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

[furi0usbee]

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.

How can you tell from that video that the iPad is using flash? How do you know it wasn't a test page setup by the Times? There is no mention of Flash. Everything you see in that iPad promo can be done with HTML and trusty ole JavaScript. Flash not needed.

I guess I take back my statement about who here believes commercials...

You cannot infer Apple is using any technology simply by seeing a video demo. If that were the case, Steve would have shown off his flash at the event. he didn't and the iPad will not support it.

 

[Apollo21]

By "clearly shows", what exactly do you mean?

Do you mean that you looked at that static image of an iPad with a static image of a web page loaded and say "hey look, it's loading Flash!".

No...

Yeah, that's exactly what I mean. How do you NOT deduce that?

If you've ever seen a car commercial (or practically any commercial), they state in small print that images/videos are simulated, the car really doesn't go that fast, etc. etc. There's a reason they do that: because images convey product abilities, and to not clarify the images would be FALSE ADVERTISING.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

Flash CANNOT work well on any tablet, and Apple cannot change that. Many/most Flash games, menus, and even video players would not even WORK.

Aside from showing different information on rollover, most interactions in flash would work just fine. Because most interactions in flash work just like every other mouse action.

And clicking with two fingers close together for a right click? yeah, I do that on my Macbook Pro with no problems.

Flash would work just fine on iPhone OS, assuming adobe could program it well (for once).

 

[furi0usbee]

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.

Just because the NYT current site uses flash, doesn't mean that when the iPad launches it will. You don't know if the promo video was showing the times "optimized" for the iPad, or indeed, getting rid of flash altogether.

 

[Apollo21]

The device not being released yet makes any claims of malfeasance and lawsuit moot, and moronic.

I'm sure there are laws against the manipulation of stocks by announcing products that will not exist!!

 

[furi0usbee]

Rocket surgeon?

LOLLLOLLLOL

That's a cross between the rocket scientist and the brain surgeon.... for those not in the know

 

[furi0usbee]

Ok this is false advertising. Adverts should at least show a message saying screen imaged are simulated (Microsoft does this on the Windows mobile tv advert)

Again, we don't know if it was simulated.... they may be using a brand new version of the NYT site that isn't yet launched, but due for the iPad's release. We can't jump to conclusions, especially all the weekend-lawyers here.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

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.

My guess is you don't develop in flash.

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.

Ads won't go away because Flash dies. As a marketing professional, you can certainly appreciate that. Actually, I'm working on some flash content right now where one of the specs is that I can't take up more than 25% of the user's CPU. Kinda hard, because I don't know what CPU someone might have. It could be a pentium 4!

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.

Our user studies (and most others) tell us a different story. If people are interested for the content, they will wait for it, regardless of the plugin/standard that is making them wait. People will gladly wait for an HD youtube video, regardless if it is HTML5 or flash.

 

[dernhelm]

How can you tell from that video that the iPad is using flash? How do you know it wasn't a test page setup by the Times? There is no mention of Flash. Everything you see in that iPad promo can be done with HTML and trusty ole JavaScript. Flash not needed.

I guess I take back my statement about who here believes commercials...

You cannot infer Apple is using any technology simply by seeing a video demo. If that were the case, Steve would have shown off his flash at the event. he didn't and the iPad will not support it.

Sarcarsm sensor malfunctioning?

I thought the moon landing was filmed in Arizona, and the iPad video was created at an ad agency in New York City?



The device not being released yet makes any claims of malfeasance and lawsuit moot, and moronic. The advantage Apple has by pre-announcing the product is they can watch all the mindless rants, thoughtful posts, and wild claims, and parse what to do with the PRODUCT before it is actually RELEASED.

Where's the thread for the top 10 hardware features not demoed but that will be included in the shipping product? The sheer number of software applications that will spawn are mind boggling.

Remember this is a device to runn applications. Nobody who matters really cares what the hardware specs are. THEY CARE WHAT THEY CAN DO.

