Hey Apple...Adobe has learned its lesson! We want Flash

[flexengineer]

He's right. What's the point? Everyone has made their arguments. You haven't changed anyone's mind and nobody has changed yours.

Revive the thread when the Apple announces the iPad supports Flash. Not that you randomly heard about it. Continuing the discussion wil only prove you just want to argue.

LOL and that is being posted on a forums called "macrumors", so basically none the less you want to dictate whether or not iPad and iPhone users should get Flash but you even feel the right to decide when someone should or should not post on a forum? At least you're consistent!

Did you notice that so far there are people who are welcoming the possibility and express the conditions that would make them comfortable with it? If you don't want to be part of the conversation why don't you go away?

 

[dejo]

I am hearing more and more rumors from trusted sources that iPad 2 will support Adobe Flash...

Do you have any links to these sources?

 

[Moyank24]

LOL and that is being posted on a forums called "macrumors", so basically none the less you want to dictate whether or not iPad and iPhone users should get Flash but you even feel the right to decide when someone should or should not post on a forum? At least you're consistent!

Did you notice that so far there are people who are welcoming the possibility and express the conditions that would make them comfortable with it? If you don't want to be part of the conversation why don't you go away?

I'm not sure if you noticed, but the rumors posted on this site are sourced. Why don't you submit your rumor to Arn and see what he does with it?

I have been part of the conversation and said on more than one occasion i am fine with the idea of Apple giving a choice. I would turn it off my phone, as I have turned it off my Mac.

As of right now, Adobe hasn't proven to me that they can supply a stable product that is worthy of iOS. If they ever do, I'd be happy to reconsider. Until then, I'm happy to be rid of it.

 

[flexengineer]

Do you have any links to these sources?

A rumor by definition does not have identifiable sources, we will only find the same information starting to be reprinted in different places on or around the same day, among which:

http://aomid.com/ipad2-coming-soon-bigger-and-better-the-anticipation/2211334/

http://news.oneindia.in/2011/01/30/apple-ipad2-specs-features-launch-review-aid0102.html

All you can do to debate a rumor is to debate its probability and whether or not it does make sense, that's pretty much it.

I'm not sure if you noticed, but the rumors posted on this site are sourced. Why don't you submit your rumor to Arn and see what he does with it?

Well, when I will have sourced rumors, whatever that is, I will send them to Arn, whoever that is, but in the meantime I will post right here on this thread what I believe is relevant and would like to discuss, I am not dragging you here by force and at the end of day I am free to post what I want to the extend of what is permitted by the forum rules.

I have been part of the conversation and said on more than one occasion i am fine with the idea of Apple giving a choice. I would turn it off my phone, as I have turned it off my Mac.

You're right sorry, I got you confused with some of the opponents to that choice, I do not have any problem with anyone not liking Flash and turning it off, I have problem with those who want to decide for everyone else with very obscure and discussable motives that I believe to be aligned with Apple's corporate agenda, and not users interest.

 

[Krevnik]

A rumor by definition does not have identifiable sources, we will only find the same information starting to be reprinted in different places on or around the same day, among which:

<snip>

Well, when I will have sourced rumors, whatever that is, I will send them to Arn, whoever that is, but in the meantime I will post right here on this thread what I believe is relevant and would like to discuss, I am not dragging you here by force and at the end of day I am free to post what I want to the extend of what is permitted by the forum rules.

See your below post:

I am hearing more and more rumors from trusted sources that iPad 2 will support Adobe Flash, what do you think of that possibility?

If you have these trusted sources, is that not in fact a rumor with sources? You claim to be hearing from trusted sources, and then claim rumors by definition have no identifiable sources. Which is it?

I'm all for debate on the subject, but this is posting up hearsay, and then dancing around the issue by debating what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the articles posted are trusted source to you, great... good luck with that. But when people talk about trusted sources, they are usually friends, family, etc who have actual connections to real information on some level.

And for the people who haven't been around long enough: Arn's the site owner.

