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

[zweigand]

Nah, the difference is that I'm running Flash Player 10.1 beta 2. It does wonders on the Mac.

I'll test this again tomorrow on my HD 30".

Are you on Snow Leopard? Snow Leopard runs slower because Flash is spun off into a separate process in 64-bit Safari.

10.1 doesn't do very much at all to "video performance." At least not the betas they have put up thus far. I can verify this because my hulu looks almost identically choppy in 10 vs 10.1. Only a slight improvement.

 

[conradwt]

Given that HTML 5.0 is not yet "frozen" as a standard (gawd, are we going to have problems with near-future versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera doing their own implementations of HTML 5.0 support!) and the fact Flash 10.1 will do better memory management and take advantage of the GPU chip, Apple's wish may not come true for at least 5-6 years!

Apple will be wondering why the iPad doesn't sell and the tablet computers based on Chrome OS--which will likely include Flash 10.1 support--does surprisingly well. As such, once Adobe demonstrates how amazingly efficient Flash 10.1 does work, I wouldn't be surprised that in the end Apple does back down and allows Flash 10.1--but only on the iPad with its more powerful CPU/GPU combination.

Flash is not free for the content producers and it's proprietary technology as another poster pointed out. Furthermore, you'll have to spend money to generate Flash content (i.e. purchase their tools and what not). Next, H.264 is an open standard codec which does have licensing fee. However, the H.264 video looks better than Flash, generates smaller files sizes than Flash at the same resolution, and it's also the same codec used to produce BlueRay media. Next, HTML5 and associated technologies like WebGL looks awesome and no plugin. Please take a look at the WebGL demos in both 3D and 2D and you'll understand why people are excited about HTML5. In short, as a producer, I want to market the best looking content to my end users without locking myself into using proprietary technologies. HTML5, CSS3, Javascript, and H.264 are standards where Flash isn't a standard. Thus, the iPad will be sticking with standards.

 

[zweigand]

Given that HTML 5.0 is not yet "frozen" as a standard (gawd, are we going to have problems with near-future versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera doing their own implementations of HTML 5.0 support!) and the fact Flash 10.1 will do better memory management and take advantage of the GPU chip, Apple's wish may not come true for at least 5-6 years!

Apple will be wondering why the iPad doesn't sell and the tablet computers based on Chrome OS--which will likely include Flash 10.1 support--does surprisingly well. As such, once Adobe demonstrates how amazingly efficient Flash 10.1 does work, I wouldn't be surprised that in the end Apple does back down and allows Flash 10.1--but only on the iPad with its more powerful CPU/GPU combination.

People are spouting off about Firefox and IE and HTML5 being set in stone when it doesn't really matter. We're talking about mobile devices here, and pretty much every one of them uses Webkit as it's rendering engine …except for those Win7 phones that aren't coming out until 2011. Pretty much anything that will work on an iPhone/iPad (besides the iPhone specific sites) should work on all the other Androids, etc. HTML5 isn't going to have to be set in stone before mobile users benefit from it.

 

[alent1234]

Flash is used to transmit h.264 on the internet. reason is that HTML5 dev tools are immature and paying for Adobe's tools will save you enough development time to make it worth it. same concept as why Ogg Theora isn't used on the internet. it's free and no licensing fees. but it's crap compared to h.264 and will bankrupt you with increased bandwidth costs

until there are HTML5 dev tools as easy to use as Flash, it's not going anywhere

 

[Hurda]

However, the H.264 video looks better than Flash, generates smaller files sizes than Flash at the same resolution, and it's also the same codec used to produce BlueRay media.

I'm sure that you are fully aware that next to all "flash videos" today are H264 (a.k.a. MPEG4 AVC) video-streams and AAC audiostreams encapsulated in either FLV- or MP4-containers, right? Right?

 

[conradwt]

So what Jobs is saying, is dump Flash now for a standard which isn't ready for a device which hasn't been released yet.

I think I'll wait to see how rich HTML5 solutions perform first hand, before proclaiming it as our savior from Flash.

I still think developing for HTML5 could be a pain; since there are likely to be differences between the HTML5 engines in every browser, whereas everyone is using the same Flash plugin.

