Adobe Executive Kevin Lynch Discusses Flash on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

[-=XX=-Nephilim]

Not sure what the intended impact of that was supposed to be. For the "future" it sure looks a lot like the present.

Reality check? That there are many Flash video sites out there? Um, okay. I get that. I also get that 90% of them (with the exception of Hulu) could provide HTML5 support or even dual Flash/HTML5 support easily. The "future" here isn't just being able to play today's content in a mobile device, it's playing tomorrow's content in that device. For one, even the demonstrated Flash/Nexus features (double-click to go full screen, for instance) break the expected Flash model; for another, anything needing to react to hover events will simply never get those on a touchscreen device. Content will need to be rewritten, even for the Nexus One.

Reality check? How much battery did the Nexus One consume while playing that Flash video? How hot did it get? A video of a salesman peddling their wares tends to gloss over the negatives like battery life/power consumption. Aside from your Flash fanboyism, how willing are you to believe that that particular salesman was giving you the full picture?

Reality check? Maybe Adobe really did put all their development muscle into making Flash work right on the Nexus One; do you think for a second that they'll put the same development effort into every other smartphone platform out there now or in the future? Adobe has a miserable track record on this: they fully support the platform which gives them the largest market audience or which scores them political points, and provide "almost okay enough" support on everything else. Examples abound in the Windows vs Mac development shifts over the last decade and how "next generation" players have repeatedly been left to wither on the vine once the market share has been consumed (Acrobat Reader absolutely sucks, and Flash sucks everywhere but Windows and maybe perhaps now Nexus One).

Reality check? How much control will HTC have in getting Flash to work just as well on *their* Android-based phone? How about Samsung? Adobe doesn't play well with others, and it simply never has. Assuming that the Nexus One implementation is the balls-out best Flash implementation on the planet, able to run with a tenth the resources of even the Windows variant, there is no way Adobe is going to spend that much effort to replicate that success on every other device out there. Not even for the "Nexus Two".

Reality check? How much flexibility will Google have in designing their next-generation phone? They can't have Flash performance decrease from one generation to the next, but how much control will they have over Adobe's development effort?

Hey you forgot this one!

Reality check?

While owners of iPad / iPhone / iPod Touch enjoy blue lego blocks on their screens - owners of Nexus One and dozens of other devices will enjoy almost full web experience of today and tomorrow (and this doesn't include just watching bloody videos - Flash is much, much, much more than that!)

This is the ONLY reality check I care about

 

[PeterQVenkman]

Reality check? How much battery did the Nexus One consume while playing that Flash video? How hot did it get? A video of a salesman peddling their wares tends to gloss over the negatives like battery life/power consumption. Aside from your Flash fanboyism, how willing are you to believe that that particular salesman was giving you the full picture?

Yes, that is a reality check. But when Steve Jobs does the same thing, we call it the reality distortion field. I would say apply the same degree of skepticism to Apple's statements.

I would also point out that on Nexus One, flash is a plugin you can choose to not install. Freedom is choice. I think it's better to have the option, but Apple's trying to push H264 because their whole video store is based around it.

Apple wants you to buy video off of iTunes.

2. If Adobe DOES come out with a decent mobile Flash player, you can thank Apple for that. The only reason they are putting major efforts into mobile Flash is to try and get their product onto the iPhone/iPad. If Apple had let Flash onto the iPhone already you wouldn't be seeing this level of optimization, period.

It's amazing to see what happens when there's true motivation behind improving a product. What better motivation is there than obsolescence?

This dude's got it right. Adobe needed a kick in the pants because they didn't really have any competition, and seemingly the didn't have the desire to turn out an amazing product. The threat of obsolescence is a wonderful motivator.

Then again, Apple does limit Adobe on the Mac in ways that windows does not.

 

[ChazUK]

Re: Flash on the Nexus One

1. Oh look, an impressive demo coming directly from Adobe.

2. If Adobe DOES come out with a decent mobile Flash player, you can thank Apple for that. The only reason they are putting major efforts into mobile Flash is to try and get their product onto the iPhone/iPad. If Apple had let Flash onto the iPhone already you wouldn't be seeing this level of optimization, period.

It's amazing to see what happens when there's true motivation behind improving a product. What better motivation is there than obsolescence?

Were you as averse to the iPhone advert that got pulled in the UK for being misleading? I love the dismissal here.

