iPad Promotional Video and Images Show Properly-Displayed Flash Content

[macbookairman]

Please don't buy this product until they FIX IT! It needs a camera (at least 1) and FLASH SUPPORT. I put up with lack of flash on my iphone, but it's unacceptable for this device. Apple and STEVE should be ashamed! Period! (pun intended).

So I'm not supposed to buy it because you don't like it? No thanks. I think I'm going to purchase an iPad. As someone who was looking into getting a Kindle or a Nook, the iPad seems to me like the best value. I don't care about flash. I realize some people do, but I just don't have any need for it. I want to read books on it. (I don't mind reading on my iPod Touch's display, so I probably won't mind reading on the iPad). Plus I can run all my iPod apps and use iWork. Can't wait to get my hands on one.

 

[GaryPDX]

Honestly...

I don't want to be rude or anything but arguing about web STANDARD is frekn stupid!!!

And why are you asking me such a questions!?!?

Ok - I am in art, design and photographic business and well over 80% of my contacts (as in artists, designers, photographers etc...) HAVE FLASH BASED SITES!!!

Is this hard to understand!?!?!

Meaning, using this awesome tool made for best browsing experience ever - I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DO MY JOB which is keeping an eye on all those guys and their latest work.

You can still keep your eye on them with a machine and OS that supports your outdated resource hog. Or perhaps you could file a Tortious Interference lawsuit if your job is really at stake. Or you could maybe relax a little bit and see what unfolds. It is hard to understand, just not in the way you think.

 

[SpinThis!]

Your comment suggested that this was a client side process, not a server side one. Do make your mind up. Troll.

hmm, I'm a troll? Fantastic. Is that your way of trying to defend your poor reading comprehension skills? If you're going to argue on a forum, at least get your facts straight or someone will set you straight, which others have already done on this thread... many of which you simply dismissed.

 

[baryon]

Realize this, as visitors to your's and other web sites, we mostly, are NOT interested in animations. We want clean websites with clear and concise readable material. We are not interested in waiting several minutes for some silly, useless animations to load that provides us with zero information that we arrive to learn or study.

I know many people who simply close the browser window when they get to a site with Flash animations. We don't care for interactivity with websites, we want to read about products or services. We want to copy text and paste it in emails and send to others as part of the research.

Talk for yourself.

We just so happen to be on an Apple related forum, so take a look around OS X and see how many useless animations there are that do nothing, they cannot be "studied" and nothing can be "learned" from them. Maybe Windows would be a more suitable platform for you then?

I understand that many people have a "let's just get to the point" attitude, not caring about design and not noticing the details, but not everyone is a busy businessman with "more important things to do". You have to know that some websites are NOT just about INFORMATION, news or content, but maybe about the website's design itself. Flash exists, and just because it's not the most widespread technology on earth doesn't mean it should be unsupported. The web is an open place and the only way the web can stay what it is, is to let it stay open. In other words, let people do whatever they want and let others see it if they want. Apple, as an important manipulator of how users perceive the internet, has the responsibility of letting us see the web AS IT IS. Otherwise, it's like saying that only mainstream pop music should be available from now on, since there are way less people who enjoy other kinds of music. It's very similar to censure, and I hate it when people think that just because only a small amount of people like something, it should be erased. If Flash isn't successful, people will stop using it eventually. This isn't Apple's decision.

Apple has to understand that people are different from each other and you can't just always go with what "most people will be happy with". I just don't believe Flash is technically impossible to put on a device with a 1GHz processor in this century.

 

[baryon]

Careful now. Don't you know the one thing the fan boys around here hate, is audio/visual professionals who work in a way that's conducive to their field, and not the way the programers, or fan boys demand us too. They'll skewer you for asking apple to take you professional needs in to mind. It's only theirs that should be followed.

Yes unfortunately it's exactly the case

 

[JackAxe]

I’m not a timeline programmer, I’m an ActionScript programmer, and it is NOT really simple to adjust the mouse’s behavior if doing so requires that you ALSO change the function of the app you’re making. One line of code changes a roll to a click. A LOT more than that is needed to make the change make any sense. Look at some Flash games and video players—I’m not talking about really simple menu buttons.