If Apple wants to reserve all multi-tasking for themselves for now, sit down, shut, up, hold on, and smile. Or simply do not buy one. Can the ant-fanbois comprehend that simple concept? I thought not. Whining is better than a job!

Rocketman

Your sarcasm sensor broken too, eh?

Yeah I get all this. I was poking fun at the people in this thread and the other thread displaying moral outrage.

Apparently <sarcasm> tags really are required here.

 

[FCPnewbie]

No flash (web standard)
No bluray (video industry standard)

What's next? No 60hz power sources because they don't fit into Apple's world view?

Look Apple, if you're going to play in the consumer electronic sandbox then you have to stop being so darn closed off to certain things.

 

[Yamcha]

This really sucks, I was really hoping OS 4.0 would give us full flash support.. Its ridiculous, its a really important feature.. Even the new Blackberry's have full flash support.. =/

 

[sideburn]

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.

Deception is deception, it doesn't matter if nobody notices...

 

[Nuvi]

Apple is very into open standard.

This is joke, right? Apple is based on closed standards. Integration of proprietary software and hardware.

 

[furi0usbee]

Sarcarsm sensor malfunctioning?

Sitting here with a severe case of bronchitis.... just enough energy to reply..... not much left for reading.... my apologies if I missed the sarcastic tongue.

 

[furi0usbee]

No flash (web standard)
No bluray (video industry standard)

What's next? No 60hz power sources because they don't fit into Apple's world view?

Look Apple, if you're going to play in the consumer electronic sandbox then you have to stop being so darn closed off to certain things.

Blu-Ray? So *you* were one of the ones who wanted base models starting at $999???? Yes, let's add a Blu-Ray drive, more ram, larger processor, more storage, built in keyboard... I think that category of device is already in production.... it's called a laptop.

 

[fat phil]

MacRumors has heard from a source that The New York Times itself generated high-resolution images of several of its pages, including Flash and ad content, in order to improve the look of the pages for Apple's use in iPad marketing materials.

I'd like to see them try to push that on UK telly.

If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it better be a duck.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

That around how much I got for HTML5 around 40 percent. I just tried a youtube video, it started at 40 to 50% and then stayed in the 30s. I'm very disappointed because I was hoping that it would be in the 10% because I do hate flash, but so far flash was slightly better, and that's like with 20 tabs open. I had less tabs open for the HTML5. I should point out that I'm using a Mac with Windows 7, and flash is worst on OSX. My GPU doesn't support flash acceleration, but my future computers will certainly do, and if that's the case then HTML5 won't be a solution if it is currently using as much power as flash. It certainly wont help to kill it. My dream for html5 is for it to be able to play many different file formats, that way when a person uploads a video to you tube, it won't re encode it making it of less quality from the original.

Flash gets lower consumption than that on all but Hulu:

http://i.engadget.com/2009/11/17/adobes-flash-player-10-1-beta-gpu-acceleration-tested-document/

Edit: not on the mac, of course, but you can thank Apple for not allowing the simple fix (GPU acceleration) and Adobe for not writing it well in the first place.

 

[woolfgang]

Flash runs fine on my Macs. Love Mac, but to have web-based devices(And the majority of use will be web-based), is ridiculous). A lot of people act like, "Well if that's what Steve thinks, it's probably for the best." Sometimes they(He), acts like a spoiled brat. This reminds me of the whole one button-two button mouse war. It's probably in his contract, that as long as he's alive, Apple will not make a two button mouse.

 

[saving107]

I came came across this article that was posted today and I think it has some valid points (some that people tend to forget).

full article here,


-"Certainly, there are justifiable reasons why the iPad doesn't support Flash. The platform has a tendency to crash, slams the CPU in Mac OS X, and opens the door to a variety of security breaches. Plus, it's one of the few components in Mac OS X of which Apple has no direct control."