Plenty more flash propaganda here: http://tv.adobe.com/show/adobe-at-mobile-world-congress-2010/

And no, I won't thank Apple for the optimisation of Flash. I'll thank all of the partners of the Open Screen Project.

 

[danny_w]

Were you as averse to the iPhone advert that got pulled in the UK for being misleading? I love the dismissal here.

Quote from the ad:

If we had to guess, we'd say this decision is more likely to prompt Apple to be more careful with its ads in the future

Remember the initial iPad ad that showed flash sites as working? Good thing for Apple they changed it before they got caught (again).

 

[Journojulz]

Hey you forgot this one!

....and this doesn't include just watching bloody videos - Flash is much, much, much more than that!

Flash COULD be more than that.

But in reality, 90% of flash is either treaming media or ads.

The number of great websites that actually use flash creatively is miniscule.

But as this content can be converted to an app at the click of a button - what's the problem?

 

[Vava]

In the interview, Lynch also discusses Adobe's efforts on its AIR platform, which bundles the Flash runtime into applications, allowing developers to easily port their applications to a variety of platforms, including the iPhone.

Even if Flash finds its way to iPhone in the form of standalone applications (imagine an Obj-C++ wrapper allowing iPhone developers to integrate swf files in their apps), this might still be dangerous. This will simply give iPhone app developers the opportunity to use an alternative and popular API to create iPhone apps. This may sound promising at first, but imagine that AppStore contains 200K "really native" apps and 800K of apps with crippled UI which are basically implemented as "swf file wrapped in the open-source Obj-C++ player".
For the end user, 200K of "good apps" might be better than "200K good apps + 800K bad apps". AppStore is already somewhat a mess.
Sorry for far-fetched numbers

 

[Maserati7200]

No.

First, Apple has an acceleration API, it's called QuickTime or CoreVideo. You want acceleration, you use the API. Adobe wants to have direct hardware access like Microsoft gives them on Windows. That's a system stability nightmare, and I'm glad Apple isn't giving it to them.

Second, hardware acceleration is VERY new on the Windows side, as in: not even shipping in general release yet. It's just available in a beta 10.1. Performance of Flash on the Mac has sucked for a good decade, and the gap has gotten wider with every release. Adobe just hasn't put any development effort into optimizing for the Mac. Way back when, the explanation was that the PPC just couldn't handle it. Today they claim that it's lack of access to the video card. But, what has the reason been for the past 3 years, Flash running on Mac/Intel without hardware acceleration on Windows either? Why has the Windows side been many times less demanding for simple apps and videos, and less likely to crash the browser?

No, Adobe is spinning here. It's not about acceleration, and it never was. It's all about Adobe having written off OS X a few years back, downsizing their Mac dev teams, and not wanting to devote resources to the "minor" market share.

That's fine. That's their prerogative. But if you're going to write off Apple, don't be surprised when Apple writes off you.

Great post, sir.

I really think that's the root of this. When Jobs came back to Apple, it was a dire time. He made the deal with Microsoft, and they kept them. One of the prices was that Carbon had to be created as an environment so that large code bases could be easily moved from OS 9 to X. When they would redo more of the code, they could use Cocoa. Office is now Cocoa. Much of Adobe still is not. Adobe products in general have stayed with the original code base, and prolonged Carbon for 7 years longer than originally planned. They were slow to switch to Intel. They were slow to switch -- haven't yet -- to 64 bit. They have the code blob from Macrovision, and they use Microsoft tools to program and then they move things to Carbon. Is there a future for flash? I doubt it. Maybe open sourced. It uses way too many CPU cycles, it causes security holes of its nature, and Adobe seems deathly slow to correct them. Witness the horrible security flaws that showed up in Acrobat and Acrobat Reader, that they took MONTHS to correct. They just don't want to invest sufficient time with Apple.

And then, there's the stab in the back motif. Like Avid and Microsoft, Jobs begged companies to help with the transition. Avid dropped development for the Mac, and got Final Cut Pro in revenge. Microsoft made its deal, and they got lots of Quicktime licenses, and we got Office 2000-2004-2008, etc. Adobe has been dragging its feet, making the Mac the red-headed stepchild in a business they wouldn't have had without the Mac. And they work better because Windows gives them direct hardware APIs. Apple gives them CoreVideo calls. They won't use them, because that means they rewrite in Cocoa. They're always complaining about the Mac costs them a disproportionate amount of time. Jobs might be thinking, "I'll save you time for your development costs."

