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Has it ever occurred to people that Steve Jobs is actually quite a brilliant technologist and business man and being in his position of arguably the most influential and respected C.E.O. in the world he just MIGHT know what the $^@# he is talking about??? :rolleyes:

I don't think he is God or anything but just a thought! ;)
 
Don't worry, i'm not defending Adobe's stance and indeed many ways that you interact with flash are crippled using a touch screen, I'd like to see the Droid run this site properly for instance!

In regard to that, Adobe have to re-invent the tool sets and events that trigger the equivalent of a mouse click properly (for instance, dragging your finger acts as a roll over and double tap acts as a mouse click) or just let developers continue to make flash content that is broken using a touch interface.

As much as Adobe like to say they want to create content that can be delivered on multiple platforms, from phone to computer ... they still insist that you need to "optimise" for low power and touch screens. i.e. Some poor developer is still going to have to make a mobile and desktop site and be clever enough to do it elegantly. And it's a testing nightmare.

I guess there is a two-fold problem of
a) delivering flash on touch platforms and of
b)delivering flash on low power platforms.

Just for the time being, they two go hand-in-hand.

Once Adobe fix both of these, Apple might relent on their stance.

But then developers are presented with a choice. Rebuild your app in flash or rebuild your app in HTML 5. Which would they choose given the current climate? Essentially, are the shortcomings of Flash on a mobile device enough to warrant developers migrating to HTML 5?
 
The media may drive the consumer market plenty, but in the end when us devs opt for a more stable, better performing, more efficient, and open alternative, consumer choice won't make a bit of difference. ;)

Absolutely correct. And if we don't need to purchase another Adobe product to achieve our goals... all the better.
 
Odd, I have a 3 ghz dual-core processor Mac and it struggles with 720p Flash videos on YouTube. :(

Ah, yes my Pro isn't smooth like butter either, perhaps that was an optimistic statement!

2 years? Qualcom just recently announced availability of 1.5 GHZ dual core snapdragon this year. We could possibly see an android phone with that processor by the end of this year.
Ah yes, I knew there was at least 1ghz processors knocking about, perhaps that was a pessimistic statement!

But then developers are presented with a choice. Rebuild your app in flash or rebuild your app in HTML 5. Which would they choose given the current climate? Essentially, are the shortcomings of Flash on a mobile device enough to warrant developers migrating to HTML 5?

Exactly, I hope developers are truly proactive about their choices making new sites and new content! On a similar vein, it really shocked me the other day to think that Youtube has only been around 5 years, but is such prolific force on the internet.
 
All "this news doesn't belong here", "this is a Mac website, not Android!", and "OMFG Steve Jobs was right! LOLOL" comments aside, this article is still irrelevant.

Here's another way to determine "mac" relevancy.. "Does this story help me make a decision on whether to buy or sell Apple stock?"

I'd say this "yes" for this story, since if Steve's bet on Flash is wrong, Apple will suffer for it. I find it pretty amazing that anyone would complain that this story is here, given that Jobs has openly engaged in this issue with an open letter.

The Laptop piece not only mentions the letter, but confirms significant portions of Steve Jobs' open letter. I'm not sure how much more pertinent and relevant you can get. We're stacking up RL data against an open letter from the Apple CEO and comparing.
 
Well the Droid Forum seems pretty dry:
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/tags/droid rumors.html

But you can go share the news over there if you like.

If you want to provide links to "adobe rumors", "smartphone rumors" or any other relevant rumors sites please do so the news can be spread.

That is a terrible search query. I browsed my regular blogs, Engadget, BGR, Droid-Life, Android Central... even the Droid 2 forums at Droidforums.net and didn't find any news of poor performance on this device (but I found PLENTY of rumors about smartphones, iPhones, Android phones...). I'm not discounting LaptopMag (I've never heard of them, never seen their content linked), but unless a story is generated on one of the other sites I follow (see: http://www.smartphoneexperts.com/communities ), it's not really relevant to anyone who doesn't have the device, in my opinion.
 
I couldn't give a crap, I want flash regardless of performance, and anyway this is such bull you know why? Tons of people have played flash using FRASH on iphone 4 and ipad, from what I saw on the videos I did not see any lagging..
So what you are telling us is that you had no experience with it? It was not just the lagging but the crashing that people had a problem with when they tried frash on their jailbroken devices. Do you even have an iOS device let alone a jailbroken one? No? Then your opinion means nothing.

Nobody cares if you could not give a crap about something that does not affect you one way or another since you don't have an iOS device.
:rolleyes:
 
Flash runs poorly on most netbooks, how do you think a portable phone will handle it?

The program is dated.

Flash runs like crap on anything other than the Windows desktop platform. It doesn't matter what spec machine you have, Flash just eats CPU cycles for fun on Linux and Mac platforms. It's been a problem for as long as I can remember since Flash became popular, and I have no faith in Adobe being able to solve the problem now.
 
I give you:
[snip]
Another fanboy obsessed with the device, clearly.

You don't even know what I have. This story is very pertinent to Apple's mobile ecosystem. Maybe you aren't aware, but when someone/something enters into battle as a combatant, everything its enemy does that might affect its fortunes becomes pertinent.

