People don't care about flash. If they did, iOS devices would be tanking. I haven visited a site that uses flash since like 2003.
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Flash Soon to Hit the iPad?
- Thread starter LouieSamman
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People don't care about flash. If they did, iOS devices would be tanking. I haven visited a site that uses flash since like 2003.
The problem with Adobe's "full internet experience" buzzword is that it doesn't pass the smell test. Over 222 Million iOS devices have been sold. If there were something essential missing from the Internet for those users, that tremendous sales success would have never happened.
As a user, can you name a dozen specific Flash sites you visit that are essential for your "full internet experience"? How about six? How about three? One?
If there do actually exist "essential" Flash apps, Adobe now provides tools to cross-compile those apps and deliver them through the App Store.
One item often ignored in the Flash debate: Flash is lousy for accessibility; it never uses the accessibility utilities provided on the particular platforms. You seem to care about the "full internet experience"; do you care that a Flash-dominated world would totally lock out users needing accessibility widgets from that "full internet experience"?
My eyes were opened when I watched this week's edition (#58) of TWiT's iPad Today. So many marvelous accessibility apps are popping up on the iPad! For me, that show was the last nail in the coffin of the "full internet experience" conjecture.
Again: I would love to hear some specific URLs for pages that you view as essential to your "full internet experience".
Demographics is destiny. Apple has reported over 222M iOS devices sold; the number will be far north of 250M by the end of the year. If those S&P 500 companies wish to ignore that massive number (and the attractive financial profiles of the owners of those devices), they do so at their own peril.
If there are actually some mission-critical Flash apps on their websites, a smart S&P 500 company would get them cross-compiled and provide a link to the iOS App Store for iPad users to download the app. That would be a good stopgap measure until a comprehensive solution is implemented. OTOH, if the Flash on those S&P 500 websites is just window dressing, it should be taken down promptly.
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Why? As a user he said he can't visit sites he wants to. You can either believe him or call him a liar.
1. I'm interested if Adobe's "full internet experience" is just a marketing slogan or if there is substance behind it.
2. Many posters are often unaware that there already exist alternatives to a flash-based website. For example, the business may already provide a native iOS App to serve users of the 220M+ iOS devices out there. If not, there may be competitors that already provide either an HTML5 or native iOS app that can address the user's need.
Unless the user states specifically what sites he's grousing about, we will never know.
3. If there are actually some mission-critical Flash apps on their websites, a smart company would get them cross-compiled and provide a link to the iOS App Store for iPad users to download the app. If mark28 really does have sites (a dozen? six? three? one?) that are so important to him, he could contact them and ask them to make their Flash app available to iOS users.
@darngooddesign, what do you think about Flash and accessibility? If we did have a Flash-dominated web, users needing accessibility widgets would be locked out from a "full internet experience". Does that trouble you at all?
I, for one, am relieved that Flash for the web is in its twilight.
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Funny. Back in early June I wondered the same thing (about flash coming to iOS). I basically hypothosized that if flash would EVER be coming to iOS it would happen within 3-4 months, or MAX before the end of the year. Between the June-October 2011 timeframe is, I believed is the most likely timeframe for flash on iOS since the introduction of the iPhone. Mind you, I never actually thought flash would be coming (I gave it a 20-25% chance of happening), I just imagined that if it ever were to happen now would be the time.
These were my reasons
Now here we are in August and iOS 5 has no mention of flash. In my personal opinion there is only a 5% chance of flash (down from 20% 2 months ago) and if 2011 comes to a close with no mention (or even a rumor) or flash on iOS... I'd give flash about a 1% chance of ever coming to iOS
These were my reasons
- Apple has already Killed flash
Think about it. The end of flash is already is sight. The tombstone is already written. Apple (& HTML5) has already won. In the past year alone the html5 adoption rate has skyrocketed. - Flash is far more efficient than it was 3 years ago
The playbook and touchpad are prime examples of flash done right on a tablet. I'm sure there are phones out there that run it well also. I think Adobe has gotten their act together in the past year and released a decent product. - iOS 5
Remember early June? iOS 5 wasn't announced yet. If I was 90% sure that flash would come out/be announced between june-october (or not ever) I was 75% sure that it would be announced at WWDC along with iOS5 (or not ever). It would have been the perfect avenue at the perfect time to announce some sort of partnership allowing flash to be integrated into the OS (of course along with an on/off switch) - Avoid the critisism
This may be the year of the copycats, but it's also the year that everyone has flash. HP, RIM, and the droids have been playing up the "I can play flash!" like crazy. If flash was here or coming on the iPad then that argument is moot.
