Why Flash Is Crucial To Future iPad Dominance

[ozred]

The Adobe Flash Platform was introduced in 1996.

Immediately it was adopted as the defacto web standard for a very wide variety of uses.

Here is a partial list of what flash is used for:

- Advertisements
- Presentations
- Web Sites
- Multimedia
- Screen Savers
- Games
- Movies
- Animations
- Quality Video
- Mobile Content

This is the very reason, that going forward, the iPad _must_ incorporate flash. Most if not all competing tablets will have it, thereby having the undeniable advantage of offering 100% access to the full Internet. Not the limited experience that cripples the iPad. So far Apples lead has not revealed this major shortcoming. However the moment the competitors catch up, and they _will_ then Apples weakness will be revealed for all to see.

For many years up to, and including the present time, flash remains the vehicle of choice for news videos, ads, movie previews, and nearly every multimedia animation on the web.

At no time was there any sort of problem until Apple's CEO Steve Jobs declared war, because his baby the iPad was woefully unable to handle flash.

How quick he was to forget the many contributions of Adobe Software Corp to Apple Computers early successes.

Now with an even more intense money driven ego, Jobs has turned his back on past alliances and muscled his way to the top, riding on the backs of his customers and past contributors. A fact that reflects more on the man than the technology.

Very revealing indeed.

It's high time for a new CEO at Apple. However that said, our western culture sets a precedence that we are witnessing now.

It's about keeping this man alive at all costs, because he's Apple's real cash cow.

Without his world class ability to sell anything Apple, the company would be forced to compete on a level playing field.

And _THAT_ is Apples worst nightmare.

 

[alex2792]

Well put, I love my Mac and all, but it has been well documented that Steve Jobs the man is a giant douche.

 

[smithrh]

What a bunch of drivel.

 

[neko girl]

Agree...

Consumer experience > ego.

 

[SethKOne]

I would add one more thing to your list of what flash is used for - web based applications, both the kind that are internet accessible and corporate / web services based web applications that are supposed to be accessible anywhere. Despite the hullabaloo over HTML5, there are several apps that are better suited to Flash (or Sliverlight, but that's a story for another day).

I think the reality of the situation is that there are two reasons for keeping flash off the iPad, and I list them in my opinion of their importance:

- Enabling Flash would reduce native iOS development, and in turn lower revenues on the App Store


- Flash is not as power efficient or fast as native iOS apps

Everything else is just an excuse.

Now both of these are true statements and this is the real reason why Apple is keeping it off the iPad, IMHO. With dual core and quad core ARM processors on smaller and more power efficient processes hitting the market in quantity this year, and Adobe's renewed commitment to patches, security and hardware acceleration on mobile platforms, the power / speed reason is quickly going to go away.

What will really get Flash on iOS is pain to the wallet. If Android, RIM and HP make any real headway with their tablets and iPad shipments drop year over year, you can count on Apple performing an about face and announcing that the hardware and maket is finally there, and after years of effort they have been able to bring Flash to the iPad "the way it was meant to be" (to steal / corrupt a phrase from a very green hardware company). Until then they are praying that HTML5 kills Flash, but I don't see it happening any time soon.

 

[Jcoz]

The Adobe Flash Platform was introduced in 1996.

Immediately it was adopted as the defacto web standard for a very wide variety of uses.

Here is a partial list of what flash is used for:

- Advertisements
- Presentations
- Web Sites
- Multimedia
- Screen Savers
- Games
- Movies
- Animations
- Quality Video
- Mobile Content

This is the very reason, that going forward, the iPad _must_ incorporate flash. Most if not all competing tablets will have it, thereby having the undeniable advantage of offering 100% access to the full Internet. Not the limited experience that cripples the iPad. So far Apples lead has not revealed this major shortcoming. However the moment the competitors catch up, and they _will_ then Apples weakness will be revealed for all to see.

For many years up to, and including the present time, flash remains the vehicle of choice for news videos, ads, movie previews, and nearly every multimedia animation on the web.

At no time was there any sort of problem until Apple's CEO Steve Jobs declared war, because his baby the iPad was woefully unable to handle flash.

How quick he was to forget the many contributions of Adobe Software Corp to Apple Computers early successes.

