This argument only makes sense until you think about it.
No, it's pretty simple if your IQ is in the positive territory. A $.99 app makes apple $.33(30% cut), me playing the same game for free via flash makes Apple $0.00. DUH!
This argument only makes sense until you think about it.
No, it's pretty simple if your IQ is in the positive territory. A $.99 app makes apple $.33(30% cut), me playing the same game for free via flash makes Apple $0.00. DUH!
No, it's pretty simple if your IQ is in the positive territory. A $.99 app makes apple $.33(30% cut), me playing the same game for free via flash makes Apple $0.00. DUH!
...one thread dies and another is born to give the same users the opportunity to make the same arguments and counter arguments all over again like nobody has ever thought of them before...
So I was on Kotaku today on an iPad and came across this link about COD:MW3.
http://www.findmakarov.com/
Please take out your iPads and enjoy this site for me. Now I'm not going to die if I don't get to see a stupid countdown on a website...but this is the sort of thing that pisses me off on an iPad. Cortex-A9 processors can easily handle Flash without draining batteries...implement it Apple!
Why would a developer release a game for free on the web and charge for it in the App Store?
I don't know. Ask the makers of canabalt or the makers of games for adult swim. Both of them have free games in flash that cost money on the app store.
The gawker network (of which kotaku is a member) is a perfect example of how the "death of flash" and HTML5 does not save anyone from ads or poor design.
It looks like a bad flash site now. Done in HTML and CSS.
But Flash is optimised...just look at the Playbook, Xoom and Touchpad. They all have Flash on Cortex-A9 chips, and from demos it works beautifully. The battery life for these iPad is amazing not because it doesn't use Flash, but because it uses ARM chips which are several folds more efficient than x86 chips.
Even the new more powerful Cortex-A9 (vs the iPads Cortex-A8) has better battery life (as shown in the Xoom) than the current iPad.
I don't think battery life is an issue as big as Apple has presented it to be...
You don't have to. There are other platforms available. "No Flash on the iPad" is not a surprise so people either need to accept it for what it is or they can find alternatives that better suit their needs.
Have you written to your local paper and told them that there are readers that can't view their site on the device of their choice? Then after doing that, quit going to their website. As long as you switch to the laptop/ desktop, their visitor numbers will stay up. I know it might hurt a little. Or you could just get a Xoom and oops, never mind.
Why is it that so MANY of you miss the real question. The REAL question is why don't we have the choice? It's like saying the ipad2 won't have wifi in it because when you use wifi it's been shown to decrease battery by 20%. The whole performance issue is a huge red herring, my samsung captivate runs Flash quite perfectly with no hiccups or crashes, it makes me look at my ip4 with disgust. I'm sure it uses more battery life, but this is pretty obvious. Just a lot of perpetuated myths that don't really answer the real question of why it's not on their for us to choose to use or not use.
It's an incredibly silly debate, Apple is laughing as they let the flash vs. no flash users blindly battle each other instead of asking the real questions.
Why is it that so MANY of you miss the real question. The REAL question is why don't we have the choice? It's like saying the ipad2 won't have wifi in it because when you use wifi it's been shown to decrease battery by 20%. The whole performance issue is a huge red herring, my samsung captivate runs Flash quite perfectly with no hiccups or crashes, it makes me look at my ip4 with disgust. I'm sure it uses more battery life, but this is pretty obvious. Just a lot of perpetuated myths that don't really answer the real question of why it's not on their for us to choose to use or not use.
It's an incredibly silly debate, Apple is laughing as they let the flash vs. no flash users blindly battle each other instead of asking the real questions.
Why is it that so MANY of you miss the real question. The REAL question is why don't we have the choice? It's like saying the ipad2 won't have wifi in it because when you use wifi it's been shown to decrease battery by 20%. The whole performance issue is a huge red herring, my samsung captivate runs Flash quite perfectly with no hiccups or crashes, it makes me look at my ip4 with disgust. I'm sure it uses more battery life, but this is pretty obvious. Just a lot of perpetuated myths that don't really answer the real question of why it's not on their for us to choose to use or not use.
It's an incredibly silly debate, Apple is laughing as they let the flash vs. no flash users blindly battle each other instead of asking the real questions.
Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobes founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products. Today the two companies still work together to serve their joint creative customers Mac users buy around half of Adobes Creative Suite products but beyond that there are few joint interests.
I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobes Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven they say we want to protect our App Store but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain.
First, theres Open.
Adobes Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobes Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.
Apple has many proprietary products too. Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript all open standards. Apples mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash). HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member.
