OS
4. Slim dimensions, minimalist styling (few ports etc)

Everything else will evolve (including iPhone OS) over time. Just like the iPod, and the iPhone. Thus, to call iPad a "FAIL" is meaningless.
 
Eidorian said:
I'm sure AidenShaw can chime in with more detailed information about the 96-97' era but USB was out before it was ever on the iMac. Everyone else was holding out for Windows 98 native support of it over the just barely supported with the OSR2 updates. You remember OSR2 right?
Click to expand...

Yes, USB was available as a standard. You COULD make a USB device, but Windows support for USB was crappy, so why would you? You instead just slapped on a serial or parallel connection instead, because all the windows machines had one, and it worked and had good drivers. The manufacturers were leery of adding the ports because it cost extra and there were no devices that used them, device manufacturers were leery of using it because no computers had good support for USB, and Microsoft didn't put much effort into USB support because nobody was demanding it.

It took Apple to have the balls to say, nope, time to stop relying on stuff developed in the 70's, you want to connect to our computers, you use something from the 90's [when the iMac was originally released]. That TOTALLY kickstarted the change to USB connections for both Mac and PC.
 
sohelpme said:
YouTube, by FAR the largest, most used Flash site in the world, changed to work well with the iPhone.
Click to expand...
No, the iPhone changed to work well with YouTube. Apple realized the phone would look silly without being able to view YouTube videos so they made a special YouTube application for it. It's a testament to the importance of YouTube, not the importance of the iPhone, and it highlights the problem with not supporting Flash.
 
Regardless of how unwavering supports say that lack of Flash ain't a biggie. Lets be honest, any large internet device that lacks such a commonly used format throughout the NET is bound to be stunted in its acceptance. There is no IF and BUT about that.

If it comes down to that, then why should a prospective purchaser of the Pad who already has a Kindle and a Iphone decide to spend the extra $$$ on it, to do no better?

This sort of "small" technicality for most supporters, is actually quite monumental herring.
 
bnerd said:
What happened to freedom of speech and stating how you feel about a topic? It's my opinion and I don't need BIG BROTHER watching over what I say.
Click to expand...

MR isn't the place for freedom of speech. This place is privately owned and moderated to keep the conversations civil. You want freedom of speech, surf over to Youtube where you're allowed to insult people and even threaten them. But here at MR, you WILL have big brother watching whether you like it or not. :p
 
nick9191 said:
Apple will include Flash when Adobe get off their asses and make a decent copy of Flash for OS X. It kills half the Macs out there, how is it meant to fair on a 1ghz ARM chip?

Until that time comes feel free to moan without any real understanding of why Flash is not on the device.
Click to expand...

In all honesty Flash is running fine on many latest generation multitouch smart phones. A4 is much more powerful chip then these smart phones have so there is no reason why Flash 10.1 wouldn't be running smoothly on iPad. I honestly don't believe the lack of flash has anything to do with processors or ability run it smoothly. Its all about media sales channel control. Apple wants to sell as much media content as they can to the iPad owners without competition from Flash based third party content providers. :mad:
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3GS (JB3.1, unlocked): 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)

Bemopti123 said:
Regardless of how unwavering supports say that lack of Flash ain't a biggie. Lets be honest, any large internet device that lacks such a commonly used format throughout the NET is bound to be stunted in its acceptance. There is no IF and BUT about that.

If it comes down to that, then why should a prospective purchaser of the Pad who already has a Kindle and a Iphone decide to spend the extra $$$ on it, to do no better?

This sort of "small" technicality for most supporters, is actually quite monumental herring.
Click to expand...

Funny, Apple's other internet devices which lack Flash support have hardly been 'stunted' in acceptance. In fact, if sales mean anything at all, most people seem to not care very much.
 
fobfob said:
I presume that Apple will be banking on the Apps making up for this. That is, flash sites being reinvented as Apps. It's a big gamble. If the iPad is going to take off, Flash has to come, unless Flash is on the decline (I don't see any evidence for that).
Click to expand...

Thinking about this more, does anyone here know what direction the web is going anyway? I don't (I'm not in IT or anything web related for work). Won't traditional (and yes, Flash based) "web pages" like Disney and others shown above eventually be seen as old-school and quaint as newsgroups and IRC are now? What is the best delivery method and container for this content?

If Apple was truly visionary, it would be OK to not have Flash, but they must instead implement the next wave of internet content access. Unless they intend to create it...
 
fobfob said:
Thinking about this more, does anyone here know what direction the web is going anyway? I don't (I'm not in IT or anything web related for work). Won't traditional (and yes, Flash based) "web pages" like Disney and others shown above eventually be seen as old-school and quaint as newsgroups and IRC are now? What is the best delivery method and container for this content?

