European Commission Joins Investigation of Apple's Flash Exclusion Policies

[scriptx]

It's their garden and Apple can decide which trees should grow there.

If they are planting nightshade along our fence line and I have horses, you better believe I am not going to let them. If another neighbor planted non-native highly destructive trees, it would be an issue as well. It is the governments job to protect the population from these narcissists.

 

[awesomebase]

Plain Stupid

This is just plain stupid... the company doesn't even have a monopoly (70%+ marketshare)... shouldn't they be concentrating their efforts on something else? Hello? There are people that DON'T care or DON'T want Flash!! Let Adobe create their own OS for mobiles and see how "flexible" they are... what a waste of a company... 40 products that basically do 6 things with literally 70 to 80% overlap on bloated/insanely over-priced crapware. It would be like Microsoft selling 7 types of "Word" programs for $100 to $1200 each... Adobe is one company that passed its prime way back in the nineties...

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

But MS doesn't require the use of an SDK or ban you from accessing OS level APIs. You can LoadLibrary and call into a DLL offset. They even provide the capability to do so in Windows.

I love lamp

 

[tkatz]

Good. The sooner we get flash on the iPad the better.

I find the browsing experience massively curtailed without it.

^ This is the reason why Flash needs to go away, and HTML5 needs to be developed out to cover everything that it currently can't do that flash can.

The "browsing experience" should only require a "browser" to "experience".

When you have to load up a 3rd party (closed) plugin to access content thats distributed through a medium that has a full specification behind it to ensure that the software your using can view it, thats just wrong. Plain wrong.

I've said this over and over again like a broken record, but HTML was designed for a reason. To allow users on any platform to access your content. The platform can be a 3ghz 12 core system running a 3D accelerated UI, or a pentium 90 running a text based interface. Granted each system would see different representations of the content, but they would both have access TO the content. Isn't that the point?

When you're required to have someone else's software installed on your system, that just throws the entire concept out the window.


Look, I can access content without a web browser...

telnet macrumors.com 80
GET / HTTP/1.0
host: www.macrumors.com

... and if that wound up pointing to an image file, I could pipe it to a file and open the image in any software I wanted. Same with video, assuming the video was an open format (ie, mp4).

Now try doing that with a site wrapped in crap (flash). Not that anyone would, just illustrating a point on content access.

 

[John.B]

There will always be animated ads. If not in Flash, then in HTML5. If you're on a quest for an ad-free internet, you'd probably have better luck trying to catch the rainbow.

Flash is a staple of the internet experience. Videos and ads are two aspects but it's also a crucial part of many sites. "Yeah well if they have Flash content, I'll just go elsewhere, ha!"

You know, let's say you're a computer-based musician/audio dude and you want to take your daily tour of the internet to see what all the companies are up to.

(Might wanna turn on Click2Flash for this one):

www.akaipro.com
Big Flash hole in the middle. Fine, I'll take my money elsewhere then. Let's see...

www.m-audio.com
Rats. Another big Flash hole in the middle. I'm telling the mother company, bet they won't like this Flash nonsense. They'll get a major reprimand I believe. Hello Avid here I come...

www.avid.com
Huh?? Another giant Flash hole? Oh well, I bet Korg wants my money.

www.korg.com
Gigantic, monstrous Flash hole. What the...? That's it, I'm heading over to Novation.

www.novationmusic.com
Oh COME ON. How about Yamaha? Good old conservative Yamaha, they'll have HTML for me...

www.yamahasynth.com
What? Another gaping Flash rectangle? OK Japan, this is my last hope... come on Roland... help me out here...

www.roland.com
Ah. That's actually the biggest Flash rectangle I've ever seen, and there's nothing else. OK then, I give up with hardware. Let's try software instead. So...

www.steinberg.net
Ah. Big Flash hole. Dammit, I'm gonna do this...

www.native-instruments.com
Right... the entire site is Flash except the background. Oh well, I bet Ableton will welcome me with open arms...

www.ableton.com
Argh! Fine. Fine. If you want me to take my money to Cakewalk, I'll do it.

www.cakewalk.com
Oh for the love of... will SOMEONE out there show me their products?? How about Toontrack? Gimme those sweet drum plugins now...

www.toontrack.com
OK. OK. I get it. The entire industry relies on Flash.

