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

spinedoc77 said:
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.
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I hear what you are saying, and perhaps once html5 gets more widespread, I'd be complaining about horrible implementations of html5 too. I mean, even plain html can be implemented badly, like some websites with dark backgrounds with flashing neon-colored fonts that really kill my eyes. :D

I still can't help but suspect that flash makes website designers and people who commission websites too trigger happy with website animations. It makes animations so easy to implement that people use them without consideration to whether it's really appropriate for their content. It's just that, apart from delivering straight video content, and some photography sites where flash is used to present nice photo slideshows, I've hardly ever seen flash used in a way that added to my experience of a website. As you say, that might not be a fault of the flash technology itself, but when so many websites use it badly, I've got to ask if there's something inherent in the technology that makes it easier to abuse it.
 
Sydde said:
OK, what percentage is mobile, and how is it trending?
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For various reasons, thats a somewhat hard number to pin down. But we'll try:

According to All Things Digital, iOS makes up just over 2.0% of global web traffic (right behind Windows and Mac), with Android making up another 0.49%.

That was as of January 2011. But the important thing to note is the TREND. And its growing fast - according to Admob, smartphone (ie. mobile) internet grew 193% between January 2009 and January 2010.

Its also worth noting that there are HUGE chunks of internet traffic that are never going to rely on, or be in any way dependent on, Flash. Netflix ALONE makes up 29.7% of downstream US web traffic.

Note also from that source: "Flash Video" makes up a little more than 3.5% of aggregate web traffic.

If we assume that figure to be correct, it helps put things in perspective.

1) "Flash" makes up a relatively small part of total web traffic.

2) In most cases Flash video can easily be replaced/upgraded with a video format more appropriate to mobile use.

3) Mobile web traffic and non-Flash web applications (like Netflix) are the fastest-growing segments of total web traffic.

Based on these facts, and given Flash's well-known shortcomings on mobile devices, its very hard IMHO to make a supportable case that Apple ought to feel ANY pressure to include support for it on iOS.
 
And again, bitten by the "no flash" problem" today when I went to order online at lucky brand.
Ended up having to use my phone.

Www.luckybrand.com

Yes, not having Flash is clearly to the advantage of me, the user and purchaser.

Very annoying.
 
henchman said:
Oh brother.
I guess when facts aren't to your liking, you need tonfind an excuse.

This was 3 months ago.
You REALLY think there's been a drastic change since then?
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I wanted facts on trends. You didn't give me any and then got mad when I pointed that out. :confused: You follow up with another static measure about Flash prevalence, again not what people are asking for. I don't know if there's been a change since 3 months ago, that's the point of asking for changes over time. I don't have any incentive to deny the trends, but when I don't even know what they are, your reaction is pretty lol.

The editorial you linked to gave me another static measure and said 'Flash isn't going anywhere any time soon'. That's called 'begging the question' - it just asserts as true what you were asked to show through evidence.

On the other hand, we have vrDrew who put some effort into thinking about this.

EDIT: I don't think this thread will be very successful if people just post Flash-based websites and say how bad it is they don't run Flash (I think it's bad too, I blame the web designer).
 
vrDrew said:
For various reasons, thats a somewhat hard number to pin down. But we'll try:

According to All Things Digital, iOS makes up just over 2.0% of global web traffic (right behind Windows and Mac), with Android making up another 0.49%.

That was as of January 2011. But the important thing to note is the TREND. And its growing fast - according to Admob, smartphone (ie. mobile) internet grew 193% between January 2009 and January 2010.

Its also worth noting that there are HUGE chunks of internet traffic that are never going to rely on, or be in any way dependent on, Flash. Netflix ALONE makes up 29.7% of downstream US web traffic.

Note also from that source: "Flash Video" makes up a little more than 3.5% of aggregate web traffic.

If we assume that figure to be correct, it helps put things in perspective.

1) "Flash" makes up a relatively small part of total web traffic.

2) In most cases Flash video can easily be replaced/upgraded with a video format more appropriate to mobile use.

3) Mobile web traffic and non-Flash web applications (like Netflix) are the fastest-growing segments of total web traffic.

Based on these facts, and given Flash's well-known shortcomings on mobile devices, its very hard IMHO to make a supportable case that Apple ought to feel ANY pressure to include support for it on iOS.
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It still doesn't show that Flash is dying. It's arguably trending downwards, but 2% in a half year period with one of those months showing an upward trend doesn't really sound very convincing. Flash is far from dying. But I do agree that there is little pressure on Apple to include it if his consumers don't care about it. Once again we'll have to wait and see how the market unfolds. Is Apple right in their solitary fight against Flash, or have Palm/HP, RIM, Microsoft, Android/Google chosen wisely by including it?

