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Fallout From Apple's Exclusion of Flash-to-iPhone Export Continues
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It's sad that it had to get to this, but seriously Adobe, how long could you make an inferior product in a monopolistic fashion and not expect that someday the wall would begin to crumble?
Ganesha, I think you have more smarts than Mr. Narayen. Only fools hold on to old technology. It's called creative destruction. Usually it works fine, unless of course the government steps in does something stupid....
Exhibit A: Prop up failing car companies...
There's plenty of choices out there. If you don't like what Apple is doing, personally I do, then don't buy Apple products with the iPhone OS on it. I have a Macbook but my phone is a Blackberry and my game console is a Wii and DS Lite. On the Wii with the web browser I view flash web sites just fine.
Honestly, though I don't care for Flash (been a Flash dev before) I do like the game sites that use it for kids. Apple demonstrated with the intro of iPhone OS4 that those sites can be replaced by HTML5 but it will be a long road till all move over.
Honestly, though I don't care for Flash (been a Flash dev before) I do like the game sites that use it for kids. Apple demonstrated with the intro of iPhone OS4 that those sites can be replaced by HTML5 but it will be a long road till all move over.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)
Also I could be wrong but I know Apple updates java so isn't it possible apple could build there own custom flash player for OS X and ipad iPhone etc or does adobe hold all the rights etc also I'm surprised silverlight performs well on a mac that's a switch from office.
Also I could be wrong but I know Apple updates java so isn't it possible apple could build there own custom flash player for OS X and ipad iPhone etc or does adobe hold all the rights etc also I'm surprised silverlight performs well on a mac that's a switch from office.
Problem with flash as cited from Wikipedia
Excerpts taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash
Criticism
Security
Flash's poor security record[52] has caused several security experts to recommend to not install Flash or to block it[53]. The US-CERT recommends to block Flash using NoScript[54]. Charlie Miller recommended "not to install Flash"[55] at the computer security conference CanSecWest. As of March 27, 2010, The Flash Player has 75 CVE entries[56], 34 of which have been ranked with a high severity (leading to arbitrary code execution), and 40 ranked medium. In February 2010, Adobe officially apologized[57] for not fixing a known vulnerability for over 1 year.
Privacy
Even well established breadcrumb clean-up or anti-forensic tools like CCleaner do not clean the Flash plugin "Visited Websites" list.[citation needed]
Flash cookies
Main article: Local Shared Object
Like the HTTP cookie, a flash cookie (also known as Local Shared Object) can be used to save application data. Flash cookies are not shared across domains. An August 2009 study by the Social Science Research Network found that 50% of websites using Flash were also employing flash cookies, yet privacy policies rarely disclosed them, and user controls for privacy preferences were lacking.[62] Most browsers' cache and history suppress or delete functions do not affect Flash Player's writing Local Shared Objects to its own cache, and the user community is much less aware of the existence and function of Flash cookies than HTTP cookies[63]. Thus, users having deleted HTTP cookies and purged browser history files and caches may believe that they have purged all tracking data from their computers when in fact Flash browsing history remains. Adobe's own Flash Website Storage Settings panel, a submenu of Adobe's Flash Settings Manager web application, and other editors and toolkits can manage settings for and delete Flash Local Shared Objects[64].
Performance
* Any Flash player has to be able to animate on top of video renderings, which makes hardware accelerated video rendering at least not as straightforward as with a purpose built multimedia player.[65] Therefore, when only displaying video, it is both typical[66][67] and legitimate[68] for Flash players to be more resource intensive than dedicated video player software.
* Comparisons have shown Adobe Flash Player to perform better on Windows than Mac OSX and Linux with the same hardware.