So, to protest this, I'm gonna buy Logic from Apple. Their site is non-Flash. I won't have any hardware to control it with, but maybe I can whistle and do some beatboxing and record it on the internal microphone. That'll show'em who's the Flash-free boss! Billboard and platinum records here I come.

I'm a musician, but I don't have very many of these products (not being into trance music or rap or the like). Maybe you can tell me which ones require Flash to use? Not their websites, the applications?

Also, did you try these from an iPhone or iPad? I've found a number of websites (not necessarily yours, but many websites) actually have iPhone-friendly HTML websites if you are using a mobile browser...

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

I'm a musician, but I don't have very many of these products (not being into trance music or rap or the like).

HUH? What the heck does rap or trance have to do specifically with any of these programs!!!

 

[deadkennedy]

Being a Flash technologist for over ten years I DON'T WANT Flash on iOS. It SHOULD run within Safari on iPad and that's it. App Store should be out of reach. There are many reasons to it.

I'd just like for Steve to start behaving like a grown up and not banning it silently three days before the major product launch. He could say to Adobe way before the ban, sorry guys but this is a no-goer, rather focus on tweaking Flash cartooning features to better suit iOS development but your runtime is not happening.

 

[rockosmodurnlif]

Good. Apple is wrong to ban one of the most widely used and accepted technology on the web TODAY.

If you don't like Flash, you can uninstall it. But why not have the freedom to choose?!

Why doesn't Apple have the freedom to choose not support a technology. If this were the 90's the EU would be looking into floppy disc makers complaints about iMacs shipping without them.

 

[GoodWatch]

^ This is the reason why Flash needs to go away, and HTML5 needs to be developed out to cover everything that it currently can't do that flash can.

The "browsing experience" should only require a "browser" to "experience".

When you have to load up a 3rd party (closed) plugin to access content thats distributed through a medium that has a full specification behind it to ensure that the software your using can view it, thats just wrong. Plain wrong.

I've said this over and over again like a broken record, but HTML was designed for a reason. To allow users on any platform to access your content. The platform can be a 3ghz 12 core system running a 3D accelerated UI, or a pentium 90 running a text based interface. Granted each system would see different representations of the content, but they would both have access TO the content. Isn't that the point?

When you're required to have someone else's software installed on your system, that just throws the entire concept out the window.


Look, I can access content without a web browser...

telnet macrumors.com 80
GET / HTTP/1.0
host: www.macrumors.com

... and if that wound up pointing to an image file, I could pipe it to a file and open the image in any software I wanted. Same with video, assuming the video was an open format (ie, mp4).

Now try doing that with a site wrapped in crap (flash). Not that anyone would, just illustrating a point on content access.

I really don't care about all of this. I'm interested in the final result, not the way how this is reached. And I wonder how this community of Stockholm Syndrome sufferers would have reacted if Steve would have said the opposite about Flash. We'll never know.

The following is trivial, I know. My life loves to play a game on Facebook, maintaining a resort on an island. I don't know the name. I wanted to show her how easy she could play it on my iPad. No more hassle with a notebook but the easy way. NOT. It doesn't work. Trivial, but the result of the veto of one man.

 

[2 Replies]

Why doesn't Apple have the freedom to choose not support a technology. If this were the 90's the EU would be looking into floppy disc makers complaints about iMacs shipping without them.

Your parents made you.
Should they have the right to lobotomize the section of your brain that controls motor function, if they believe you as the user are incapable of properly using your legs?

Hardware is one thing.
But banning or restricting software because you are either afraid it will reflect poorly on yourself, or trying to force a currently unadopted proposed web technology is a whole other deal.

 

[aristotle]

I really don't care about all of this. I'm interested in the final result, not the way how this is reached. And I wonder how this community of Stockholm Syndrome sufferers would have reacted if Steve would have said the opposite about Flash. We'll never know.

The following is trivial, I know. My life loves to play a game on Facebook, maintaining a resort on an island. I don't know the name. I wanted to show her how easy she could play it on my iPad. No more hassle with a notebook but the easy way. NOT. It doesn't work. Trivial, but the result of the veto of one man.

You really don't care? Then why respond in the thread? One of the big problems with flash is that you cannot scrape a site which relies on flash and deliver the content in new and exciting ways.

Have you taken a look at apps like Times, Pulse or Flipboard for the iPad? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to aggregate news from all over the web where you could browse headlines and then "jump" to the story?

Sure, you can do that if the site provides an RSS feed but what about sites that don't provide one? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to mashup news from across the web using Google in some visual way?

