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.
Adobe Responds to Apple's Anti-Flash Stance With Comments on Openness, Ad Campaign
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Only on a Mac. Go figure.
What, you have the option of turning flash on on your iPods and iPads? Or do you not have the option and accept what has been shoved down your throat as a "magical" and "revolutionary" piece of something that can't do (through no fault of the hardware, mind you) what a comparably-priced note/netbook can do?
Good ol' days ? It's still there, they even have CS5 now :
http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/shop_mac/software/adobe?mco=MTM3NDgwNjM
Yes well that's what I said. So far, indeed, I'm fine. I don't mind that my website isn't available on portable devices, I'll figure that out later. However, I just don't want Apple to do something drastic to stop Flash form working on Macs in the future. And I have reason to believe they may want to do that sometime soon!
Yes, sure, I understand that Apple doesn't want Flash on the iPhone, that's perfectly logical, I'm just afraid of the future: what if Apple decides to ban Flash from their Macs, or do something to make the Flash experience. I'm fine the way things are now, I would like HTML5 to become awesome soon, but I don't want Flash to become unsupported anytime. Just like Safari sort of dropped support for GIFs (try looking at a GIF animation in Safari, it just takes 10 minutes to load while it takes 1 second on Firefox, Chrome or even IE). Not that I use GIFs but some of my friends send loads of stupid GIFs and it just pisses me off that Safari can't read them properly. GIFs are part of the web, no matter how lame they are. You can't just drop support for them just because "no one" (99% of people) uses them.
This is a hilarious read from a new interview with an Adobe Co-Founder:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20004996-93.html
They may have ported their products but its a shoddy representation not using Apple's current technology, only several months or years after the Windows release.
Wow. Just wow. If that's the thinking from the top-down, no wonder they're having problems.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20004996-93.html
They may have ported their products but its a shoddy representation not using Apple's current technology, only several months or years after the Windows release.
Wow. Just wow. If that's the thinking from the top-down, no wonder they're having problems.
Wow, just wow what ? Wow, you don't know what a personal computer is ?
Wow, you don't realize it's a rebuke of a nonsensical Steve-ism ?
"A personal computer (PC) is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end user, with no intervening computer operator. "
Wow, just wow. It's a PC. And a phone, too.
This new "campaign" is offensive. They're telling us, the users, especially Mac ones, that there's no problem with Flash. They just put up some "statistics" to "prove" that Flash is "not a resource hog."
That's like an iPod exploding while in the hands of millions of kids, and Apple saying "Our analyses prove that there's nothing wrong with our iPods. They don't explode. You're just Microsoft crybabies."
That's like an iPod exploding while in the hands of millions of kids, and Apple saying "Our analyses prove that there's nothing wrong with our iPods. They don't explode. You're just Microsoft crybabies."
While I would agree that the iPhone is a PC in the technical sense, I don't believe they were talking technical. The "PC era" is an idea, for which we can quibble definitions all day, but personally I would call that the pre year 2000 computing. The "PC era" to me represents a time when computers were "The Future!". Personal computers, as they existed during the 90's, are now common place, and the children and grand children of those concepts are taking flight and becoming "The Future".
A device that computes data will be around forever. And this devices 100 or 1000 years from now will still be Computers. However I doubt those devices will be considered part of the "PC Era".
Quibble away
Side fact: The term "Computer" was first applied to a human that did computations, not to a mechanical device. Thus strictly speaking, a PC is that person down the hall that helped you with your math homework ;-)
Lemmings?
I doubt any of us, even us "Fanboys," are lemmings when it comes to Steve Jobs. His Newton failed; his "Cube" failed.
But when it comes to aesthetics and power, nothing beats Apple products. Apple doesn't run out of iPads because only lemmings/fanboys want 'em.
The wait for a "camera-to-iPad" cable is now 5 - 7 weeks!. Weeks, not days.
I doubt any of us, even us "Fanboys," are lemmings when it comes to Steve Jobs. His Newton failed; his "Cube" failed.
But when it comes to aesthetics and power, nothing beats Apple products. Apple doesn't run out of iPads because only lemmings/fanboys want 'em.
The wait for a "camera-to-iPad" cable is now 5 - 7 weeks!. Weeks, not days.
Well, then, let's just go back to Basic where even less than 99.999% of people use it on a daily basis.
Apple fans come in all shapes and sizes. There are those who can think for themselves, but there are undoubtedly lemmings as well. They guard Apple like jealous children and are entirely unable to grasp the concept of mixed emotions. Any criticism means that you hate Apple. You're not allowed to love the products but have lukewarm feelings toward the company and their practices, it's all or nothing. Either Apple is a flawless supermodel or it's a hideous gargoyle. This "if you're not with us, you're against us" mine field is difficult to navigate for those of us who think Apple is a supermodel with two missing front teeth and a wooden leg...
They don't address the fact that Flash is bad software, nor do they refute Apple's right not to support software that impairs the functionality and squanders the resources of their hardware.
