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

[175170]

Perhaps in a few years, Steve Jobs will be known as the one who single-handely bought down:

• Optical Disk Drives
• Matte Displays
• Adobe Flash

Of course, there are other standards he's bought down/set, floppy drives, for example.

Honestly, that ain't a bad list. I wish I could be him.

 

[macUser2007]

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.

Not only that, but a portion of sites, including a ton of major ones, will not work, or will be shown in their "mobile lite" state.

Plus, there is a bunch of Android tablets coming in, and I am not even counting the W7 tablets poised to enter the market in 2010.

Without Flash, the iPad is unfit for web browsing, and it will fail. Just like Apple TV, exactly.

 

[marksman]

Personally... I've been a proud Flash hater from the start... like... 10 or more years ago. I've been developing websites for over 15 years and never had the need or desire to develop anything in Flash other than a header. And all that simple animation can be done with jQuery and CSS now.

As for games... that's a good point. I don't play games. But I know a lot of people do. Nevertheless... I wouldn't shed a tear if Flash died.

I am with you. Being doing web pages since 1994, and never once did I desire or need flash. I have also gotten partners to use less flash or remove it altogether because it sucks at doing what websites are trying to do.

As for games, any games can be re-created as an app so that is a non-issue.

Adobe even has a program to do this for the developers, so again, not an issue.

Honestly guys/gals ... there's no point in arguing this. Flash isn't going anywhere. in fact if you would leave your walled Apple gardens and read the news you would see the exact opposite is happening. More and more devices are moving toward Flash.

Earth to BNerd. Earth to Bnerd.

The only people who care about flash are adobe, and lazy web designers/developers.

Nobody else cares about flash, especially the end user. They will be happier when flash dies, because all of a sudden their computer will magically work 30% better.

 

[ShiftyPig]

I would love to see Flash die and get replaced by something more efficient, but turning it into some massive Apple v. Adobe war is a bit ridiculous. Especially when neither iPhone nor Mac hold anything close to a majority market share.

I'd prefer if Steve showed some class and didn't turn this into some sort of personal vengeance mission.

 

[Liquorpuki]

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.

Yeah because people only use computers to play Mafia Wars and watch TV shows and nothing else

What's funny is you can do both of those with that MBa and it doesn't make a difference

Maybe you're oversimplifying things?

Without Flash, the iPad is unfit for web browsing, and it will fail.

There's a different between unfit and inconvenient and the inconvenience is conditional. It's only inconvenient if you were expecting to use the iPad to level up your fake Mafia or you have no other way to catch up on Lost or your favorite site is Flash based. Otherwise it doesn't matter.

On the other end you'll have users who'd happily own an iPad so they could run some killer niche app or read a graphic novel.

 

[Thex1138]

Fix or Fold

Adobe will have to do something with their power hogging viewer..

 

[Porco]

I'm just surprised at the lack of HTML5light apps on the iTunes store.

 

[marksman]

i dont care what anyone says on this message board about flash not being a big deal.... Flash is still being used enough to the point that not having flash on your web browser will hinder your experience... so apple, seriously, pull your head out your ass and acquire the damn thing.

i wont be reading any of these replies, so if u wanna quote me and disagree and call me stupid, go nuts.

So you say the experience will be worse.

I say the trade-off is your computer runs 30% faster and has 1000x fewer browser crashes.

So obviously the thing for people to do is to complain to the websites that are not smart enough to abandon flash and tell them to use something else that does not ruin your computer experience.

That is the best possible solution.

You don't care about flash. You just want to be able to use the websites you use.

If I told you that you had two choices, you could see all the websites you want now, or you could see all the websites you want now, and your computer would run faster, use less resources and crash less, which option would you choose?

Obviously you would choose B. That is why you need to contact the owners of those sites and forcefully suggest they get to work on non-flash based web designs. For their own sake and for yours.

 

[Kwill]

Is jobs such a megalomaniac that he truly believes people buy his BS on the subject of Flash???

"blu ray is a bag of hurt"

"no one reads any more"...

Wow, those some incredible sound bites. It must have sounded like fingernails scratching a chalkboard to Adobe engineers.

