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Why don't you tell us Why Flash became the video standard for the web?

Because at the time, there was very little competition that supported what the media companies wanted - a way to lock down their content so that customers could not download it. Development was also really cheap despite it being difficult to program properly. The high availability of tools lead to the adoption.

From Wikipedia:

Many shareware developers produced Flash creation tools and sold them for under US$50 between 2000 and 2002. In 2003 competition and the emergence of free Flash creation tools had driven many third-party Flash-creation tool-makers out of the market, allowing the remaining developers to raise their prices, although many of the products still cost less than US$100 and support ActionScript.

This little quote explains how it got so popular too (again Wiki):
The use of vector graphics combined with program code allows Flash files to be smaller — and thus for streams to use less bandwidth — than the corresponding bitmaps or video clips. For content in a single format (such as just text, video, or audio), other alternatives may provide better performance and consume less CPU power than the corresponding Flash movie, for example when using transparency or making large screen updates such as photographic or text fades.

Once Macromedia got enough market dominance, it started to muscle out any viable competition - Adobe gave up and had to outright buy Macromedia as described here:

The W3C's SVG and SMIL standards are seen as the closest competitors of Flash. Adobe used to develop and distribute the 'Adobe SVG Viewer' client plug-in for MS Internet Explorer, but has recently announced its discontinuation. It has been noted by industry commentators that this was probably no coincidence at a time when Adobe moved from competing with Macromedia's Flash to owning the technology itself

Cite

In short: Macromedia got an early start and got real lucky with leadn and efficient code to take advantage of technological limits, and kept it proprietary leading people to poorly implement it due to lack of tools. It doesn't help that it does have limits that have never been properly addressed and due to the early massive adoption, doesn't get changed. It isn't as if Flash rules because it is good - it in fact has several limitations, its just that there never any good alternatives that were not heavily proprietary.
 
Might I add that Apple "created" webkit from KHTML in the first place and funded/supported it's development? (i.e. they didn't "follow" this time...)
well, 3D web first appeared in Mozilla, then appeared in google, now appeared in apple, that looks perfectly "follow" to me.

I see no reason to equal webkit to 3D web.
I fail to see how the video tag is crippled, since it works just fine. Is the img tag crippled because the standard doesn't specify image formats? :eek:

the reason for w3c standard is to enable universal web that can play nice with all browsers. A video tag that doesn't give users same result on different browsers, thats cripple.

IMG tag is not cripple because all browser vendors agree and support all of them, does safari support ogg? does firefox support H.264? does Opera support H.264?

If W3C was to guild the developing of the web, the video tag fragmentation is obviously not helping anyone, rather, it hinders the adoption of the standard.
 
Again, it's *not* about Apple's own standards, it's about creating and supporting new open *standards*, which....

I can agree with this. I personally like Flash, but I am not even arguing whether it's good or bad. I'd be perfectly fine if it's replaced with something better in a few years, when the major players can agree on a standard.

That's not the point.

The point is, that right now, Flash IS the most common web video format, and is incorporated into a huge number of sites.

And the iPhone CANNOT access these sites, or such video content. And, the iPhone will be the ONLY mobile device from a major maker, which CANNOT access them.

Flash, with almost 100% adoption rate, is not Real Media. Hell, it's not QuickTime, either. It's much bigger.

While a few nerds may complain about it, most users are happy to take advantage of the capabilities of Flash sites and Flash movies. They expect to be able to access such content, and would view the inability of the iPhone to access such large portion of web content as a significant disadvantage.

Similarly, if I client asks you to view a Flash ad, site, or video during a meeting, they won't care that you don't like Flash, or Apple is engaged in a turf war with Adobe. They just get annoyed, then think that the iPhone is a toy, unfit for regular use (yep, this just happened to me.)

The "battery" boogeyman has been trotted out by Apple before, first justifying using Edge, then multi-tasking, then Flash. Yet, my 3G S lasts for about 2 days before charge, which is about a day longer, than my wife's old Edge iPhone did.

Anyway, I am actually pissed enough about the lack of Flash support, to regret a bit my purchase of 2 3G S, which I otherwise love. I was waiting for the availability of Turn-by-Turn navigation, which the iPhone finally got, but now I am finding that the lack of Flash support is becoming a real issue (both work-related, as well as for casual use.)

Me thinks the lack of Flash support on the iPhone is the big opening for the new Android phones, like the Hero.
 
I can remember when you could have said the same thing substituting "RealMedia" for "Flash." It took about two years for the vast majority of RM sites to convert to either Flash or WMV. Which shows that if there is sufficient incentive, content producers will do it, and quickly. Most Web video content is not archival, so the transition does not involve re-encoding massive amounts of archival video.