Stability
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc. openly criticised the stability of Flash, claiming that when one of Apple's Macintosh computers crashes, "more often than not" the cause can be attributed to Flash. Additionally, he labelled Flash as "buggy".[71]
[edit] Usability
Using Flash tends to break conventions associated with normal HTML pages. Selecting text, scrolling,[72] form control and right-clicking act differently than with a regular HTML webpage. Many such interface unexpectancies are fixable by the designer. Usability expert Jakob Nielsen published an Alertbox in 2000 entitled, Flash: 99% Bad which listed issues like this.[73] Some problems have been improved upon since Nielsen's complaints:
* Text size can be controlled using full page zoom, found in many modern browsers.
* It has been possible for authors to include alternative text in Flash since Flash Player 6. This accessibility feature is compatible only with certain screen readers and only under Windows.[74]
The US Justice Department has stated in regard to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990:[citation needed]
Covered entities under the ADA are required to provide effective communication, regardless of whether they generally communicate through print media, audio media, or computerized media such as the Internet. Covered entities that use the Internet for communications regarding their programs, goods, or services must be prepared to offer those communications through accessible means as well.
Problems with 64-bit Linux
Adobe's 64-bit Flash player is experimental and not shipped with Linux distributions. Some distributions ship or package the supported 32-bit version, which may be problematic.
Excerpts taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash
Criticism
Security
Flash's poor security record[52] has caused several security experts to recommend to not install Flash or to block it[53]. The US-CERT recommends to block Flash using NoScript[54]. Charlie Miller recommended "not to install Flash"[55] at the computer security conference CanSecWest. As of March 27, 2010, The Flash Player has 75 CVE entries[56], 34 of which have been ranked with a high severity (leading to arbitrary code execution), and 40 ranked medium. In February 2010, Adobe officially apologized[57] for not fixing a known vulnerability for over 1 year.
Privacy
Even well established breadcrumb clean-up or anti-forensic tools like CCleaner do not clean the Flash plugin "Visited Websites" list.[citation needed]
Flash cookies
Main article: Local Shared Object
Like the HTTP cookie, a flash cookie (also known as Local Shared Object) can be used to save application data. Flash cookies are not shared across domains. An August 2009 study by the Social Science Research Network found that 50% of websites using Flash were also employing flash cookies, yet privacy policies rarely disclosed them, and user controls for privacy preferences were lacking.[62] Most browsers' cache and history suppress or delete functions do not affect Flash Player's writing Local Shared Objects to its own cache, and the user community is much less aware of the existence and function of Flash cookies than HTTP cookies[63]. Thus, users having deleted HTTP cookies and purged browser history files and caches may believe that they have purged all tracking data from their computers when in fact Flash browsing history remains. Adobe's own Flash Website Storage Settings panel, a submenu of Adobe's Flash Settings Manager web application, and other editors and toolkits can manage settings for and delete Flash Local Shared Objects[64].
Performance
* Any Flash player has to be able to animate on top of video renderings, which makes hardware accelerated video rendering at least not as straightforward as with a purpose built multimedia player.[65] Therefore, when only displaying video, it is both typical[66][67] and legitimate[68] for Flash players to be more resource intensive than dedicated video player software.
* Comparisons have shown Adobe Flash Player to perform better on Windows than Mac OSX and Linux with the same hardware.
Stability
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc. openly criticised the stability of Flash, claiming that when one of Apple's Macintosh computers crashes, "more often than not" the cause can be attributed to Flash. Additionally, he labelled Flash as "buggy".[71]
[edit] Usability
Using Flash tends to break conventions associated with normal HTML pages. Selecting text, scrolling,[72] form control and right-clicking act differently than with a regular HTML webpage. Many such interface unexpectancies are fixable by the designer. Usability expert Jakob Nielsen published an Alertbox in 2000 entitled, Flash: 99% Bad which listed issues like this.[73] Some problems have been improved upon since Nielsen's complaints:
* Text size can be controlled using full page zoom, found in many modern browsers.
* It has been possible for authors to include alternative text in Flash since Flash Player 6. This accessibility feature is compatible only with certain screen readers and only under Windows.[74]
The US Justice Department has stated in regard to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990:[citation needed]
Covered entities under the ADA are required to provide effective communication, regardless of whether they generally communicate through print media, audio media, or computerized media such as the Internet. Covered entities that use the Internet for communications regarding their programs, goods, or services must be prepared to offer those communications through accessible means as well.