 

[gks]

Apple... a company in California... with a rumor site in India claiming flash will be in the next version. Sure... ok

And the other site... actually both sites... never even heard of them, nor has anyone else probably. Anyone can start a rumor, only a few sites ever live up to the fact that they've "heard" something and it becomes true.

Sorry but your "sources" are wishful thinking at best. Meanwhile, the rest of us will laugh at you when it doesn't turn out to be true. Seems everyone and their mom likes to say they "heard" something from some random Apple Engineer about feature x and y coming to the iSomething.

Flash won't be found on the iPad or iPhone. Ever. Simple as that.

Meanwhile, stop trolling, and remove that crap link from your signature. I've reported it for spam.

 

[flexengineer]

If you have these trusted sources, is that not in fact a rumor with sources? You claim to be hearing from trusted sources, and then claim rumors by definition have no identifiable sources. Which is it?

Oh jeez, you're right, I probably got everyone confused with that statement... I was referring to individuals that I believe to be reliable but can't name, I was not referring to published sources, sorry for the confusion.

I'm all for debate on the subject, but this is posting up hearsay, and then dancing around the issue by debating what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the articles posted are trusted source to you, great... good luck with that. But when people talk about trusted sources, they are usually friends, family, etc who have actual connections to real information on some level.

No, the links I posted ARE NOT what I consider trusted sources at all, I clearly said they are just separate entities talking about the same rumor on or around the same day, nothing more. I did get feedback from people I contacted about the matter and it seems it is a very likely possibility but there is absolutely no official position from anyone on this.

 

[err404]

Flash won't be found on the iPad or iPhone. Ever. Simple as that.

Google has muddied the water quite a bit with the removal of h.264 from Chrome. WebM/VP8 frankly is not mature enough to replace h.264 yet due to lingering patent concerns and the lack of hardware decoding required for mobile use. This leaves developers in a bad position where they must maintain multiple encodes of videos in order to support HTML5. Or, use Flash.

I hate to admit it, but this move extends the dependency of Flash for video delivery while HTML5 continues to flight over a common codec.

The most important reasons for Flash not existing on iOS are technical. As far as I am concerned no current mobile implementation provides an acceptable Flash experience. Currently, they all run poorly, consume large amounts of CPU/RAM/Battery, frequently have broken UI's and cause the browsers to crash. If Flash were truly ready for phones, Android wouldn't have had to bake "Click to Flash" right into the browser.
However, IF these issues can be resolved, the next hurdle is political. If Flash were technically viable and HTML5 fails to provide a standardized video method, Apple may have little choice but to allow it.

Fortunately I don't see the stars aligning for Adobe to make this happen.

 

[flexengineer]

Google has muddied the water quite a bit with the removal of h.264 from Chrome. WebM/VP8 frankly is not mature enough to replace h.264 yet due to lingering patent concerns and the lack of hardware decoding required for mobile use. This leaves developers in a bad position where they must maintain multiple encodes of there videos in order to support HTML5. Or, use Flash.

I hate to admit it, but this move extends the dependency of Flash for video delivery while HTML5 continues to flight over a common codec.

The most important reasons for Flash not existing on iOS are technical. As far as I am concerned no current mobile implementation provides an acceptable Flash experience. Currently, they all run poorly, consume large amounts of CPU/RAM/Battery, frequently have broken UI's and cause the browsers to crash. If Flash was truly ready for phones, Android wouldn't have had to bake "Click to Flash" right into the browser.
However, IF these issues can be resolved, the next hurdle is political. If Flash were technical viable and HTML5 fails to deliver a standardized video method, Apple may have little choice but to allow it.

Fortunately I don't see the stars aligning for Adobe to make this happen.

It is a very fine analysis and I concur will all your points, your summed it pretty well.

I would add that Google bought Flash more time to finally deliver for mobiles. There is no doubt in my mind that all engineers are Adobe have been breaking grounds with the engineers from manufacturers and Google.

I know for fact that Adobe took it very seriously but I never denied them being late on mobile, I just consider they deserve a chance to show what they got.