Now here we are in August and iOS 5 has no mention of flash. In my personal opinion there is only a 5% chance of flash (down from 20% 2 months ago) and if 2011 comes to a close with no mention (or even a rumor) or flash on iOS... I'd give flash about a 1% chance of ever coming to iOS
People, like me, are willing to deal with the lack of Flash because they like their iOS devices, AND the vast majority still have full computers to browse with.
1. Full interent is not marketing, it is the entire internet. Its viewing any site you want without having to resort to work arounds.
2. An iOS app is not an efficient and elegant solution to the lack of Flash. You should not have to exit your browser, download an app, and then launch that app just to view content. Then doing the same thing each time you want that content is a huge interruption to your flow. I don't need to know what he is specifically grousing about, he says there are Flash sites he wants to visit and I believe him; the reason being is that there are a huge number of regular sites out there built with Flash.
3. Again, having to go to an external application is an inelegant solution because it interrupts you flow. Its awkward at best.
Flash does not inherently have accessibility issues. A bad interface is a bad interface regardless of how its coded. The perception that Flash only uses actions which aren't compatible with touch screens is patently incorrect; an HTML mouse-over dropdown menu which does not have a main click is just as touch-unfriendly as one done in Flash.
For example, and I'm not doing this as promotion, my site (darngooddesign.com) was coded several years ago, before the iPhone 3G was released. It is fully compatible with OSX, my Droid X, and iSwifter/Puffin browsers on iOS. Its fully flash and requires no special accessibility widgets whatever those might be. It was built in AS2 and most of the action was on the timeline; I need to recode it in AS3 to make it much more efficient. That will cut the resource overhead by 2/3s. The reason so many Flash sites are so resource heavy is because they are built by designers and not programmers; its like if html designers thought using 2MB jpegs in a site was a good idea. But I've been busy and you know what they say about the cobbler's kids going barefoot.
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The Flash argument has been beaten to death, but let me try to go back to the basics.
The first step is to decide if Flash is the future of the Web or if it's something else, e.g. HTML5. Apple obviously doesn't think Flash is the future of the Web. I don't know what Adobe's stance actually is. The debate isn't so much about whether or not Apple's belief that Flash isn't the future of the Web.
Most people on this forum seem to be saying that even though Apple may be right that Flash isn't the future of the Web and that something else should take its place, Apple should still offer an option for users to view Flash content.
Look at it from Apple's perspective. Here is Flash, a technology that they believe is a thing of the past. They believe that Flash is a dying technology unfit for mobile devices and something else should take its place. According to them, supporting Flash in any way is like giving a dying man a glass of water. That includes offerin the option to turn Flash on/off. It's only going to slow the adoption of the alternative technology.
Look at it this way. Suppose Apple had openly said that Flash was a thing of the past but still put that option in iOS. What reason would content providers have to even consider alternatives to Flash even if they're better, when they already have a way to get the readership of iOS users? By Apple not allowing Flash, content providers are shut of iOS readership. As a result, they have chosen to either put their apps in the App Store or create an HTML5-based site. There has already been a great deal of progress on HTML5, even though there's long ways to go. If Apple had allowed Flash from the get-go, what little progress made on HTML5 adoption wouldn't have taken place.
