The real question is how do I get YouTube to work in OS X without Flash? I hate Flash and wish there was a YouTube app on OS X, so it worked like it does on the iPad.
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Do iPad users still want FLASH?
- Thread starter ehoez
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This, 100%.I can't say I've never visited a flash site, but I can say I really don't miss it. I have flash on demand on my iPad, it's called PuffinHowever I have only used Puffin a few times, none of the sites I visit on a regular basis require flash, and if they do, well, there's an app for that.
I don't know a single person here who will blindly justify anything Apple chooses to do. I certainly don't; I have publicly disagreed with Apple's actions here on MR.
The public has embraced Apple's iOS devices. There are now over a quarter-billion of them.
The way to get rid of the Flash problem is to get rid of Flash websites. Most interestingly, even Adobe agrees with this approach: read this article from the official Adobe blog.
Huh? What browsers are you talking about?
Flash is systematically broken. One of the areas of breakage: Flash does not provide access to the accessibility widgets on any computer; people who need these widgets are "shut out" from Flash code. This shortcoming is part of the sixth -- and most important one -- that Jobs noted in his famous Thoughts on Flash note.
I have never heard that Adobe has any strategy -- or even any interest -- in addressing this fundamental shortcoming in Flash.
If there is Flash code that people want to run on iOS devices, there's an obvious approach: use Adobe's cross-compiler to generate iOS apps. Adobe has been shipping this for a while; apps started showing up over a month ago. The app "politifact" was one of the first. It appeared in the App Store over a month ago.
What has surprised me is that there doesn't seem to have been a "gold rush" of Flash apps delivered to the App Store. I can't tell why. Maybe Flash developers are slow to try this tech. Maybe their clients are slow to ask them for it. Or maybe native apps are already filling the needed function.
I actually kind of hope we see a lot more Flash apps in the App Store. It's the perfect solution: the marketplace can decide which of them make any sense. Does that make me an Apple Fanboy or a Flash Fanboy?
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You can make it work in Safari. Gruber covered this last fall on his blog: http://daringfireball.net/2010/11/flash_free_and_cheating_with_google_chrome
We covered this in another thread recently. I'll go ahead and answer the follow-up question that was asked there:
To install the YouTube5 extension, just go to http://www.verticalforest.com/youtube5-extension/ and click the download link. After the extension is downloaded, double-click on the YouTube5.safariextz file in your downloads window to install it.
And where exactly did Adobe say "get rid of Flash websites" at your link?
You're talking about accessibility for blind users and deaf users, right? In that case, do App store apps have access to accessibility widgets as well?
Having to download an app to use on your device is inconvenient if you're only using it once or sparingly. If you're using something many times, I agree, download the app.
And where exactly did Adobe say "get rid of Flash websites" at your link?
Adobe's link. Two things:
1. They recommend that sites should only have HTML5 on their websites.
2. Their tool takes Flash code and generates HTML5.
Put those two together, and you wind up with HTML5 sites and no Flash.
Blind and deaf is a small subset. Some need text zoomed; some need enhanced contrast. You can download the iPad manual and read the chapter on accessibility.
The text within Flash apps cannot be recognized by the accessibility software. Pointsize and color of text can't be changed. Text can't be read. Fail.
I have never heard that Adobe has any strategy to deal with this problem. I have never ever heard that Adobe even recognizes it as a problem. In other words, the only way to solve this problem on the web in general is to remove Flash -- one website at a time. AFAICT, Apple's strategy was the only way that accessibility was going be brought to the web. I think it was a brilliant action on their part.
All sorts of specialized learning and other disabilities are handled by specialized apps. They also enjoy support from close-knit communities. People who need these apps should be able to find what's available and find a good fit.
The users on this forum bash flash 24/7 because they agree with everything steve jobs and apple says. I bought an Asus Transformer over the iPad pretty much because it had flash and because it was cheaper. On my tablet it only shows flash if I click it and enable it like click2flash on mac. It doesn't eat my battery, it doesn't slow it down, it doesn't do anything except show me content that iPad users can't see. It feels great seeing the entire internet. You miss 99% of videos online because of lack of flash and that's good enough reason not to get an iPad. I would get one in a heartbeat if Apple would stop being nazis.
Where?
Ah. So it's not all apps that have voiceover.
Eh. I guess since it's graphics and video that make up the bulk of Flash usage, I doubt there is much of a demand for such accessibility features. I mean text I can understand, and it would be up to the web developer ultimately to make sure accessibility is there, but graphics and video? come on.
And people who need/want Flash should be able to find what's available and find a good fit.
I haven't tried it yet but I saw a message somewhere that the daily show is now iPad friendly. I think this is the trend. In a few years flash based sites will be quite except among zombie sites.
As of March, 2011, over 15 million had said they didn't want it in the first place...
14.8 million of those users probably don't even know what flash is. All they know is they see a bunch of blue squares with a question mark. I doubt any of them realize what they are missing.
I challenge that figure. You made that percentage up to support your point, therefore your point is not valid. I watch many videos online on my iPad with easy. Most websites offer a universal alternative to flash these days and the amount of sites doing this is still increasing.
A lot of the big web design companies in London are phasing out flash content or just downright ditching it.
Disregarding the blue square comment, you've actually just argued against your own view. The majority of joe public have no idea what flash is and don't care. Thanks for that
Speak for yourself.
Personally, I bash flash for a different reason. I've been online for quite a while now, and have been using "alternative" operating systems. In the beginning, the entire web was open for everyone. You could, in principle, grab a copy of the HTML spec from the W3C and implement your own browser.
