Adobe is basically saying that Flash will be available on competitor's phones and the market will decide; which is exactly the right response. I wish most tech bloggers would take this view and just shut up with the endless "analysis" of Flash and Apple. Flamewars don't decide anything, the market does.
i disagree. they ignored all the main points in apple's argument. a "This is why Flash is worthwhile" response is better than a "Well, at least we'll be on android."
Agreed. If I'm coding a mobile version of my website and I can do it in flash and support 50% of smartphones or do it in HTML5, CSS, and Javascript and support 100% of smartphones which one am I going to pick...
I disagree... Apple's argument is really poor and arguing against it would be difficult for this reason, any thorough response would probably look defamatory. Its a lot easier to just treat it with the contempt it deserves.
For example, it contains intrinsically weak arguments. e.g. the section headed "Fifth, there's Touch" is equally applicable to HTML5 and infact most of the rest of the internet technologies. If you can fix "Touch" well enough for HTML5 then you must be able to fix it well enough for Flash, the requirements are identical.
The h.264/battery life argument is similarly weak in that it can be turned against almost any video codec, suggesting that h.264 is some kind of silver bullet "optimal" solution, which it most certainly is not. It also closes the doors to open solutions and user choices of codec - what if I want to host video myself and don't want to waste resources and money on h.264?
The layers argument is good, but unfortunately in this context it is extremely weak - Apple love adding their own layers. Look how many layers there are in OS X... should Cocoa be ditched just because its an extra layer? It provides similar functionality to Flash of "making something hard, easier".
The open argument is pretty irrelevant to whether Flash is useful or not, but I actually like it... my traditional reason for disliking Adobe has been PDF and Flash and the way they have degraded the internet, although that has as much to do with bad use as it does with being proprietary formats.
The remaining arguments are the "full web" and "security" arguments, both of which are valid although I am distracted midway through the "full web" argument by this blatant lie - "There are more games and entertainment titles available for iPhone, iPod and iPad than for any other platform in the world.". Maybe he means you can buy more titles - that would be almost believable...
The security argument is great but I'd be careful of making too much of it - iPhone is secure by obscurity and I suspect Flash is such a "security problem" because it is so heavily used. You can compare Safari and IE in the same way, IE is much, much, MUCH, more secure - but to a pretty good approximation, nobody uses Safari - still IE gets a worse image for security because so many people are using it that its 1) a worthwhile target 2) got a large enough user base that complaints come in significant volumes.
I was talking to one of my professors that teaches Flash/ActionScript at the University I just graduated from yesterday, and the main issue at hand is that Adobe in Flash still does not have a good way to handle touch events, nor is there any way to use ActionScript to add any touch events. Flash is dropping the ball in that regard.
I would call it "taking the high road". Just my opinion, of course, but I think it's better than a point by point rebuttal when that would obviously make no difference.
Go back through the history of Apple's (and its many, many sycophantic fans) proclamations - such as apps on the phone, push notifications, multitasking - and there is a disturbing trend of Apple (and its followeres) making moral pontifications, stamping their feet, and then quietly and shamelessly backtracking when proven wrong.
Jobs is trying to undermine the competition because he fears that he made the wrong choice.
> Jobs is trying to undermine the competition because he fears that he made the wrong choice.
You think so?
Smart-phones have been around a long time. The iPhone was announced over three years ago, yet here we are in the middle of 2010 and mobile Flash is still nowhere to be found on any mobile device. How is that not Adobe's fault? Is Adobe just not very interested in mobile Flash, or are there very serious technical challenges that Adobe has been unable to overcome?
Instead of waiting around for Adobe to get their act together, Apple delivered HTML video and interactive web content for their mobile devices, they delivered it years ago, and they did it using open standards and open source development that their competitors are not only taking advantage of, but are utterly embracing.
It is the tale of one company that's able to get things done, and another company that isn't. And it shows how foolish it is for companies like Apple, Google, Palm, and RIM to depend on a company like Adobe to deliver the "full web".
There was no choice to be made. Mobile Flash didn't exist in 2007, it still doesn't exist today, and any dependence on Adobe is foolish.
On a more historical note, mobile Flash did exist in 2007. I was using it to watch Youtube on my Nokia N800. It was slow -- the device didn't have enough CPU power to simultaneously download and playback, so you had to pause the video and let it cache completely first. But it most definitely did exist, and I am convinced that implementation would have worked well on 2009 hardware. The N800 wasn't exactly a breakthrough device, nor was it super popular. Yet Adobe somehow managed to deliver for Nokia.
The N800 was introduced in early 2007. Its predecessor, the 770, was introduced in late 2005, with Flash out of the box. I never owned one so I cannot comment on the performance.