The first step is to decide if Flash is the future of the Web or if it's something else, e.g. HTML5. Apple obviously doesn't think Flash is the future of the Web. I don't know what Adobe's stance actually is. The debate isn't so much about whether or not Apple's belief that Flash isn't the future of the Web.
Most people on this forum seem to be saying that even though Apple may be right that Flash isn't the future of the Web and that something else should take its place, Apple should still offer an option for users to view Flash content.
Look at it from Apple's perspective. Here is Flash, a technology that they believe is a thing of the past. They believe that Flash is a dying technology unfit for mobile devices and something else should take its place. According to them, supporting Flash in any way is like giving a dying man a glass of water. That includes offerin the option to turn Flash on/off. It's only going to slow the adoption of the alternative technology.
Look at it this way. Suppose Apple had openly said that Flash was a thing of the past but still put that option in iOS. What reason would content providers have to even consider alternatives to Flash even if they're better, when they already have a way to get the readership of iOS users? By Apple not allowing Flash, content providers are shut of iOS readership. As a result, they have chosen to either put their apps in the App Store or create an HTML5-based site. There has already been a great deal of progress on HTML5, even though there's long ways to go. If Apple had allowed Flash from the get-go, what little progress made on HTML5 adoption wouldn't have taken place.
Apple uses the same reasoning to refuse to let iPhone retina apps run at full resolution on the iPad. It's supposed to force developers to make iPad apps.
That's nice for Apple, but it sucks for the consumer if that doesn't happen.
Not a great smell test, since total Android devices are on a trajectory to overtake total iOS devices. Unless that makes you believe that Flash is clearly preferable.
Some people do have essential Flash sites. Kids, for sure. Some professionals, for sure.
All it takes is one. For me, it's just nice that I don't have to avoid sites with it. Just because Jobs has a problem with Adobe, is no reason for me to not have the most access.
For my young daughter and her friends, it's Moshi Monsters. (If you have kids, you know that they are quite aware of the need for Flash, because the requirement is often the first thing they see on new kid sites.)
Last night the heavy rain caused our town's power to go out for a couple of hours. No cable internet, and the backup power supplies on my desktops couldn't go that long anyway.
Her first request? "Dad, I need your phone which has Flash, so I can keep playing with my friends!" She was happy, and thus I was happy
Have you compared video quality to the Playbook or Touchpad browser?
I'm glad it's there because it's certainly better than nothing. But it's in no way an equal substitute when it requires transcoding/streaming from a server. And it ticks me off because there's just no reason anymore Flash couldn't run well on at least the iPad 2.
In a way it'd be less frustrating if the iPad wasn't so good in every other respect.
I have SkyFire & iSwifter on my iPad. While both do serve a purpose, they are both clunky. The SF app requires you to tap a button to search for videos. Games, you're screwed. iSwifter allows for games, but as someone mentioned, they are geared towards children. The hitch is that Flash is both a performance issue & a security issue. While not having native Flash on my iPad can be frustrating at times, it's not the end of my world. Plus, if Steve Jobs didn't have that opinion of Flash, the HTML5 adoption would be nowhere close to where it is now. And let's not forget,all of these other tablets that can run Flash can also run HTML5. Right now. This minute. No waiting.
Understood. For your tablet computer, Flash compatibility on the browser is way down on your list of priorities. Flash is such a non-issue for you that you prefer a tablet that doesn't have -- and never will have -- Flash in the browser.
RIM discovered that the hard way. In May, they launched a commercial campaign based on the Queen song from the 1980 movie. The words from the advertisement are instructive:
Playbook commercial in May said:
When they launched their Playbook, they thought the most important feature to promote was Flash compatibility. But, like you, nobody really cared. It's way down on their priority list for a tablet computer. Thankfully, the ad campaign -- and the Queen song -- have now been put on the shelf. The Playbooks are also staying on the shelves.
Really? Throughout the history of the Internet, there have been hundreds if not thousands of specialty products for "enhanced" viewing on browsers. Do you really have the specialty viewers for every single website in the world installed on your computer?