-"he defended Apple's decision of denying access to the aforementioned Hulu because the company is in the business of selling content.
"Exactly how is it in the company's best interest to provide access to that same content, through another company's platform, for free?" Rawson asked with his emphasis.

also, their is a 2nd article (Apple Unveils the Sadly Underwhelming iPad) that I find kind of funny. Its seems that after every Apple Event, people always feel let down because features that were RUMORED to be added end up not making it to the final product. nytimes.com does contain flash content, but the nytimes app doesn't, and if I remember correctly, when the NYTimes App was demoed on stage and they were able to play a video within the app without the use of flash. so I'm still wondering, do I really need flash?

 

[sideburn]

I'd like to see them try to push that on UK telly.

If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it better be a duck.

That is perhaps the best way I've heard it put.

Cheers,

 

[*LTD*]

Other industry players are slagging on the iPad out of pure fear, because Apple is about to redefine the game again.

Love it.

 

[weing]

Although I agree Flash is SO 1998 it really should be supported.
What did flash do to Jobs or apple anyway?
Did they sleep with his Wife or kick his Dog or something

 

[nagromme]

Aside from showing different information on rollover, most interactions in flash would work just fine. Because most interactions in flash work just like every other mouse action.

And clicking with two fingers close together for a right click? yeah, I do that on my Macbook Pro with no problems.

Flash would work just fine on iPhone OS, assuming adobe could program it well (for once).

No it wouldn’t, and neither Apple, nor Adobe, nor anyone else can change that.

You seem to be claiming that mouseover actions are rarely used (or rarely important) in Flash navigation, Flash video players, and Flash games. Not true. Mouseovers are pervasive and vital to the functioning of a huge number of Flash sites (maybe most). Right-clicking for a menu is trivial in comparison.

Here’s just a few examples of how mouseovers (which can’t be done right on a touchscreen) are vital in Flash:

* Games where you steer without clicking

* Menus that popup up subpage links when you mouseover, vs. going directly to a main category page when you click.

* Buttons that have required explanations on mouseover, which you need to understand before deciding what to click. (Or before you even know exactly what the button leads to.)

* Maps and diagrams that don’t use click at all, but pop up info on mouseover.

* Video players where the controls appear on mouseover and hide otherwise. (Which is almost ALL video players in my experience.)

* And ANY old plain button (these are the exception, granted) that happens to be programmed so that it isn’t even SENSITIVE to clicks until AFTER the mouseover event is processed.

I’m a Flash developer, and I pay attention to how other Flash sites are done, and I can guarantee you that mouseovers (responses that don’t need a click) are commonplace and often fundamental to the use of the page.

This is joke, right? Apple is based on closed standards. Integration of proprietary software and hardware.

Not a joke. A huge amount of OS X (and iPhone OS) is open-source based, and Apple gives back, too. That’s why Android’s browser (and just about every other mobile browser) is based on Apple’s open source WebKit.

Flash runs fine on my Macs. Love Mac, but to have web-based devices(And the majority of use will be web-based), is ridiculous). A lot of people act like, "Well if that's what Steve thinks, it's probably for the best." Sometimes they(He), acts like a spoiled brat. This reminds me of the whole one button-two button mouse war. It's probably in his contract, that as long as he's alive, Apple will not make a two button mouse.

Apple’s mice have had MORE than two buttons for years. Third-party mice with right-click were supported—and well--since the 90s!

 

[fat phil]

This really sucks, I was really hoping OS 4.0 would give us full flash support.. Its ridiculous, its a really important feature.. Even the new Blackberry's have full flash support.. =/

Intrusive advertisements on every inch of a webpage and badly written scripts are essential to what? Masochism?

There are great benefits to Flash, unfortunately 99% of the interweb doesn't seem to think the benefits for good content outweight the importance of splattering annoying crap all over the place.

Personally I find browsing with Flash disabled a far more pleasurable experience.

 

[satty]

As long as there's no AdBlock, I don't want Flash on iPod, iPhone or iPad!
No point in paying most of the bandwidth for things I don't want to see.

I just checked out YouTube in HTML5 and I am more than happy with it. Hopefully, people/companies don't start and abuse HTML5 for their stupid, annoying advertising.