I started developing all my client websites using HTML5 middle part of last year and they do not support IE but they do support Chrome, Safari, and Firefox, and Opera. The savor for dumping Flash will be the <canvas> tag and the WebGL component built on top of it. No plugin to download and I get 2D and 3D right in the browser and all the content (i.e. HTML, CSS, and Javascript) can be easily modified using a simple text editor.

 

[conradwt]

I'm sure that you are fully aware that next to all "flash videos" today are H264 (a.k.a. MPEG4 AVC) video-streams and AAC audiostreams encapsulated in either FLV- or MP4-containers, right? Right?

However, you do understand that any video embedded into a Flash container requires a Flash plugin. I know that and I have done this in the past.

 

[IntelliUser]

http://www.chromeexperiments.com/

Some very cool non-Flash implementations. Screw Flash.

 

[conradwt]

Flash is used to transmit h.264 on the internet. reason is that HTML5 dev tools are immature and paying for Adobe's tools will save you enough development time to make it worth it. same concept as why Ogg Theora isn't used on the internet. it's free and no licensing fees. but it's crap compared to h.264 and will bankrupt you with increased bandwidth costs

until there are HTML5 dev tools as easy to use as Flash, it's not going anywhere

I have several HTML5 compatible browsers for editing HTML5 content. Also, Dreamweaver CS4 uses WebKit which is the same rendering engine used by both Chrome and Safari and supports HTML5. Thus, I can do live rendering using my editor or DW.

 

[whooleytoo]

I started developing all my client websites using HTML5 middle part of last year and they do not support IE but they do support Chrome, Safari, and Firefox, and Opera. The savor for dumping Flash will be the <canvas> tag and the WebGL component built on top of it. No plugin to download and I get 2D and 3D right in the browser and all the content (i.e. HTML, CSS, and Javascript) can be easily modified using a simple text editor.

I'd love to try HTML5, but not supporting IE wouldn't be an option. Quite a lot of our clients use IE (though an increasing number are Mac Safari users. Yay!).

I know you can edit everything in a text editor, but that sounds like it falls a long way short of a proper IDE for management of a large project with dozens of components. Is there a debugger you can use? Integrated documentation/API lookup?

And is there any equivalent for Flash Media Server for interactive applications - i.e. live interactive collaboration between users browsing the same site? We have a digital whiteboard app in Flash, and I'd love to know if there was another easy way of doing it in HTML5.

 

[whooleytoo]

People are spouting off about Firefox and IE and HTML5 being set in stone when it doesn't really matter. We're talking about mobile devices here, and pretty much every one of them uses Webkit as it's rendering engine …except for those Win7 phones that aren't coming out until 2011. Pretty much anything that will work on an iPhone/iPad (besides the iPhone specific sites) should work on all the other Androids, etc. HTML5 isn't going to have to be set in stone before mobile users benefit from it.

We're not just talking about mobile devices. Either WSJ support Flash AND HTML5 (costly and time intensive), or they stick with one for all content. That means desktop and mobile devices.

 

[ChazUK]

http://www.chromeexperiments.com/

Some very cool non-Flash implementations. Screw Flash.

This is EXACTLY what is needed. Smooth animation with little CPU usage.

<ahem>

 

[Speedy2]

There are examples of other companies building their own flash player. For example, Scaleform Gfx is baased off of flash, and is used in many major video games to generate UI interfaces. Check out this page to see it in action in Borderlands, Mass Effect, Crysis, Dragon Age, and Batman: AA. http://www.scaleform.com/products/gfx

That's all ENTIRELY irrelevant since these companies all licensed Flash from Adobe. Where are alternative flash players & browser plugins that everyone can freely use?? Same way that there are free, open source H.264 players and creation tools??

Creating .swf files is implemented in many 3d packages that have vector renderers in them. For example Maya, C4d, and any of the electric rain software solutions:
http://www.erain.com/

dito. They PAID for that right.

It annoys me that you come up with this useless junk to make it sound as if Flash was in any way free or an openly available format.

 

[Havas]

http://www.chromeexperiments.com/

Some very cool non-Flash implementations. Screw Flash.