I personally am fond of the Mathematica CDF Viewer. It provides the full power of the Mathematica computation engine -- computing and displaying mathematical, engineering, and artistic concepts -- on my computer. Do you have the CDF viewer installed? You can go to http://www.wolfram.com/cdf-player/ and click on "test the browser plugin" to check. If you don't have the CDF viewer, then you don't have your "full internet". Note: if you happen to work at a business that only allows IE on their computers, you would be SOL to run the CDF Viewer.
Many of the specialty web add-on viewers are legacy: they came -- and went -- before any modern browsers even existed. Unless you are maintaining a huge zoo of old versions of browsers, you would not be able to "full internet" sites that still contain the code and data for those legacy protocols.
It's time to cut to the chase. Your "full internet experience" is something that has never -- and will never -- exist. "Full internet experience" is simply a marketing code-word for "Adobe Flash".
Above, you were telling us how important it was to be able to "view any site you want without workarounds". But unless you already have every single specialty viewer installed on your browser -- which is impossible -- you will periodically install new ones when your perspectives widen. If installing specialty plugins is such a huge imposition to you, then you will never ever get to Adobe's "full internet experience".
Once you had the iOS cross-coded Flash app installed, you could just use the task switcher to move between the app and the browser. You can then use a gesture to move between the browser and the Flash app. Simple.
That's not exactly what he said. Mark said he wanted to "visit the websites", not necessarily to run Flash:
If Mark would say the specific sites he's interested in, he could tap into the considerable resources of the group to find alternatives. He doesn't seem interested in doing that.
Nonsense. Flash has fundamental accessibility issues. Flash does not tap into the accessibility widgets of the particular platform; it ignores them. For those who need the accessibility aids, Flash is a train wreck.
Even the mainstream UI fails under Flash. Two-fingered scrolling doesn't work. I can't search for text displayed in Flash. Some keyboard shortcuts cease to work in Flash windows -- the browser behaves differently based on where my cursor is in the window.
Amen. I can't imagine much worse than having to maintain a second set of rules for browser semantics for having my cursor inside or outside of the Flash area.
How do we explain to those needing the accessibility widgets of a platform why they don't work under Flash?
I don't think you understand the philosophy of accessibility widgets. Just like two-fingered scrolling and text searching and keyboard shortcuts, the accessibility widgets should work in all browser windows.
Why do soe peope keep insisting that not aving Flash as an option, is ok.
I, as an end-user, shouldn't have to figure out how to access a site when it doesn't come up on my iPad.
Isn't that EXACTLY what diehard apple ans always champion first?
Ease of Use?
Keep bringing up excuses, when that's really all they are. Excuses.
There is not a single acceptable excuse to not incorporate a worldwide standard into a current device.
I, as an end-user, shouldn't have to figure out how to access a site when it doesn't come up on my iPad.
Isn't that EXACTLY what diehard apple ans always champion first?
Ease of Use?
Keep bringing up excuses, when that's really all they are. Excuses.
There is not a single acceptable excuse to not incorporate a worldwide standard into a current device.
As of the WWDC in June, there were 425,000 total apps in the iOS app store and over 90,000 of those were made specifically for the iPad. Developers should expect to update their apps regularly. Any developer wishing to make his app ipad-capable has had over a year to do it -- plenty of time.
If you think that the lack of Flash on iOS has had any impact whatsoever, please make your case. Show us the numbers, then show us your reasoning. And please make sure you include charts for profits of each of the manufacturers in your analysis. I have never ever heard anyone publicly speculate that lack of Flash has had a negative impact on Apple sales; I will be fascinated to see your analysis.
As the table on this page shows, Apple's year-to-year iPhone revenue over the last year has been amazing: 92%, 88%, 128%, and 150% for the most recent quarter. Earnings have also been on a stellar trajectory.
"Full web experience" also fails the smell test for a more fundamental reason: there is no such thing. Legacy web add-ons have come and gone for the last 15 years, and that will continue. No browser in existence has ever been able to deliver the "full web experience" that is squirreled away on all of those websites. Adobe certainly uses the phrase a lot, but they never explain its meaning. If "full web experience" is just a code-word for Flash, Adobe should simply say that.