I've never argued that a switch shouldn't be made. What I'm arguing is that given Flash's current market saturation, two years is a long time for iPhone users to wait without Flash. In fact, it's already been two years since the release of the first iPhone, and no distinguishable change has happened yet. I'm tired of encountering that little blue lego piece on practically every site I visit. It's a painful reminder that there's a piece missing from the iPhone's browser.
 
well, 3D web first appeared in Mozilla, then appeared in google, now appeared in apple, that looks perfectly "follow" to me.

I see no reason to equal webkit to 3D web.


the reason for w3c standard is to enable universal web that can play nice with all browsers. A video tag that doesn't give users same result on different browsers, thats cripple.

IMG tag is not cripple because all browser vendors agree and support all of them, does safari support ogg? does firefox support H.264? does Opera support H.264?

If W3C was to guild the developing of the web, the video tag fragmentation is obviously not helping anyone, rather, it hinders the adoption of the standard.

First appearing is not in doubt:

Apple is driving all the current specifications for 3D on the Web at the W3C, which will be implemented with the co-developed HTML 5 specification [by Apple and Google]:

CSS 2D Transforms Module Level 3 Spec

CSS 3D Transforms Module Level 3

CSS Transitions Module Level 3

CSS Animations Module Level 3

Regarding Video: The W3 should remain, as you state, agnostic towards a video standard or an image standard. The browser has the responsibility to include a format if it shows the demand for that specific format will directly determine how common or uncommon the consumer chooses to use or not to use that browser based upon their decision to include or not include a video/image format.

The hardware industry is where Ogg needs to focus it's fight. By fearfully pushing the concern that patents will strangle this option and thus the browser should pro-actively hedge against that occuring, before any such outcome can be projected will continue to fall on deaf ears outside of the Mozilla Foundation.

Now if the video player developers see an adverse effect on a collusion in this area you bet they will gain support.

Apple does not sell GPUs with a specific hardware codec for video acceleration and thus financially benefit from it's sales. Neither does Google or Opera.

I can't speak for Microsoft because I don't know their OEM agreements with those vendors.

All platforms include embedded players which handle the h.264 format. All current GPUs have h.264 hardware acceleration. Until something substantially better comes along to warrant h.264 to be knocked off the throne I don't see GPU vendors or embedded chip vendors targeting such acceleration coming along to deplace h.264.
 
I can agree with this. I personally like Flash, but I am not even arguing whether it's good or bad. I'd be perfectly fine if it's replaced with something better in a few years, when the major players can agree on a standard.

That's not the point.

The point is, that right now, Flash IS the most common web video format, and is incorporated into a huge number of sites.

And the iPhone CANNOT access these sites, or such video content. And, the iPhone will be the ONLY mobile device from a major maker, which CANNOT access them.

Flash, with almost 100% adoption rate, is not Real Media. Hell, it's not QuickTime, either. It's much bigger.

While a few nerds may complain about it, most users are happy to take advantage of the capabilities of Flash sites and Flash movies. They expect to be able to access such content, and would view the inability of the iPhone to access such large portion of web content as a significant disadvantage.

Similarly, if I client asks you to view a Flash ad, site, or video during a meeting, they won't care that you don't like Flash, or Apple is engaged in a turf war with Adobe. They just get annoyed, then think that the iPhone is a toy, unfit for regular use (yep, this just happened to me.)

The "battery" boogeyman has been trotted out by Apple before, first justifying using Edge, then multi-tasking, then Flash. Yet, my 3G S lasts for about 2 days before charge, which is about a day longer, than my wife's old Edge iPhone did.

Anyway, I am actually pissed enough about the lack of Flash support, to regret a bit my purchase of 2 3G S, which I otherwise love. I was waiting for the availability of Turn-by-Turn navigation, which the iPhone finally got, but now I am finding that the lack of Flash support is becoming a real issue (both work-related, as well as for casual use.)

Me thinks the lack of Flash support on the iPhone is the big opening for the new Android phones, like the Hero.

First off Apple is not the only phone manufacturer not supporting Flash. RIM is also in that camp. Would the "toy" phrase be used for Blackberry as well? Google is half way in there because they hate Flash as well and don't use it except for YouTube. Even with YouTube they have moved away from Flash.

You act as if h.264 has no adoption rate. Every video camera that is bought today uses h.264. Blu-Ray uses h.264. iTunes, Silverlight, & XBOX Marketplace use h.264. Flash uses h.264. It's not a question of if it will overcome Flash, but when.