I would also challenge your statements regarding Apple delivering HTML video for mobile devices -- mostly the HTML years ago part. Also, H.264, which Apple is pushing, is by no means an open standard, which some of their competitors have issues with.
Simply existing is not good enough for Apple, their bar is higher than that. See copy/paste on iPhone for an example:
They could have implemented the menu-driven kind of copy/paste found on Palm Pre and Android, but they wouldn't because it sucks. Apple prefers nothing at all over a solution that sucks. So we got nothing in place of cut/paste, until they figured out to do it in a way that didn't suck. Simply existing is not good enough. Not even Adobe is claiming that Flash on mobiles works today, let alone three years ago.
You are, of course, correct; I was responding to my parent's unqualified claims that "mobile Flash is still nowhere to be found on any mobile device" and "mobile Flash didn't exist in 2007".
I have Flash on my Nokia N900... Runs smoothly and nicely, too! Directly via the default Firefox browser!
This may come as a surprise to some, but there's a whole mobile world outside of the Apple iPhone... you get far better hardware, no lock-in, and (now with Android/Maemo) a very solid UI.
Can you send a little of that smooth-and-nice my way?
You say there's no lock-in outside of the iPhone, but what do you call Flash? Yes, the spec is technically open, but there still haven't been any players that work as "well" as Adobe's. Which, by the way, is many people's problem, as Flash Player has been nothing but a pain to me. The Linux and OS X versions are horrible and Adobe's done very little to fix them.
Also, I'd kinda dispute the "better hardware" and "solid UI" claims - better is very subjective, and Android's UI could hardly be considered "solid" (the portions of MeeGo from Moblin look promising though).
(I feel silly to include this, but it could be necessary: I don't currently own a single Apple product, my main computers run Windows & Linux, and my phone is a Samsung Moment which runs Android 2.1.)
I really do not care about Flash. What I care about is the freedom to use any programming language that I like or see fit for the problem at hand. Section 3.3.1 is not only banning Flash although that would be wrong too. It bans _every_ other language than the three C's and "JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine".
The argument is not that Flash is open or the holy grail. It is that Apple forbids the use of any unapproved language. And the real problem is that they can prohibit it's use because they dictate whats availabe for the iPhone and what's not.
The world would be a better place if they could not get away with this. Let's hope they can't.
> Yes, the spec is technically open, but there still haven't been any players that work as "well" as Adobe's.
It's a valid point, but a lack of good competition doesn't make the standard any less open; published is published. Consider 2002-2004, when Internet Explorer had nearly 95% market share [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers]. HTML was an open standard, but no viable competitor existed until Firefox was released.
Actually, many mobile phones simply haven't had the CPU to run flash, and you'll find that none have been able to run complex applications until fairly recently.
That's why smart phones have also mostly sucked until recently too (no, it isn't that the iPhone's suddenly created demand, its just due to an evolution in technology).
Besides, you miss the point. H.264 IS a patent encumbered format, and Apple is going out of their way to jab at its loyal developers.
For that reason (and many others), I will now be replacing OSX on my mac with Windows 7 and will not personally be supporting OSX for my project (Nightingale). In fact, I'll be asking the community if it is the right thing to do shortly.
Apple's disrespect for other developers is absolutely incredible, and I have NEVER seen such a disrespectful person. He doesn't give a damn if other companies spend months developing a software package for his platform, or if they have bent over for Apple for years. I'm totally done with Apple now.
He said mobile flash. Nokia hacked the desktop Flash 9 into Maemo because they were so desperate to get something on their device. I can't find the link right now but an Adobe blogger basically distanced himself from it recently, saying it was Nokia's baby (which makes sense as they're the only one running it) as it wasn't 'real' mobile Flash.
The default browser in Sprint's HTC Hero has Flash 9.1.
It works well enough, but frankly I don't like the default browser and it isn't portable because it's custom built... not to mention downloading large flash files is not something you want to do on Sprint's network.
I think Symbian (S60) devices have had flash since 2004 or something and they've shipped tens of millions of devices since then. Also at least Nokia's Symbian devices are OMAP based like iPhone.
I'm not saying that Adobe's Flash has had a huge impact on the Symbian world, but just to get the facts straight.
Yes and no: Flash Lite has existed there in the firmware for ages, but nobody is using it. It also cannot be utilized from the browser.
Going all philosophical: If a software has zero users, does it still exist?
EDIT: My view may be dated. I haven't checked what Nokia is offering through the ovi-system these days, could be that Flash Lite is actually somewhat widely used nowadays.