Say you have a video player where controls pop up on mouseover, but you pause on click. So—you remove the click-to-pause (annoying your users) and then you change it to a click to make the controls appear. But then the controls start hidden! So you make them visible by default. And then they stay in the way, instead of auto-vanishing the way they normally would on mouse-out. So then you add a timer so they go away even if the mouse IS over them. And then that annoys someone who clicks at the moment it vanishes. So then you try maybe changing the size of the Flash app (affecting the whole surrounding page) so that the controls are below the video instead of over it. Your designers don’t like the look and they don’t like the wasted space. And all of it requires decisions and meetings and approvals from tons of people. And testing. And maybe trying a couple options to see which looks best. And now your one line of code is not so simple. If you’re a commercial Flash developer, you know what I’m talking about

And my point was, even if it IS really simple to reprogram a Flash app (and if the original source file and programmer are always readily available) it is STILL not going to happen.

You could tell every Flash site to type an asterisk on the page—one second of HTML work—and it still wouldn’t get done Web-wide because we’re talking about thousands of sites.

And if only “some” Flash sites work, then that’s Flash done BADLY.

If and when multi-touch becomes the big thing, which I can't see it ever replacing the mouse and keyboard, developers will have to rebuild their video players and games(that will translate well to this sort of input) regardless, since 10.1 introduces multi-touch support and it's still beta.

We have time! It will be more work for some. That's the great part.

 

[Microsoap]

Get over it. If they don't want Flash they don't want it. No reason to make a post such as that due to one piece of Software. What do you want Flash for anyway? Give me a specific reason... If you say Hulu... who cares about Hulu. Ever heard of Torrents. I would rather watch my movies and TV shows without commercials and interruption.

Wow, fanboy statement enough for ya? You may not care about Hulu, but just because you don't doesn't mean everyone else doesn't. Why not give the world a choice (yes a choice that doesn't go through the... ooh, Apple final stamp of approval) and you either jump on it or you don't.

 

[Microsoap]

If it has Flash I WON'T get one.

Stick it to them Apple. Stick to your guns and try to initiate an industry movement against the use of Flash.

75% and you expect the world to reject it? If 75% of the world used iTunes, would you expect the world to reject it so they could browse, buy and watch music/TV/movies/apps w/out going through iTunes first?

I rest my case. Total hypocrisy.

 

[Microsoap]

Just to make a point, Flash is not a web standard .

75%:
* http://www.pcworld.com/article/188135/will_we_ever_see_flash_on_the_ipad_probably_not.html
* http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/01/ipad-flash.html

http://www.tgdaily.com/consumer-electronics-brief/48253-even-hitler-criticizes-ipads-lack-of-flash

 

[aucl]

Actually I do not see what the big fuss is on behalf. Just include Flash as an option to be turned on/off and warn the user that it will drain battery life. Similar to push and WiFi. Why limit the web experience, this is a contradiction to the claim that it is the way the web should be experienced.

Adobe is not even good supporting Flash on Mac, so why bother them to make an iPhone version before they fixed the Mac plugins. When it is so complicated to move Flash from 32 to 64bit, it might be even more complicated to bring an ARM based version?!

ps: i read that adobe is blaming apple for not having hardware acceleration for h264 playback, but actually there is some QTKit API they could use. But that is Cocoa, and i heard they are only slowly adapting that...

 

[Ben Holyfield]

Apple wants to build the App Store and not a Flash Store!!

I think Apple is never gonna allow flash as this would be a severe threat to the very successful App Store!

They want developers to develop for the App Store, not for Adobe. And I am glad they do as the software development kit Apple provides is many times better then what you can do with flash!!

I am a developer myself and know what I am talking about (http://www.bhuio.com) Also Flash Apps can be copied way too easy, so as a developer I won't waste my time developing Flash Apps as people can crack&copy it easily.
In the long run this means that most developers use the Apple Development Kit and develop great Apps for the App Store. Obviously this means soon we'll have all the best Apps on the trustful App Store and not as a Flash on some random Website!

 

[nagromme]

If and when multi-touch becomes the big thing, which I can't see it ever replacing the mouse and keyboard, developers will have to rebuild their video players and games(that will translate well to this sort of input) regardless, since 10.1 introduces multi-touch support and it's still beta.

We have time! It will be more work for some. That's the great part.

Now you’re talking! Flash right now makes no sense on tablets, but there’s a ton of potential for the future.

(I hope, by the time that future comes along, there are more rapid-dev tools than just Flash to choose from.)

And I agree, “real computers" aren’t going away any time soon, any more than towers went away with the shift to notebooks.

