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Display of Flash Content in iPad Promo Materials Likely Not Indicative of Actual Flash Compatibility

It's not like it ISN'T saying something

furi0usbee said:
OK. This is not false advertising. ... Advertising/commercials are all about deception.
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Advertising is about promoting a product to the masses, but outright deception is never acceptable, period.

Use whatever euphemism you'd like, but clearly demonstrating that a product is capable of something that it isn't is wrong.
 
Two thoughts on this subject:

1) Flash is a proprietary runtime engine and unnecessarily-greedy resource hog (on OS X platforms), so Apple is using its weight of "no third-party runtimes" to justify their desire to watch Flash be slowly displaced by HTML5 adoption. This truly is better for consumers in the long run. I applaud Apple on this.

2) If Flash were allowed to run within WebKit, imagine this: A Developer creates a native iPhone/iPad app that solely contains a WebKit "view". In this view, they configure it to load up a Flash-based app. Bam, the user has no idea that this "native" app is actually built using Flash.

Sure, allowing Flash would bring thousands of more apps to the platform, but they wouldn't be created using Apple's frameworks, a key component in delivering a consistent user experience on the iPhone/iPad. It would allow the apps to more easily diverge away from Apple's pseudo-controlled experience.

Nothing is stopping Adobe from working with Apple more closely on supporting Flash. If Flash wasn't so problematic, I don' think Apple would take such a firm stand on this.
 
overcast said:
Wow, who's the rocket surgeon that came to THIS conclusion? :rolleyes:
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When Apple showed flash to be working, when it won't be supported, you knew someone sooner or later someone would be cauterizing rocket fuel.:D

Man, that is such messed up advertising! Make fun of the PC Software on your average netbook, but at least they're rendering flash.

My Nexus One shows an Adobe Flash message on flash websites that says "Flash support coming in Early 2010". How many of the "dying media" companies use flash on their webpages? All of them? Craziness.
 
This is totally misleading on Apple's part and don't think they don't know it.
 
dernhelm said:
You guys are missing the point.

An advertisement showing a device doing something is the same as a statement indicating that the device does the thing. Apple has therefore stated that the iPad can display Flash content. I will now rest my entire livelihood on the fact that the iPad can display Flash content.

I will double mortgage my home and sell all my vehicles in anticipation of the iPad doing Flash content. I will quit my job so I can start a company that produces Flash content for the iPad.

If Apple does not produce an iPad capable of displaying Flash content in 60 days it will ruin me psychologically, emotionally, and financially. I will need at least 5-8 years to recover during which time I will expect Apple to recompense me for any lost income.
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LOL. I took a Business Law class, so that's very funny to me, as we actually had a lot of fun with these types of scenarios. :D
 
coolfactor said:
2) If Flash were allowed to run within WebKit, imagine this: A Developer creates a native iPhone/iPad app that solely contains a WebKit "view". In this view, they configure it to load up a Flash-based app. Bam, the user has no idea that this "native" app is actually built using Flash.
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Bam, the user is running Flash natively on any rival platform using WebKit. This is about information and advertising control, don't be fooled.
 
flash smash who cares?

Just get the damm thing on the market so I can buy two of them!:apple::cool::cool:
 
no flash... GOOD

I greatly dislike flash. As a graphic designer, artist and marketing professional I understand that flash is mostly a liability and only really functions on sites where is it tightly integrated with HTML... Hulu being one of the few examples of where flash works.

Flash ads generally bog down any computer I am on mac or pc. God forbid your customer gets a you need to spend 10 minutes downloading the new version of flash in order to view this content.

It is a fact that judgements are made about the quality of a webpage within a few seconds... five seconds of loading flash content and you have already lost most of your customers.

Flash is equivalently to some form of virus. A broken plug-in icon is preferable to flash not working and ruining my experience.
 
sideburn said:
Advertising is about promoting a product to the masses, but outright deception is never acceptable, period.