Now with an even more intense money driven ego, Jobs has turned his back on past alliances and muscled his way to the top, riding on the backs of his customers and past contributors. A fact that reflects more on the man than the technology.

Very revealing indeed.

It's high time for a new CEO at Apple. However that said, our western culture sets a precedence that we are witnessing now.

It's about keeping this man alive at all costs, because he's Apple's real cash cow.

Without his world class ability to sell anything Apple, the company would be forced to compete on a level playing field.

And _THAT_ is Apples worst nightmare.

Aside from a couple small points, this post is full of *************.

Your comments concerning Apple abandoning Adobe show a lack of historical knowledge. You seem to know the A and C, but are conveniently forgetting the middle of that story.

At no time was there any sort of problem? what planet did you live on? Seriously....so this is all some fantasy cooked up by Steve?

Your position REEKS of ulterior motive. This issue with Flash clearly affects you in a very personal way and its shines though quite clearly.

 

[viperGTS]

Yup, apple needs to adopt flash sooner or later. HTML5 started off good but now its just "eh." apple can make up all the crap they want about flash, but in the end they will need to adopt it.

just one problem: how would it work for a touch interface? especially when playing games?

 

[Sydde]

The Adobe Flash Platform was introduced in 1996.

Are you familiar with history? To start your post off with this huge error almost completely destroys it right out of the gate. Adobe had absolutely nothing to do with the creation of Flash.

Immediately it was adopted as the defacto web standard for a very wide variety of uses.

Not really. Java applets were quite common into the new century. Where were you at this time?

Here is a partial list of what flash is used for:

- Advertisements
- Presentations
- Web Sites
- Multimedia
- Screen Savers
- Games
- Movies
- Animations
- Quality Video
- Mobile Content

Ads and games. The rest is nonsense (screen savers? Come on).

You have not much else to offer here. Why should Apple show loyalty and appreciation to Adobe, which has hardly done anything of the kind for Apple? Flash really should have died 5 years ago, its time is (soon) up.

 

[rcp27]

Taking the items on your list:

- Advertisements
I definitely don't want these

- Presentations
If I really want to give a presentation from an iPad, I'd use a proper app like Keynote, but more likely I'd use a regular laptop.

- Web Sites
I've not found any that I particularly want to view that require flash, YMMV

- Screen Savers
what's the point of a screensaver on a tablet?

- Games
The app store is full of games already, both good ones you have to pay for and free ones supported by advertising

- Multimedia
- Movies
- Animations
- Quality Video
Flash is a rubbish format for quality video. If you want a quality video, download it as a file (and most downloads I have found are in formats like m4v that the iPad can already support).

- Mobile Content
such as?

This is the very reason, that going forward, the iPad _must_ incorporate flash. Most if not all competing tablets will have it, thereby having the undeniable advantage of offering 100% access to the full Internet. Not the limited experience that cripples the iPad. So far Apples lead has not revealed this major shortcoming. However the moment the competitors catch up, and they _will_ then Apples weakness will be revealed for all to see.

People have been saying this about the iPhone since 2007, but it still keeps selling (the main reason Android is winning market share is price, not flash). Of course the current front runner for iPad killer has also shipped without flash.

For many years up to, and including the present time, flash remains the vehicle of choice for news videos, ads, movie previews, and nearly every multimedia animation on the web.

At no time was there any sort of problem until Apple's CEO Steve Jobs declared war, because his baby the iPad was woefully unable to handle flash.

How quick he was to forget the many contributions of Adobe Software Corp to Apple Computers early successes.

Times change, and a 15 year old standard that is giving way to HTML5 quite rapidly. While in the dim and distant past Adobe might have provided some useful software, the reason we haven't seen flash on iOS yet is their complete inability to produce a flash player that is not full of bugs and a massive resource hog. Perhaps if Adobe produce a decent flash player things might change, but they haven't and there are no signs that will change.

Now with an even more intense money driven ego, Jobs has turned his back on past alliances and muscled his way to the top, riding on the backs of his customers and past contributors. A fact that reflects more on the man than the technology.

Name me a successful business in, basically forever, that hasn't done this? Exactly the same thing can be said of Google, facebook, Microsoft, Adobe etc etc.