We will really see with PlayBook and Xoom what Flash can do on tablet and from there with other smartphones we will be able to know for good if Flash is a viable solution for mobile application. If that is the case, it might spread at light speed. If it does not deliver, Flash and the devices will get hurt.

 

[gks]

I don't feel it's a technical reason at all. It's a philosophical one.

To Apple putting Flash on iOS means giving up a few very important things. One is control. So far Apple controls everything top to bottom in the iPhone and iPad. If they allow Flash on it they're now dependent on Adobe for one thing that actually impacts the experience of the device.

You'll never see Flash on iOS for this reason alone. Adobe doesn't have the same standards as Apple does for how things need to work.

There's no "technical" reason why Flash can't run on these phones. Battery life being one thing entirely different. But it can certainly run on the current generation of devices. Especially if optimized for it. But the experience will still suffer because 99% of the flash out there is designed with a mouse and keyboard in mind. Touch devices aren't factored in on a lot of those flash games and crap like that.

For video h264 and html5's video tag work just fine.

Google is someone I am aiming to get entirely away from because of their insistence on being douches with regard to Android and now WebM. They're making things worse with their attitude towards Apple and iOS (users are irrelevant in this attitude on both sides). But their bickering is causing problems. Their switch from h264 to WebM is setting html5 back when it was just gaining a lot of acceptance. My only hope is that Apple and other sites with some common sense stick to their guns and use h264.

First thing I need to do is figure out how to get away from GMail. Shouldn't be hard just gotta switch all my site stuff over.

 

[flexengineer]

I don't feel it's a technical reason at all. It's a philosophical one.

I respect your point of view, but don't you think that users should be able to voluntary install the plugin? Even if it has to be as an application or something, or a "click to flash" implementation. People would then be able to clearly differentiate experiences between Flash and native browser http based app.

 

[gks]

I respect your point of view, but don't you think that users should be able to voluntary install the plugin? Even if it has to be as an application or something, or a "click to flash" implementation. People would then be able to clearly differentiate experiences between Flash and native browser http based app.

Most people don't understand this stuff. I know for a fact my parents would have zero clue whether a webpage was using flash or not. So a ****** experience would be a ****** experience. It isn't a "oh, this is flash, so i forgive apple for this ****** experience" type of deal. You have to realize that the iPhone isn't a geek device. It attracts way more people who have very little technical knowledge. You won't find the casual user, at least not nearly as many, using android phones. Yes, geeky people use the iPhone too. But that doesn't mean they are the only people that use it.

And at this point, no, I don't believe people should have the choice on this matter. What is bad for the iPhone is bad for the iPhone. When Apple delivers a great working implementation it works really well. Look at the copy and paste functionality. No one expected it to work like that, especially with regard to copying webpage content and it literally copying it like a desktop keeping formatting and everything in tact.

Apple prefers to keep control over their products so that they can control the experience. Putting that control in the hands of Adobe is bad for their business. You might think that it would be great, but for the average consumer, it's better that it isn't there. "Why is my battery dying so fast?" "Why is this webpage so slow?" blah blah blah. The average user doesn't have the slightest clue as to what is causing things to happen.

And you responded wrong to my statements.

The reason Flash is NOT on iOS is a philosophical one. Go look the word up. It's a matter of reasoning. They CHOOSE not to put Flash on the iPhone.

If it were a technical one they wouldn't put it on the devices because it isn't technically possible. As in, it wouldn't work. It would most certainly work. Again, it may not work well. But it would work. There is no "technical" reason it isn't on iOS. It's a matter of Apple and Steve Jobs simply holding their ground and saying "no."

 

[err404]

If it were a technical one they wouldn't put it on the devices because it isn't technically possible. As in, it wouldn't work. It would most certainly work. Again, it may not work well. But it would work. There is no "technical" reason it isn't on iOS. It's a matter of Apple and Steve Jobs simply holding their ground and saying "no."

