Samsung Galaxy 10.1 copies the iPad...and blows it away!

[kdarling]

Have you come upon any flash sites that use mouseovers? If so, how does that work?

The same as on HTML5: mouseovers just don't work with touch (*)(**).

It's not a player problem. It's a developer oversight.

(*Well, unless you were clever enough to build a combination touchscreen/button like the original Blackberry Storm. But few loved that solution.)

(** Or if you have a trackpad like some Android phones do, Flash could be changed to use it as a mouse.)

 

[Sander]

Here is but one of the myriad sites I need to access as a freelancers.
Feel free to tell me after going there using your iPad, what your fantastic experience was.

http://www.sonypicturespost.com/

I will tell you what my fantastic experience was on my MacBook Pro. I went to the site, and saw a big grey rectangle with a "Flash" icon inside it (I run ClickToFlash). I clicked on that icon. Next, I got to witness an advert which showed stills of theaters with a Ken Burns effect. After 15 seconds, I clicked the little red round button in the left top of my window because I grew tired of it.

The people saying the iPad should have Flash might as well say it should come with a VMWare image with Windows 7 installed, because "they need software which only runs there". See Flash as an OS, which happens to run in your browser. There are alternatives. I'd even pick Java over Flash.

I applaud Apples efforts to get rid of Flash. For every example you can give where Flash really "ads" to a site, I can give you ten where it's only used to give me some kind of wiggly site navigation buttons or cute popovers. Every boss who used to tell their web designer "Add some Flash, those wiggly buttons are hip!" now says "Apple is hip, make sure it works on those iPad devices." I consider that a net win.

 

[Night Spring]

I will tell you what my fantastic experience was on my MacBook Pro. I went to the site, and saw a big grey rectangle with a "Flash" icon inside it (I run ClickToFlash). I clicked on that icon. Next, I got to witness an advert which showed stills of theaters with a Ken Burns effect. After 15 seconds, I clicked the little red round button in the left top of my window because I grew tired of it.

Exactly. I just went to a website for a neighborhood restaurant thinking to order some food. I discovered that the site has recently been updated with flash. I got to sit through a 10-second fancy graphics effect, then instead of a downloadable pdf menu or an online html menu with resizable font, I get a menu embedded in flash that I can't print, and I can't read because the font is too small. I'm now ordering from some other restaurant that has the sense to not use flash on their website!

And yes, it's not flash itself, but what people do with flash -- but really, for every site where flash is used well, there are dozens of sites where it is used needlessly and to bad effect.

 

[blackNBUK]

I will tell you what my fantastic experience was on my MacBook Pro. I went to the site, and saw a big grey rectangle with a "Flash" icon inside it (I run ClickToFlash). I clicked on that icon. Next, I got to witness an advert which showed stills of theaters with a Ken Burns effect. After 15 seconds, I clicked the little red round button in the left top of my window because I grew tired of it.

As far as I can make out the the only use of Flash on the site is the Ken Burns effect. After flicking around for a bit everything else appears to be either plain HTML or links to PDFs. The right solution would be to detect the absence of Flash and replace the Ken Burns element with HTML.

Unfortunately there is a bigger problem with the HTML as on an iPad you can't click on the top menu bar. Personally I'd put the blame for that on the web-site developers as plenty of other sites mange to get similar things to work fine. In any case it doesn't have anything to-do with Flash. I'd wouldn't be surprised if a Xoom had the same problem with the site.

 

[eye]

They will sell like ten of those pieces of crap. Specs schmecks. It ain't about specs, it's about software and apps.

 

[MrWillie]

Exactly. I just went to a website for a neighborhood restaurant thinking to order some food. I discovered that the site has recently been updated with flash. I got to sit through a 10-second fancy graphics effect, then instead of a downloadable pdf menu or an online html menu with resizable font, I get a menu embedded in flash that I can't print, and I can't read because the font is too small. I'm now ordering from some other restaurant that has the sense to not use flash on their website!

And yes, it's not flash itself, but what people do with flash -- but really, for every site where flash is used well, there are dozens of sites where it is used needlessly and to bad effect.

Did you send the webmaster a quick email telling him this ?

