Steve Jobs' Wall Street Journal Visit Reportedly Included Arguments Against Flash

[Anuba]

Flash is bloating web pages. I don't need to see fancy things jumping around everywhere. Let's get rid of it, the sooner, the better.

Sigh.

1) Flash has a million different uses, ad banners are only a fraction of it.

2) "Fancy things jumping around" aren't going to go away with Flash. You see, Flash doesn't create ads. PEOPLE create ads. And these people will only create new fancy things jumping around, only this time created in HTML5.

Blocking Flash ads is a cakewalk since it's easy do identify Flash content, but how do you think they'll be able to block ads that are an integral part of the page code HTML? It will be a cat-and-mouse game where developers keep finding new ways to bypass the ad blockers.

It's like Steve woke up one day, climbed down from the pile of cash, and decided "hmmm....I'm kinda bored. I wonder if i can kill flash and adobe for fun?"

Pffffffft. Neither company would exist without the other. Adobe were instrumental in making the Mac successful in the early days. Adobe designed PostScript, Apple licensed PostScript from them in 1985, and this started the desktop publishing revolution. They released Photoshop 1.0 for Mac in 1989 and the rest is history. The graphics/print/advertising business (which relies heavily on Adobe's products) was what kept Apple alive during the dark Gil Amelio days in the mid 90's, when these businesses were the only ones left who bought Macs.

 

[LagunaSol]

Keep up the good fight Steve!

It's time for Flash to die. Or start dyin'...

 

[Full of Win]

If this SJ quote is accurate "He repeated what he said at an Apple Town Hall recently, that Flash crashes Macs and is buggy"

Then, the man is grossly incompetent and does not care about Apple users.

Why: Because parts of MobileMe use Flash. If Flash 'crashes Macs and is buggy', then why provide an interface for the service using substandard programs? It simply does not follow..if they care about users of the ecosystem. The only way this makes sense is if they don't care about users and view us as mind dead drones that they don't mind FORCING us to use software that they claim crash macs and is buggy.


For example, this is a screenshot of the upload screen, when loaded using "Click to Flash". What do we see??? Yep, there be flash to be loaded there me mate-e. How could this be, I thought Flash was buggy and crashed macs. But, I'm forced to use it to upload files to my .mac account. Thanks for making me use buggy software Apple that will crash my mac.

 

[batchtaster]

increasing numbers of smartphone operating are supporting the standard.

Flash is not a standard any more than Windows is a standard.

 

[Swift]

who really cares what jobs thinks, Android is going to take over the market share of smart phones, so most smart phones will be running flash.

And I'm not too worried that the giant itouch will not have flash, as my mac computers run flash perfectly without any "crashes"

Are people really that stupid to see that the only reason apple is against flash is because it would kill their revenue from the app store games?

In the smartphone market, which phones support Flash... now? I don't think any do. Oh, maybe Nokia? I forget. Of course, they're all saying they willl. We'll see how it works out. Adobe will have to either bring out Flash lite -- which won't show much of what there is -- or they will take up tons of CPU, and the hot new Android app will be ClickToFlash.

 

[Anuba]

Flash is not a standard any more than Windows is a standard.

SWF is a de facto standard, like DOC and PDF.

(What is it with MR and nerdy hairsplitters...?)

 

[Swift]

If this SJ quote is accurate "He repeated what he said at an Apple Town Hall recently, that Flash crashes Macs and is buggy"

Then, the man is grossly incompetent and does not care about Apple users.

Why: Because parts of MobileMe use Flash. If Flash 'crashes Macs and is buggy', then why provide an interface for the service using substandard programs? It simply does not follow..if they care about users of the ecosystem. The only way this makes sense is if they don't care about users and view us as mind dead drones that they don't mind FORCING us to use software that they claim crash macs and is buggy.


For example, this is a screenshot of the upload screen, when loaded using "Click to Flash". What do we see??? Yep, there be flash to be loaded there me mate-e. How could this be, I thought Flash was buggy and crashed macs. But, I'm forced to use it to upload files to my .mac account. Thanks for making me use buggy software Apple that will crash my mac.

Well, luckily we can tell how bad your judgment is by your icon.

 

[LagunaSol]

the hot new Android app will be ClickToFlash.

LOL! That's the next argument the iPhone haters will be using:

Pfft, the iPhone doesn't even run ClickToFlash! LAME!

 

[stefanot]

If this SJ quote is accurate "He repeated what he said at an Apple Town Hall recently, that Flash crashes Macs and is buggy"

Then, the man is grossly incompetent and does not care about Apple users.

Why: Because parts of MobileMe use Flash. If Flash 'crashes Macs and is buggy', then why provide an interface for the service using substandard programs? It simply does not follow..if they care about users of the ecosystem. The only way this makes sense is if they don't care about users and view us as mind dead drones that they don't mind FORCING us to use software that they claim crash macs and is buggy.