No where near smooth and Firefox CPU shot up to 96% and it kept freezing up, crap if you ask me!

The code behind it is nasty too, try building a large scale project with JS organised like that hehe good luck managing it. I'll stick with Flex and my OO

 

[Speedy2]

SWF is an open format, anyone can write software for it, and there's a lot application that writes to SWF format
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/

SWF is in no way an open standard similar to DOCX or PDF. An ISO standard cannot changed or controlled by its original contributor anymore. Adobe can change and jerk around the Flash format & license in any way they want. To be fair, I didn't know that Adobe changed their license policy and allowed the development of players a year ago. Still there are tons of restrictions and the documentation is incomplete.

Read: http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/21

Just an excerpt: (there are many more issues)

One reason for the lack of excitement over the project in the free software world is that it omits "huge amounts" of information needed for a complete implementation of Flash. In particular, Savoye points out that the announcement contains no mention of the Real Time Messaging Protocol(RTMP) that is required for the Flash media server. Nor does it mention the Sorenson Spark Codec that is used for video encoding in Flash 6 and 7, and remains the choice of some users still for Flash video because other formats convert easily to it. Both may be encumbered by patents but, without them, the information that Adobe has released is of limited use.

Furthermore, there is a funny line in the license for SWF creation tools saying that the resulting files have to render "error free in the latest publicly available version of Adobe Flash Player." It leaves all the doors open for Adobe to kill unwanted competiton simply by putting out a new Flash player that detects and doesn't play "alien" files.

That's not an open standard, that's a joke.

 

[jeznav]

That's odd. What happens if you switch your rez to 1680x1050?

That's the rez or my MBpro 17". It's only using a x1600 for the GPU.

That really shouldn't make much of a difference though, especially with your system having way more power at its disposal.

What about trying it out in FireFox? I'm using 3.6.

Here's a screen shot I took from my main screen. The animation jumped between 130% and 150% at this size.

I switched res to 1600x1000 and it went down to 370%.

In firefox (3.6), its around 400%

So my theory is that it will utilize all CPU power to get the smoothest possible animation. There are certain flash ads I've encountered that did this, the one with a lot of particle based vector animations.

 

[Speedy2]

For all those people who disregard HTML5 because of its supposed dependency on H.264, there is some news:

Google has successfully completed its acquisition of On2 Technology these days. On2 created a codec called TrueMotion VP8 that is similar to H.264. It might not have exactly the same quality and efficiency, but it would still be extremely sufficient for all kinds of web videos. After all, it is not supposed to compete with Blu-Ray or replace commercial HD video rental and buying, where the H.264 license was never an issue.

It could mean that Google just spent $134m on some meaningless side project that will die sooner or later. It could also mean that they are going to open source VP8 and push it as the video format for HTML5. Google is not exactly known for building walls around their formats & APIs, so the second option is not unlikely at all.

For a success Google would need to:
- opensource VP8
- make available a complete documentation
- create a reference design for installable codecs and browser plugins for Windows, Mac OS and Linux
- incorporate VP8 support into Chrome

They would get Mozilla on board pretty much immediately, and I'm sure Apple wouldn't mind either to support the format. That leaves Microsoft out of the game, since they have their own agenda with Silverlight, but that could be fixed with a browser plugin.

 

[alent1234]

I have several HTML5 compatible browsers for editing HTML5 content. Also, Dreamweaver CS4 uses WebKit which is the same rendering engine used by both Chrome and Safari and supports HTML5. Thus, I can do live rendering using my editor or DW.

what is the dev time of something like www.playhousedisney.com with Flash compared to HTML5?

 

[PeterQVenkman]

That's all ENTIRELY irrelevant since these companies all licensed Flash from Adobe. Where are alternative flash players & browser plugins that everyone can freely use?? Same way that there are free, open source H.264 players and creation tools??

Yes, they are free now. I've never, ever, argued that there aren't. What I have stated, quite clearly, is that when MPEG LA feels like it (translation: when the "network effect" is large enough that everyone is using it), they will start charging license fees.

Not to you or me, but to the big providers. VLC has h264 decoding built in, and I believe it's been downloaded over 110 million times. MPEG LA will go after the big providers of software and content like Vimeo, Youtube, and VLC because the download numbers are so big it will be worth the lawyer fees to sue them into oblivion.