@qbert: How exactly am I supposed to uninstall flash if it came with the OS? It would cause too many headaches and over complicate the UI. Right now, the UI is simple and there is no need to "login" to your phone.

 

[Anuba]

Adobe is one company that passed its prime way back in the nineties...

How ironic then, that ye olde dinosaur Adobe has been employing modern software distribution (everything they sell can be purchased in downloadable form, including the flagship CS Master Collection) for years, while Apple is stuck in the 90's with all software (except freebies) distributed on optical discs only. Up to 10 of them, actually, since they're so behind the times they have yet to adopt Blu-ray. I guess Steve only lives in that glorious "cloud" future of his when it suits him?

Meanwhile, Adobe is #42 on Fortune's top 100 best companies to work for (Apple isn't even on the list) and they're expecting double-digit growth this year. Their revenue for 2009 was 3 billion USD, 3 times the 1 billion they made in 1999 when Adobe was, according to you, "past its prime"...

Seriously, enough with this "Adobe is finished" nonsense people keep spouting just because Steve doesn't like one of their plugins (they have like a hundred products that isn't the Flash Player. All things Flash account for less than 10% of Adobe's business). There are many of us who rely on Apple *and* Adobe products to bring food on the table, but while there are alternatives to Mac, there are no viable alternatives to Creative Suite. Nearly everything you look at on your screen passed through one or two Adobe products at some point. What do you think Apple uses to design all their graphics? Corel Draw?

HUH? What the heck does rap or trance have to do specifically with any of these programs!!!

He's right. All those products are made specifically for rap and trance only. Any serious musician plays the ukulele.

 

[deadkennedy]

How ironic then, that ye olde dinosaur Adobe has been employing modern software distribution (everything they sell can be purchased in downloadable form, including the flagship CS Master Collection) for years, while Apple is stuck in the 90's with all software (except freebies) distributed on optical discs only. Up to 10 of them, actually, since they're so behind the times they have yet to adopt Blu-ray. I guess Steve only lives in that glorious "cloud" future of his when it suits him?

Meanwhile, Adobe is #42 on Fortune's top 100 best companies to work for (Apple isn't even on the list) and they're expecting double-digit growth this year. Their revenue for 2009 was 3 billion USD, 3 times the 1 billion they made in 1999 when Adobe was, according to you, "past its prime"...

Seriously, enough with this "Adobe is finished" nonsense people keep spouting just because Steve doesn't like one of their plugins (they have like a hundred products that isn't the Flash Player. All things Flash account for less than 10% of Adobe's business). There are many of us who rely on Apple *and* Adobe products to bring food on the table, but while there are alternatives to Mac, there are no viable alternatives to Creative Suite. Nearly everything you look at on your screen passed through one or two Adobe products at some point. What do you think Apple uses to design all their graphics? Corel Draw?

Haha, you made my day with this. Especially the last two words...

 

[Johnny82]

Maybe you can tell me which ones require Flash to use? Not their websites, the applications?QUOTE]

You didn't read his post huh?

 

[Full of Win]

No no, sir. AOL failed because a faster and more attractive ISP paradigm emerged, one specifically sexy for American users. People in the US hate tiered plans, pay-per-use, or feelin like they are on the clock. That is why AOL failed. Just because they were very closed like Apple does not mean both will fail.

They both held dominate positions using very closed ecosystems..until something better came along that consumers liked better. Based on the rate of Android sales, I think that may consumers like Android better.

And if you've ever looked at the original Apple success story, the iPod, you may notice that people are attracted to Apple for the very reason that they are closed, and just do their job.

The primary reason the iPad took off was, I think, it was far and away better than the competition in the early 00's in interface and usability. WHen I got my first iPod, it was like a breath of fresh air, coming off a MP3 player that used a Parallel Port to sync. However, the difference between the iPhone and other phones is not nearly as great as that between the iPod and other MP3 players of the time.

That is why Apple banned Flash- they know we want a product that just works, so they give it to us. If you want to mess around with Flash, you are more than willing to buy another phone. You know what you're getting with your iProduct: better battery life, no Flash.

All goes to the point of choice. I'd like the choice to be allowed to use it, and if it does not work out, turn it off. You say we want a product that 'just works', yet how do you know it will or will not work if Apple does not even allow the choice to use it. The simple answer is that we just don't know.