If Apple was truly visionary, it would be OK to not have Flash, but they must instead implement the next wave of internet use. Unless they intend to create it...
Click to expand...
No more URLs. Only Apple approved application versions of websites. :D
 
Bad apple!

I dont think iPad is worthless but it could be so much more!
I was hoping for a OSX tablet with HDMI and of course full functional browser.
Actually i wanted to use Firefox with my nice plug-ins such as adblock.

I want to buy the iPad but then again i dont see a point having my iPhone. It works so well already. If Apple actually gives me (us) a proper tablet with
OSX and perhaps HDMI then i will be waiting in the line.

As Hitler says in the movie this is the first time apple let me down :mad::apple::mad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfEjnhaUytQ&feature=related
 
AidenShaw said:
The same bitstream will look identical whether it comes from a BD, an HD, an SDD, a network link, or even a 50,000-floppydisk RAID-0 array.

It will *not* look better when read from a hard drive.
Click to expand...

Visual quality is the same, but i for example hate the sound of the spinning plastic. Over network from the home file server it makes more fun.
 
mavis said:
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3GS (JB3.1, unlocked): 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)



Funny, Apple's other internet devices which lack Flash support have hardly been 'stunted' in acceptance. In fact, if sales mean anything at all, most people seem to not care very much.
Click to expand...

Most don't care about flash on a phone, sure it's a pain, but most people get up open their laptops and watch the content on there.

Can you imagine surfing the net on your iPhone running into a site that uses flash, so you get up and turn on your ipad to watch just to see it won't play on there either. I mean that just a pain in the ass.
 
KT Walrus said:
The solution is to adopt Click2Flash. Let iPad users decide when they want to run Flash on a webpage.
Click to expand...

This can be accomplished by either activating or deactivating it in the SysPref app.

bnerd said:
Flash 10.1 supports multitouch and is now running on Andriod, Blackberry, Palm Pre and other mobile devices.

You can do Pinch, swipe, double tap, ect with Multitouch Flash... so Apple has no excuse. AND flash 10.1 was optimized for mobile performance.
Click to expand...

:apple: and Steve Jobs will cave once the iPad sales tank. It will become the next G4 Cube and :apple:TV, while MacMini is coming pretty close.

cyclopropene said:
And in the same video, Ive states, "... i don't have to change myself to fit the product..." and Schiller claims this is "...the best web surfing experience..." I am not a loyalist of Flash, but are these statements not quite true with iPad's significant display limitation? I am losing some respect to Apple.
Click to expand...

Would not be the first time :apple: and Co along with they marketing team have lies or misrepresented the truth.

billystlyes said:
I am over it. The iPad is such a disaster on so many levels. I'm sure some people wil buy it, but it could have been so much more.
Click to expand...

:apple: censorship at its best, by not including Flash.

seedster2 said:
I agree completely.

If this appealing to the average consumer then I imagine they will be confused as to why this supposedly superior web surfing tool will not display their favorite shows or websites.
Click to expand...

APPL stock will tank once the iPad gets into consumers hands and word-of-mouth spreads that a web browsing device cannot display the web in its entirety. What a joke?

elfin said:
Flash is the Floppy disk of the 2000's.

I'd rather Apple adopt open standards like HTML5 and H.264.
Click to expand...

No one is saying that :apple: should not adopt HTML5 and H.264. The entire issue is to include the formats that make the web what it is TODAY, not what it will be 2-5 years from now. Most video content and animation is in Flash presently and the iPad will be going on sale in 2 months. Not 2-5 years from now when Flash might or might not matter.
 
How many websites are going to send you to their "mobile version" because the iPad lacks the features and plugins of a real Internet browser.
 
mavis said:
Funny, Apple's other internet devices which lack Flash support have hardly been 'stunted' in acceptance. In fact, if sales mean anything at all, most people seem to not care very much.
Click to expand...
If the iPad and the iPod Touch were the same, the iPad wouldn't exist. Logically, then, the iPad exists for a different purpose, so why would the same rules apply?

I have an iPhone. It doesn't matter that it doesn't support Flash. Why? Because the surfing experience is so compromised anyway, I have other things to worry about, like pinching, zooming, scrolling and double-tapping like crazy to make any sense of a web page through a tiny peephole. I couldn't play a Flash game on it anyway because the graphics would be too miniscule.

