Apple Highlights 'iPad-Ready' Web Content

[cmaier]

I think you must be joking. What exactly is your beef with objective-C? That it crashes? You do realize that it crashes because you don't know how to code properly, and you are mangling memory, right?

As a professional programmer for many years, I programmed in C and C++. Objective-C is in many ways superior to C++ (though there are a few tradeoffs as well). But if my C, C++, or Objective-C program crashed, I didn't blame the language. I blamed my mistake. You are like a bad painter who blames his brushes.

Who cares about video. That really is only a small piece of flash for me.

I develop for both flash and iphone. So sad to think flash is doomed. From the development side it's such a pleasure to work in compared with xcode and objective-c. What a crappy language objective-c is. But hey... it just works right?!?

I make the comparison directly to objective-c because that's how it should be compared. HTML5 is a replacement for flash's video side of things (1% of what flash can do). I would like to see something like this achieved without flash:

http://team.forsvarsmakten.se/english/
or this:
http://forsvar.fileflat.com/english/
or a thousand other incredible flash sites.

What's so sad to me is everyone bashes flash without making the distinction between "Bad Flash" and "Flash is Bad". Most flash crashes are due to poor coding not because the runtime is inherently bad. Crappy banners that hog resources and crash due to poor design and execution should not be blamed on the ground that it stands on. It's analogous to someone bashing the element aluminum because they don't like the trash created by coke cans.

On another note, people don't realize how easy it is to crash your app in objective-c. But because apple has to approve an app, much of the junk is filtered out.

The bottom line is flash competes with the app store. Plain and simple. Not saying flash replaces the need for native apps, but flash would sure replace many of the current apps. The business model for app creation would then move away from upfront purchase therefore killing that huge revenue stream for apple.

Apple gains at the consumers expense on this one. They hold the strings people, the game is rigged and we are all jumping like puppets.

I am by no means in love with flash. It without a doubt has its issues, but my god is it a gift from the heavenly divine holy mother compared to objective-c(rap).

PS: Please don't post this as a flash killer: http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/ilmarihe/canvas_animation_demo/mozcampeu09.html
Have you looked at the source that drive that?

 

[marksman]

some people go to websites made by their friends for FUN, not caring about web standards and compatibility.

I am not sure you understand how ridiculous that statement is.

 

[marksman]

I wish it were that simple but there's more to it than that, from what I've read and based on the few (relatively simple) tests I've run. The HTML5 <video> tag is a great idea, but issues remain with its real-world, cross-browser implementation. For now, I can code for [arggh] Flash and hit 100% of the market for which my employer is aiming; it's hard to justify doing anything else in the foreseeable future.

That can't be accurate because flash is a plug-in and some people will not have it installed, and some people for whatever reason will never be able to get it installed.

Believing flash hits 100% of the userbase is not correct.

 

[cmaier]

That can't be accurate because flash is a plug-in and some people will not have it installed, and some people for whatever reason will never be able to get it installed.

Believing flash hits 100% of the userbase is not correct.

He said "100%" of the market for which his employer is aiming. That might be possible.

 

[jhande]

On another note, people don't realize how easy it is to crash your app in objective-c. But because apple has to approve an app, much of the junk is filtered out.

<massive snippage here and there>

I am by no means in love with flash. It without a doubt has its issues, but my god is it a gift from the heavenly divine holy mother compared to objective-c(rap).

You're a developer? Really? I mean, fair enough, you like Flash, your choice. But calling objc crap?

1. If you've ever had to play with that extremely horrible borg called c++ (did the 'assimilation' joke at a Stroustrup seminar once--he was not amused), or twisted yourself into procedural hell with c, then you'd appreciate not only the smalltalk-ness of objc, but even more the dev environment. Xcode has come a long way in the world, and the instrumentation is just plain awesome.

2. I'm very irritated with Apple. They aren't supporting the open models I'd like them to, EXCEPT in the case of Flash, they are. Adobe could have done something when they got Flash from Macromedia, but no... Flash is a horrible abomination, especially when looked at from a dev point of view.

<s>
Oh.... wait..... I just noticed your seniority here.... just trolling, neh?
</s>

 

[randomerratum]

Its like a reverse scarlet lettering... Can Steve really single handedly cripple and ultiamtely kill flash? Adobe should fire whoever pissed him off.

First of all, I think Adobe just needs to start from scratch. Their system was the first, best content delivery for a while- but they stuck to old technology for too long and now it's archaic, sluggish and bloated by comparison.

And, he absolutely can. While of course, not everybody on earth is going to get an iPad, a relatively small, but highly concentrated group of casual web browsers will- if advertising is what drives the market of internet trends, the iPad will absolutely influence it. Whether on purpose or not- Steve's launched a multi-faceted campaign against flash by;
A) Creating a product that will enable millions of non-tech-savvy consumers to surf the web who will see the "blue lego" as a problem with a site rather then their device and likely never visit again out of frustration.
B) Pointing out specific problems with flash to split even the tech-savvy crowd is re-assessing the situation.
and C) pointing out HTML5 as the future standard, because people will happily move on as long as they're trading up.