I wouldn't discount the technical problems. You admit that Flash is delivering a ***** experience today. That is a technical issue. I have yet to see a mobile implementation of Flash that would meet Apples QA requirements. That is to say that Flash must universally improve the user experience.
Flash could be improved to the point that the experience is no longer *****, but the ARM code today isn't of a sufficient quality.
The philosophical question is irrelevant until the Code improves. As the landscape of the web changes, so do the pressures for what technologies are required.

Technical Issue - why Apple Can't
Philosophical Issue - why Apple Wont

Just to be clear. I am NOT a supporter of Flash and prefer the state of iOS today w/o it. However, it's important to recognize the role Flash served in the rise of video on the web. HTML4 was not ready to support video natively. Most people were looking to HTML5 as the long term answer for video, but the current infighting over a standard codec is a significant roadblock.
So the question is who will get their act together first; Adobe or WC3?
Personally I feel that HTML5 is technically closer, but politics are hard to overcome.

As a side note, I'm sure that Apple is afraid of Adobe being the proprietor of Flash. Adobe has a bad habit of of only properly supporting the largest market segments. This means that if Android continues to outsell iOS, an iOS Flash player would decline in quality. For this reason, it is absolutely essential for Adobe to further embrace the OpenScreen project with full specs for video decoding and proper reference code. You can pretty much guarantee that Apple will not add Flash otherwise.

 

[gks]

I wouldn't discount the technical problems. You admit that Flash is delivering a ***** experience today. That is a technical issue. I have yet to see a mobile implementation of Flash that would meet Apples QA requirements. That is to say that Flash must universally improve the user experience.
Flash could be improved to the point that the experience is no longer *****, but the ARM code today isn't of a sufficient quality.
The philosophical question is irrelevant until the Code improves. As the landscape of the web changes, so do the pressures for what technologies are required.

Technical Issue - why Apple Can't
Philosophical Issue - why Apple Wont

Just to be clear. I am NOT a supporter of Flash and prefer the state of iOS today w/o it. However, it's important to recognize the role Flash served in the rise of video on the web. HTML4 was not ready to support video natively. Most people were looking to HTML5 as the long term answer for video, but the current infighting over a standard codec is a significant roadblock.
So the question is who will get their act together first; Adobe or WC3?
Personally I feel that HTML5 is technically closer, but politics are hard to overcome.

As a side note, I'm sure that Apple is afraid of Adobe being the proprietor of Flash. Adobe has a bad habit of of only properly supporting the largest market segments. This means that if Android continues to outsell iOS, an iOS Flash player would decline in quality. For this reason, it is absolutely essential for Adobe to further embrace the OpenScreen project with full specs for video decoding and proper reference code. You can pretty much guarantee that Apple will not add Flash otherwise.

Actually, you're simply rewording things. It's a philosophical issue because Apple "won't," because it provides a terrible experience and because it isn't an open standard that they can fix/improve. It's not a "can't" because we can see just fine that it works on comparable hardware (Android devices). Once again, it may not work well, but it works. It's not a technical issue, it's a philosophical issue.

You could argue, like you did, that it isn't up to Apple's standards. But that is part of a philosophical issue, not a technical one.

It's pretty obvious that it's a philosophical issue simply due to the fact that Apple posted Steve Jobs State of Flash article on the front page. It's political/philosophical.

Even more of a philosophical/political one if you count the fact you can get Flash straight from Adobe via Cydia. It works. Thus, not a technical issue. I'm not talking about technical in the sense of experience really. I'm talking technical in that it can work just fine given the resources to improve it. Which might be a complete rewrite for optimization. But it certainly isn't technical. The hardware is clearly capable of handling it.

Edit: and to make it clear, I hate flash and hope it dies a fast death.

 

[milani]

I do think that there are some technical concerns that Apple has rightly presented. I don't see a point of presenting them yet again - we all know what they are, and we either agree that they are real or we don't. Never mind.

I have consistently argued that Apple's position is philosophical. Their decision not to support plugins like Flash, Silverlight, and Active-X stems from their desire to create the principle duality on their platform between open and closed, between unmanaged and managed.