The bad aspect of the Windows model is that it's a free-for-all, as I noted
Android is fantastic for geeks. It is and should be their OS of choice.

Why is that ? For a weather widget ? You can JB your iPad and get widgets. Any geek can do that.

Google: Makes money by selling your information to advertisers. The end user is the advertiser, and that's who they try to please. You may think you are Google's customer, but you are really their product being sold.

Nicely put.

My god. How many times dowe have to explain Flash is more than just watching videos.

Please explain how I as a user, benefit form not being able to access a site I need to access for business.

I take my business else ware. You want to do business with me? Do it on MY terms. Don't make flash a necessity.

All the posturing and screaming about Flash can be solved instantly if Apple put in a Flash option in internet settings, if you feel like it's the end of the world just go into settings and shut it off, simple enough.

Nope, because then lazy web masters would continue to use it. I have noticed the lack of flash on the iPad becoming less and less of an issue. So less of an issue that when I did a wipe and reinstall on my company Windows laptop, I did not install Flash. Non issue. Of course if you HAVE to goto Nick Jr website...

That's not what I'm reading in the reviews I'm seeing. Although admittedly poor because it's just a personal example, I don't see any issues whatsoever in running Flash on my Captivate, runs beautifully whatever I throw at it. I'm not defending Flash itself, but if it's so bad why haven't the other smartphone OS' and indeed desktop OS' banded together to ban this scourge of mankind? Rather than doing that every single other OS is accepting Flash with open arms and even ridiculing Apple because of this choice, or lack of it. Apple is literally alone in its crusade.

You mean the review of the Zoom where it could not handle sites that the iPad could ? (They were Flash based, and the iPad was directed to the non flash version of the sites in question, so again, Why have the Flash version ?) I am not saying you don't get good flash performance, (I don't care one way or the other) but the other OS companies won't band together with Apple to kill Flash because thats what they are using as one of their main selling points. Yea, Apple is alone in this crusade, but there is over 100 million iOS devices out there, and the number increases daily.

 

[Night Spring]

Did you send the webmaster a quick email telling him this ?

I did, actually. I'll probably also mention it to them the next time we pass by the restaurant.

 

[ezekielrage_99]

Not to add more fire to the Andriod vs iOS debate, most of the posts IMHO aren't really that objective... Though with that said there are some interesting point I am tending to lean towards

Seems like a bit of petitio principii with pointing out the "flaws" Android has ...

 

[Lara F]

Wrong post sorry.

 

[alex2792]

Exactly. I just went to a website for a neighborhood restaurant thinking to order some food. I discovered that the site has recently been updated with flash. I got to sit through a 10-second fancy graphics effect, then instead of a downloadable pdf menu or an online html menu with resizable font, I get a menu embedded in flash that I can't print, and I can't read because the font is too small. I'm now ordering from some other restaurant that has the sense to not use flash on their website!

And yes, it's not flash itself, but what people do with flash -- but really, for every site where flash is used well, there are dozens of sites where it is used needlessly and to bad effect.

People who think that HTML 5 will completely replace flash are obviously not very well versed in web design. Yes, there are certain flash-like things that you can do with new HTML5 functions, but it's still far cheaper and easier to use flash when you need an interactive,cross platform website(especially with DRM involved). Current HTML5 implementation is a nightmare because the majority of people are still using IE or outdated Firefox version that either does not support HTML 5 or does not adhere to all of the "standards". For example, if I want to create a radio streaming app with HTML 5 I would need to support both mp3 and ogg format since Firefox does not support mp3 playback, while I wouldn't even think about it with flash. Same thing would happen with video streaming as Firefox does not support h.264 video(you can get around it with MS plugin,but it's Windows only).Truth is, WAY more people either have flash installed or will click ok to download the plugin in order to access the content they want, but most "regular" users will panic if asked to update their browser. It also doesn't help that the new canvas and webgl features usually run worse then current flash plugin.

 

[Night Spring]

People who think that HTML 5 will completely replace flash are obviously not very well versed in web design.

I don't care about html5 vs flash. I just want websites that I can use. How website designers make them is not my problem.

But I guess my frustration with flash stems from the fact that many websites use them even though no interactivity is needed. Like that restaurant website -- what interactivity is needed for that? Restaurant websites only need to present static information, yet so many of them use flash! Why????