Wow...what a load of self-serving ******** from Adobe. Them complaining about closed standards has to be some kind of a joke. Closed standards have been the name of their game since before Apple forced them to make Postscript open standard, and goes all the way from then (lat 80's) to the more recent struggle to make PDF an open standard.
Wow...what a load of self-serving ******** from Adobe. Them complaining about closed standards has to be some kind of a joke. Closed standards have been the name of their game since before Apple forced them to make Postscript open standard, and goes all the way from then (lat 80's) to the more recent struggle to make PDF an open standard.
How the hell are they supposed to address subjective claims like that? Are you serious?
What a load of nonsense. Back when Flash was still a Macromedia product, Adobe were pushing for the open standard alternative, SVG. They had a product called LiveMotion for making Flash-style animations in the SVG format. But SVG never took off, I guess people were happier with the closed SWF format. Everyone seems to be forgetting that it was Macromedia that introduced the SWF format and kept it closed for 10 years. Adobe released the SWF format specification in 2008, the same year they made PDF an open standard, 3 years after they acquired Macromedia. You can't hold Adobe responsible for what Macromedia did or didn't do back when they were Adobe's #1 competitor.
I don't get why people don't understand that Flash and HTML5 are not mutually exclusive. Some people like one more than the other. Just because you like one of them doesn't make anything about the others who don't. Some people talk about Flash being dead now. You often hear after some type of news "last nail in the coffin for Flash!". First of all, how unrealistic is that statement. Secondly, if Flash somehow were to die (don't ask how) right now...how would close to 40% of the web users view video?
Browsers aren't even agreeing on the encoding! So you'd have 2/3rds of movies in H.264 and Firefox users cannot even play it. The so called war isn't "HTML5 vs Flash", it's "HTML5 people vs people who like choice" or "HTML5 vs HTML5+Flash".
Don't forget that I didn't get started on the DRM on Flash that HTML5 doesn't do yet. DRM at the end of a product, eg. what we saw on A.Creed 2, but it is need for online services as Hulu stated.
And calling Adobe childish for using love and/or humor against hate? Please. If anything, Apple is being the stubborn, inconsistent and lying child. The only time Apple embraces innovation is when it benefits them. Note: "them", not you. That can be perfectly seen today when the Wireless Sync app for the iPhone was rejected for no reason.
Badly programmed Flash is bad but it doesn't mean Flash itself is buggy. Is the Flash plugin on Mac perfect? Far from it. Do you have it installed? Yes? I thought you were against Flash. Would Flash on mobile be perfect? Nope, especially not if you prevent itself from developing and improving. Adobe is not a saint but it doesn't screw over users and the only thing it tells you is to have options.
Browsers aren't even agreeing on the encoding! So you'd have 2/3rds of movies in H.264 and Firefox users cannot even play it. The so called war isn't "HTML5 vs Flash", it's "HTML5 people vs people who like choice" or "HTML5 vs HTML5+Flash".
Don't forget that I didn't get started on the DRM on Flash that HTML5 doesn't do yet. DRM at the end of a product, eg. what we saw on A.Creed 2, but it is need for online services as Hulu stated.
And calling Adobe childish for using love and/or humor against hate? Please. If anything, Apple is being the stubborn, inconsistent and lying child. The only time Apple embraces innovation is when it benefits them. Note: "them", not you. That can be perfectly seen today when the Wireless Sync app for the iPhone was rejected for no reason.
Badly programmed Flash is bad but it doesn't mean Flash itself is buggy. Is the Flash plugin on Mac perfect? Far from it. Do you have it installed? Yes? I thought you were against Flash. Would Flash on mobile be perfect? Nope, especially not if you prevent itself from developing and improving. Adobe is not a saint but it doesn't screw over users and the only thing it tells you is to have options.
W3C says HTML5 is currently in the Working draft. Every pro-Flash-fanboy person seem to think that just because its in the "working draft" stage it isn't finished and thus "isn't usable." In laymen's terms working draft simply means "beta," according to WHAT Working Group, because right after that is "last call comments," a.k.a nearly done, otherwise known as release candidate by technical terms.
Now the definition of beta was slightly altered by Gmail when Google sent out renewable invites in 2004 and again when it went public in 2007. All despite it current state (ie. beta). Gmail wasn't officially completed until 2 years after its public release. So... that means that HTML5, despite being in the working draft stage, is usable.
HTML is the core of the web. Its it's native language the same way Objective-C is to the Mac. I do support Flash. However, the internet has become more of an OS recently ever since web apps took off. Problem is most of these apps have been made using Flash and which is, at the moment, still just a plugin. HTML5, in my opinion, is trying to fix this by evening the odd. By giving developers a choice to choose how they wish to make their web-apps.
I'd also like to note that Flash uses a totally different programming language then HTML. It would be impossible for it to be completely be native. ActionScript would haft to be rewritten from the ground up, drop legacy support, and possibly even merge with Dreamweaver.