All it takes is one site to ruin your day?
The common-sense long-term solution for those sites is to drop their Flash code and go with HTML5. A common-sense short-term approach is to cross-compile and create iOS apps.
That leads to the question: since the cross-coding environment was available last month, why hasn't there been a gold rush of iOS Flash apps?
Moshi Monstors mouth-off is available in the iOS app store.
See above: why haven't these people taken advantage of the cross-compilation environment to put their Flash in the app store? I am mystified!
Flash apps have been available in the App Store for over a month. Politifact Mobile was one of the first paid apps. I downloaded and experimented with a free one: simplefitnesstimer.
If there's some particular Flash you want for your iPhone or iPad, ask the developer to cross-compile it and put it up in the App Store.
Nobody cares.
Oops. One group of people did benefit from Flash on those other tablet computers: Queen. They got to sell their song to RIM -- and hopefully collected some hefty royalties.
1. Flash did not make or break the Playbook, missing apps did.
2. Try to stay in the context of what we are discussing, which is Flash.
3. You do bring up a good point in that the definition of full can vary depending on what you need. There number of people who want a browser to view those files is tiny compared to those who Flash is relevant for. While full internet should mean the entire thing, but the reality applies to all common protocols; so in a sense it is marketing.
4. See item 2.
5. Full for me does not include almost all of those legacy examples. While a USB port would be nice, I do not require a SCSI port.
Above, you were telling us how important it was to be able to "view any site you want without workarounds". But unless you already have every single specialty viewer installed on your browser -- which is impossible -- you will periodically install new ones when your perspectives widen. If installing specialty plugins is such a huge imposition to you, then you will never ever get to Adobe's "full internet experience".
Once you had the iOS cross-coded Flash app installed, you could just use the task switcher to move between the app and the browser. You can then use a gesture to move between the browser and the Flash app. Simple.
6. That is a work around, you should not have to interrupt your flow just to view content you want.
7. See item 2.
8. This comes down to programmers being good at their job. If two finger scrolling doesn't work you include a scroll bar, which does work in Flash on Android.
9. Two finger scrolling is a second set of rules compared to just using a scroll bar. Why aren't you complaining about that?
You are correct, I don't.
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But why is that the case? Didn't having Flash give Playbook users instant access to billions and billions of award-winning applications? Hasn't the community of Flash developers finely honed those applications so that they completely and thoroughly do virtually everything anyone would ever want to do on any tablet computing device?
RIM certainly thought that Flash was the holy grail. The entire focus of their inaugural campaign was Flash. They hired Queen's 1980 song. They proudly announced that Flash was what was "special" about their product.
We know that is nonsense. RIM now knows it, too: Flash apps are a poor substitute for real apps.
Please keep a respectful tone. We most certainly were discussing the loaded Adobe phrase "full internet experience". @mark28 started it:
and
You chimed into the discussion about the phrase:
I then challenged your definition of "full internet experience":
@darngooddesign, you're welcome to abandon your argument that "full internet experience" means "viewing any site you want without having to resort to work arounds". As I have noted in detail in the discussion, that definition is wholly unworkable. You can abandon the argument, but please don't start claiming that Adobe's marketing phrase suddenly became "out of context" in this thread.
Bingo. If Adobe is using the phrase "full internet experience" in their marketing literature, they mean Adobe Flash. It really is instructive to search for that exact phrase on the site adobe.com.
If a cross-compiled Flash app existed, you would have to install it once on your iPad. You could then access the app in the task manager. The only "interruption" to your flow would happen when you installed the app.
I don't think you understand: Flash does not provide any way to use the accessibility widgets on the iPad. No matter how good the programmers are, they cannot access the accessibility widgets.