Problems with 64-bit Linux
Adobe's 64-bit Flash player is experimental and not shipped with Linux distributions. Some distributions ship or package the supported 32-bit version, which may be problematic.
The decision by Apple makes sense if I understand it correctly. The CS5 method would not write apps that were able to make use of power-saving APIs in the SDK, so the effort Apple put into conserving battery life would be for naught in many apps. If that's the deal, makes total sense.
After monitoring how much CPU Flash hogs when a Web site uses it on my MBP, I'm all behind Apple here. Playing FarmVille was like I was encoding a movie.
After monitoring how much CPU Flash hogs when a Web site uses it on my MBP, I'm all behind Apple here. Playing FarmVille was like I was encoding a movie.
Adobe and the creative community are the only reason Apple has survived the last 10 years, before iPods, iPhones, iPads and such consumer silliness. Those products WOULD NOT exist without Adobe because APPLE WOULD NOT EXIST WITHOUT ADOBE.
I'm a huge Apple advocate but this dispute might have finally made me think otherwise. Am I the only creative that feels this way?
Steve Jobs and Apple are the same as Bill Gates and Microsoft. Petty money-driven greedy silliness.
I'm a huge Apple advocate but this dispute might have finally made me think otherwise. Am I the only creative that feels this way?
Steve Jobs and Apple are the same as Bill Gates and Microsoft. Petty money-driven greedy silliness.
HA HA HA Farmville. I am so sick of hearing of that game on facebook. But seriously, I have been reading so many complaint from my FB friends on how Farmville, Cafeworld and the others are not working or my friends computers suddenly crash. I did not know they were written in flash. Now that makes sense with the post I just put from wikipedia on the issues and all the facebook hacks, facebook viruses, etc.
+1, I'm a designer and I agree with you 100%
.. I would choose Adobe over Apple any day.. I just hope all this doesn't end up meaning no CS5 for Macs..
Nonsense. So *only* xcode tools product good code? Remember that the xcode compilers are all GNU/OSS. What about the C preprocessor? Or perhaps various tools that synthesize code from UI frameworks? Or ...
I'm not saying these *are* better tools, but your interpretation is nonsense.
I added such posts to ignore list. The only time I have added anything to ignore lists (even the uber Apple fan-boys on this site I've not ignored
).My argument still stands. Apple have not said "Tools that product poor quality code" or "Tools that do xxx" etc. They have said ALL others tools are forbidden. I said nothing about Foo having abstract concepts, a different runtime, or anything else. I simply said that, as written, Apple can ban an app based on the tools used EVEN IF it is bit-for-bit identical to another app using their tools. In other words they are no longer judging the quality/usability/robustness of the application itself, they are judging HOW that application was created. And where does such an intrusion end? When they say what color underwear the developer must wear?
Billyg saved steve in '97. they're peas 'n carrots, two kettles calling each other black, two parts to the evil empire....history before the i<whatever> generation. /rant
... and I totally agree that bloated apps are vile. And yes, Apple have no *technical* way of knowing, based on the binaries, how I generated the app (compilers leave breadcrumbs in object files, but these are easy to emulate). But this isnt about capabilities, it's about Apple reserving the right to reject an app based on the tools you use, EVEN IF said tools generate clean, efficient code. As I said elsewhere, this is very different from previous restrictions by Apple since these all addressed the quality/characteristcs of the final application, whereas this restriction is based not on WHAT the application is but HOW it was made.
Apple's move to ban middleware tools affects Unity 3d and torque. That's like banning the Unreal Engine on Xbox 360. Middleware is how the bulk of console development works. Killing it on iPhone is bad, bad, bad for games.
Middleware exists for a very good reason.
Dude, this made me lol. For realz.