I'm thinking there's a secret unit at Apple at work on some development tools for HTML5 and CSS. Mess with Jobs...

Nope, Office 08 is still Carbon, and Office 2011 for Mac will be Carbon except for one app in the bundle (the mail program).

How do I know if a hulu video is at 480p or what resolution? If I go straight to hulu and select a trailer it plays just fine full screen, but it may be a lower resolution.

*facepalm* on the side of the player you have a myriad of options. One of them is video resolution. You could choose either 360p or 480p.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

Flash COULD be more than that.

But in reality, 90% of flash is either streaming media or ads.

While that number sounds impressive, it also sounds made up. Flash and Flex are used in a lot of government and corporate apps because they are so cross platform and so compatible with different standardized hardware in government/corporate. So much of our government is stuck in IE6/XP it makes me sick. One way to get around all of that BS is to work in Flash.

When my company has an online educational course done in flash that gets visited by 35,000 unique users, and less than 10 support complaints, that's pretty good numbers.

The number of great websites that actually use flash creatively is miniscule.

As is any technology. The majority of Apps on the iPhone are horrendous. Just like the majority of websites (flash or HTML based), video games, and any other consumable media.

But as this content can be converted to an app at the click of a button - what's the problem?

From what I'm hearing about the CS5 beta, Adobe isn't doing the best job of creating a smooth running iPhone app from Flash CS5, but that's really their problem. I get the feeling that this whole issue will finally make them get their act together.

Adobe wants to have direct hardware access like Microsoft gives them on Windows. That's a system stability nightmare, and I'm glad Apple isn't giving it to them.
...

Why has the Windows side been many times less demanding for simple apps and videos, and less likely to crash the browser?

So if Apple gives Adobe access like they have on windows, then it's a stability nightmare, while at the same time Flash is more stable on Windows?

Adobe isn't free of blame here. But neither is the planetoid sized ego of Steve Jobs.

 

[danny_w]

*facepalm* on the side of the player you have a myriad of options. One of them is video resolution. You could choose either 360p or 480p.

Sorry, it only appeared on some films so I had missed it.

 

[petsounds]

I would also point out that on Nexus One, flash is a plugin you can choose to not install. Freedom is choice. I think it's better to have the option, but Apple's trying to push H264 because their whole video store is based around it.

What's funny is, the iPhone has had a Plugins toggle under the Settings->Safari menu since launch day. Except AFAIK there are no plugins to turn off. It gives the illusion of choice, but in fact the choice is what Jobs wants you to have.

As for H.264, Flash can and does utilize H.264 as well. It's just a codec. Apple is just protecting its walled garden. Steve is a control freak, and the iPhone/iPad are the products he's dreamed about since even the Apple II days (I believe this is why he said the iPad is the most important product he's been a part of). He sees the computer as appliance, an appliance that he can make a ton of money from if he controls the whole experience. Flash (and Silverlight for that matter) presents an ecosystem Jobs doesn't have control over; therefore, it must be banished from his kingdom under the guise of performance and stability issues.

 

[kdarling]

Apologies if this has been mentioned already, but there was an interesting article about Jobs and Flash:

What Steve Jobs said to the WSJ about Flash and the iPad

Edit: never mind. Now I see a headline thread about it.

 

[Journojulz]

He sees the computer as appliance, an appliance that he can make a ton of money from if he controls the whole experience. Flash (and Silverlight for that matter) presents an ecosystem Jobs doesn't have control over; therefore, it must be banished from his kingdom under the guise of performance and stability issues.

Yup. Love it or leave.

Personally i haven't missed flash enough to consider ditching the iPhone.

And it isn't putting me off seriously thinking about the iPad.

 

[macUser2007]

...Reality check? That there are many Flash video sites out there? Um, okay. I get that. I also get that 90% of them (with the exception of Hulu) could provide HTML5 support or even dual Flash/HTML5 support easily....

Reality check? Flash on the web is NOT used only for video. It is used for a lot more, which will not be so easily replicated by HTML5 in the near future.

Reality check? Go to a major site, like Disney or Nike, on the iPhone, then check them out on your desktop. The desktop version, which is in Flash, provides a much, much richer experience. Experience which you'll totally miss on the iPad without Flash.

But guess what. With their Flash sites, businesses reach 95%+ of their target audience, and don't care about the losers who for whatever religious reasons "hate" Flash.