If I had an iPad, it would be a big deal. It's not a peephole, it's a doorway. It's not a phone that you also happen to be able to surf on if you must, it's a surf tablet marketed as "the best way to experience the web". How could that slogan possibly apply to a product that doesn't support the most common content on the web after text and images?
 
about youtube flash, and iphone

"YouTube, by FAR the largest, most used Flash site in the world, changed to work well with the iPhone."

Google was happy to revise youtube to accomodate then tech ally apple's new invention. But now google is more of and apple competitor then collaborator. If the iphone were released today, i wouldn't expect youtube to drop flash, esp if android is running flash apps. Similarly, apple and ms have a much better relationship than apple and adobe, so its possible apple gave silverlight api support.
 
Eidorian said:
I'm sure AidenShaw can chime in with more detailed information about the 96-97' era but USB was out before it was ever on the iMac. Everyone else was holding out for Windows 98 native support of it over the just barely supported with the OSR2 updates. You remember OSR2 right?
Click to expand...

USB was indeed out on the PC first, but as PC's continued the support of legacy interfaces (parallel, serial, PS/2, diskette) there was no real incentive to move forward to USB. Apple's iMac killed ADB and the diskette, and added USB.

Apple has a history of dumping legacy features, and that includes Firewire for consumers, Flash on mobile devices, DVI on monitors and macs for Displayport. Apple is even forcing wireless with the iPad, by the need for a dongle for both USB and SD. All in the name of moving forward.

Funny thing is, there is too much money on the table for people to ignore Apple in the mobile space. So if Apple doesn't support flash, Hulu will build an h.264 version, and the company has implied as much. The rest will follow.

Feel free to boycott Apple, but it won't bring you Flash. Too late in the game for that.
 
Chaos123x said:
How many websites are going to send you to their "mobile version" because the iPad lacks the features and plugins of a real Internet browser.
Click to expand...

One review site said it went directly to their regular site. Either Gizmodo or Engadget. I can't remember. It did not redirect them to the iPhone or Droid versions.
 
I think to apple a web without flash IS the best experience. They aren't liars for stating what they think.
 
killerrobot said:
I think you're forgetting about all of computer users (Mac or PC)that use flash everyday in your equation.
(30 million iPhones and iPod touch + O iPads < 1 Billion Computers)
Apple has no leverage in this matter.
Click to expand...

I'm not forgetting about them, but I'm suggesting that Apple really doesn't care. Why? Because they're putting all their chips into the consumer space, and increasingly into the mobile space. And they're focused on consumer activities such as web browsing, sorting photos, listening to music, watching movies, and so forth. I have a fast 24" screen iMac and a quad-core Mac Pro at home. 4 years ago, I probably used my desktop machines for 80% of my web surfing, and my laptop for the other 20%. 2 years about the split was more like 40% desktop, 30% laptop, and 30% iPhone. Now it's 20% desktop, 40% laptop, and 40% iPhone. In another 2 years, I would guess it'll be something like 0% desktop, 10% laptop, 20% iPhone, and 70% iPad.

I don't think I'm unique here, that is clearly the consumer trend. People are using their desktops less and less each year, especially for web surfing, and many people aren't even buying desktops anymore. Why fire up my laptop when I can pick up my iPad and already be at the site I want before my desktop wakes up from sleep? And I can move around with it as well.

The bottom line is I think Apple is so confident in the trend towards the new kinds of devices they make (iPhone and now iPad) that they're betting in the majority of people web surfing happening on these in the near future. And as John Gruber pointed out a few days ago, there is an installed base tipping point where Flash becomes irrelevant and eventually isn't needed at all. In 5 years, if only 75% of devices that people are browsing on support Flash, is that enough to keep it alive? I don't think so. Flash's strength in the past has been its ubiquity, and as soon as it's non-ubiquitous, it's going to lose support. 10 years ago, how many people would have predicted Microsoft would be eclipsed by Google and Apple?

It's a gamble for Apple but they may end up winning this fight.
 
rowspaxe said:
"YouTube, by FAR the largest, most used Flash site in the world, changed to work well with the iPhone."

Google was happy to revise youtube to accomodate then tech ally apple's new invention. But now google is more of and apple competitor then collaborator. If the iphone were released today, i wouldn't expect youtube to drop flash, esp if android is running flash apps. Similarly, apple and ms have a much better relationship than apple and adobe, so its possible apple gave silverlight api support.
Click to expand...

True but isn't YouTube testing HTML5 right now and maybe dropping Flash? I know their is a HTML5 beta right now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back