Just look at the difference:
HTML 1-5
ActionScript 2.0
ActionScript 3.0
Now the definition of beta was slightly altered by Gmail when Google sent out renewable invites in 2004 and again when it went public in 2007. All despite it current state (ie. beta). Gmail wasn't officially completed until 2 years after its public release. So... that means that HTML5, despite being in the working draft stage, is usable.
HTML is the core of the web. Its it's native language the same way Objective-C is to the Mac. I do support Flash. However, the internet has become more of an OS recently ever since web apps took off. Problem is most of these apps have been made using Flash and which is, at the moment, still just a plugin. HTML5, in my opinion, is trying to fix this by evening the odd. By giving developers a choice to choose how they wish to make their web-apps.
I'd also like to note that Flash uses a totally different programming language then HTML. It would be impossible for it to be completely be native. ActionScript would haft to be rewritten from the ground up, drop legacy support, and possibly even merge with Dreamweaver.
Just look at the difference:
HTML 1-5
Code:
<BODY>
<P>Hello World.</P>
</BODY>ActionScript 2.0
Code:
createTextField("greet", 0, 0, 0, 100, 100);
greet.text = "Hello, world";ActionScript 3.0
Code:
var greet:TextField = new TextField();
greet.text = "Hello World";
this.addChild(greet);I'm sorry for my TL;DR post, but I'm sick of mindless war! So this is just my epic two cents.
That's because HTML is not a programming language. Anyone who claims to "program" in HTML is an idiot and doesn't have the slightest clue about what he's talking about.
HTML, XML, SGML are Markup Languages. ECMAscript (Javascript to the laymen) is the programming language that's mostly standardized across the web. And you know what ? Actionscript is based off ECMAscript.
It would be impossible for it to be completely be native. ActionScript would haft to be rewritten from the ground up, drop legacy support, and possibly even merge with Dreamweaver.
This part makes no sense at all. If I write a Actionscript front-end to LLVM, I can compile it to native code with the proper back-end. However, why would I do that ? There are different types of programming languages, some are compiled, some are interpreted.
ActionScript, ECMAscript, Perl, Ruby, Python are known as interpreted languages. You need an interpreter (be it the flash plugin, a web browser or a compiled executable respectively). These interpreters are very native to your platform, unless you write one in an interpreted language which runs in a interpreter written in another intrepreted language and so on and so forth (at some point, you won't have a choice to have it run by a native binary of some sort).
Compiled languages usually are linked into an executable that's very platform dependent (ELF on Linux and some other Unixes, PE on Windows, Mach-O on OS X).
So please, pretty please, with a cherry on top. Next time you rant about programming, markup and languages, have a clue.
You're intentionally blurring the line and comparing apples and oranges.
Adobe's Flash plugin is a closed source plugin, but then again, so are Internet Explorer and Opera, both closed source browser. This is the interpreter. Gnash would be an open source Flash plugin :
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/
Next you try to make HTML5 seem more open than Flash by saying it's an open standard. Adobe has published the full specification to the SWF file format and Actionscript is actually an open standard, standardised by ECMA (as it is essentially ECMAscript with a documented twist). You are free to write your own implementation of a SWF player that interprets Actionscript, as the people at the fine GNU project are doing. These guys don't work on closed stuff.
The only part of HTML5 that is more open than Flash is that it is design by committee. There is no single controlling entity for the standard itself. However, this is only a problem when the controlling entity is a dick. See MP3 (are you going to claim MP3 isn't an open standard ?) and the Fraunhofer institute.
HTML5 is a working draft. However, some parts are finalised. Right now, this is video, audio and canvas. The problem is that the browser support isn't quite here yet, especially for Canvas, which would be the big part needed to replace Flash entirely. You can write stuff to the W3C spec all you want, if it doesn't display in your browser, you're screwed.
Another part HTML5 is missing is vector graphics. Flash offers this out of the box. HTML5 requires the use of an old, outside standard, SVG (http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/). SVG is awesome, graphics in a vector format done in XML. Easy to compress (text compresses a lot), and pretty powerful. The only thing holding back this close to 10 year old Open Standard, is Internet Explorer. Microsoft never, ever, implemented SVG as a supported format, hence you can't use it in IMG tags if you want to support Internet Explorer. So it's a no-go for Canvas and other HTML5 applications until they do. Some people have written plugins, but it's just not native and available.
Of course, there's a lot of other cool stuff coming down the pipe. WebGL, which will essentially be used through HTML5's Canvas, will bring 3D graphics to the web. Unlike VRML, this might actually catch on as it'll leverage developper's knowledge of OpenGL. Like Flash however, this open standard will be controlled by a single entity (not the W3C), the Khronos Group. These are the guys that are in charge of OpenGL ES, so it shouldn't be a problem.
I'm all for HTML5 over flash on the web, but the truth is, we're still a good 2 years away.
Good luck viewing all that HTML5 content out there, on all those browsers that support it. When you support ONLY HTML5, you cut out vast swathes of content and users.