Apple has consistently articulated that they believe in their closed, curated platform because it provides a better user experience; however, they have also said that they fully support the open web. But, instead of defining the open web as some sort of abstraction, Apple has chose to define it specifically as what the W3 supports.

The W3 endorses javascript, CSS3, and HTML5. The reason that Apple supports the W3 is two-fold. Namely, these open ensures users enjoy a consistent experience, and also that the tools of web development are always democratized and accessible. No one company, entity, corporation, trust, or otherwise, controls the creation or distribution of content. It really is a beautiful thing. Furthermore, Apple can help to improve the W3 and the open web, as it has by contributing WebKit. Apple has no influence over Adobe - nor does anyone else, which is precisely why Flash is diametrically opposed to everything the W3 stands for.

Flash, Silverlight, and Active-X all fundamentally and undeniably violate the principle of the open internet. That is NOT to say that they are not useful, and that developers cannot use them to do amazing things. But that doesn't change the fact that plugins violate the open web in the most basic philosophical sense. While Flash, Silverlight, and Active-X should and are used for niche products, they should not be considered part of the open web. If developers choose to use these proprietary technologies, then they will have to weigh the benefits and determents accordingly. There is no expectation, nor should there be any expectation, that these proprietary plugins becomes standards.

This issue really has nothing to do with Apple. Apple chose to support the W3, and to clearly articulate what they believe the open web to mean. If you are of the persuasion that Adobe Flash should be part of the open web, then your issue is between Adobe and the W3. It's not about Apple at all.

 

[err404]

Actually, you're simply rewording things. It's a philosophical issue because Apple "won't," because it provides a terrible experience and because it isn't an open standard that they can fix/improve. It's not a "can't" because we can see just fine that it works on comparable hardware (Android devices). Once again, it may not work well, but it works. It's not a technical issue, it's a philosophical issue.

You could argue, like you did, that it isn't up to Apple's standards. But that is part of a philosophical issue, not a technical one.

It's pretty obvious that it's a philosophical issue simply due to the fact that Apple posted Steve Jobs State of Flash article on the front page. It's political/philosophical.

Even more of a philosophical/political one if you count the fact you can get Flash straight from Adobe via Cydia. It works. Thus, not a technical issue. I'm not talking about technical in the sense of experience really. I'm talking technical in that it can work just fine given the resources to improve it. Which might be a complete rewrite for optimization. But it certainly isn't technical. The hardware is clearly capable of handling it.

The Cydia Frash plugin is not from Adobe. It's based on the openscreen project docs and therefore does not support any video playback. It's also Alpha code, so it's very buggy. (it also appears to be abandon, with no updates since last August)
I say that the performance issues are "technical" given that no current ARM device has been able to provide a good Flash experience. Optimizations may be possible, but it's more likely that the current single core CPU's just don't have the horse power.

I say that slow, buggy, inefficient code is technically not suitable for general release.
You say that releasing in this state is a philosophical issue. Sadly in today's climate of Ship then Fix, you may be more correct.

Edit: and to make it clear, I hate flash and hope it dies a fast death.

This, we can agree on. I'm just getting worried that HTML5 isn't living up to it's promise of standardized playback.

 

[err404]

This issue really has nothing to do with Apple. Apple chose to support the W3, and to clearly articulate what they believe the open web to mean. If you are of the persuasion that Adobe Flash should be part of the open web, then your issue is between Adobe and the W3. It's not about Apple at all.

I completely agree. Unfortunately W3 has not yet managed to produced a video standard. As of right now the only way to accomplish compatibility on all HTML5 compliant browsers with a single encoded video is to use h.264 via HTLM5 and also wrapped in Flash.
It's a shame that W3 hasn't been able to solve such a basic problem.

 

[milani]

I completely agree. Unfortunately W3 has not yet managed to produced a video standard. As of right now the only way to accomplish compatibility on all HTML5 compliant browsers with a single encoded video is to use h.264 via HTLM5 and also wrapped in Flash.
It's a shame that W3 hasn't been able to solve such a basic problem.