It's high time for a new CEO at Apple. However that said, our western culture sets a precedence that we are witnessing now.

That's what Apple thought in 1985, and history has shown that to have been a huge mistake. Jobs took Apple from being a minor and declining computer company in 1997 to the most successful company in pretty much anywhere today. If his health means he can't continue, then it may be that he has to stand aside, but his belief that flash is not appropriate for iOS is not a good reason.

It's about keeping this man alive at all costs, because he's Apple's real cash cow.

And that's bad for Apple shareholders why exactly?

 

[ozred]

I would add one more thing to your list of what flash is used for - web based applications, both the kind that are internet accessible and corporate / web services based web applications that are supposed to be accessible anywhere. Despite the hullabaloo over HTML5, there are several apps that are better suited to Flash (or Sliverlight, but that's a story for another day).

I think the reality of the situation is that there are two reasons for keeping flash off the iPad, and I list them in my opinion of their importance:

- Enabling Flash would reduce native iOS development, and in turn lower revenues on the App Store


- Flash is not as power efficient or fast as native iOS apps

Everything else is just an excuse.

Now both of these are true statements and this is the real reason why Apple is keeping it off the iPad, IMHO. With dual core and quad core ARM processors on smaller and more power efficient processes hitting the market in quantity this year, and Adobe's renewed commitment to patches, security and hardware acceleration on mobile platforms, the power / speed reason is quickly going to go away.

What will really get Flash on iOS is pain to the wallet. If Android, RIM and HP make any real headway with their tablets and iPad shipments drop year over year, you can count on Apple performing an about face and announcing that the hardware and maket is finally there, and after years of effort they have been able to bring Flash to the iPad "the way it was meant to be" (to steal / corrupt a phrase from a very green hardware company). Until then they are praying that HTML5 kills Flash, but I don't see it happening any time soon.

Kudo's for an Excellent Post!

The only area that I find of question, (not questioning you) is the true power consumption point.

I remain unconvinced that power consumption is as big of an issue as some make it out to be. As time passes and we see more and more mobile implementations, I believe at that point we'll know more. Every lab, beta, or field test I've read so far indicates this is somewhat of an issue in the mobile OS space, but to what extent remains a point of uncertainty & much debate.

Cheers...

 

[demarcopbl]

I find myself wondering what all of these people who are championing flash are actually using it for.

IMO, flash is a clunky outdated and often poorly implemented software. Im happy its out of the mobile realm. Still, to your points -

Advertisements - as a user, the fewer ads the better. As an advertiser, the majority of my campaign is text and image based, so im still getting impressions even without flash. Mobile marketers actually tend to use more text ads.

Presentations - presentations? seriously? thats like using after effects for a presentation. As another poster mentioned, there are a ton of applications out there that are much better suited for creating and viewing presentations.

Web Sites - this is the one that actually has some sway. Can someone please point me to a flash website, that isnt a student portfolio that doesnt have an app and is massively inhibited on ipads? Im curious here.

Multimedia - like video? flash compresses the **** out of video. Again, show me a multimedia site that doesnt have an app and is unusable on the ipad.

Screen savers - people have screen savers?

Games - agree with you here. No flash support killed mobile use for alot of those gaming portals. Having said that, many games are built for a keyboard and mouse combo, so even if flash was supported the games designed for desktop use would be unplayable.

Movies - netflix has an app, hulu has an app, youtube has an app and you can download, rip and transfer.

Quality video - doesnt exist on flash players

Mobile content - like what?

 

[Sydde]

I think the reality of the situation is that there are two reasons for keeping flash off the iPad, and I list them in my opinion of their importance:

- Enabling Flash would reduce native iOS development, and in turn lower revenues on the App Store


- Flash is not as power efficient or fast as native iOS apps

Everything else is just an excuse.

No, there is a third: security. Already, the security of the iPad has been compromised by a hacker, Flash would make it worse. Power is significant, but really, control over what executes on the iPad seems to be of paramount importance to Apple. Revenue is one aspect of that, security is another.

There really is no benefit to adding Flash capability to iPad, plenty of benefit to applying pressure to the web in order to make it die.

 

[UTclassof89]

...just one problem: how would it work for a touch interface? especially when playing games?

Not a problem at all. The current FlashPlayer already supports touch gestures.