In the case of your job, you should have never bought an iPhone then. Apple made it clear that they won't support it. That being said I've never heard anybody base their decision of buying a phone for a browser plugin.

The battery problem is not just some myth. Go look at the battery results of Anandtech's review of the new MBP. Just visiting Flash sites cut the battery life down by 33%. You also have Apple trying to come out with multitasking for the next OS release which will also drain battery life.
 
Flash, with almost 100% adoption rate, is not Real Media. Hell, it's not QuickTime, either. It's much bigger.

what do you mean by "adoption rate"? Almost 100% of what? Websites? I'm sorry but Flash does NOT run anywhere near 100% of websites. Minority of websites use Flash, and even smaller share of websites require flash.

I do a lot of surfing with my iPod touch. And it's few and far between when lack of flash is an issue

While a few nerds may complain about it, most users are happy to take advantage of the capabilities of Flash sites and Flash movies.

I bet that most people are frustrated by flash, and wonder why flash eats large share of their CPU-cycles on their multi-gigaflop computer...
 
...It's not a question of if it will overcome Flash, but when....

Again, you are missing the point: Flash is used by a huge number of sites. Used now, today, and it will be used at least for the next couple of years, or more. You can foam at the mouth, but the almost universal penetration rate of Flash is a fact.

As is a fact, that the iPhone will soon be the ONLY platform which lacks the ability to view Flash sites.

Google might hate Flash, but Android supports it, and it will very soon support Flash Player 10.

Microsoft is at war against Flash, pushing Silverlight 3, but Windows Mobile supports Flash.

Blackberry has never been a browsing powerhouse, but Skyfire is bringing Flash to the platform in a month.

Symbian has Flash.

Palm's webOS will have Flash support within a few months.

In fact, all of the above will support Flash Player 10 by the end of the year.

Only the iPhone will not, and a few "Apple-can-do-no-wrong" nerds with glassy eyes, sipping Kool-Aid, will keep muttering "who needs Flash," just like they muttered "who needs 3G," or "who needs copy/paste," or "who needs horizontal keyboard," or "who needs turn-by-turn navigation," or "who needs mms," or "who needs video," or "who needs multitasking...."

It just amazes me, that there are people who actually argue, that the iPhone's current inability to access a huge quantity of content, is somehow a good thing, and marks them as "chosen" geniuses, and will lead them to some web-heaven sometime in the future. I guess this is what they call "religion."
 
well, 3D web first appeared in Mozilla, then appeared in google, now appeared in apple, that looks perfectly "follow" to me.

I see no reason to equal webkit to 3D web.


the reason for w3c standard is to enable universal web that can play nice with all browsers. A video tag that doesn't give users same result on different browsers, thats cripple.

IMG tag is not cripple because all browser vendors agree and support all of them, does safari support ogg? does firefox support H.264? does Opera support H.264?

If W3C was to guild the developing of the web, the video tag fragmentation is obviously not helping anyone, rather, it hinders the adoption of the standard.

Its not up to whoever made it first. Its up to whoever implemented it better and who has the most money. Thats Apple. I wish i was .ogg though :(
 
Again, you are missing the point: Flash is used by a huge number of sites. Used now, today, and it will be used at least for the next couple of years, or more. You can foam at the mouth, but the almost universal penetration rate of Flash is a fact.

As is a fact, that the iPhone will soon be the ONLY platform which lacks the ability to view Flash sites.

Google might hate Flash, but Android supports it, and it will very soon support Flash Player 10.

Microsoft is at war against Flash, pushing Silverlight 3, but Windows Mobile supports Flash.

Blackberry has never been a browsing powerhouse, but Skyfire is bringing Flash to the platform in a month.

Symbian has Flash.

Palm's webOS will have Flash support within a few months.

In fact, all of the above will support Flash Player 10 by the end of the year.

Only the iPhone will not, and a few "Apple-can-do-no-wrong" nerds with glassy eyes, sipping Kool-Aid, will keep muttering "who needs Flash," just like they muttered "who needs 3G," or "who needs copy/paste," or "who needs horizontal keyboard," or "who needs turn-by-turn navigation," or "who needs mms," or "who needs video," or "who needs multitasking...."

It just amazes me, that there are people who actually argue, that the iPhone's current inability to access a huge quantity of content, is somehow a good thing, and marks them as "chosen" geniuses, and will lead them to some web-heaven sometime in the future. I guess this is what they call "religion."