If you think what I have to say is nonsense, then by all means, don't waste your time reading it.
Nobody is forcing you to read this story, or this site. You were the first one to complain, why are you implicating me?
 
That is a terrible search query. I browsed my regular blogs, Engadget, BGR, Droid-Life, Android Central... even the Droid 2 forums at Droidforums.net and didn't find any news of poor performance on this device (but I found PLENTY of rumors about smartphones, iPhones, Android phones...). I'm not discounting LaptopMag (I've never heard of them, never seen their content linked), but unless a story is generated on one of the other sites I follow (see: http://www.smartphoneexperts.com/communities ), it's not really relevant to anyone who doesn't have the device, in my opinion.

Can you post the news over there where its more "relevant" or are you too busy?
 
Another fanboy obsessed with the device, clearly. If you think what I have to say is nonsense, then by all means, don't waste your time reading it.

I would like to add that if Flash performed awesomely, I think it would be equally relevant. Again, the success or failure of mobile Flash is going to be a significant factor on the future development of the iPhone.

I'd also like to add "clearly" because it's a fun extra word to say that doesn't really add to an argument.
 
Wow what a shocker! a web based application designed on and optimized for desktop computers may run a bit slower on a phone. How could any person on the planet have expected any different?

This is a fair point, but it's Adobe as much as anyone who has been promoting this sort of misleading expectation.

Adobe really has to live up to a lot of expectations here because pretty much if Flash doesn't work as well as it does on a Desktop then people are going to say it is garbage. Keep in mind that there are a lot of HTML5/CSS3/SVG/javascript samples out there that run really bad on an Iphone as well.

Performance is being constantly improved by *competing* (this is critical) browser manufacturers. Unlike Flash, which is a locked down closed source platform. There are plenty of examples out there where well coded JS out performs Flash, and without crippling your CPU at the same time. Well-coded AS3 (Flash) will still hammer your PC, when it's actually quite hard to have JS to gobble up 100% CPU unless you mess up your code.

Plus, being open source, if you think you can do better, nothing to stop you contributing to one of the open source projects to improve the performance of any of the major javascript engines.

There is NO opportunity to do with this with Flash. Adobe owns the platform.

HTML5 is great when it comes to video performance but I just do not see any advantage of it over Flash when it comes to web application development.


No advantage? You mean apart from working any any modern browser, on any device, mobile or otherwise? Or, the ability to improve the performance of JS or video playback by contributing code to WebKit or Mozilla? Or the fact there are countless open source frameworks that massively accelerate development, without the need of PAID SOFTWARE to create your end product? Flash is NOT free to develop for, remember.


I have seen both run equally slow or fast with an equal amount of crashes.

While browser support for HTML5 isn't '100%' yet, I've seen very few crashes, and certainly no big hits on the CPU. Pretty much guarantee seeing one of the CPU cores going to 100% whenever visiting a site with anything more than Flash on it. But YMMV, depends on what sites you hit.

As for touch interfacing Flash has the tools built in to develop for touch devices. Does this help with existing games? no but it is also pretty easy to load the Flash source code for a game and adjust it for touch devices. Just give it some time and I'm sure you will start to see Flash games ported to a touch interface.

I think Flash is actually better places for delivering these interfaces, on paper anyway. If you actually take a look at open source projects like jQueryMobile (and its UI components) it soon becomes apparent that developing this stuff in Flash feels... horribly dated, old fashioned. There are far more flexible, faster ways of developing slick touch interfaces that will match and exceed anything that can be done in Flash right now.

I wish Adobe would focus their energy on developing better JS tools, supporting frameworks like jQuery and the HTML5 platform. I'm fairly confident the writing is on the wall, and it will take some kind of miracle product to save Flash in the long run. It's not dead yet: the vast majority of video content will continue to be delivered in Flash for a long time to come.
 
Flash runs like crap on anything other than the Windows desktop platform. It doesn't matter what spec machine you have, Flash just eats CPU cycles for fun on Linux and Mac platforms. It's been a problem for as long as I can remember since Flash became popular, and I have no faith in Adobe being able to solve the problem now.

Do you feel the same way about Open GL?
 
It is very relevant.

I do not own a smart phone so do I care? Not really. But I can see that it is relevant.

What is silly is perhaps getting all frothy at the mouth while taking sides. But step away from that and the performance of the technology on devices similar to the iphone is worthy of some discussion.

Yes, but it's equally as silly to say "Flash is dead" because it doesn't perform well on one mobile device.

People need to understand that all Android phones are not equal. This isn't iOS. There are a handful of Android devices coming out every month. Conversely, only a handful of new iOS devices coming out every year. To say that Flash has failed because it tested poorly on one device is irrelevant, if you ask me.
 
Any site that doesn't offer a non-flash web experience is a poor website.

+1
And they hate people with disabilities. Since almost the inception of HTML, there have been considerations made for blind people with screen readers.

Alt text has been part of the img tag since the beginning which you are supposed to provide a short description for each image.