I can imagine a persuasive Jobs asking newspaper executives if they want to move from one dying format (paper) to another -- "floppy disk technology" (Flash).

Long after the contracts are signed and Apple is selling iPads by the truckload, we can't put it past Steve to actually wind up supporting a leaner version of Flash.

Steve Jobs' six sneakiest statements - CNN

 

[PeterQVenkman]

As for games, any games can be re-created as an app so that is a non-issue.

Except for when you want to play it in a browser.

People might want to create content that Apple won't approve for their app store. Guess you're stuck then, huh? Based on what Apple deems acceptable or non-offensive?

Again, the steel fist of Apple coming down hard, and I can't believe the number of people applauding it.

 

[HiRez]

I hope this is in beta. It overwhelmed my system and crashed Safari.

It's not even a beta yet, just a demo. I guess you can argue those two are the same, but they haven't marked it as a beta and they talk about features they want to add "in the release version".

 

[gohanmzt]

Not ONE crash

If you are going to imagine Steve Jobs talking nonsense, make sure you aren't doing exactly that. Flash can crash Firefox very well.

Flash hasn't crashed my Firefox on Windows XP, Windows 7, OSX 10.4.5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10.5.0, 1, 2 ever.

 

[*LTD*]

Apple will be left in the dust and consumers will move to more powerful devices that will allow them to DO EVERYTHING on the web.

Let us know when that happens. Apparently it takes a lot more than a recession.

 

[SactoGuy18]

I'd personally rather see Adobe step up their game and improve the quality of Flash.

That's what Flash 10.1 is for--I've read that 10.1 will take better advantage of the memory management methods used MacOS X 10.5/10.6, which means the resource footprint of Flash under 10.1 will be vastly smaller.

If Apple wants everyone off Flash, how about providing programming tools to convert Flash effects to similar effects running under HTML 5.0? That right there will win a LOT of converts.

 

[Full of Win]

Perhaps in a few years, Steve Jobs will be known as the one who single-handely bought down:

• Optical Disk Drives
• Matte Displays
• Adobe Flash

Of course, there are other standards he's bought down/set, floppy drives, for example.

Honestly, that ain't a bad list. I wish I could be him.

All macs except one have ODD, and the only one that does not has an external option. Moreover, the last OS release came on an optical disk - and was not even available for download or on a USB drive.

I'm happily typing on a 17 inch unibody macbook pro...with a matte display. Also, they now have matte in 15 inch as well.

 

[AndyR]

This thread is so funny that i'm starting to feel I shouldn't hang around here anymore.

MacHead - Here have an iPad! You can do everything you can on a laptop!

JoeBlogg - Thats great.....hey why isn't FaceBook letting me play my games?

MacHead - Thats because the iPad doesn't run Flash, no one uses it anymore!

JoeBlogg - Well all these games I play on FaceBook wont work then?

MacHead - No but your iPad runs 30% faster without Flash.

JoeBlogg -

MacHead - Yeah thats right, Flash is dead.

JoeBlogg - Where's my laptop.....

 

[Maserati7200]

The "battery hog" argument is even more ridiculous. It's not Flash itself that uses the power, it's the goddamn content. CPU/GPU intensive content is a power hog. You should know this from, you know, iPhone/iPod games. Do you REALLY think annoying banners and intros will go away only because you replace Flash with HTML5, Steve? Do you really think it won't drain the battery just as quickly?

Explain why a 360p video on youtube in the flash player brings my fans up to 6200 RPM, brings my CPU usage to 100-120% and turns my computer into a sauna, yet I could watch a 1080p video (not just h.264, mkv, baseline mp4, avi, and even flv) on my computer and my fans are at idle. Not to mention I am using youtube's html 5 beta, and my computer doesn't hyperventilate when I want to watch a youtube video. The same content produces different results. I know you like to take the stance that Apple is always wrong, and that they are en evil cult designed to make the world worse, but they aren't this time around. Flash is a resource hog.

 

[Ardchoille]

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.

I am intrigued with all the comments about Mac Fanboys in the comments made. As I look over the past 15 pages, there are far more negative comments than positive.

So my question is: if so many of you hate Apple products and the iPad, and the lack of flash, and more, why are you here and why do you continue to buy Apple products? If they are so lacking in the basic essentials as you state, why is it you are not buying the competing products?