If you have this much of a problem w/o Flash. DO NOT BUY AN IPHONE. Bitching all the time will not change Apple's mind about this. You have five other OSs and a million handsets to choose from. Don't give me this nonsense when you knew very well that Flash would not come to the iPhone and you not only bought a iPhone, but renewed your contract with AT&T as well.

You're acting like I'm on the side of Apple. I'm against Flash. The only browser plugin I use is click2flash. I could care less about Apple's stand on this. I'm not willing to act like the typical "I want it and I want it now" consumer. I am willing take on the limits of no Flash if that helps get rid of it quicker. I would even side with Theora over h.264 if open source had got their act together sooner. But it's OK anyway since there will still be <video> for H.264 & Theora until they do. I don't want or need a lousy proprietary plugin controlling the web.
 
If you have this much of a problem w/o Flash. DO NOT BUY AN IPHONE.

Believe it or not, it's perfectly valid to enjoy most aspects of a product while advocating for change in the aspects that you don't like. I've owned all three generations of iPhones and I couldn't imagine owning another phone. But that doesn't mean that I don't wish the iPhone supported Flash and it certainly doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to voice that opinion.
 
Believe it or not, it's perfectly valid to enjoy most aspects of a product while advocating for change in the aspects that you don't like. I've owned all three generations of iPhones and I couldn't imagine owning another phone. But that doesn't mean that I don't wish the iPhone supported Flash and it certainly doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to voice that opinion.

Isn't the iPhone a revolution in that way that you know Apple could add flash for free with a firmware update and your kind of pushing for it and took it in consideration when you bought the iPhone.

How many phones get updates with new feauters?

My point is only buy a phone if it has all of the things you need!
 
If you have this much of a problem w/o Flash. DO NOT BUY AN IPHONE. Bitching all the time will not change Apple's mind about this....

This is total nonsense. If people didn't bitch, the iPhone still wouldn't have copy/paste. And I bought the iPhone because I like it. A lot.

But now I am finding that I can't use a ton of sites (including MySpace,) and can't see most of the video on the web, including clips from the NYT, tons of YouTube videos, etc..

In my book, this is a problem, and it needs to be fixed.

And yes, I didn't really think about it before I bought the iPhone. Because like most consumers, when I go to a site with well-done animation, or play a video, I don't think, or care, how it's done. What I care about is, that I can enjoy it.

Now that I realized that I cannot enjoy it, I am unhappy. And I am not the only one.

... I'm against Flash. The only browser plugin I use is click2flash. .... I'm not willing to act like the typical "I want it and I want it now" consumer. I am willing take on the limits of no Flash if that helps get rid of it quicker.....

This is really your personal problem - talk to your shrink about it. Or turn it off in your personal browser.

But your opinion on Flash, even if correct, is really irrelevant to those of us, who want to, but are unable, to view all this content (and yes, currently, the vast majority of videos on the web are Flash, including most on YouTube, and there are more and more sites which require Flash.)

Oh, and frankly, I am sure, that at some point, Apple will bring Flash to the iPhone, and Jobs will tell you how great it is at the announcement. Just like they brought copy/paste, and 3G, and turn-by-turn navigation, and mms.

But, the fact that I couldn't view a Flash ad during a meeting, which I could easily view with my 2-year old WM phone, doesn't make me all warm and fuzzy inside.
 
Isn't the iPhone a revolution in that way that you know Apple could add flash for free with a firmware update and your kind of pushing for it and took it in consideration when you bought the iPhone.

Flash is an adobe product, they would be the one responsible for developing it, not Apple.
 
Again, you are missing the point: Flash is used by a huge number of sites. Used now, today, and it will be used at least for the next couple of years, or more. You can foam at the mouth, but the almost universal penetration rate of Flash is a fact.

As is a fact, that the iPhone will soon be the ONLY platform which lacks the ability to view Flash sites.

Google might hate Flash, but Android supports it, and it will very soon support Flash Player 10.

Microsoft is at war against Flash, pushing Silverlight 3, but Windows Mobile supports Flash.

Blackberry has never been a browsing powerhouse, but Skyfire is bringing Flash to the platform in a month.

Symbian has Flash.

Palm's webOS will have Flash support within a few months.

In fact, all of the above will support Flash Player 10 by the end of the year.

Only the iPhone will not, and a few "Apple-can-do-no-wrong" nerds with glassy eyes, sipping Kool-Aid, will keep muttering "who needs Flash," just like they muttered "who needs 3G," or "who needs copy/paste," or "who needs horizontal keyboard," or "who needs turn-by-turn navigation," or "who needs mms," or "who needs video," or "who needs multitasking...."