 

[Blorzoga]

The OP is obviously unhappy that most porn sites use flash so his options are severely limited. His reasons hold no water. It's obvious from his inclusion of screensavers that he's completely full of crap. A screensaver? On a tablet? What the HELL for?

 

[UTclassof89]

IMO, flash is a clunky outdated and often poorly implemented software.

Then you haven't been looking around the web very far. Flash does some pretty neat stuff:
http://waterlife.nfb.ca/
http://www.verbatim.jp/senshuken

Advertisements - as a user, the fewer ads the better.

Agreed; but Flash vs. no flash won't change that. Ads make web content free, and so as a user, you need them!

As an advertiser, the majority of my campaign is text and image based, so im still getting impressions even without flash. Mobile marketers actually tend to use more text ads.

Duh. That's because of the lack of full Flash on current mobile devices.

Can someone please point me to a flash website, that isnt a student portfolio that doesnt have an app and is massively inhibited on ipads? Im curious here.

www.hbo.com
www.miniusa.com

Multimedia - like video? flash compresses the **** out of video. Again, show me a multimedia site that doesnt have an app and is unusable on the ipad.

Flash doesn't compress video; Flash displays video that's been as compressed as it needs to be. (again, see www.hbo.com) If a developer overcompresses video, don't blame Flash

 

[darngooddesign]

The OP is obviously unhappy that most porn sites use flash so his options are severely limited. His reasons hold no water. It's obvious from his inclusion of screensavers that he's completely full of crap. A screensaver? On a tablet? What the HELL for?

I like Porn as well.

You have screensavers on a tablet for the same reason you have them on a laptop. No everyone closes the lid to their laptop when they aren't currently doing something on it. And if you leave your tablet plugged in next to you then a screen saver would be nice.

 

[DeathChill]

www.hbo.com
www.miniusa.com

I thought it was quite funny that both of those sites offer iPad versions (both app and HTML). Infact that Mini site is really nice on the iPad and utilizes the touch features quite nicely.

 

[UTclassof89]

I thought it was quite funny that both of those sites offer iPad versions (both app and HTML). Infact that Mini site is really nice on the iPad and utilizes the touch features quite nicely.

But neither offers the whole experience that the Flash sites do.

 

[darngooddesign]

But neither offers the whole experience that the Flash sites do.

Some people are happy for whichever bones they are thrown.

 

[rcp27]

The OP is obviously unhappy that most porn sites use flash so his options are severely limited.

Any idea how well the oleophobic coating works in this application?

 

[poloponies]

But neither offers the whole experience that the Flash sites do.

That's funny. Are these sites of biblical importance? Is having the "whole experience" somehow significant from anyone's perspective other than the sites' designers?

There's no support for Flash on the iPad. Period. You and I and anyone who was paying attention knows that. Other tablets will offer it and if it's important to buyers then they'll buy the other tablets. This just isn't a big deal. Apple isn't going to disappear if people buy other tablets. People will still continue to buy iPads.

 

[fertilized-egg]

Other tablets will offer it and if it's important to buyers then they'll buy the other tablets.

That's the question. Are people buying up other tablets in large numbers because of the lack of Flash? Will people stop buying the iPad because of it? If Apple truly feels that's the problem, they'll quickly backtrack and add Flash. So far it sure doesn't look that way though. Heck, I haven't seen too many Xoom users complain about the lack of Flash yet.

 

[wolfpackfan]

Ads and games. The rest is nonsense (screen savers? Come on).

Our local newspaper, the Raleigh News and Observer, is available (print version) only via a Flash application. So I guess it's nonsense.

 

[rdowns]

Our local newspaper, the Raleigh News and Observer, is available (print version) only via a Flash application. So I guess it's nonsense.

No, just inexcusable in a world where almost half the traffic is from mobile devices.

 

[alex2792]

No, just inexcusable in a world where almost half the traffic is from mobile devices.

No, it's life. iOS devices make up less than 2%(last time I checked) of platforms in web share. It's pretty obvious that the vast majority of website operators aren't going to drop flash and redesign their entire site(pretty expensive) just because SJ thinks that flash is dead. There are 1000x(if not more) flash-enabled systems out there compared to iPhones/iPads.