 

[aucl]

Visualligthbox is cool looking, but offers no content security.
I can still lift the content from an AJAX gallery in a heartbeat.
Pro photographers want their content protected from theft.
Flash is the perfect solution for this.
Short of screen scraping, you are not going to be getting the source images from a Flash based gallery.

IMO making a screencap is still easier than removing a watermark, …
there is always a way to steal content, …

 

[Microsoap]

I think Apple is never gonna allow flash as this would be a severe threat to the very successful App Store!

They want developers to develop for the App Store, not for Adobe. And I am glad they do as the software development kit Apple provides is many times better then what you can do with flash!!!

So from a non-Apple monopoly to an Apple monopoly? Sounds fair to me. But seriously, though......

 

[aucl]

People, Fanboys, Good Americans, … just FYI
many of the pages that are so prominent and using Flash are not available outside USA. I just tried HULU again cause i remember it was USA only when it started, and of course i got disappointed again.

For now, Hulu is a U.S. service only. That said, our intention is to make Hulu's growing content lineup available worldwide. This requires clearing the rights for each show or film in each specific geography and will take time. We're encouraged by how many content providers have already been working along these lines so that their programs can be available over the Internet to a much larger, global audience. The Hulu team is committed to making great programming available across the globe.

Why should Apple care much about some of these sites. Apples main growth is abroad, and even if there is Flash still in many places, there is nothing that important "flash only" that it would be necessary to have on a mobile device.

ps: while the photo content of the mentioned NYT pages is flash only, the ad are replaced with static banners for me. Ad's are ahead of time...

 

[baretree]

Oh pseudo-geeks...

Can't believe people are attacking our photographers folks like telling them how you can do the same or better by using HTML5 + JavaScript instead of Flash. First, there's not really full support for 5, JavaScript isn't the most secure way to go and finally if you're a photographer why are the pseudo-nerds telling them to use HTML5? Obviously they won't, they're good at photography which is indeed a profession still they are fairly good on programming Flash web-pages, that like it or not, some look stunning. The thing here is that like it or not, Flash is of course not a "web standard" but is something a lot of companies consider like a must to know for applicants to their programming positions. Flash is everywhere and sure it slows down your browsing performance and such, still if you're selling an iPod Touch at $500 and saying it gives you "the best browsing experience ever" then you must have to be able to view Flash content. Not only advertising uses Flash, as someone said, even a non-essential but actually widely used and oddly "essential" to the majority as it is Facebook has half of their users playing Flash games. You cannot deny everybody is very into the Farmville, SuperPoke! Pets, Mafia Wars, Yo Ville, Happy Aquarium, etc., and you cannot use those games or applications on the iPhone/iPodTouch and you won't be able to do so on the iPad neither! Even if you download appStore's "Facebook" application, you will be able to do some limited Facebook that is the essential Facebook, but you cannot go further and harvesting your farm or petting your buddy. That's just one example of a social network that almost everybody uses world-wide and it's almost just half-functional on the iPhone's OS. And lot of examples can be mentioned. Newspapers, Flight Reservation, Banking, etc., lot of places that include Flash content. As some have pointed you'd have the ability to turn it on/off but if iPhone's processor isn't prepared to properly support Flash then it won't appear. And something I hadn't think about before but surely raised my attention was that one who said it was pure greed, like if you were able to play Flash games on the iPhone/Touch/iPad that are free most of them, then lot of people wouldn't be buying some even silly AppStore's games, and makes sense.
No multitasking is another big failure. I cannot imagine myself without the ability of having "Mail", "Safari" and "Pages" opened at the same time, and maybe even listening to some music. Also the lack of a pen makes it not that useful for those attending university and taking notes trying to draw a graph, a math symbol, a note, etc., that's really foolish. Without a camera, when everything now comes with a camera makes it like a big joke. You cannot video chat with it. It's priced starting at $500 which isn't a cheap product. Sure it is for an Apple product but $500 are $500!!!
Lack of "iLife". Wow. Will have a reduced but apparently improved version of "iWork" if you pay for it but, will you be able to convert a .docx file to a .doc format? I don't think so. And then something I didn't paid attention to before: no profiles. So that if you lend your iPad to a friend for him to send an email or check whatever, he could by accident open your Mail app and read your stuff or maybe sending an email on your behalf? That's no security at all.
Talking about security, will it include a firewall? Will it be able to get intego's software installed on it? I know there are almost no Mac OS viruses around but there have been and mostly risk issues on their mobile OS.
I don't know for sure. Obviously it is a beau. It is an Apple product and it's priced like one.
But as usual, I guess Apple brought something that is kind of revolutionary, trendy, fashion but unproductive. Useless for the majority.
And call it whatever you want but to announce a product showing it can surf the web and as an example showing Flash content when it doesn't supports, is fraud. Obviously they will say that the little captions said "the image above blah blah" and maybe that was why Steve Jobs showed web-pages that uses Flash on purpose, like to let you know that it doesn't supports it so if you complain after buying it they will say "even on the keynote presentation you saw Flash content wasn't shown" but that'd be bullsh since most consumers have never seen a keynote presentation and they are not asking the sales employees "will I be able to run Flash?".