Just watch what happens to the iPad, without Flash. It will be another Apple TV. A bunch of the faithful will rush to buy, but when the general public figures out that their web experience is severely limited, Apple will start getting returns, just like they did with Apple TV.

Then, there are a bunch of Android tablets in the pipeline, some with cameras, full Flash, larger screens and multitasking. The Apple UI is still a bit better and it may outweigh some these.

But, surfing the web is a big advertised feature of the iPad, perhaps the biggest, and if it's crippled by the lack of Flash, it will soon turn the iPad into the joke Apple TV has become.

 

[Journojulz]

But, surfing the web is a big advertised feature of the iPad, perhaps the biggest, and if it's crippled by the lack of Flash, it will soon turn the iPad into the joke Apple TV has become.

That is one to put in the feb 2011 calendar.

Lets see how its selling in 12 months....

You may be right - but the iphone doesn't seem to be suffering - and spend more time browsing on it than anything else.

 

[jettredmont]

So if Apple gives Adobe access like they have on windows, then it's a stability nightmare, while at the same time Flash is more stable on Windows?

Adobe spends a lot of time on the Windows side making sure it runs well. And, no, we don't really know that 10.1/Windows with hardware acceleration is stable. It's a beta. It looks good so far, but it is a beta, which means it hasn't had the kind of exposure to every myriad video card vendor out there. Moreover, it hasn't had to deal with video card driver updates from every vendor out there, or with Windows updates from every vendor out there.

That Blue Screen of Death Windows used to be so famous for? The vast majority of them came from poorly-written video card drivers. Dealing with video card hardware is hard. Windows has done a much better job with the last couple releases in isolating how much damage bad video card drivers can do, and video card writers have also gotten a bit more smart over the same time frame. Adobe Flash gains from none of those safeguards when they write directly to hardware, and has none of the experience dealing with every chop-shop's video card model like ATI/NVIDIA do.

That's why it's a stability nightmare. It's doing precisely the same thing which gave Windows such a massive black eye last decade, and skirting around the safeguards which were put in place to prevent recurrence.

Moreover, having direct hardware acceleration hardware access is simply not necessary for Flash. Yes, it speeds it up on the Windows side (although going through the APIs would work just as well). But, Flash simply isn't doing the type of thing that should need video hardware acceleration. The built-in OS/third-party video players do just fine at sending an H.264 stream to the screen without direct hardware access (QuickTime Player just wraps around the QuickTime API), with a miniscule fraction of the CPU usage Flash wastes.

So, again: for whatever reason, Adobe can't get Flash to perform well (and by "well" Flash/Windows is a very low bar; even Flash on Windows doesn't utilize the hardware well; it's just not as abhorrently slow as Flash elsewhere). So, you hand that same dev team the keys to hardware-level realtime access so they can eke out another 10-25% performance gain doing what your own OS/apps team has already done quite well with 75-85% better performance?

 

[whooleytoo]

That is one to put in the feb 2011 calendar.

Lets see how its selling in 12 months....

You may be right - but the iphone doesn't seem to be suffering - and spend more time browsing on it than anything else.

That's a very fair point. But perhaps people don't expect (or want!) flashy animations on a small iPhone screen; whereas on something bigger like an iPad they will expect a full, rich, browsing environment.

 

[willybNL]

http://www.airstriptech.com/ and take a gander at the use of Flash right smack in the middle of their home page.


And, we'll finish this off with the fact that more than 7 million people attempted to download Flash on the iPhone:

1. Ok, who is waiting 1.5 minutes (20mbit DSL line over here) to open a promotional VIDEO that was made in flash. Having it in MP4 would have been so much faster.

Olympics: Yeah, that is a good example of good flash usage. But JQuery would have done the trick too, probably with less data and cpu.

2. That number makes me wonder.... how many of the 7 mill. (an number that is (C) Adobe themselfs) end up on that page because an AD doesn't want to be loaded. I've seen that page numbours times, just because I clicked an image that apparently was the backup image of a flash, and the link was just incorrectly linked. The number of flash-blockers vs. flash-downloads should ring a bell too!

And for the goody bag, Mac's aren't the only ones that crash on Flash:
"The Adobe's implementation of the browser plugin is notorious for crashing Firefox. Fortunately there are alternatives, notably gnash (GPL license) and swfdec (LGPL license). " from http://kb.mozillazine.org/Macromedia_Flash#Crashes

IMHO: Flash was great.