Apple even creates open standards for the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the Safari web browser used in all our products. WebKit has been widely adopted. Google uses it for Androids browser, Palm uses it, Nokia uses it, and RIM (Blackberry) has announced they will use it too. Almost every smartphone web browser other than Microsofts uses WebKit. By making its WebKit technology open, Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers.
Second, theres the full web.
Adobe has repeatedly said that Apple mobile devices cannot access the full web because 75% of video on the web is in Flash. What they dont say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads. YouTube, with an estimated 40% of the webs video, shines in an app bundled on all Apple mobile devices, with the iPad offering perhaps the best YouTube discovery and viewing experience ever. Add to this video from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, and many, many others. iPhone, iPod and iPad users arent missing much video.
Another Adobe claim is that Apple devices cannot play Flash games. This is true. Fortunately, there are over 50,000 games and entertainment titles on the App Store, and many of them are free. There are more games and entertainment titles available for iPhone, iPod and iPad than for any other platform in the world.
Third, theres reliability, security and performance.
Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We dont want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.
In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but were glad we didnt hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?
Fourth, theres battery life.
To achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware; decoding it in software uses too much power. Many of the chips used in modern mobile devices contain a decoder called H.264 an industry standard that is used in every Blu-ray DVD player and has been adopted by Apple, Google (YouTube), Vimeo, Netflix and many other companies.
Although Flash has recently added support for H.264, the video on almost all Flash websites currently requires an older generation decoder that is not implemented in mobile chips and must be run in software. The difference is striking: on an iPhone, for example, H.264 videos play for up to 10 hours, while videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is fully drained.
When websites re-encode their videos using H.264, they can offer them without using Flash at all. They play perfectly in browsers like Apples Safari and Googles Chrome without any plugins whatsoever, and look great on iPhones, iPods and iPads.
Fifth, theres Touch.
Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on rollovers, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apples revolutionary multi-touch interface doesnt use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?
Even if iPhones, iPods and iPads ran Flash, it would not solve the problem that most Flash websites need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices.
Sixth, the most important reason.
Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesnt support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.
We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.
This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitors platforms.
Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobes goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apples platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.
Our motivation is simple we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins we sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform.
Conclusions.
Flash was created during the PC era for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards all areas where Flash falls short.
The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apples mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 250,000 apps on Apples App Store proves that Flash isnt necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.
New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.
Steve Jobs
April, 2010
Why is it that so MANY of you miss the real question. The REAL question is why don't we have the choice?
Thats what I said when my brand new iPad didn't have multitasking.why isn't it available now?
It's a stupid question, because it's not like Apple is obliged to provide that choice. Let's suppose there's no Flash choice because some CEO just decided to not offer it out of spite (lmao). Now what? What difference does it make? You can feel slighted, I guess; go carry that around with you.
But Flash is optimised...just look at the Playbook, Xoom and Touchpad.
But you missed the entire point of my post. Why debate the supposed shortcomings of Flash when it's such a prevalent standard? It's like debating bluetooth, or debating javascript, or debating even having a web browser.
When you have data on how many people bought a competing tablet instead of an iPad because of Flash, let us know, it would be very interesting.
If a product doesn't come with X and X is that important to me then I won't buy it. Not sure what real questions I need to ask beyond that.
What's telling is that the tech companies are using their devices having Flash as a marketing advantage and are using it in their ads. You asked the very same question consumers ask when determining to buy a product or not buy it, so I don't fathom how it couldn't be an important question. Maybe it's not an important question to *you* because you don't need "X", but it is still an important question to consumers who do feel they need it.
Yes, they are using whatever they can to differentiate their products from Apple's. This doesn't mean those differences will or should matter to consumers.
The question 'does it have Flash' is an important question if someone wants Flash. Yet you said "The REAL question is why it's not on there to choose to use or not". Still not sure why that question is so real.
Why is it that so MANY of you miss the real question. The REAL question is why don't we have the choice?
Because Flash is a huge part of the internet experience, no matter how you slice and dice it. Apple is not altruistically banning Flash because of some knight in shining armor desire to make the world better. Consumers, especially non tech savvy consumers who are really the dirty masses with the money, are going to be asking "why can't I watch this video, why can't I view this webpage?".
That's sort of like asking, "Why doesn't Audi offer an optional 8-track player in their 2011 models?"
With any consumer tech device, there comes a point at which it no longer makes sense to support certain older technologies. Remember, there were howls of outrage when Apple dropped floppy disk drives from their desktops.
And yet, just a few years later, the absence of floppy drives is neither missed, nor remarked upon.
I certainly don't need to repeat Steve Job's litany of complaints RE: Flash. But what I DO wonder about, is what compelling reason is their for anyone to particularly WANT Flash? What sites and/or internet experiences can ONLY be enjoyed and experienced using this ancient, buggy, inefficient, and insecure technology?