Do iPad users still want FLASH?

[radiogoober]

Well If Apple and Adobe worked together I'm sure it could do.
The problem is, there is no will to make it work.

You simply don't get it.

 

[FloatingBones]

Well If Apple and Adobe worked together I'm sure it could do. The problem is, there is no will to make it work.

With regards to The Flash Problem, the key question has already been asked in this thread:

Do you see any way to make the web accessible for all without flushing Flash?

None of the Flash advocates can provide a thoughtful response to that question. None!

@Piggie, Flash has a fundamental problem with accessibility. Jobs published his "Thoughts on Flash" memo in mid-2010, and Adobe had nothing to say about the accessibility problem. Apple knows there's no way to make it work, and Adobe knows there's no way to make it work. Flash has always been broken for accessibility, and no "can't we all get along" platitude will change that fact.

In this message, I provided two very good reasons why accessibility can't be provided in Flash apps even under the best of circumstances. @darngooddesign then noted from his experience that a developer will never ever get anything at all close to those best of circumstances. As far as I can tell, developing a Flash website with accessibility is problematic.

You simply don't get it.

I don't think that any of the Flash-advocates get it.

For me, it boils down to this: Whether I open a website on my notebook or my desktop or my mobile device, I want the site to look the same, as it was designed by its author. I don't give a ******* what SJ or anyone else thinks about outdated technologies or whatever. The websites are what they are right now. And I want them to be displayed as such, in every browser that I use.

Congratulations. You have just specified an impossible set of requirements. I would hate to hear the set of requirements you have for a new potential girlfriend (or boyfriend).

You also clearly don't understand the accessibility problem: users who need to adapt the display of a website do NOT want it to look as it was designed by its author. They need it to look (or sound) differently -- in a way that they can access the information on the webpage. If a webpage must only look the way that its author designed it then it is not an accessible site.

If you use a mobile device and expect that each and every Flash site you visit will be rendered perfectly on that device, either you or that device are not gonna make it very long.

We were on vacation over the past week and had our iPad 2 with us. When trying to find out where we would go for dinner, we would look up various restaurant menus to pick the best one for us. Many of these restaurant websites required Flash to view them. Sure, you can point the finger at the websites all you want, but as an end user of an iPad, I am the one who lost out at the end of the day.

A restaurant that requires Flash in order to view the menu on its website is being incredibly stupid.

If I were you, I would have kept looking until I found an accessible site and go there for your dinner. I then would have informed the restaurants with inaccessible sites why you didn't spend your money with them. You could also tell them that there are a quarter-billion mobile iOS devices that cannot access their website without specialized software -- can they really afford to lose all those potential customers?

I'm also kinda surprised when an experienced iPad user doesn't have any of the apps installed that would give him intermediated access to Flash sites.

We are in a transition phase where Flash is getting flushed from the web. What's interesting about the transition: each and every one of us has the ability to help accelerate the transition to a Flash-free web. There's also an incredible business opportunity for Flash developers to help fix all those business that ... somebody else ... encumbered with a Flash website.

I do miss some things on my iPad, like the odd flash app or chatroom, but I like the fact apple is forcing people to change away from flash. Just wish some things would switch sooner rather than later!

See above. We all have the ability to gently persuade businesses that Flash-free is the way to go. From my experience, telling them about a quarter-billion iOS devices is quite impressive. Entrepreneurs like to hear the b-word.

 

[Richardgm]

I'm not going to lie, every once in a while I encounter a website that I can't interact with because it has Flash.

It would be nice to have.

 

[mentaluproar]

Splashtop. That is all.

 

[oneofthesedaves]

Adobe has conceded. Flash will now support HTML 5. Steve made them cave. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

 

[radiogoober]

FloatingBones is absolutely correct. And I couldn't agree more about the restaurant websites. I feel bad for the little local mom n pop place that got preyed upon by some inexperienced "web designer" and made them display their menu in flash. They would have been better off simply uploading a .txt file to their web server. Flash is like those old MARQUEE and BLINK HTML tags (do y'all remember those?), ie, somehow it skated by for a while, and people just used it to say "oh look I did something neat!", but it should have been axed long ago.