 

[alex2792]

I don't care about html5 vs flash. I just want websites that I can use. How website designers make them is not my problem.

But I guess my frustration with flash stems from the fact that many websites use them even though no interactivity is needed. Like that restaurant website -- what interactivity is needed for that? Restaurant websites only need to present static information, yet so many of them use flash! Why????

Because many businesses(especially small ones) are specifically asking for fancy animations etc. Check your local craigslist computer gigs section, you will find stuff like "I want interactive menus with a progress bar with embedded youtube video,facebook like button and twitter integration!". I do some freelance web design, and if they're paying me to create something like that I can get it done a lot faster with flash then I can just insert a few widgets in dreamweaver and finish the whole thing in a day. Time is money and unless the client specifically asks me to NOT use flash I'll do whatever I can to finish the project as quickly as possible.

 

[NebulaClash]

Web sites that use Flash in 2011 get crossed off my list immediately. So designers who use Flash are causing their clients to lose potential customers.

Use Hype if you want easy animation that is HTML 5.

 

[Night Spring]

Because many businesses(especially small ones) are specifically asking for fancy animations etc.

Well, how does fancy animation help me, the customer, to order my take-out? I'm not asking why web designers use flash to make the websites, I'm asking why restaurant owners think they need fancy animations to sell food! I think I hate flash because, like you said, it's there, so you use it. If it wasn't there, web designers would talk restaurant owners out of fancy animated sites, because it would be too expensive to build, and I could read my menus and order my food. So yes, I wish flash would die, and I don't care if html5 doesn't replace all flash functions. In fact, I rather hope it doesn't, if it means just more horribly designed and unusable websites.

 

[MrWillie]

Time is money and unless the client specifically asks me to NOT use flash I'll do whatever I can to finish the project as quickly as possible.

So I am correct in my assumption. The lazy web developer syndrome is why some sites still use flash.

 

[henchman]

I don't care about html5 vs flash. I just want websites that I can use. How website designers make them is not my problem.

But I guess my frustration with flash stems from the fact that many websites use them even though no interactivity is needed. Like that restaurant website -- what interactivity is needed for that? Restaurant websites only need to present static information, yet so many of them use flash! Why????

Blame the fact you can't use a website on Apple.
He's the one causing the problem.
He's the one that assumes every business can afford to have their website rebuilt, because he decided to exclude Flash.

If all gas stations, overnight, decided to change the size of the gaz nozzles, so they only fit 10% of the cars, you couldn't blame the car manufacturers when you can't get gas, you blame the idiots who decided to change a standard, because they felt like it.

For small businesses, it's simply not in their budget.
So if you wantvto complain about a website you can't use, complain to Steve Jobs.

 

[Mac.World]

Blame the fact you can't use a website on Apple.
He's the one causing the problem.
He's the one that assumes every business can afford to have their website rebuilt, because he decided to exclude Flash.

If all gas stations, overnight, decided to change the size of the gaz nozzles, so they only fit 10% of the cars, you couldn't blame the car manufacturers when you can't get gas, you blame the idiots who decided to change a standard, because they felt like it.

For small businesses, it's simply not in their budget.
So if you wantvto complain about a website you can't use, complain to Steve Jobs.

Funny thing is, 80% of mobile web Video traffic is via iOS. Link: http://www.maclife.com/article/news/report_claims_ios_devices_make_80_percent_mobile_video_viewsWhich is one reason why HTML5 is moving along at the pace it is. Majority of YouTube, porn sites, etc.. are all iOS friendly.mEven Adobe has admitted HTML5 is the future, so while it may be a slight inconvenience for iOS users in the near term, Flash won't be lasting much longer. And those companies that don't change will be left to die.

So in the end Steve was right. Now apologize for your insolence.

 

[Sander]

If all gas stations, overnight, decided to change the size of the gaz nozzles, so they only fit 10% of the cars, you couldn't blame the car manufacturers when you can't get gas, you blame the idiots who decided to change a standard, because they felt like it.

Ah! A car analogy! I can't let that pass.

The situation is more like 50 percent of gas station owners decided sometime in the past not to use the standard nozzles but instead something they invented themselves, and also sell adaptors for most car brands so their non-standard nozzles can still deliver gas to those cars.