For example, this is a screenshot of the upload screen, when loaded using "Click to Flash". What do we see??? Yep, there be flash to be loaded there me mate-e. How could this be, I thought Flash was buggy and crashed macs. But, I'm forced to use it to upload files to my .mac account. Thanks for making me use buggy software Apple that will crash my mac.

Steve only knows what he is told. Classic case of someone that doesn't "do" trying to explain what to do. Everything seems trivial to him.

 

[BVeritas]

But here is where the poster you replied to is right. He can't make an animation or game as easily with html5 as with Flash. For someone like him, losing Flash is a step backwards. How is a harder technology to use an advancement? How is dealing with tens of interpretations of a language ( just like with regular html ) going to help consumers/users/programmers.

I'd have no problem losing Flash if there was something to replace it with, but currently there isn't.

I agree there are many bad uses of Flash ( although I've never had crashes or issues ), but there are also many good sites that would be much harder to make and maintain with any other technology.

You're right, and it's okay if Flash is just used an engine for creating games, whatever. It's the imbedding that creates the problem. Use HTML5 for video and Adobe can go ahead and sell Flash as a development engine, just like hundreds or others.

IOW, Adobe AIR is fine, but get rid of Flash.

 

[Swift]

I remember trying out the red bull copilot website. It let you view multiple streams of video of the different planes, from cockpit view, wing cams, chase cams, all integrated with real time representations of the pilots instruments. You could follow how many Gs they were pulling, the altitude and speedometer, and you could see this running over a graph in real time comparing all the finalists. On top of that, you could turn pilot commentary (in synch with the video) on or off at any time.

As far as I know, that is not possible in anything but flash.

To those who don't want to see stuff jumping around, congratulations. Red Bull doesn't care about your viewership. The people who saw that race, and people who wanted to see it, loved that site. It brought massive traffic to red bull because it offered meaningful interaction with their event.

Try explaining to a client that you can't do this because Apple doesn't support flash. Watch how quickly your client says they don't care about Apple.

The iPhone and iPad don't support Flash. Apple is a much more compelling presence there. And another thing is, Flash doesn't scale well at all.

Frankly, your game can play much better as an app. Make it an Android app if you don't like Apple. Or both, if you want to sell the game to a wide audience. And get real cash.

The real question is mobile computing in general. Flash is intrinsically a memory hog and a security hole. And Adobe has been really ****** about plugging security holes.

 

[cfountain72]

It does seem odd...

The other technologies mentioned as being on Apple's hit list (floppy drives, cables, etc.) were produced by multiple vendors to the point of being commodities. Because these items were produced by multiple vendors, it never seemed like a personal/corporate attack; just a move to another technology.

With Steve's Flash War, it seems very personal...and he seems unaware that there really isn't a viable widespread alternative to Flash out there yet. Maybe large firms can afford to run duplicate (Flash and non-Flash) versions of their websites, plus an App or two, plus another non-iPhone mobile site...but most can't. Even places like the NYT, which is bleeding cash and hoping that Pied Piper Steve will help bring them back to profitibility, cannot afford to support this many different directions forever.

Here's another non-game/non-ad use of Flash...maybe it could be done in some other format. But again, at what additional cost?

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/07/31/business/20080801-metrics-graphic.html?emc=eta3

Peace be with y'all.

 

[JackAxe]

Job's lemmings! The cliff is that way...

 

[Swift]

But isn't YouTube both Flash and QuickTime, rather than strictly non-Flash?

No. Go to the beta page in YouTube, and sign up for the HTML5 trial. Works great.

 

[Liquorpuki]

Flash vs HTML5 isn't that big a deal to me

But I do think it's pretty dumb that I had to double my girlfriend's RAM just so she could play Restaurant City

 

[AndyR]

It's actually an excellent sign. No one in Apple's target audience, and, in fact, almost no one who doesn't work at Adobe HQ in San Jose, makes their buying decisions based on Flash. In fact, the average member of the iPad's target audience doesn't know the difference between Flash, Java, Internet Explorer, and their own elbow.

No but you tell joe public or any of the other 100 million people who play flash games on FaceBook that you can't do that on an iPad, then watch how many people buy one then.

I'll buy one as I don't do Flash stuff, but I know tons of other people who wont buy one because they cant use FaceBook games on the sofa so will stick to there laptop.

 

[Full of Win]

Well, luckily we can tell how bad your judgment is by your icon.

Personally, I favor judging people by the content of their message/post and not the shape of their icon or their outward appearance. I don't makes broad assumptions or character judgments based on outward appearances like avatars. The idea disgust me. Guess that is just me though.