I think you'll see a turn in the tide much sooner then you think!

 

[ippikiokami]

have any of you guys tried to run HTML5 on your phones before you cheer for flashes demise?

Badly written html5 implementations will slow down your computer too.. heck. I don't get on myspace anymore but back when I did even normal pages with just HTML / PHP / and animated gif hell messed up my browsing experience.

Like some posters said. It's badly written flash that is the problem. When advertisement companies find another way to use any language to make ads the same problem comes up. Just because it's html5 doesn't mean it will run better.

 

[Scooterman1]

What's interesting is that no matter how much Apple, and it's enthusiasts, believe that Apple is going to change the world and get Flash eliminated....... the sites listed haven't changed anything except for the iPhone/iPad user. Their full blown sites are still using Flash.... throughout!!! This should tell us something. So, I really find it hard to believe where people have surmised that this is monumental. It's good if any of us iPhone/iPad users actually use these sites, but I believe that most sites aren't too worried about the number of iPhone/iPad users yet. The user base will have to grow considerably before the world scraps what has been working pretty good, for the most part.

 

[anthonymoody]

Anthony - there's no need to namecall - twice. It's beneath you. You want to remember every post you and I have made - let's recall all the posts that others have made about flash too and throw it on the table. "They" want to kill flash. I am no more pro-flash than I am pro-html5 and visa versa. My issue was never with the technology.

And believe me - if these media sites were slower to roll their option out beyond April 3rd - there WOULD be plenty of people (and there still will be) who are used to going to their sites (maybe less mainstream than CNN for example) and not being able to access their media.

I'm not twisting this around as much as you'd like to pretend or announce to everyone. I think you have a very healthy ego. Your posts here and your musings on your blog are evidence of that. I don't begrudge it. At the same time - there is room enough for everyone to share their opinions here without being relegated to fan boy or the intimation of ulterior motives and agendas. Silly nonsense.

I've been vocal and quite clear about my opinions and am well aware of what I write. Semantics are very important to me in case you haven't noticed. So please don't pretend to know more than me about what I mean or what I've said.

But enough about that because conversations like this are completely fruitless.

As usual you avoid the debate, focusing now on the form of what I'm saying rather than the substance. When you're ready to address the questions at hand, I'm here.

 

[cmaier]

What's interesting is that no matter how much Apple, and it's enthusiasts, believe that Apple is going to change the world and get Flash eliminated....... the sites listed haven't changed anything except for the iPhone/iPad user. Their full blown sites are still using Flash.... throughout!!! This should tell us something. So, I really find it hard to believe where people have surmised that this is monumental. It's good if any of us iPhone/iPad users actually use these sites, but I believe that most sites aren't too worried about the number of iPhone/iPad users yet. The user base will have to grow considerably before the world scraps what has been working pretty good, for the most part.

Some of the sites do you html5 instead of flash if you visit from an html5-capable browser (or at least have announced that they plan to do so).

 

[Scooterman1]

have any of you guys tried to run HTML5 on your phones before you cheer for flashes demise?

Well, I went to CNN.com, and nyTimes.com on my iPhone in Safari. On CNN, all they did for the iPhone version was leave the Flash file off the page, and on NyTimes, they just show the non-functional flash icon.

I must be missing something.

 

[kernkraft]

Umm.... Not cool.

Don't worry! For Nietzsche, they were all dead to start with.

 

[Hurda]

Are we going to see the much-dreaded "Optimized for..."-banners again?

 

[kernkraft]

Yes, except for the ad system and any embedded video links they may publish. If you don't have Flash or it senses you have it disabled, it switches to a "static" ad system displaying ads in a non-flash context.

A yes or no would have done it. In fact, it would had to be no. No, Macrumors is not free of Flash.

 

[cmaier]

A yes or no would have done it. In fact, it would had to be no. No, Macrumors is not free of Flash.

But the good news is that if you are lucky enough to be browsing it from a flash-free system, you don't have to put up with blinking ads.

 

[baryon]

I am not sure you understand how ridiculous that statement is.

Really? Could you elaborate? Most people are only able to consume content. What's wrong with wanting to create content with little skill? Do you think there's anything wrong with that?

 

[baryon]

Wrong: For example, the first result of Googling "html5 animation demo"

If you can show me something that can actually do more than a GIF than I'll believe you. Is there an IDE as good as Flash for HTML5? If yes, I want it now. And it better be as easy to use as Flash CS4! Because if there was even a single line of code involved in that animation, then it could have been done in Flash without any coding, thus making it easier, and available to more people.

 

[HarryPoleHer]

I think you must be joking. What exactly is your beef with objective-C? That it crashes? You do realize that it crashes because you don't know how to code properly, and you are mangling memory, right?

As a professional programmer for many years, I programmed in C and C++. Objective-C is in many ways superior to C++ (though there are a few tradeoffs as well). But if my C, C++, or Objective-C program crashed, I didn't blame the language. I blamed my mistake. You are like a bad painter who blames his brushes.