With the advent of CSS, it was easy to create a screen reader friendly layout using CSS and div tags.

Every example of flash navigation that I saw was not accessible to a screen reader and required the use of a mouse to navigate.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.1-update1; en-gb; Dell Streak Build/ERE27) AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/530.17)

aristotle said:
Any site that doesn't offer a non-flash web experience is a poor website.

+1
And they hate people with disabilities. Since almost the inception of HTML, there have been considerations made for blind people with screen readers.

Alt text has been part of the img tag since the beginning which you are supposed to provide a short description for each image.

With the advent of CSS, it was easy to create a screen reader friendly layout using CSS and div tags.

Every example of flash navigation that I saw was not accessible to a screen reader and required the use of a mouse to navigate.

Wow, what an intelligent and great advantage to html5! Something I'd never have considered before.

Thanks for posting it. My desire for html5 has just risen a little more! :)
 
The crux of the matter is that android is choice first. While it may not be a perfect experience, android opts to offer its users any content that they may wish. With Apple, its experience first. If they can't dictate a fluid and (mostly) problem free experience, they don't want it impugning people's view of their devices.

I think you point is well taken. Android is wide open -- they will give you all the rope you want; you can build a net, or a hammock of any size you want or you can hang yourself -- your choice. Apple will just give you the hammock in one size (maybe two), but the hammock will be really comfortable and easy to hang up -- Apple feels that nets are on their way out and doesn't want to deal with customer complaints regarding nets.

It's kinda tiring hearing people scream that Steve Jobs is a jerk for not giving them choices. I don't know him personally -- maybe he is a jerk -- but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's a businessman who wants to make money.

His business strategy is about controlling the experience with Apple products such that it is pleasant and reduces his support costs and helps ensure future sales. iPhone is really easy to use for that reason -- it appeals to the geek and to the technically impaired.

If you want choice, then go get an Android phone. The experience may be a bit less refined, but you can get whatever you want on the device and if you are savvy enough you can avoid the pitfalls and understand exactly what privileges you are granting to those applications you downloaded (I know most of my family would be confused). You even have the choice of form factors for your phone -- anything from a physical keyboard to a kickstand.

In the end, Google and Apple both want the same thing. They want you locked into to them. Apple owns the whole deal from front to back. With Google you can choose carriers or phone manufacturers, but ultimately you are dealing with Google. Its all about owning the customer -- and that's good business.

So regarding Flash, I would say Apple made a good business decision. Supporting Adobe Flash just does not fit with their business strategy. Quite frankly, I can't say I miss it either when I am surfing on my iPhone or iPad.
 
+1
And they hate people with disabilities. Since almost the inception of HTML, there have been considerations made for blind people with screen readers.

Alt text has been part of the img tag since the beginning which you are supposed to provide a short description for each image.

With the advent of CSS, it was easy to create a screen reader friendly layout using CSS and div tags.

Every example of flash navigation that I saw was not accessible to a screen reader and required the use of a mouse to navigate.

Great point about the alt text tag.

This is similar to websites that don't allow you to sign up for text only email messages. Its likely that most people have no need for that. But how hard is it to include that option for the few that do?

Some people need or desire a simple html site without flash. If you want to use flash fine. But there should be an option for the user to view a simpler version of the site.
 
This is something Kevin Lynch himself admitted in that Engadget interview.

Still, in 2 years time, phone processors might be pushing 2 ghz and this issue will be moot, then they'll be able to chug through a 720p youtube video fine. Neither Apples nor Adobes all-or-nothing attitude is correct but Adobe just stubbornly know that the hardware march of technology waits for no man.

Are you saying something like:

We have petrol cars and they pollute, then we start to use electric cars and we make them better and better, but at some point we look back and say, "now the enviroment got clean, lets use petrol cars again!".

(?)
 
Good reason for poor performance

There's good reason for the poor performance that ANY third party application would have in a host OS. It's access to the native methods and programming structures that make native applications work as efficiently as possible. When you're dealing with limited resources, these inefficiencies are compounded. This is why Flash isn't going to be a good way to deliver content on mobile platform.

've designed some very advanced media consumption apps using Flash Lite, and they are a disaster compared to native apps. To think a broader set of functionality would somehow function more efficiently if foolhardy.

The problem Adobe has is actually painfully obvious, regardless of your affinity for Flash. If you're using Flash to deliver video, and you want to do it for mobile or touch, it would be just as easy by going to HTML5. In the process, you'd expand your user base! Let's not forget that much of the Flash video content in the world is simply a Flash wrapper around an otherwise standards compliant video. Irony?

On top of that, native drawing methods and efficiencies will have to be mapped to platform specific methods to keep up with performance users expect. This is how Flash can do hardware video support, but not much else– it's too complex.

And don't get me started on web sites. In 5 years time, you will not see Flash based websites from major companies. Anyone who knows better will have jumped ship to please early adopters on mobile. In the process they will also support standard compliant computer browsers. It's a win / win.

Face it, Flash was wonderful in a lot of ways. But the standards compliant methods, and platform native methods when dealing in mobile, will trump it's performance every time. It's day has passed.
 
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