However, when flash came around, this was no longer the case. It was quite an event that Adobe started supporting Linux, but I would be surprised if you could get a flash plugin from them if you run your Linux on an obscure hardware platform (say, MIPS or PowerPC or whatnot).
So I sometimes run into a website which insists on using flash. When I can get around it (for instance, because it's just their silly idea that buttons should be animated) I keep using it; if not, it's their loss. I take my business (or just my eyes) elsewhere.
For every manager who sent his web designer back to the drawing desk saying "Add a cool page curl effect and a 30-second spinning logo intro in flash", there will now be one who thinks twice about the sexy demographic of Apple iDevice users who will no longer visit his site, and stick to plain HTML. I say that's a win.
The same argument goes, by the way, for closed document formats such as Microsoft uses. It's convenient that I can open them on my Apple devices, but the real solution is to exterminate them.
Stop shifting the point. I never said that all HTML5 ads can currently be blocked by the browser. They aren't popular enough now to be addressed. However, right now, browsers can block images, popups, and certain types of javascript - all used by advertisers to deliver content via HTML.
Which would support my point that we will have more control over HTML5 ads. It's not going to be all or nothing. We will be able to disable different content types entirely just as you suggested is done with Flash. Or we could just disable the content if it originates from an ad server. Just as we do now.
So I tried it. Its a site with clips but not the real site with full episodes to view. Can anyone answer this: if the daily show staff, today, decided to offer their full episodes in html5 so iphones, etc. could view them, how hard is that to do? Do they have to redesign the entire site and upload all new videos in the new format? Can they just run some automated program, changing all flash over to html5? etc etc
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
What shifting the point are you talking about? In post #39 of this thread I asked: "So you can block HTML5 ads right now? With what software?" and you replied with: "Safari. Firefox. Internet Explorer. Opera. That's the advantage or open standards. You can build control into the browser." So then I call you out on it. Prove it. I point you to some HTML5 ads and ask how to block them with those browsers. And you reply that I'm "shifting the point"?
The fact is that you are talking about possible capabilities sometime in the future and I am talking about desirable solutions in the present. I'll agree that almost ANYTHING is possible in the future but we're not looking for answers that will work then, we're talking about things that are desired/wanted NOW.
Again, you're talking about possible future capabilities in answer to me talking about present realities. You're offering your possible future solutions as good counter to the disappointing issues some of us face in the present. Apple is great and all. In the future they may be able to solve all issues faced by humanity. But right now, a subset of us iDevice users would like to have the personal OPTION for Flash on the iDevices we own. Somewhere way out in the future where HTML5 completely rules the Internet we may not continue to feel that way. But between now and then it would be nice to have the whole Internet in our pockets rather than the whole internet except a part of it that most commonly plays media.
I appreciate your views of the future. Perhaps you can appreciate my views of the present? It will be great if your future comes to pass eventually. Until then though, we desire tangible solution today. And the biggest difference is that I don't want to force my desired solution on people like you. My solution is about options... just like I can choose any other app to download without it being forced on you. You on the other hand appear to want to support your view so strongly that since that view works for you it should work for me too. I'd like Flash on my iDevice. You apparently don't want it on yours. I'm fine with the latter. Can you not be fine with the former?
How are you ignoring the fact that I answered your question directly? I provided examples of those browsers currently blocking HTML ads.
But HTML5 ads are not currently a significant problem. Do you expect a solution before the problem? Current solutions are easily adaptable to HTML5 ads. Just add in the new content types.
What does Apple have to do with the discussion we are having?
What does that have to do with blocking HTML ads?
We were discussing the future, despite your shifting argument.
You started the discussion with:
Note that you were talking about the same future I have been. The same future that I responded to.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Here's the main problem with this argument (and my own company just went through this first hand so I definitely know something about it): say a company takes your anti-Flash, pro-HTML5 statements to heart and decides to re-code their website entirely in HTML5 (no Flash) and launches today. The iDevice, Safari, Chrome and a few others crowd will have reasonably good access to the site (though HTML5 implementations are somewhat fragmented across browsers (and that's a whole other issue)). But the vast majority of the planet will be locked out (can't access an exclusively HTML5 site).
So, if the issue is concern about a customer "taking their business elsewhere" because a company site is over-using Flash, it goes the other way times probably 10K should that same company fully embrace HTML5 and thus screen out the vast majority of customers who can't access HTML5.
Contrary to what arguments like yours imply, it is not an either-or proposition. If a business wants to serve media to both the iDevice crowd and the rest of the Internet-connected world, the only CURRENT solution is to create both HTML5 and Flash (double the work, double the code, double the cost, etc). I know this: we just went through it at my company.
Furthermore, there's all kinds of things that HTML5 can NOT do that are easy to do in Flash and HTML5 alternatives tended to beef up file sizes for the HTML5 solution more dependent on serving streaming video vs. Flash being able to more efficiently simulate video through vector animation. Audio is a relative weakling with HTML5, which is why just about every demo you see of HTML5 animations have no sound and almost every tool currently available for HTML5 animation creation has no audio options. Is sound important to multimedia? Yes it is.
Having read arguments like those you made is what got us into the mindset of trying to embrace the future (HTML5) and deprecate the past (Flash) but what we quickly learned is that the future is not today, nor tomorrow, but somewhere WAY out there when the whole planet of potential customers have upgraded their hardware & software enough to be able to see & use a rich HTML5 website. Until then, the best businesses (interested in selling to more than just the relatively small Apple, Google, etc segments) can do to try to cover all bases is to create in both with Flash content serving most of the world and HTML5 serving the small subset locked out of Flash (by a corporate decision NOT an inability for the hardware to play Flash media).
THAT is the business reality of HTML5 vs. Flash.
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