 

[Johnny82]

No, because Flash makes Steve's products look bad. Flash is a piece of junk on OS X and by all accounts is on iOS too. If you need Flash, choose a platform that supports it and which Adobe is competent enough to develop on. That's not iOS.

If only your "advanced" computer operating system would allow for hardware acceleration... tsk tsk. Get with the times.

You know, maybe Microsoft doesn't get everything right, but they get a hell of a lot of it right. On top of that, they don't just say "Well Quicktime, we haven't the time to give you the proper access to our Operating systems functions, so your software is now banned."

Speaking of which, in iTunes on Windows 7, a very large amount of people have suddently lost their 5.1 digital surround sound after some of the recent updates. You know what Apples response was? Its Windows fault. Yeah... so EVERYTHING else works using 5.1 audio on my PC and Notebook, EVERYTHING! But the new update in iTunes introduced the proper way to do it and Windows doesn't understand? Thanks Apple. For those of you who may be lurking around on these forums, you can remove your audio drivers and use the standard Microsoft ones to get it working. But if you use 5.1 in other applications, why bother? Ahwell, guess I will just switch to something else, iTunes blows anyway. Great thing about Windows... choice!

 

[scottness]

If they mandate that everyone must buy an iPhone, then yeah, the iPhone should be regulated. If they don't make you buy an iPhone, then why regulate it? You are free to buy a better product elsewhere. What's with all the overregulation?

 

[scottness]

All goes to the point of choice. I'd like the choice to be allowed to use it, and if it does not work out, turn it off. You say we want a product that 'just works', yet how do you know it will or will not work if Apple does not even allow the choice to use it. The simple answer is that we just don't know.

You do have the choice. The choice to buy another phone that runs flash. Until you lose that freedom, products should not be regulated unless there's a safety issue.

 

[eskalation.dk]

@eskalation.dk: Listen fanboy, you don't have a clue about software development or the problems with having to depend on third party libraries for your code. I'm also from Europe but I actually work in the software industry as a developer.

I am in no way a fanboy - i do like flash however and i do program AS3 and PHP, i do not develop software - i do however code for the web, and developing AS3 is heavily dependant on frameworks (PureMVC, GAIA) plus a infinite number of big classes that are used by almost every AS3 developer (TweenMax, PaperVision, etc.), i like frameworks, they make developing easier and pushes the boundries for what is possible on the platform forward. So yes i know how it is like i am heavily dependant on many of the libraries and frameworks i just wrote. Do please keep quiet and don't judge people before you know what you are talking about. You probably know nothing about developing for the web as you are a software developer.

 

[scriptx]

You really don't care? Then why respond in the thread? One of the big problems with flash is that you cannot scrape a site which relies on flash and deliver the content in new and exciting ways.

Have you taken a look at apps like Times, Pulse or Flipboard for the iPad? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to aggregate news from all over the web where you could browse headlines and then "jump" to the story?

Sure, you can do that if the site provides an RSS feed but what about sites that don't provide one? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to mashup news from across the web using Google in some visual way?

@qbert: How exactly am I supposed to uninstall flash if it came with the OS? It would cause too many headaches and over complicate the UI. Right now, the UI is simple and there is no need to "login" to your phone.

I think you miss his point. He doesn't care about all the reasons there isn't flash or how content may be consumed by other applications (often illegally). He doesn't want that, he wants the internet he knows to work the way he expects on a device he bought. So, he'll either learn to live with a half functioning Facebook for his Facebook games or get a different device. Once the Apple as a current fashion trend ends, I think more people will start making decisions on function other than form.

 

[AidenShaw]

Wow this is retarted u have the right to ban anyone or thing from ur os. U don't have to develop for them if u don't like it take it somewhere else. It's like saying the icecream store dosent have chocolate so yr guna sue them. WTF

Did I miss the

Written from my Etch-a-Sketch​

disclaimer on your post?

Please, pick a language and use it for your posts.

 

[aristotle]

If only your "advanced" computer operating system would allow for hardware acceleration... tsk tsk. Get with the times.

Troll much? OS X has had hardware acceleration built into the OS for the UI since Jaguar? Core Video/Core Animation came out with 10.5 (Leopard) giving developers access to hardware accelerated video and animation.