 

[Journojulz]

That's a very fair point. But perhaps people don't expect (or want!) flashy animations on a small iPhone screen; whereas on something bigger like an iPad they will expect a full, rich, browsing environment.

A fair counterpoint.

It is indeed a not ideal situation.

But i just tried the nike site to see what excellent work flash is doing.
It changed my desktop picture than crashed safari.

The bottom line is that flash competes with the app store, itunes and the book store - and that is unlikely to be tolerated.

So we have a choice - flash without apple or apple without flash

Personally i haven't found a flash site i can't find an alternative for, but i have found that a clunky interface is a heck of a lot more annoying.

I'll just have to wait till i get back to my desktop to design a lime green pair of trainers with purple fur trim.

But by march there will probably be an app for that.

 

[jettredmont]

Reality check? Flash on the web is NOT used only for video. It is used for a lot more, which will not be so easily replicated by HTML5 in the near future.

True, there are Farmvilles and other games in Flash. Flash is the new ActiveX. At the same time, the HTML5 Canvas tag is working at replacing much of that functionality (much less advanced than the video tags, but it's coming along). IMHO, five years from now you'll see that Canva has done to Flash precisely what Flash did to ActiveX, and for precisely the same reasons.

But guess what. With their Flash sites, businesses reach 95%+ of their target audience, and don't care about the losers who for whatever religious reasons "hate" Flash.

Huh. If I'm out looking for a restaurant and I fire up my Blackberry, can you tell me which restaurants I will NOT be going to? Yup, the Flash-based ones. If I'm doing a Google search on my desktop for those same restaurants, can you tell me which ones will NOT show up? Yup, the Flash-based ones, because Flash doesn't index well in search engines. I'm a "religious" freak who happens to be blind; can you tell me which web sites my screen reader will absolutely not be able to grok? Yup, the Flash-based ones.

Catering to Flash alone (ie, not providing an alternate non-Flash site with the same content) loses far more customers than just the "religious" nuts who hate Flash. Flash is good for, as it says, "flash", but if you're hiding your content inside that you are a purveyor of Bad Web Design.

Just watch what happens to the iPad, without Flash. It will be another Apple TV. A bunch of the faithful will rush to buy, but when the general public figures out that their web experience is severely limited, Apple will start getting returns, just like they did with Apple TV.

But, surfing the web is a big advertised feature of the iPad, perhaps the biggest, and if it's crippled by the lack of Flash, it will soon turn the iPad into the joke Apple TV has become.

Ummm ... never heard about massive returns from the AppleTV. And it is a very good device for what it does, and what it does is exactly what it says it does on the outside of the tin. The problem is that people want more than what the AppleTV gives them, and the current hardware just has no hope of providing it. But, that's rather off-topic. No, it doesn't offer Flash (although Boxee had a Flash implementation hack built in that could run on ATV), but only a moron would think that it was supposed to.

Will the iPad also miss a critical part of the market segment? I don't know. It's possible.

Compare this to the iPod. Never had an FM radio in it until the latest nanos. How many times was Apple told that that's the way people want to listen to music? How many times did pundits declare that without FM, the iPod was doomed to failure? And radio had real legitimate uses: anyone exercising in a gym probably would like to hear the audio from the TV set in the corner, which requires an FM tuner. Still, the iPod somehow managed to stumble along despite this glaring deficiency. Crippled, perhaps, but it's made Apple a few bucks.

I don't know how the iPad will do in the market, and if its lack of Flash support will hurt it, or if its lack of Flash support will hurt Flash (both of which may well happen). But neither do you. We will see.

 

[err404]

While HTML 4 allows non-standard elements to be embedded into a page, Flash is NOT a Web Standard recognized by W3C. Because of this, Web designers who “require” Flash should find a new job. It is fine to use Flash, but a site should render appropriately with out it.
Just because a company wants to stick their proprietary virtual machine into Apples browser doesn’t mean that Apple should allow it; especially considering Adobes track record for stability and performance under OSX. (Personally I’d like to see Apple be more open to third party apps and allow alternate browsers, potentially with Flash embedded, but that’s a different topic).
Ironically Adobe does not even want Flash to be a recognized standard. As it stands today, they enjoy the fruits of being only company capable of creating a Flash player and dev tools.
If Flash were a real standard, the spec would be published and compatible engines and dev tools could be created. This would allow for third party optimized implementations like we have seen with JavaScript and HTML.
Admittedly Flash owes its existence to limitations of HTML 4 for creating interactive content. W3C was far to slow in evolving the standard. However that does not automatically elevate Flash to the status of Standard.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Then again, Apple does limit Adobe on the Mac in ways that windows does not.