It just amazes me, that there are people who actually argue, that the iPhone's current inability to access a huge quantity of content, is somehow a good thing, and marks them as "chosen" geniuses, and will lead them to some web-heaven sometime in the future. I guess this is what they call "religion."

Android runs Linux and overwhelmingly in the tech end of the Linux community it's well known that Flash is despised and holds the CPU hostage.

Palm is willing to embrace any tech to keep it viable in the marketing circles,regardless of how it sacrifices system performance.

Blackberry supports both Microsoft and Adobe. They will embrace whomever wins as they don't write the OS.
 
Adobe has developed flash for the iPhone, Apple just don't want it (thank god for that)

Adobe has attempted to develop it and unfortunately it requires low level access to areas Apple has told, from day one, are off limits to 3rd parties.

Whether it's Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenSolaris, Darwin or else's kernel you target, Flash unduly holds the system CPU hostage.

It needs to be redesigned and Adobe will only be willing to do it when it becomes clear that HTML5/Video becomes a Recommended Standard with Safari, Chrome, other WebKit based Browsers, Opera and even Firefox are HTML 5 compliant and pushing the standard, with IE 9 or whatever it will be called declares it will standardize on it as well.

Adobe spent over $4 Billion for Macromedia so as to compete with Microsoft and now have to make tough decisions on how to embrace what is finally arriving: SVG 1.2 and the various CSS3 specs with HTML5.
 
Adobe has attempted to develop it and unfortunately it requires low level access to areas Apple has told, from day one, are off limits to 3rd parties.

Whether it's Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenSolaris, Darwin or else's kernel you target, Flash unduly holds the system CPU hostage....

While this may be true, most users don't care, they simply want to be able to view the content they want, not find "lego" squares in the middle of their blank screens.

And it's here, for everyone else, but us iPhone users: A beta version of Flash 10 will be made available for Windows Mobile, Symbian, Android, and webOS smartphones.

Also, just for fun, I punched in "Adobe Flash," "Apple Quicktime" and "H.264" in Google Trends.

See the results for yourself here.

So, I guess, Flash is hardly on its way out, regardless of what some here may wish, and regardless how deep some here will burry their heads in the sand.

We need Flash on the iPhone. Now.
 
My point is only buy a phone if it has all of the things you need!

The iPhone has all the features I NEED. All I really need on a phone is a phone of course, calendar, email, and contact management, and a web browser. Of course, there are plenty of features that I WANT in a phone and sadly, there isn't a phone in existence that has all of these features. Nor is there a car with all of the features I want, or a TV, or a bluetooth headset, or a video game system. There isn't even a toaster with all of the features I want (at least not at a price that I'm willing to pay for a toaster).

The point is, when it comes to complex products, it's not uncommon to have to compromise. Most people select a phone, not based on whether it has ALL of the features they want, but whether it has the features that are most important to them. The iPhone was that phone for me, and it's lack of Flash support was not a deal-breaker for me. But again, that doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to voice my opinion and say that Flash, whether we like it or not, is all over the internet and thus should be at least an option for those of us without strong feelings against it.
 
reading this thread, seems like hating flash is a must for apple fanboys.

Hating flash is a must for anyone who has ever come in contact with it.

It's an appalling mess to work with, seemingly being designed to make developers' lives as hard as possible. It's slow and unoptimised (especially on non-Windows platforms), it chews up CPU for simple tasks, and it doesn't have a clear focus on what it is intended for... it tries to do everything, but does nothing well at all.

It's a monstrosity that needs to be abandoned as soon as possible.
 
Excuse me!? You clearly have absolutely no idea what-so-ever. I work day in and day out with Flash. It takes a huge amount of education and design skill to be able to reach Flash's full potential. Yes it is too often used by people that have clearly picked up an illegal copy and have thrown something haphazardly together. Sites like this are easy to spot by those of us that know what we're doing. They are not reflective of what the upper end of Flash designers can do.

I can assure you that Flash is not going to go anywhere. The people I work with everyday, Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Disney, Warner Bros.....I could go on and on, are more than happy creating movie based experiences on the web in Flash.

Oh you are so talented and important (wow you designed Universal, Paramount, Disney and Warner Bros sites!!! Respect, you must have an amazing reputation in the field!)... sorry I doubted you.
 
But now I am finding that I can't use a ton of sites (including MySpace,) and can't see most of the video on the web, including clips from the NYT, tons of YouTube videos, etc..

I was under the impression that there are apps for Myspace, Youtube and NYT. :confused:
 
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