Also: Flash Lite has existed also in Nokia Series 40 models ("standard phones", not smart phones) since 2007 or so...
Thanks! I stand corrected. On my 6110 Navigator (S60 3rd ed feature pack 1) I get the "broken image icon", and clicking on it the phone tries to open it with it's FlashLite player and gives "Flash 8 not supported error".
But as you said, works fine on E72, which is S60 3rd ed feature pack 2. I'm impressed!
You should familiarize yourself with the technologies.
Adobe has been trying to get Flash on the iPhones since Day 1, and has been unable to do it because of some honestly pretty shitty business practices on Apple's part. Now you may love Flash or hate it, but the bottom line is this: the iPhone can never be considered a best-of-breed gadget when it still provides a second-rate web browsing experience in which about 40% of the Internet is forever closed to you.
The reason that Apple does not, will not, can not support Flash is simply this: it would gut the App Store like a week-old fish.
Kindly remove the blinders from your eyes, then get back to us. :)
Isn't one of the reasons that mobile flash doesn't exist today that Apple, y'know, expressly disallowed Adobe's flash-to-iPhone compiler? Isn't that the issue at hand here?
If Adobe had simply failed to deliver a product, no one would care. Instead, they did deliver it (or were just about to deliver it), and Apple freaked out.
The topic was Flash running in a mobile browser. Like Android, which Adobe originally said would ship Flash for over a year ago. I think Adobe's utter engineering incompetence is one of the obvious points everyone seems too polite to make.
Why? There's no qualitative computational difference between a smartphone and a desktop computer; further, the quantitative difference between today's smartphones and older Flash-capable machines of a decade ago is probably not that huge.
Absolutely not true that there's no difference. The speed of your desktop comes from using POWER. Today's desktop CPUs alone pull up to 130 WATTS. My desktop CPU bought in 2000 used 30 W. Now even notebook CPUs use more when they're not idle!
Now I can come to a lot of web pages where only Flash ads use 100% of a modern CPU! That translates in 60-70 Watts.
Then compare all this with the goals for device which should work with battery for hours.
Running flash content on a PC bought around 2003 is actually pretty choppy. I installed Windows 7 on an old Athlon 1.6 ghz machine a month ago and tried to watch youtube with it -- the videos looked like they were going around 8 fps. I can watch old divx movies on it, but I can't watch youtube full screen... it's pretty sad.
This machine was fast enough to play Quake 3 and a dozen other gaming titles, but is too slow to play youtube videos. I just don't get it, is the flash vm really that processor intensive?
I can't see how flash could run well on the upcoming android devices if it runs so poorly on the Athlon 1.6ghz.
Newer Flash Videos codecs like H.264 probably are that intensive. Codecs have changed over the years, giving us better quality, but also requiring hardware support or lots of go juice to run well.
I don't mean to suggest that it should run smoothly on any of today's smartphones (though some N900 users commented that it runs well for them). I just take issue with the "nearly impossible" in the parent of my original comment. But I suppose I may have interpreted that to mean more than was intended.
That happened when? Three weeks ago? The iPhone has been out for years. And we're still just talking about one phone. I'm not necessarily condoning Apple's action, but arguing that the lack of mobile Flash is due to the new SDK agreement rings a little hollow. Adobe has had years to deliver Flash mobile and a variety of smart phones to target, yet it runs on none.
Or merely look at some of Apple's other technology bets:
Apple Desktop Bus over PS/2 and serial (ADB lost, native ps/2 and serial connectors are still around and USB can easily talk to ps/2 or serial devices with the aid of a simple adapter).
SCSI over IDE (IDE won).
PowerPC over x86 (x86 won).
Firewire over USB (USB won).
AppleTalk over TCP/IP (TCP/IP won).
I don't think Flash is the right choice, and I'm ok with the idea that some mobile devices won't support Flash, but this anti-Flash jihad seems to be going too far.
To be fair, all the other pre-90s microcomputer networking standards (NetBIOS, IPX, token ring..) are also dead, Apple Desktop Bus was introduced before the PS/2 port, and IDE was introduced (as a one-vendor proprietary implementation) in the same year that Apple started putting SCSI hard drives into Macs.
For the first time, Apple choosing "not-Flash" actually has enough weight to force content publishers to choose "not-Flash" more often. This will eventually influence more of the tech industry. Personally, I'm thrilled.
I've noticed that it is very hard to accuse others of being morally pontificating without sounding at least a little hypocritical about it. Even the previous sentence applies to itself.
true -- but this time he seems to have gone too far to turn back. then again, remember when PowerPC was better than Intel? Jobs is a master of the Big Lie.