To the point: what about me post is bad judgement? Am I wrong that Apple uses Flash in MobileMe? If you want to criticize, then please show me the wrong information in my post.

Here is the mouse over, where it shows a .swf extension.

I await your reply showing me where in my post that I have bad judgement.

 

[tschull]

Works fine for me

Why people keep on posting this link is beyond me...

It just proves that whole HTML5 thing is crap!

I run MBP c2d 2.4 with 8600M + 10.5.8 + latest Safari...

THIS PAGE GIVES SPINNING BEACH BALL ON SAFARI AND IT DOESNT WORK!

I mean... LOL

Am I the only one in this forums that cant run that video!?!?!

I tried it with Firefox and Safari and it worked flawlessly. I have also have MBP 2.4GHz C2D with 8600M graphics. Only difference is I'm using 10.6.2.

 

[QCassidy352]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

who really cares what jobs thinks, Android is going to take over the market share of smart phones, so most smart phones will be running flash.

And I'm not too worried that the giant itouch will not have flash, as my mac computers run flash perfectly without any "crashes"

Are people really that stupid to see that the only reason apple is against flash is because it would kill their revenue from the app store games?

lol... Apple makes minimal profit from the app store. They make their money on hardware.

 

[macUser2007]

As a web developer I do not use flash at all. I have always hated pure flash sites and any partial flash is just ads that are annoying. As for hulu and others that use flash they should migrate to silverlight or to a copyright protected quicktime format.

But flash is dead and I personally wish it had died many years ago.

So, you do only crappy commodity sites?

Good for you! But how did you afford a Mac? I suppose a used, PPC one.... I remember, when PPC was THE BEST, according to Jobs, and Intel sucked. You probably still believe this.....

Oh, and I bet you still refuse to do Copy/Paste....

 

[Swift]

I think everyone forgot to mention that Flash 10.1 is now Carbon based so it's using Apples API's and as such if you check the current benchmarks you will find CPU usage has dropped nicely and graphics performance.

Oh and FYI straight from the Horses mouth:

Windows/Mac/Linux: Adobe is offering up a "prerelease" of its inescapable Flash software, adding in GPU acceleration for H.264 video in Windows, multi-touch support, and bug fixes. Anyone with Adobe AIR apps can also grab a 2.0 prerelease of that platform.

I'm sure H.264 will come to Mac soon enough.

Flash has always been Carbon. That's what's been wrong with it, or part of it. Carbon was supposed to be a transition only, so that companies could move their code from OS 9 to OS X. Do you mean they've made the transition to Cocoa?

The Mac supports Flash, though Apple is unhappy about the outdated code base that Adobe has taken 7 years to begin to change. What's at issue is mobile devices. Granted processors are getting faster, but do you want to waste your cycles on junky sites that flash at you and crummy games that would play much better as a native app, get a phone that SAYS they will use a new Flash implementation. See how much it slows down your machine.

 

[Garion]

Quote; >>By the way, did Steve or any one of you wonder, why Flash crashes Safari on the Mac and it never crashes Firefox!?!?!<<

Let's get one thing straight: making a plug-in work right, is the job of the plug-in maker, not the maker of the browser.

And let me add: It should also be in the best interest of Adobe to make Flash work properly on the Mac's default browser. The ball is squarely in Adobe's court on this one.

 

[skubish]

They will when they can't play any of their Facebook games. The cost to make those games iPad friendly might be too much for the few iPad users they would gain. Of course, if Apple sells millions and millions of these, then that's a different story, but it might be a chicken and the egg problem.

"Hey, get this iPad, it's perfect for someone like you that doesn't really need a computer. You only surf the web, right?"

"Oh great! Can I do all my Facebook stuff on it?"

"No ... but I'm sure a some point you will"

"No thanks, I'll stick to my laptop then."

Ding! This is the right answer. Fanboys will buy the iPad without question. Once mainstream finds out no Hulu, no Facebook games its game over for the iPad. It will be a small niche product like the AppleTV or MBa.

 

[macUser2007]

Flash is not a standard any more than Windows is a standard.

Duh, and neither is HTML5, really....

Yet, Flash has a wider adoption rate than Windows, and much, much wider than HTML5. And infinitely wider adoption rate than the iPhone....

 

[calderone]

Personally, I favor judging people by the content of their message/post and not the shape of their icon or their outward appearance. I don't makes broad assumptions or character judgments based on outward appearances like avatars. The idea disgust me. Guess that is just me though.

To the point: what about me post is bad judgement? Am I wrong that Apple uses Flash in MobileMe? If you want to criticize, then please show me the wrong information in my post.

Here is the mouse over, where it shows a .swf extension.

I await your reply showing me where in my post that I have bad judgement.

How about a full window screen shot?