You're absolutely right. The codec problem is one of several issues that the W3 will have to solve, including the use (or lack of use) of DRM for video. Some argue that HTML5 should support DRM, while others argue that that should be handled at the codec level. In any event, these issues will inevitably be solved.

But you can't blame Apple for the W3's decision-making process. Fortunately Steve Jobs had the foresight to disallow plugins on the iPhone from the outset. If anything, I would argue that the single biggest factor that has forced the W3 to actively address the video issue is that a significant player in the mobile space has taken a pro-open web stance.

The single biggest strangle-hold on an open web alternative for video has been the primacy of Flash. Fortunately its primacy is no longer certain and it has lost its "de-facto" status as the standard for video delivery. It's only a matter of time until it is replaced by a proper open web solution, that will help to preserve the philosophy of the open web.

In the mean time, things like this are a great way to deliver open web video with a Flash fallback (as the plugin is phased out): http://videojs.com/

 

[UTclassof89]

Most people don't understand this stuff...
I don't believe people should have the choice...
Apple prefers to keep control over their products...
The average user doesn't have the slightest clue as to what is causing things to happen...

You're spot-on with your assessment of the issue, but draw a very one-sided conclusion.

Apple can't control the user experience of a web site.

Adobe can't control the user experience of a web site.

Only the developer of the site controls the user experience. If they code poorly, it doesn't matter if they code poorly in JavaScript or ActionScript (Apple doesn't police people's coding practices or skill).

The typical user you portray will just as easily blame the iPhone for not being able to see the NYT interactive election map that they can see on their desktop; they'll blame the iPhone for not being able to show the Tower Defense game that they play every day on their desktop.

Apple isn't 'controlling the user experience'; they're denying the user an experience.

 

[milani]

It's not about Apple it's about the W3. How do you Flash-nuts not understand that Apple simply supports the W3s definition of the open web? Take your issue to the W3 and/or Adobe. It has nothing to do with Apple.

As I already said, Apple simply chose to define the open web not as an abstraction but by adhering to the recommendations of the W3. They are not obligated to support Flash, nor are they obligated to support Silverlight.

http://w3.org

 

[flexengineer]

I would like your comments on this article:

http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/02/flash-html5-developers.html

I also added a poll in the iPad forum, it's interesting considering the community here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=11829485
Should iPad 2 support Adobe Flash?
Yes: 30%, No: 70%

 

[prestomusic]

Yes Apple, Flash would be nice. So annoying.

 

[milani]

^

It's not about Apple it's about the W3. How do you Flash-nuts not understand that Apple simply supports the W3s definition of the open web? Take your issue to the W3 and/or Adobe. It has nothing to do with Apple.

As I already said, Apple simply chose to define the open web not as an abstraction but by adhering to the recommendations of the W3. They are not obligated to support Flash, nor are they obligated to support Silverlight.

http://w3.org

 

[err404]

Yes Apple, Flash would be nice. So annoying.

Actually having video on a site w/o Flash "would be nice". Compare a site with embedded video on an iPad and a Galaxy Tab (HTML5 h.264 vs Flash). the iPad provides a far smoother experience. Especially with higher quality videos. It's sad because the Galaxy Tab is capable of rendering these sites better as HTML5 w/o Flash, but the since Flash is available, many sites default to the poorer performing Flash version. Having Flash is currently harming the browsing experience for many site on Android devices. (disabling Flash results in these sites showing no content instead of falling back to HTML5)
I understand that currently HTML5 places a burden on the developer to maintain multiple encodes, but this provides the best experience for mobile end users.
The "So annoying" part is that there is no universal video standard (yet).

 

[UTclassof89]

^

I guess wanting the choice to see the world's most popular multimedia format in my mobile browser, just as I see it in my desktop browser makes me a "flash nut", right.

Apple doesn't give two shakes what the W3C decides or defines: if the W3C said tomorrow that Flash is a defacto standard and all browsers should support it, Apple still wouldn't support it (because it's a threat to their ability to skim profit from iOS devices)