There are plenty of developers who managed to use it just fine but Adobe developers are too lazy to maintain two disparate code bases for video acceleration for OS X and Windows. Adobe is mainly focused on windows and it was not until flash 10.1 that we saw some performance parity with windows. Apple even provided some new low level gfx routines so that Adobe would quit their whining and still be able to maintain their bloated codebase without branching to support OS X properly.

Adobe needs to refactor their Flash runtime.

 

[aristotle]

I think you miss his point. He doesn't care about all the reasons there isn't flash or how content may be consumed by other applications (often illegally). He doesn't want that, he wants the internet he knows to work the way he expects on a device he bought. So, he'll either learn to live with a half functioning Facebook for his Facebook games or get a different device. Once the Apple as a current fashion trend ends, I think more people will start making decisions on function other than form.

Put down your crack pipe. If it is illegal to scrape sites then "Browsers" would be illegal as would user side CSS. Almost every modern browser supports client side CSS to override the layout of the site. Once content is on the web, it is fair game unless you put it behind a pay wall.

That feature is there for for usability by screen readers and other programs which are also not "browsers" but they scrape sites to make them more accessible to the blind and people with vision problems.

Flash sites are virtually impossible to use by blind or people with diminished eyesight.

Do you understand that sites which use modern CSS are far more accessible to all people than flash?

 

[Anuba]

If they mandate that everyone must buy an iPhone, then yeah, the iPhone should be regulated. If they don't make you buy an iPhone, then why regulate it? You are free to buy a better product elsewhere. What's with all the overregulation?

Meet the EU's new Digital Agenda:

http://gigaom.com/2010/07/06/eus-digital-agenda-could-mean-headaches-for-apple/

The European Union’s new Digital Agenda, an ambitious program of incentives and legislation designed to improve access to technology across the EU, could force companies such as Apple to open up their businesses by requiring them to offer more interoperability and use open standards. It could force more openness even if those companies are not the dominant player in a specific market, because the language in the EU Agenda says that such measures could apply merely to “significant” players in a market — broadening the scope of previous antitrust rules substantially.

Currently, companies are only subject to antitrust or anticompetitive oversight if they are a dominant player in a specific market. Although the Agenda doesn’t have the force of legislation, it is clear that the European Union — and specifically Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner in charge of the Digital Agenda — is focusing on open standards and interoperability as a key plank in its attempt to broaden access to technology for its citizens. The Agenda outlines what the EU sees as seven significant obstacles to an improved digital economy, and No. 2 on the list is a lack of interoperability:

Europe does not yet reap the maximum benefit from interoperability. Weaknesses in standard-setting, public procurement and coordination between public authorities prevent digital services and devices used by Europeans from working together as well as they should. The Digital Agenda can only take off if its different parts and applications are interoperable and based on standards and open platforms.

The Agenda states that the Commission “will examine the feasibility of measures that could lead significant market players to license interoperability information while at the same time promoting innovation and competition,” and proposes that EU members develop and adopt a “European Interoperability Strategy and European Interoperability Framework” that would apply in all member countries. These measures could mean that companies such as Apple, Google and Microsoft have to open up their businesses more than they have previously, or risk the threat of sanctions. Google in particular has already been the target of the EU’s wrath on privacy issues.

Kroes has talked specifically about Apple in discussing the rationale behind the Digital Agenda, saying the company and its control over iTunes raises many of the issues she is concerned about around interoperability. The EU Commissioner stated that significant market players “cannot just choose to deny interoperability with their product,” and that while she is in favor of innovation, “any company which holds a significant market position and acts against interoperability should know that the Commission is ready to act to defend the interests of European consumers.”

So... is Apple a significant player? If yes, then they can't fly under the radar.

Note also that she says "open standards". If the EU finds that Flash does not qualify for an open standard (which it doesn't), then the outcome of the investigation might not be that Apple should adopt Flash, but rather that the EU agrees with Apple that HTML5 is the way to go. Or, it might actually push Adobe into making Flash an open standard.

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/digital-agenda/index_en.htm

 

[The Phazer]

This is just plain stupid... the company doesn't even have a monopoly (70%+ marketshare)... shouldn't they be concentrating their efforts on something else?

Apple have over 90% of the mobile application distribution market.

This is brilliant news. Hopefully the EU throws the book at Apple, and they're forced to grow up and let Flash on the platform, which will make it immeasurably superior. I come across sites that are broken due to the lack of Flash every day, and use features that HTML 5 simply cannot replace. I'd never buy an iPad because of it.

Phazer