Apple isn't a petty company. Whether they were doing it to stifle App competition in other companies' phones (which is a legitimate, if kinda dicky, business move), or because they're trying to drive out the monster that is flash (also dicky, but necessary), or because it would detriment their user experience somehow. My vote is on a lopsided mixture of the last two. With such a direct method of porting flash releases, yeah, you'd have every flash game known to mankind ported to the iPhone, but they wouldn't work very well, and Apple's app store would be flooded with a plethora of poorly made flash ports that drain battery and resources like they're a cliche. Plus, it would only to further Flash's popularity in the development community, which is definitely NOT a good thing. Once HTML5 completely replaces Flash, the entire web will become available on the iPhone, with no performance or battery hits.
(I hate Cider ports for the same reason. Yeah, it allows Macs to run many of the same games as Windows, but it's a poorman's port. Performance hits all around, and the lack of legitimate support from developers make it one of the largest hidden banes to gaming on Macs.)
You see, Apple is not about catering to everyone's petty desires with their products. What they do is they make something that works well and makes most people extremely happy, and they don't compromise to do it. If Apple is going to do something, they're going to do it right. It took forever for Apple to include multitasking in iPhone, for example, but they took the time to make it right, with next to no performance and battery drawbacks.
AND in that same 10 years BEFORE the 'silliness' that you call it ADOBE WOULD NOT EXIST WITHOUT APPLE... Now the 'silliness' that you refer to is Apple broadening their business far beyond it's former self. At one time nearly 100% of Apples 'bottom line' was from the sale of Macintosh Computers and a moderate % of those computers but certainly NOT 100% relied on Adobe software.
Now those same Macintosh Computers account for an ever shrinking portion of Apples bottom line... EVEN in a time when Mac sales are STRONGER than they ever were. That should be SCREAMING TO YOU how that 'silliness' isn't so silly after all.
Today, Apple can treat Adobe just like Adobe treated Apple for those '10 years' prior to the sillyness... Adobe would roll out subpar versions of all the software that are now known as CS. While Windows versions got all the attention. Then the crappy developing work continued with FLASH and Adobe couldn't care less... They knew they 'owned' Apple and Apple couldn't say 'boo' about it.
However something pretty important has changed. Apple no longer lives or dies by the sale of Macintosh Computers anymore. Sure they are important to Apple but Steve is very happy that his company generates money from so many diverse sources that if Mac sales dropped by 40% tomorrow (not that it would happen) Apple would continue on just fine.
Now some people are insinuating that Adobe has a wildcard they can use... At that's DROPPING Adobe CS For The Mac.... The only problem is this... Yes, Adobe CS Mac users would eventually migrate to Windows (most likely - but not right away) but the actual HIT to Apples 'bottom line' would barely register a blip. More and more Mac buyers are NOT Adobe CS customers.
In short, the only thing that would happen is ADOBE would loose about 30%?? of its ENTIRE bottom line and somehow THAT would not go unnoticed by the shareholders.
Finally theres this from an interview from 2007...
Well as for efficiency, we should all go back to assembler then (been there, done that .. a LOT). But again, Apple have said NOTHING about applications being efficient, you are INFERRING this. What they said was that they reserve the right to reject an app based upon HOW it was developed REGARDLESS of if the app itself is clean, efficient, unbloated etc.
A lot of the discussion in this thread misses this fundamental point. There is a 1st order need: to have clean efficient iPhone apps that arent fat and vile and eat power etc. Amen. Xcode generates (mostly) pretty clean compact apps. But the leap from "You must develop clean apps" to "You must use xcode" is nonsense. Logically it says "ONLY xcode can create clean apps" and (equally nonsense), "xcode cannot generate bloated apps".
In other words Apple have tried to promote a 1st order goal with a 2nd order restriction.
Adobe priced themselves out of the market. Nobody wants to pay their exorbitant prices. People do because it's 'the standard', but they resent it and have no loyalty to the brand.
This is just Adobe's death throes. Apple is protecting developers from taking the wrong path.
This is just Adobe's death throes. Apple is protecting developers from taking the wrong path.