How?

Removing Carbon is no real limit. The only limit there for Adobe is the mindset of the programmers.

They still have full access to Cocoa, a consistent OpenGL implementation. They have access to a standard hardware acceleration library. They can use ObjC++. Its just as a programmer gets older and older, they get stuck into that old man mindset where they don't want to learn anyhting new, which is in fact the opposite of what they need to do.

Programmers need to keep a fire underneath their asses, either a self preserved one or one held by a company. Not doing so ends up with crap.

This exact thing has happened at work. We have a Trust and Practice Management program made by Lexis Nexis. Those programmers are so stuck in their ways, it is written in VISUAL BASIC 6. This is causing SO MANY PROBLEMS. I have to jump through hoops to make it work on 7. Not only that, it causes 7 to freeze after an arbitrary amount of time has passed. Not only that, it looks like arse.

We also have a conveyancing macro called F@lcon, now the guy who made it is called Bruce. It was designed for Word Xp and 2003. But the guy is getting demand for an OpenOffice version from several companies and the Partner who hires me is willing to spend a lot of money on a O version. He is getting offered a lot of money but refuses to do so because he will not learn O BASIC.

 

[bnerd]

I just love how the video is in Flash!!! Gotta luv Flash!

 

[little.pm]

I just love how the video is in Flash!!! Gotta luv Flash!

well.

but flash is broken by design.

its possible to use xml and xslt, some css and javascript, and even adobe's own invention of svg to do the same, but no one does. Why? Because with flash a lot of designers entered the web, who have no idea of how it works, but who have some "tool" to make "flash whatever" - and it is platform independent. Instead of insisting on flash some might consider learning the "how does that work" to be able to produce platform independent content.

There was once that great idea of hyper text components, that allows (I did prove that) to render XUL in IE6 without "custom add ons" like flash is, and that would allow to render even PDF in an IE without Acrobat reader and that would allow to use custom html tags in a very flexible manner, but folks who "make flash content" don't want to have a clue about how that stuff works and thanks to "flash" they don't need to.

Flash is a going assistance for the learning impaired.

 

[zweigand]

Were you as averse to the iPhone advert that got pulled in the UK for being misleading? I love the dismissal here.

Plenty more flash propaganda here: http://tv.adobe.com/show/adobe-at-mobile-world-congress-2010/

And no, I won't thank Apple for the optimisation of Flash. I'll thank all of the partners of the Open Screen Project.

If Apple had allowed Adobe to put Flash on the original iPhone none of this would have taken place. People would have just gotten used to the fact that Flash video more often than not equaled "slideshow", and Adobe's answer to the problem would simply have been "Future processors will be able to handle Flash better …keep upgrading your phones." Not only that, but HTML5 wouldn't have a near the backing it does now because the content (however crappy it ran) would be available to all these wonderful devices.

If it weren't for Apple, we'd all still be stuck with Windows Mobile, etc.

 

[macUser2007]

While HTML 4 allows non-standard elements to be embedded into a page, Flash is NOT a Web Standard recognized by W3C. Because of this, Web designers who “require” Flash should find a new job.... blah, blah, blah....

Do you people live in the real world, or in some walled off garden where everyone wears white?!!!!

What part of "Flash is on virtually EVERY desktop in the world" is so difficult to grasp?

What part of "virtually every major company's site uses Flash, including Disney and Pixar" is giving you people trouble?

What part of "Flash is here NOW, it will be here in the next few years at least, and will not be replaced any time soon - certainly not during the lifespan of the iPad v.1" do you not get?

I don't care about Flash. I don't even care about games. But I do care when I see that damn blue diamond on my iPhone. And I don't even browse for pleasure on a 3.5 screen. Neither do most people I know.

But the iPad is different. It has a big screen, and it is advertised as the "best way to experience the web.... Hands down." Yeah, but it's half the web, in reality. Web Lite. Hands down. And out, for me.

I love Apple stuff. I can put up with a lot. I put up with PowerPC, I put up with lack of games, I put up with the "cut/paste/search will screw up your phone" BS. (The same crowd was screaming "I don't need no cut/paste/search" back then too. Phew!)

But this is just nuts. "Best way to experience the web.... Hands down." Yeah, if you are sufficiently mentally-challenged to believe it.