Adobe has conceded. Flash will now support HTML 5. Steve made them cave. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Yup! Pretty interesting! Especially for the people arguing that "flash is here to stay!!!!!". But I have mixed feelings. Or at least a mixed confusion. Ie, it sounds like Adobe is completely removing itself from the idea that users need to have Flash Player installed on their devices, which is absolutely fantastic, because Flash Player is one of the worst written pieces of software since RealPlayer. And it sounds like it will now be the server's responsibility to maintain this Adobe Streamer service.

......... But the whole point is that we should be moving completely away from serving content encoded in something that only one company controls. Why the hell would any website install this stupid adobe server software instead of just pumping H264 video out? Quit being stubborn, finalize HTML5, and let's get some standards out there which do not rely on any ONE company to work.

 

[mrcowdude20]

Nope

I don't now, apples to late

 

[Weaselboy]

A restaurant that requires Flash in order to view the menu on its website is being incredibly stupid.

Agreed. I use my iPad/iPhone frequently when traveling and have found this to be a frequent problem with restaurants for some reason. I suspect it is because many are small businesses and have hired some noob to design their web site.

 

[palpatine]

Agreed. I use my iPad/iPhone frequently when traveling and have found this to be a frequent problem with restaurants for some reason. I suspect it is because many are small businesses and have hired some noob to design their web site.

Only a few months ago, before the iPad came out, Flash was still all the rage. I don't think computer geeks who hang out on computer forums like this were terribly impressed by it, but just about anyone else is far more impressed by flash than static images. I used to design websites, and clients would ask me to incorporate Flash, but I was fortunate that I could persuade them not to do it. Other web developers might not have been so lucky. You do what the client wants you to do, and if every other restaurant in the area has Flash, you can bet they will want it to.

Things have changed, and it is precisely these kinds of smaller operations that are suffering the most from this transition. They lack the technical expertise to deal with it, and probably don't want to invest again in a site renewal.

I wouldn't call them stupid. And, I wouldn't call the web designers noobs. They just got unlucky. If the iPad had not have come out, it probably would not have been such a big deal.

 

[radiogoober]

I think saying "a few months" is a bit dishonest. iPad has been out for about a year and a half. Unless 3 and 18 mean about the same. I'm sure if you told a client their project would be ready in a few days, but took 2.5 weeks, they'd be upset.

 

[palpatine]

I think saying "a few months" is a bit dishonest. iPad has been out for about a year and a half. Unless 3 and 18 mean about the same. I'm sure if you told a client their project would be ready in a few days, but took 2.5 weeks, they'd be upset.

Dishonest? Only if you live in bizarro world, where "few" means "3," as you seem to be saying.

Few is a relative term indicating an indefinite, but small amount, and in this case used purposefully to emphasize the short period in which the technological landscape has been radically altered by Apple. There is nothing dishonest about my use of the term, I don't appreciate your attack on my contribution to the thread.

I'll reiterate my point: only a few months ago (17 for the niggling naysayer) someone might have designed a website for a restaurant correctly believing that it could be viewed by customers on a huge range of devices (although, they would have been leaving out the burgeoning market of iphone consumers). Calling them stupid is a rather harsh judgment, in my opinion, because they could not have known what the future would bring.

 

[gescom]

Honestly as an owner of an iPad since the first model then acquiring the ipad2 i have found i use Flash so little now that I have gone so far as to use extensions to block Flash on my Macs as well as my office pc.

I feel doing this along with the negative press Adobe has been getting has caused them to look into alternatives such as Adobe Edge in which case I feel Flash is truly on its way towards being replaced now.

Just say No... to Flash.

 

[Weaselboy]

I'll reiterate my point: only a few months ago (17 for the niggling naysayer) someone might have designed a website for a restaurant correctly believing that it could be viewed by customers on a huge range of devices (although, they would have been leaving out the burgeoning market of iphone consumers). Calling them stupid is a rather harsh judgment, in my opinion, because they could not have known what the future would bring.

I would offer up that even before the iPad came along, using flash with crap flying all around the web site was a bad idea/design all along.