If there's no adaptor for your brand of car, you can't get gas at these stations. You can only get gas at the stations which used the original, standard nozzles.

Now there is a car manufacturer which doesn't like this adaptor (because it leaks gas and leaves scratches on the car). The manufacturor is growing bigger and bigger, because everybody likes their cars. People do grumble that at 50% of the gas stations, the weird nozzles don't fit. Some even ask for an adaptor, even though it leaks gas and leaves scratches on the car. But the manufacturer stands pat against it, and says you should only get gas at stations which stick to the standard. In fact, their car being so popular, they are hoping that the 50% of gas station owners will revert to their old, standard nozzles again, so that nobody needs adapters anymore.

 

[Night Spring]

Blame the fact you can't use a website on Apple.
He's the one causing the problem.
He's the one that assumes every business can afford to have their website rebuilt, because he decided to exclude Flash.

If all gas stations, overnight, decided to change the size of the gaz nozzles, so they only fit 10% of the cars, you couldn't blame the car manufacturers when you can't get gas, you blame the idiots who decided to change a standard, because they felt like it.

For small businesses, it's simply not in their budget.
So if you wantvto complain about a website you can't use, complain to Steve Jobs.

First, this website I am complaining about used to be non-flash, and they only recently changed to flash. So it wasn't that they couldn't afford to redesign their website. They redesigned it, but made it harder for me to use.

Also, the reason I couldn't use the website was because the menu, now presented in flash. had fonts that were too small, and because it is flash, there is no way to resize it. No, this website doesn't work on the iPad, but it doesn't work for me even on my desktop, and that has nothing to do with Apple at all.

 

[spinedoc77]

I don't care about html5 vs flash. I just want websites that I can use. How website designers make them is not my problem.

But I guess my frustration with flash stems from the fact that many websites use them even though no interactivity is needed. Like that restaurant website -- what interactivity is needed for that? Restaurant websites only need to present static information, yet so many of them use flash! Why????

This is EXACTLY what I want as well: "I just want websites that I can use". But without Flash I don't get that, it's as simple as that, especially for the non technical layperson who doesn't know the difference. Your frustration is misguided, it should be directed at the restaurant itself who commissioned that feature, if that feature could be done in HTML5 and if Flash never existed, guess what that feature would still be there. It's similar to those who equate advertising with Flash: "Oh I hate Flash, they always pop up those intrusive ads when I'm trying to surf the web". Once again that's not the fault of Flash.

Similar experience when someone else in this thread stated their dissatisfaction with a flash websites behavior, immediately others sprang up to support him in their frustration. A technical user familiar with web development stepped in and said Flash was not what was causing their frustration. It's interesting and I wonder just how many think it's Flash that's causing their problems when in reality it is not.

 

[Popeye206]

Blame the fact you can't use a website on Apple.
He's the one causing the problem.
He's the one that assumes every business can afford to have their website rebuilt, because he decided to exclude Flash.

If all gas stations, overnight, decided to change the size of the gaz nozzles, so they only fit 10% of the cars, you couldn't blame the car manufacturers when you can't get gas, you blame the idiots who decided to change a standard, because they felt like it.

For small businesses, it's simply not in their budget.
So if you wantvto complain about a website you can't use, complain to Steve Jobs.

It would be nice if there was flash support, but after playing with a Moto Zoom and watching Flash die on it twice in like 10 minutes of playing with it, I have to agree with Apple... let's move onto something more stable.

BTW... do they still make the iPad Killer Xoom?

 

[spinedoc77]

Funny thing is, 80% of mobile web Video traffic is via iOS. Link: http://www.maclife.com/article/news/report_claims_ios_devices_make_80_percent_mobile_video_viewsWhich is one reason why HTML5 is moving along at the pace it is. Majority of YouTube, porn sites, etc.. are all iOS friendly.mEven Adobe has admitted HTML5 is the future, so while it may be a slight inconvenience for iOS users in the near term, Flash won't be lasting much longer. And those companies that don't change will be left to die.

So in the end Steve was right. Now apologize for your insolence.