Use whatever euphemism you'd like, but clearly demonstrating that a product is capable of something that it isn't is wrong.
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Yes, but if "techies" never noticed that the imagery in the app was Flash-based and spewed their finding through the media, nobody would know any different.

The iPad is being marketed to consumers that wouldn't notice such a detail, not to techies that would, or the iPad would have been based on Mac OS X, not iPhone OS X.
 
Minimoose 360 said:
It worked for me. Quality seemed much better for the load time etc. than a flash video.
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Well lucky you!

What happened on my MBP is this:

1. Safari hanged with spinning beach ball for about 90 secs.

2. Then it crashed...


So what do we do about this now?

Ban HTML5 from iPad as well?
 
dernhelm said:
You guys are missing the point.

An advertisement showing a device doing something is the same as a statement indicating that the device does the thing. Apple has therefore stated that the iPad can display Flash content. I will now rest my entire livelihood on the fact that the iPad can display Flash content.

I will double mortgage my home and sell all my vehicles in anticipation of the iPad doing Flash content. I will quit my job so I can start a company that produces Flash content for the iPad.

If Apple does not produce an iPad capable of displaying Flash content in 60 days it will ruin me psychologically, emotionally, and financially. I will need at least 5-8 years to recover during which time I will expect Apple to recompense me for any lost income.
Click to expand...

I do agree it was wrong to show content that is always flash, displayed as if it were running flash. If it was some random website no one knows and they cut out the flash with a JPG..then fine, we wouldn't even be talking about this. But millions of people visit nytimes.com and know which items are flash and which aren't.
 
The problem with no Flash will be the iPads size

You can get away with no Flash on the iPhone/iPod Touch because the browser will identify itself as a mobile browser. Most major sites like the ones Adobe talked about have mobile versions that get around the no-Flash issue.

However, now that the iPad is a full browser, allowing you to view pages as if you are sitting at your desk using OS X, those sites aren't going to serve up the no-Flash friendly mobile versions.

No Flash on the iPad is going to be much more noticeable than the iPhone.

-Kevin
 
Somehow I can imagine Apple deciding to forgo flash so that users have to get their multimedia either through Apple's own web formats (h.264) or through the app store. That would be fairly lame.
 
stewart715 said:
Likely not? It is not. Compare the real images from the website displayed to the iPad promo. They are enhanced and altered. Apple almost definitely downloaded the page from New York Times, manually edited the HTML, replaced flash content with an edited JPG. This is MUCH easier than video editing and takes under 10 minutes.
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It is standard practice to replace the contents of a screen with computer-generated equivalents, because cameras can't record screens so well.

So, no, they likely did not adjust the HTML.
 
-=XX=-Nephilim said:
Well lucky you!

What happened on my MBP is this:

1. Safari hanged with spinning beach ball for about 90 secs.

2. Then it crashed...


So what do we do about this now?

Ban HTML5 from iPad as well?
Click to expand...


Maybe you just need a new computer? :cool:

I have to admit, at first the video started with just audio and no video, but then I hit the fullscreen and it worked, then I minimized it back and it worked fine...reloaded and it works properly.

But I do agree that Apple should provide Flash support on the iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad...and make it as a setting to turn on or off. If people need to view a Flash based website at the expense of battery life...so be it, they can turn it on.

And most people outside websites like this don't even know about HTML or the fact that we are on HTML5.
 
stewart715 said:
I do agree it was wrong to show content that is always flash, displayed as if it were running flash. If it was some random website no one knows and they cut out the flash with a JPG..then fine, we wouldn't even be talking about this. But millions of people visit nytimes.com and know which items are flash and which aren't.
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Sure - it was a goof up. But let's not assign malicious intent when the whole thing could be explained by some marketing guy just wanting the website to look cooler, thinking it was an NYTimes problem, patching it up, and nobody else noticing.

And I'm sorry, but any claim of injury as a result of these "ads" is ludicrous.

That said, I actually do agree that Apple should update these ads to display the web sites as they will actually appear on the device.
 
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