But at this juncture in time it's certainly not a case of Apple being victorious in their battle against the Flash dragon, nor are the trends showing that they are beating down Flash in any way. It's all just guesses anyhow as none of us can predict the future. I just wish Apple could come up with a solution. They didn't want silverlight either, but they found a way to give people Netflix without utilizing silverlight. I'll gladly take a work around from Apple, Flash can die for all I care, but as long as it doesn't die I'd like my phone/tablet to not be handicapped anymore.
 
spinedoc77 said:
It still doesn't show that Flash is dying.
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Thats not the standard, nor the question that was asked. And, in some respects, the more that Apple "wins" the argument about its position RE Flash, then the more entrenched is going to become the position of the Flash advocates.

I think its worth taking a look at a couple of the examples cited by participants in this disussion of websites that "rely" on Flash. A restaurant site, and a fashion jeans maker.

For a restaurant owner, I think putting in a Flash segment was absolute idiocy. Because a lot of times people interested in visiting a restaurant are going to be searching from a mobile device. And, despite what the Android vendors might tell you, Flash doesn't actually work that well on Android. All the problems Steve Jobs reminded us of a year ago are still true today: Buggy, battery hungry, no "mouseover" support. And the security an privacy concerns. Bad restaurant owner, bad.

As far as the Luckybrand.com site? I tried it on both my iPad and my (Windows Vista) PC. About the only thing that didn't work on the iPad was a "fit finder" Flash applet. Did I find the experience "handicapped"? Maybe. But certainly not "crippled." I still can't figure out if I ought to be wearing "boot cut" or "slim straight" - even after trying them on in about 200 different stores. I doubt, seriously, that a Flash application is going to magically make this any easier for me sitting in my living room.

But more to the point: Luckybrand.com has plenty of other options, ones that a) don't rely on Flash and b) don't rely on Adobe's proprietary format. Truly "open" standards like HTML5; CSS; and H.264.

A lot has been made about an "Apple vs. Flash" battle. This, I think, is a mirage. Apple's lack of support for Flash has been seized upon by Apple's competitors in an attempt to score some marketing points against a platform that has, undoubtedly, totally upended the smartphone market. The fact that platforms like Android and RIM don't themselves do a very good job with Flash games and applications gets conveniently lost in the shuffle.
 
vrDrew makes a good point. Apple is simply doing without Flash, and that leads compeitors to say "Aha! An entry point for us!" So they add Flash, create another check mark item they can market, and think that will get people to turn away from Apple products. For ten years now we've had Apple competitors think check mark lists are the key to beating Apple, and for ten years now the only ones who seem to respond to that kind of marketing are the check list geeks who rail against Apple no matter what Apple does.

Is Flash dying? No, not yet. But things are starting to trend away from Flash. If you are a business and you want to appeal to users of 100 million+ devices that run iOS, you would be fools to pick a tool that locks out those 100 million+ devices. That's why we see so many sites creating alternatives to Flash. Those videos that wouldn't play on your iPhone? Some of them do now. That's a trend away from Flash.

A few years from now, when HTML 5 is more robust and the tools to create great animation are plentiful and popular, Flash will be sidelined for those few cases where it is still the only possible solution, and where the business buying the Flash solution feels they have no choice but ignore the hundreds of millions (by then) iOS users. Most sites will have moved on to industry standards that work on all devices. That is a healthy thing for the industry, where no one company controls anyone's destiny.

If you are a Flash developer, I understand your frustration. But in development, it is always true that new solutions come along that require you to learn new skills or die in the market. This is another one of those times. Use this time to also learn new, open standards, so that when the time comes you'll be able to move beyond Flash.
 
vrDrew said:
Thats not the standard, nor the question that was asked. And, in some respects, the more that Apple "wins" the argument about its position RE Flash, then the more entrenched is going to become the position of the Flash advocates.

I think its worth taking a look at a couple of the examples cited by participants in this disussion of websites that "rely" on Flash. A restaurant site, and a fashion jeans maker.