 

[macsh22p]

You know, all this posturing about the Apple not giving us flash on the iPad sounds a lot like the Republicans moaning about Obama not giving them CPAN. For all that crying, you're still never going to get what you want. On that note, which would you rather have?

 

[lucasgladding]

I love e-ink for readability, but the limitations are such that I would not buy such a device with the current technology. For shorter sessions, I think the iPad would work well for reading. Jobs specifically targeted the Kindle in the keynote, so I think critics need to consider that when evaluating the iPad. Maybe the iPad isn't the perfect internet device as they market it as (for some users), but there is a very large market whose needs will be met. I do think that Apple Store employees need to make a point of mentioning Flash when selling the device. This is one of the first laptop-like devices that does not support Flash. I can just imagine the number of post-sale conversations that will include "what do you mean I can't play Flash". For that reason alone, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple does something in the works with Adobe.

I find it ironic that the NYT website video section includes a video deployed with Flash and featuring John Markoff on a video conference.

 

[coolsoldier]

Apple doesn't "support" flash on the Mac either

Apple doesn't support Flash on the Mac either. It's actually Adobe that supports Flash on the Mac. New Macs don't come with Flash, and out of the box they can't play flash video either.

The difference is that you can use Macs to do things that Apple doesn't support. It's an open developer platform, which means that companies like Adobe can develop plugins to support their formats.

And even if Netflix and Hulu develop apps, there's still Fancast, and ustream.tv and last.fm and my local tv network affiliates. In fact, even if they supported flash, there's still sites like ABC.com that use other media plugins.

So the iPad is not actually a crippled platform. It just seems that way because you can only use Apple-approved software.

 

[iMaggot]

Only brain dead fanboys are happy with no Flash, 99% of the websites i go to use Flash, so it's a MUST for me and people that use Flash heavy sites.

 

[andy721]

So let me get this straight...Apple took an iPhone, made it bigger, bulkier, less portable, removed the ability to make/receive calls, then stamped an $850 price tag on it and called it an "iPad"? Anyone dumb enough to purchase one should just tattoo "I love wasting money" on their forehead and then subsequently shoot ...

 

[cmaier]

Only brain dead fanboys are happy with no Flash, 99% of the websites i go to use Flash, so it's a MUST for me and people that use Flash heavy sites.

First, yes, there are people (like you) who need flash. But instead of insisting that anyone who disagrees with you is a "brain dead fanboy," you need to understand that for many people flash is not a must. There is a reason lots of people use "flashblockers" in their browsers. (I happen to be one). Typically it's because the websites we use make sparing use of flash other than ads - or they fall back to "standards" when flash isn't present, and we don't spend a lot of time playing flash games.

Just because we don't spend all day playing farmville and watching hulu doesn't mean we don't have a rational point of view.

 

[twoodcc]

sneaky apple. i hope that it will run flash, but something tells me that apple is trying to hide it

 

[NickLW]

i-Bad

Now Stevie's shown us his i-Pad,
It's certain to be the next fad,
But, oh dear, no Flash,
So surfing is trash,
Ever felt that you've been had?

 

[flottenheimer]

Now Stevie's shown us his i-Pad,
It's certain to be the next fad,
But, oh dear, no Flash,
So surfing is trash,
Ever felt that you've been had?

Poetry on MacRumors... How refreshing.
Keep 'em coming.

PS: The lack of Flash support on iPhone/Touch/iPad is simply not acceptable. There is no sane reason why users should not be able to experience the "full version of the internet" when sufing on one of those devices.

BTW, does anyone know if the iPad supports Microsoft Silverlight?