 

[radiogoober]

Dishonest? Only if you live in bizarro world, where "few" means "3," as you seem to be saying.

Few is a relative term indicating an indefinite, but small amount, and in this case used purposefully to emphasize the short period in which the technological landscape has been radically altered by Apple. There is nothing dishonest about my use of the term, I don't appreciate your attack on my contribution to the thread.

I'll reiterate my point: only a few months ago (17 for the niggling naysayer) someone might have designed a website for a restaurant correctly believing that it could be viewed by customers on a huge range of devices (although, they would have been leaving out the burgeoning market of iphone consumers). Calling them stupid is a rather harsh judgment, in my opinion, because they could not have known what the future would bring.

It must be terrible to live in a world where you can't simply admit that you are wrong. Instead of saying "dang, I shouldn't have written 'a few momths" you're now going to trynto shoehorn an explanation, etc, and act as if what you wrote was a completely honest statement.

I'd have more respect for your opinions if you were at least honest about them. iPads been out for almost 1.5 years. That's a long time, and it's plenty enough time for a place to update a menu.

Regarding that, I can't imagine what Flash brings to the table for displaying a menu. It's absolutely pointless. All I want to see is descriptions and prices. I don't need flashing lights or scrolling text, or fade ins and outs. I wonder if this odd segment of the Internet was born because the web designers had to pretend their job was more difficult than it was, by forcing this horrible technology on unsuspecting people? "yes, you could just put up a picture of the menu... But it won't have flashing colors!!!!"

Do these restaurants only enter into a one time contract with the designer? Any designer worth their reputation should be updating these sites and converting them to HTML standards. That sounds like a good money making activity. "Hey, do you want your menu to be seen by hundreds of millions of people? Ok. Give me one hour."

 

[palpatine]

It must be terrible to live in a world where you can't simply admit that you are wrong. Instead of saying "dang, I shouldn't have written 'a few momths" you're now going to trynto shoehorn an explanation, etc, and act as if what you wrote was a completely honest statement.

Instead of claiming I am wrong and calling me dishonest, find a dictionary. Check for yourself. Get back to me then.

I'd have more respect for your opinions if you were at least honest about them. iPads been out for almost 1.5 years. That's a long time, and it's plenty enough time for a place to update a menu.

It's relative. To me, 1.5 years is a very short time in which to sell several million devices and make a development platform obsolete. In my experience, companies consider that to be short-term. Perhaps you have had different experiences in business. Please share them.

Regarding that, I can't imagine what Flash brings to the table for displaying a menu. It's absolutely pointless. All I want to see is descriptions and prices. I don't need flashing lights or scrolling text, or fade ins and outs. I wonder if this odd segment of the Internet was born because the web designers had to pretend their job was more difficult than it was, by forcing this horrible technology on unsuspecting people? "yes, you could just put up a picture of the menu... But it won't have flashing colors!!!!"

Again, Flash was used by companies large and small all over the world then. If a client wants Flash, then you design it for them. It's not a difficult concept.

Do these restaurants only enter into a one time contract with the designer? Any designer worth their reputation should be updating these sites and converting them to HTML standards. That sounds like a good money making activity. "Hey, do you want your menu to be seen by hundreds of millions of people? Ok. Give me one hour."

Yes. It is usually a one-time thing, with some updates as necessary, but in my case, these are handled separately from the original contract. Sometimes I am on retainer, so to speak, updating on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, depending on the needs of a website. Some sites have not been updated in years, because they don't need to. Others get updated regularly. Some clients, to be honest, are not terribly interested in maintaining a website, because they generate a lot of business through things like food blogs, Zagat, etc. I am not a restauranteur. I no longer design websites. I encourage people to follow your advice and remake all of the Flash websites. It's a great way to make money. If people are willing to pay.

I would offer up that even before the iPad came along, using flash with crap flying all around the web site was a bad idea/design all along.

I guess. Personally, I never liked it. But, some people did. I am not here to impose my own version of the web on everyone. I tried to design sites that would meet my clients' needs.