Providing a scroll bar is NOT an alternative to two-fingered scrolling on a touchpad. It is a UI train wreck: you are forcing users to position their cursor on the scroll bar controls: a waste of my time and a waste of my organic computational resources. Two-fingered scrolling should just work everywhere. I really don't know how to say it any more plainly than that.
I have no issue with providing multiple options for scrolling in a window. Any users who wish to use the scrollbar controls are welcome to do that. OTOH, any user adept at two-fingered scrolling will not use the scrollbar controls: two-fingered scrolling is far faster and far more intuitive.
Once you understand how much Flash constrains both the standard UI and the accessibility widgets, you'll have a big part of the picture why Apple Computer decided that Flash did not belong on their mobile devices.
There has been much discussion -- perhaps too much discussion -- about the security and resource-consumption shortcomings in Flash. In my opinion, Flash's UI problems may be the biggest reason that Apple decided to ditch Flash for iOS devices.
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Marketing 101 says differentiate your product, from its competitors. Moto did that was the Droid can campaign, RIM did it was Flash and other things. The Queen song was humorous and clever, but in the end it lacked basic apps like Mail which hurt it. Flash apps were never the main solution, they were something to round out what the PB can do.
We are discussing the contemporary perception of what makes the full internet. Full internet currently does not mean 20 years of legacy plugins as you argued. Full internet these days means commonly used plugins like Flash. And this thread is specifically about flash. I respectfully ask you to stay on track.
Stopping what you are doing to go through all the steps required to install an app is a huge interruption to your flow, as is having to find it in your task bar or launch it again if you have cleared out your task bar, as a lot of people do. Its certainly more of a pain than installing a plugin that is always ready in your browser, and if you have it set to on demand, it uses zero resources until you activate it. But I have agreed that objectively full-internet also means real player, for example, but as that tech is no longer really used its not worth discussing in an argument over what constitutes the current perception of what the full internet is.
You are correct, I have never had to allow for extended accessibility so I don't understand Flash's role in that regard.
Two finger might belong everywhere, but its a new UI element that is only three or so years old. There are other iOS conventions that are new as well. If a site doesn’t allow two finger scrolling, but does have a scrollbar, its really not a big deal. One might be preferable, but not having it isn’t an argument against Flash. Its possible that Flash CS6 will provide the new hooks to create two-finger scrolling in flash; odds are it will as the new windows is touch friendly so that’s a need they will fill.
That's incorrect. Many of the UI issues you mentioned are not the reason Flash wasn't included. Apple was against Flash because they didn't want a big part of the web experience being in the hands of someone else. If Adobe decided not to update something Apple would be helpless, and people wouldn fault Apple, not Adobe. This has been a problem in the past with, OSX Flash, Adobe Premier, Office, etc.
Apple was being smartly protective.
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We have different opinions on the matter and all we are going to do is go round and round trying to prove our biased points (my bias is pro-flash yours is against). Lets agree to disagree.
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Apple is NEVER going to support flash. Just read Steve Jobs's letter explaining why and get over it.
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/
Flash is already on the ipad just get iswifter for 4.99 and problem solved
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsC8C5WH0nM&feature=channel_video_title
works just as good as if not better than flash on any other tablet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsC8C5WH0nM&feature=channel_video_title
works just as good as if not better than flash on any other tablet
The fact is, though, that flash is well on the way to joining the 20 years' of legacy plug ins. In 2007 Flash was high on the list of "commonly used plugins", but the fact is, in summer 2011 it's a lot way further down that list and droping fast. We've seen a number of competitor products to the iPad come out that do support flash, and made a big deal of that feature as a diferentiator. The market has decided that the need for flash is far enough down on the list of importance that it isn't enough to make people want to buy these things. The fact is flash is drinking at the last chance saloon and the barman has just called last orders.
The market didn't decide anything.
Steve Jobs decided, disregarding the huge Flash userbase out there.
Please stop pretending otherwise.
Do you understand what he means when he says "the market decided"?
People are buying iPads in HUGE numbers (no flash).
People are not buying any of the other tablets in any numbers (flash).
The market has decided in an overwhelming way.