Never said objective-c is the cause for crashes. It happens to be easier to create crashable code because of the manual memory management. Pointers(why!?!) and something called garbage collection...might of heard of it? Is it impossible to write clean code in objc? Of course not, but it requires much more work.

Also, based on what you said, it seems like your only other venture into the world of modern languages is c++. Wake up my friend, you've been living in a dream world.

As for XCode... it's an embarrassment to apple.

I hate to say it, but Visual Studio .NET tears XCode a new a**hole. Never thought I would utter such blasphemy but microsoft cares about their developers. Hey apple... thanks for the excellent documentation. Did you auto generate that using iJustGoogleDude? Cause that's what you end up doing when you need answers, just google it.

This is all way off subject from my original comment. The flash runtime isn't bad, its the bulk of banner ads and crapy widgets that are bad. The language /platform doesn't make the end product bad, that blame must fall on the developer.

Let's all realize it's trendy right now to bash flash. So next time you bash it, know that you are channeling the spirit AAPL.

If mr. jobs jumped off a bridge would you?

That's a resounding YES!

--
Still can't believe I'm turning into and apple hater.

 

[cmaier]

Never said objective-c is the cause for crashes. It happens to be easier to create crashable code because of the manual memory management. Pointers(why!?!) and something called garbage collection...might of heard of it? Is it impossible to write clean code in objc? Of course not, but it requires much more work.

You are aware that ObjC supports garbage collection, right? And that you don't have to manually manage memory?

Why pointers? Because for certain types of code, using pointers is by far the most efficient method of doing things. Even in languages where you think you aren't using pointers, the run-time most assuredly is. So if you're a competent programmer, having access to pointers allows you to craft the tightest possible code in a high-level language. If you avoid pointers, then you end up copying data into multiple datastructures instead of storing a single copy and pointing at it. It's both time and space inefficient.

Also, based on what you said, it seems like your only other venture into the world of modern languages is c++. Wake up my friend, you've been living in a dream world.

I can program in 14 different languages, not including assembler on 5 different architectures. But since my professional coding was writing EDA software used by AMD to design our microprocessors, I couldn't use crap like C-sharp or Java (and certainly not Flash) - we had to manage massive amounts of data and process it as near to real time as possible, and those other languages aren't going to do it. When I had to write throw-away scripts, I used Perl or Python.

As for XCode... it's an embarrassment to apple.

Ok, but no one was talking about Xcode.

 

[ckelley]

A yes or no would have done it. In fact, it would had to be no. No, Macrumors is not free of Flash.

And a "yes" was the answer. Did you see the first word I said?

MacRumors itself doesn't use Flash anywhere on the site that I'm aware of, it's the third party ad system that pushes Flash content along with any embeds that they might use from other sites.

 

[ckelley]

Are we going to see the much-dreaded "Optimized for..."-banners again?

If we do, it needs to be "Optimized for Standards Compliant Browsers." HTML5 isn't a standard yet, but just in draft. 802.11n was in draft for years before ratified, but it never stopped people from making compliant hardware based on the draft. I know it's a hardware vs. software thing there, but I still think it holds up. The support needs to come from browser creators, and it looks like that is quickly arriving.

 

[macUser2007]

So are the videos only html5 when viewed on the ipad, becuase there still Flash on my mac...

This is total BS. Apple is lying, again.

Most of these sites still use Flash for everyone else, but provide non-Flash video and dumbed-down mobile versions of their pages for less powerful devices.

Of course, the iPad lemmings here think they are getting something amazing because of Apple..., nope, you are just getting shafted and are viewing what other people see on their 3" mobile phones.

 

[cmaier]

This is total BS. Apple is lying, again.

Most of these sites still use Flash for everyone else, but provide non-Flash video and dumbed-down mobile versions of their pages for less powerful devices.

Of course, the iPad lemmings here think they are getting something amazing because of Apple..., nope, you are just getting shafted and are viewing what other people see on their 3" mobile phones.

A lie is a knowingly false statement. What statement did Apple make that you are claiming is false?

 

[eonaeon]

Does anyone know what the correct user-agent to use in Desktop Safari to get the HTML5 Video versions of those pages loading on a Mac...

ie, I want to spoof the iPad's user agent, so that I can watch HTML5 Videos rather than the flash version...

After doing a search, I found this:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B334b Safari/531.21.10

However, when loading up the CNN site, with that as my user-agent it still loads the flash version of the video files...

 

[cmaier]

Does anyone know what the correct user-agent to use in Desktop Safari to get the HTML5 Video versions of those pages loading on a Mac...

ie, I want to spoof the iPad's user agent, so that I can watch HTML5 Videos rather than the flash version...

After doing a search, I found this:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B334b Safari/531.21.10

However, when loading up the CNN site, with that as my user-agent it still loads the flash version of the video files...

It could be that the html5 stuff isn't turned on yet since the iPad isn't supposed to be out for another couple days.