For a restaurant owner, I think putting in a Flash segment was absolute idiocy. Because a lot of times people interested in visiting a restaurant are going to be searching from a mobile device. And, despite what the Android vendors might tell you, Flash doesn't actually work that well on Android. All the problems Steve Jobs reminded us of a year ago are still true today: Buggy, battery hungry, no "mouseover" support. And the security an privacy concerns. Bad restaurant owner, bad.

As far as the Luckybrand.com site? I tried it on both my iPad and my (Windows Vista) PC. About the only thing that didn't work on the iPad was a "fit finder" Flash applet. Did I find the experience "handicapped"? Maybe. But certainly not "crippled." I still can't figure out if I ought to be wearing "boot cut" or "slim straight" - even after trying them on in about 200 different stores. I doubt, seriously, that a Flash application is going to magically make this any easier for me sitting in my living room.

But more to the point: Luckybrand.com has plenty of other options, ones that a) don't rely on Flash and b) don't rely on Adobe's proprietary format. Truly "open" standards like HTML5; CSS; and H.264.

A lot has been made about an "Apple vs. Flash" battle. This, I think, is a mirage. Apple's lack of support for Flash has been seized upon by Apple's competitors in an attempt to score some marketing points against a platform that has, undoubtedly, totally upended the smartphone market. The fact that platforms like Android and RIM don't themselves do a very good job with Flash games and applications gets conveniently lost in the shuffle.
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I tried both sites on my Captivate and they seemed to work just fine, I didn't play with them too much. As for the website owners using Flash, sure I agree that may not be a good choice, but then again the blame falls on the website and not Flash itself.

As for truly "open" standards maybe, but are they royalty free? I'm not talking about the MPEG-LA's waiving royalties for free web video, but rather royalties for encoding and decoding video and subscription based video. From what I understand who pays what is still a big mess. Is that an issue? Maybe, it may be an added cost to switch over, just as it is a cost to switch over from a Flash infrastructure. But I'm not a software engineer so I'll bow out of having any expertise over that. .swf and flash player are "open" unless it's opening h.264 of course. It would be interesting if h.264 did become the only standard if they suddenly started charging just like Unisys did with the .gif format.

As for the marketing gimmick, I don't think that's the case. It's only recently that we have begun to see TV and internet advertisements ridiculing Apple for not giving its users a full internet experience. Flash was on there before, but them picking up on it and using it for marketing is just recently. Personally it's been very effective for myself as I'm seriously considering Android, but once again I can only speak for myself and it's quite true that I am on an Apple forum. I understand your point that the more saturated the market becomes with iOS the more it may filter Flash use, although that doesn't particularly stand out as what's happening when you look at Flash use statistics, there is really no decline or a very slight decline in overall use. It could be that any mobile user doesn't use Flash that much, including Android users, but who knows.

I'd like to once again admit my only concern is Flash video, I don't care about mouseovers and such. I'm also not defending Flash by any means, I'm simply discussing how I will get the "full" internet on my smartphone/tablet. When Apple wanted Netflix but didn't want silverlight they figured out a custom wrapper for their video player for that to work. Even if Flash was declining and will be replaced by HTML5 (something which isn't possible anyhow as they don't necessarily replace each other in all functions) it would be years until this happened, in the meantime ipad1, ipad2, ipad3, and likely 4, 5 and 6 users would suffer. On the other end of the spectrum you have RIM,Google/Android, Microsoft, HP/Palm, etc etc all working WITH Adobe to make Flash better on mobile devices. Is it perfect? Of course not, not by a long shot. But you don't just take one aspect of something and generalize it that the entire thing needs to be thrown out! That's like the case of the restaurant menu not working being extrapolated to Flash must die! It just seems like Jobs threw out the baby with the bathwater. I seriously don't believe the rest of the technology world continues to embrace Flash just to market it against Apple.
 
Just got a Samsung galaxy tab 10.1 google io today. The hardware is great. Almost on par with the iPad 2. But the software is very buggy. The browser locks up from time to time and is laggy. Overall I do like the product but I would not be dumping my iPad 2 for it. Hopefully this will all be solved when it gets released with 3.1
 
steve31 said:
Just got a Samsung galaxy tab 10.1 google io today. The hardware is great. Almost on par with the iPad 2. But the software is very buggy. The browser locks up from time to time and is laggy. Overall I do like the product but I would not be dumping my iPad 2 for it. Hopefully this will all be solved when it gets released with 3.1
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It sucks that samsung didn't put the exynos in the galaxy tab 10.1. I guess the yield on the chip is still not up to par
 
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