I don't care whether Apple products lack flash or the many other things complain about, so you should buy the competitors to iPhone, Touch, iPad, etc.

That'll teach them!

 

[AnalyzeThis]

Perhaps in a few years, Steve Jobs will be known as the one who single-handely bought down:

• Optical Disk Drives
• Matte Displays
• Adobe Flash

Of course, there are other standards he's bought down/set, floppy drives, for example.

Honestly, that ain't a bad list. I wish I could be him.

What is hilarious, die hard fans are really listen what Steve Jobs has to say about technology, when in reality your pet has more brain for this thing. Please, do not forget when it comes to technology, SJ is a complete retard. Just ask Woz

 

[AppEzzy]

Perhaps in a few years, Steve Jobs will be known as the one who single-handely bought down:

• Optical Disk Drives
• Matte Displays
• Adobe Flash

Of course, there are other standards he's bought down/set, floppy drives, for example.

So true, people thought getting rid of the optical drive was crazy and now are seeing it can be a definite possibility.

 

[ShiftyPig]

Wait, Steve Jobs was taking credit for killing floppy disks??? What ever happened to "something better coming along?" As if his 5% (generous) market share had anything to do with floppies dying.

 

[Anuba]

You don't care about flash. You just want to be able to use the websites you use.

Yes, but as long as the content producers CAN'T deliver that content by any other means than Flash, nothing will change. Wanting the content delivered in another way is one thing, but there just aren't any tools for it, and once there is it will be years before they're as powerful as Flash Professional.

Nobody has abandoned Flash to accommodate 75 million iPhones. You think they will do it for 75 million iPads? You think the iPad will outsell the iPhone? I sure don't.

If I told you that you had two choices, you could see all the websites you want now, or you could see all the websites you want now, and your computer would run faster, use less resources and crash less, which option would you choose?

And what makes you believe moving from Flash to HTML5 will stop rich media content from hogging resources? And why wouldn't it crash just as easily (initially, even more frequently than Flash)?

I had a look at one of these 'Canvas' demos in Firefox on Windows (IE doesn't support it properly). It was some simple animation with bouncing balls and cubes, looked like a Flash newbie demo from the 90's. After 30 seconds, here's what my MBP sounded like: "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" (that's the sound of a tiny blowdryer). The fans were spinning at crazy RPM and you could fry eggs on the aluminum surface between the screen and the keyboard. Heat the likes of which I don't even see when I play Flash HD videos fullscreen. I'm sure it will be optimized over time, but rich media content will always hog resources. Now that Flash has been radically optimized for 10.1, due out before the summer, the resource hogging will be much less of an issue than it has been in the last 14 years we put up with the old Flash.

 

[Cole Slaw]

It seems Mr. Jobs won't be happy until Adobe drops support for Flash on Apple computers altogether.
Like it or not, Flash is a fairly important part of the internet browsing experience.
As far as the part about Flash lowering battery life on iPhone/iPod Touch, I say so what? Let me decide if I want to turn Flash on or off, Mr. Jobs. Don't decide for me. I mean, with that kind of thinking Apple shouldn't offer WiFi on the iPod Touch because leaving it on lowers battery life.
Saint Steven's antagonizing stance against Adobe will only make it worse for Apple customers in the end. If I was Adobe I'd say F**k you Apple and your 5% of the market and drop support for OS/X and Apple products altogether.

 

[iMaggot]

And the War continues lol

 

[HiRez]

Wait, Steve Jobs was taking credit for killing floppy disks??? What ever happened to "something better coming along?" As if his 5% (generous) market share had anything to do with floppies dying.

How many PC makers shipped a computer with no floppy drive prior to the iMac? Yeah, none. If Apple didn't do it, they'd still be shipping floppy drives today. The "something better" is ethernet, WiFi, DVD, flash-memory drives, and cloud storage, duh.

And while Apple has only about a 4% worldwide market share, their US market share is closing in on 10%, a non-trivial number of machines, and that's factoring in the gigantic number of corporate PCs shipped, a market in which Apple doesn't even really compete as they are a strongly consumer-oriented company.