"The data here represents only video that is rights-managed: aggregate monetization data for professional content from FreeWheel’s customers, and does not reflect trends for user-generated content"

It also doesn't include Netflix or Youtube data for example. Netflix for Android was just released a couple of weeks ago, and there was a study very recently that found that Netflix accounts for a huge amount of data over the internet. I'd also be curious if this study included Flash sites, if they didn't then they probably cut out a large portion of Android and other OS traffic.

Adobe ain't going anywhere. You cited all the other OS open arm embracing of Flash as "marketing", lol come on. You are saying Android, RIM, HP/Palm, Microsoft, etc are choosing Flash even though it supposedly is such a badly running system just to have a marketing bullet point?!? I think not, they are simply providing a required part of the internet. Flash use dips from Nov 2010 to March 2011 by 2% (and increased in December of that same period), RUN RUN Flash is dying, the sky is falling, RUN! http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20052018-264.html

Once again though, a simple on/off switch would squash 100% of your arguments.

 

[Night Spring]

This is EXACTLY what I want as well: "I just want websites that I can use". But without Flash I don't get that, it's as simple as that, especially for the non technical layperson who doesn't know the difference. Your frustration is misguided, it should be directed at the restaurant itself who commissioned that feature, if that feature could be done in HTML5 and if Flash never existed, guess what that feature would still be there.

How so? My main complaint is that text that is part of flash content can't be resized. How would that happen if they used HTML5 instead?

Also, the restaurant owner is likely a non-technical person, who probably doesn't know what features are possible with what format. How do I know that they didn't just say, "We want a nice looking website, and we want it to present our menu, here's our menu." And the website designer decided to use flash to code the menu? I mean, I don't know if that's how it happened, or if you are right and the website owner asked that the menu be presented in flash, but is there any reason to assume one over the other?

Now, if the menu was truly interactive -- like let's say, you are able to click on different items in the menu, and as you click, it shows a running total of your order -- and you tell me that in order to do that, you had to use flash, fine, I'd understand. But no, the menu is just a static menu. In fact, it's just a scan of their printed menu. If the owner really asked that the scan be used on their website, and the designer didn't point out that the scan would look horrible on higher resolution monitors, then the designer did his client a real disservice.

 

[spinedoc77]

How so? My main complaint is that text that is part of flash content can't be resized. How would that happen if they used HTML5 instead?

Also, the restaurant owner is likely a non-technical person, who probably doesn't know what features are possible with what format. How do I know that they didn't just say, "We want a nice looking website, and we want it to present our menu, here's our menu." And the website designer decided to use flash to code the menu? I mean, I don't know if that's how it happened, or if you are right and the website owner asked that the menu be presented in flash, but is there any reason to assume one over the other?

Now, if the menu was truly interactive -- like let's say, you are able to click on different items in the menu, and as you click, it shows a running total of your order -- and you tell me that in order to do that, you had to use flash, fine, I'd understand. But no, the menu is just a static menu. In fact, it's just a scan of their printed menu. If the owner really asked that the scan be used on their website, and the designer didn't point out that the scan would look horrible on higher resolution monitors, then the designer did his client a real disservice.

I hear ya, but it still sounds like either a) the restaurant owner asked for this, or b) the web designer implemented a poor choice of technology for this specific application or c) the web designer implemented the proper technology but coded it improperly. Either way it's not the fault of Flash itself, but rather the implementation or the owners request. You see it's not like I'm fighting FOR flash, I could care less, I just want to see the internet as it was designed to be seen with its flaws. I'm sure there are poor HTML5 implementations, of course there are no one is perfect, but we don't take one of those poor examples as an all inclusive massive generalization of HTML5.

 

[henchman]

Funny thing is, 80% of mobile web Video traffic is via iOS. Link: http://www.maclife.com/article/news/report_claims_ios_devices_make_80_percent_mobile_video_viewsWhich is one reason why HTML5 is moving along at the pace it is. Majority of YouTube, porn sites, etc.. are all iOS friendly.mEven Adobe has admitted HTML5 is the future, so while it may be a slight inconvenience for iOS users in the near term, Flash won't be lasting much longer. And those companies that don't change will be left to die.

So in the end Steve was right. Now apologize for your insolence.

Except web traffic isn't 100% mobile.