At that point, expect to pay for VLC player, or to see significantly more ads in youtube content.

You can see examples of the network effects with file formats like .gif, .mp3, etc. Google the lawsuits if you don't believe me. It's all happened before and it continues to happen because it's a very effective and profitable way to mine income from technology patents.

dito. They PAID for that right.

Show me some link that says Electric Rain paid for it. There are free vector renderers for Maya that can write to .swf.

It annoys me that you come up with this useless junk to make it sound as if Flash was in any way free or an openly available format.

Well, too bad, I guess. It annoys me that you would happily support a format that is going to switch to a heavy licensing fee once it becomes popular. It's going to hit developers and content providers hard.

It's going to further limit the choices we have because some companies will not be able to pay the licensing fees. And you applaud this, worshipping at the altar of the great and powerful Jobs, suckling at the teat of whatever foul beast he puts before you, simply because he says it's better.

But hey, if you want to drink the cool aid, wear a black turtle neck and jeans, and wait for a comet to take your soul to the after life, be my guest. Hopefully Google will open source On2, instead of monetizing it.

 

[jeznav]

This is EXACTLY what is needed. Smooth animation with little CPU usage.

<ahem>

Umm...Try the flash version

<ahem>

 

[kudukudu]

Yes Apple USED to be the one pushing new technologies, but not anymore...

First to push USB, yet not using USB3.
First to push DVD, yet only person on the planet not using Blu-ray.
First access to some CPUs, yet last to still sell Core 2 Duo (at full premium price)!
First with a nextgen GUI, yet 10 years later it's now looking dated.
Blah blah blah.... Last to implement SD card slots, not yet using SATA3, heck what about built in 3G on MacBooks like we've had with ThinkPads for years?!

You're behind the times Jobs

Yup this is a clear consequence of Apple's evolution from a computer company to a gadget company. I have made similar comments in other threads. My powerbook G4 from 5+ years ago had cutting edge DVI, FW800, s-video, etc. couldn't be touched by anything Dell had on offer at the time while my newest macbook pro does not have hdmi, USB 3.0, etc.

I think Apple has done a great job with their gadgets and the ipod touch/iphone have certainly exceeded my expectations, but this has come at a cost. The shift in direction is great for shareholders and users of gadgets, but I do wish Apple would plow back a bit more of its profits into gold old computers.

 

[MoreMaypo]

what is the dev time of something like www.playhousedisney.com with Flash compared to HTML5?

The Flash-haters will conveniently ignore this. Until there are ACTUAL AUTHORING TOOLS equivalent to Flash CS* available for graphics/animation professionals who use Flash ALL THE TIME for content such as this, I'm going to pay very little attention to this HTML5 craze.

I generally like Apple's leading edge and innovative model, but now I'm starting to get sick of Jobs' ego.

 

[OzExige]

Job's is on some kind of power trip lately, he's in for a rude awakening. He's nowhere near as powerfull as he thinks he is. It's only a matter of time before someone tells him to take his stupid ipad and shove it up his ass
Somebody needs to tell him to stop wearing those stupid black turtlenecks, he looks like an idiot. He looks like an aids infested crack head, you can tell he's not doing well. I don't think he'll be around much longer.

Do you post much?

You'll run out of all this vitriol if you do. Pull over and take a deep breath,
then try again.

On second thoughts, don't bother, we don't care. cya.

 

[ChazUK]

Umm...Try the flash version

<ahem>

You have 8 cores! No fair!

(will try it in a sec.)

Runs better on Flash (Performance wise). VIDEO: http://chazclout.co.uk/a/DoF.3gp

 

[IntelliUser]

You have 8 cores! No fair!

(will try it in a sec.)

Runs better on Flash (Performance wise). VIDEO: http://chazclout.co.uk/a/DoF.3gp

Here on the "netbook" the HTML5 version CPU usage is around 30-45, the Flash version is 60-75. Safari 4 here, Win 7.

EDIT: On Google Chrome it's almost the same, though the HTML5 version runs as smoothly as the Flash one. "Chrome" Experiments. NOW I get it. lol.