Honestly as an owner of an iPad since the first model then acquiring the ipad2 i have found i use Flash so little now that I have gone so far as to use extensions to block Flash on my Macs as well as my office pc.

Great. For me, there are sites I run into every day that I cannot view with my iPad. Fortunately, there are workarounds like iSwifter. I just want to view websites, and I have no enthusiasm at all for attacks on Adobe, because I would prefer that a variety of companies and platforms offer competing visions of the web. In my opinion, it is up to Apple and other OS developers to help me view these visions, and not try to impose their vision on me.

 

[FloatingBones]

FloatingBones is absolutely correct. And I couldn't agree more about the restaurant websites. I feel bad for the little local mom n pop place that got preyed upon by some inexperienced "web designer" and made them display their menu in flash. They would have been better off simply uploading a .txt file to their web server.

Actually, I think that restaurants should provide HTML and PDF versions of a webpage. With the number of people using GoodReader and other PDF readers to store PDF files, people could get in the habit of storing the PDF menus from restaurants on their handheld devices.

A really smart restaurant would say, "We update our menu every 3-4 months. Click here to refresh your copy of our menu. Thanks!"

Yup! Pretty interesting! Especially for the people arguing that "flash is here to stay!!!!!". But I have mixed feelings. Or at least a mixed confusion. Ie, it sounds like Adobe is completely removing itself from the idea that users need to have Flash Player installed on their devices, which is absolutely fantastic, because Flash Player is one of the worst written pieces of software since RealPlayer. And it sounds like it will now be the server's responsibility to maintain this Adobe Streamer service.

The main problem with Adobe's announcement was that there seems no straightforward way of saying that you wanted Flash-free streaming content on anything but iOS machines. Why doesn't Adobe provide some easy way to say that you want your streaming data with open protocols?

My behavior was perfectly rational, your's wasn't.

Our fellow readers can decide that for themselves. The claim you made in this message was irrational. Anyone can look through my posting history and see that your claim in that message was completely false.

Failure to account for your false claim is not rational behavior. It calls into question everything else that you say. None of us can take anything you say on face value. That's not good. It's certainly not professional.

I defined full-web as currently including Flash. In a lengthy discussion on Flash, that's the only relevant portion of the definition, or do you need me to also say that it includes HTML.

Nope. That's not how you defined it. Here's your attempt at a definition:

1. Full interent is not marketing, it is the entire internet. Its viewing any site you want without having to resort to work arounds.

And that definition was deconstructed a long time ago in the discussion.

If "full" just means HTML with Flash, then the term serves little purpose. It's just marketing fluff. We've already noted in this discussion that Adobe uses the phrase "full web experience" over 2,000 times on their website.

I already acknowledged there are accessibility issues with Flash.

When? Where? How did you acknowledge those issues? I never saw it. And you have never addressed the most important question in this thread:

Do you see any way to make the web accessible for all without flushing Flash?

Flash makes SEO companies sad...waah. I've been embedding the relevant content into the site HTML for a long time now. Flash breaks findability...if you are an idiot designer. Any of the regular Flash sites I've done don't have huge amounts of text so CMD-F isn't an issue. Any large, text heavy site would use Flash for some of it, but not in any way that obscures the text.

If one looks at http://darngooddesign.com, one sees absolutely no relevant content information on that page's HTML. Just the Flash code. By your measure, should we conclude that the creator of that webpage is an idiot designer?

Even if you don't have idiot designers (ahem), the design problem with having data in two places is that they will get out of sync. Any approach requiring the programmer to keep two sources synchronized is a half-ass solution. Does Adobe really lack a workflow to keep the HTML and Flash data synchronized?

BTW: I did learn that Google does reverse-engineer the .swf files to get indexing data.

You asked my opinion on my site specifically, and I answered it. At no point did I complain.

Yet you have failed to answer the most important question in this thread. That failure is a complaint.

Do you see any way to make the web accessible for all without flushing Flash?

You however, sure seem to do a lot of complaining about Flash. Now pay me 250M.

Where do you think anyone promised you that? In any case, by running away from the discussion, you get nothing.

If you provide a thoughtful answer to the Flush Flash question, I might reconsider.