What was he supposed to say? Get up on stage and tell everyone PowerPC chips were crap? During the PPC days, there were many times where PPC had a significant lead on Intel, especially early on, but towards the end, most notably the G5 days, Intel's lead just widened so far and PPC's got so expensive, that it made the best business sense to switch.
The Power architecture is still pretty awesome for raw power. But it's not designed for low energy consumption (ie: laptops). So while a desktop with some P6/P7 chips* would be an awesome beast - a laptop might be a toaster.
The G5 was a Power4 chip of some sort from memory.
Jobs read the market well. The move is definately to Laptops / portable devices - and Intels chips were much better at that.
There were no objections to either push notifications nor multitasking. At one point they weren't offered simply because you can't do all things at once, but Apple never made any objections to the technologies, moral or otherwise.
Let's keep in mind, however, that there is not really one monolithic "market". Just as McDonalds co-exists with Jean Georges, the legions of Android clones running Flash, etc. will peacefully coexist with iPhones, except without the responsive UX, battery life, or even a fundamental sense of taste. (edit: would the downvoters like to justify themselves? have they seen a Android device with a responsive UI? I haven't...)
Yeah, my guess is you're being downvoted for implying that anybody who doesn't agree with you is showing a fundamental inability to perceive taste. That implicit value judgment really weakens your argument.
the nexus one is totally responsive. have you seen it?
i didn't downvote you, but i would guess it's for "fundamental sense of taste". that's just ranting.
plus i am not aware of any evidence that the iphone has a better battery life than a comparable android device (like the nexus one). do you? or are you just reciting the talking points?
"There's no official transcript yet, but the Wall Street Journal just live-blogged an interview with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, in which he responded to the Steve Jobs "Thoughts on Flash" letter posted this morning. Substantively, Narayen didn't offer much we haven't heard Adobe say before, but his frustration with Apple is palpable even in summary form: he called Jobs' points a "smokescreen," said Flash is an "open specification," and further said Apple's restrictions are "cumbersome" to developers and have "nothing to do with technology." What's more, he also said Jobs' claims about Flash affecting battery life are "patently false," and suggested that any Flash-related crashes on OS X have more to do with Apple's operating system than Adobe's software."
Haven't watched the video, but it sounds like Adobe is giving more than just a "market will decide" response.
So Flash crashing on my Mac is because of the Mac OS X operating system when those same crashes happen under Linux as well, but not under Windows? Methinks it is more a case of shoddy engineering.
No, sadly, i think marketing does.
It's not flamewars, it's not "the market", aka the consumer.
It's what Apple can make the world believe. Especially in the case of Apple, my believe is that 90% of their sales are accomplished by excellent marketing. This Blogpost is just another move. I think we can agree that, when looking at hard facts, Steve is plainly lying to his customers in a lot of points.
Me, as the nerd i am, can look at some facts and behind the words of that letter.
The most sad and disappointing fact on the hand is, that most users will take the letter for granted. Steve writes as if all the things are facts, true and _many_ people will just believe him! He will sell even more units and from today on Apple customers will looks at me, disturbed, why i have Flash on my Phone/Tablet, that it will only drain the batteries, bla bla bla.
This is basically what really makes me angry about this.
He could have just written "we are not allowing Flash because we want to protect the Appstore". Everyone would understand, that's the fact, ok. But no. He wrote together a big pile of lies.
I can't really see how apple is hypocritical with this issue. I quote the text below from my last comment.
"Apple is not telling Adobe, Microsoft or any other corporation to open up their platform. They are only stating that they believe web standards should be open and not controlled by a single party."
If someone got a different impression from Steve's letter I think you should read it again. If you think I got the wrong impression I beg you to point me towards the parts of Steve's letter that will help me see my error.
Actually, while you are that he states that the web should be based on open standard you obviously missed the big pile of lies and false facts in his letter.
Basically i'd say that at least every second "fact" in his letter is plainly not true.
This is going to be interesting, because if they do manage to put flash and Air on a broad range of other platforms then we will see Jobs's assertion about cross platform frameworks slowing down progress be put to the test.
It already has been put to the test, in countless other situations. For example, look at video game consoles -- crossplatform libraries ensure that really high quality games can be ported to every major platform. Do they lack some features of some consoles? Yes. Regardless, are they still hella fun to play? Of course!
Well see even there it's Job's contention that crossplatform frameworks should have displaced native frameworks and limited the hardware manufacturers to effectively just supporting the crossplatform frameworks.
Surely the best argument against Job's position is the iPhone itself. The most important and dominant crossplatform framework in the world is HTML+JS and Apple actually wanted it to take the place of native frameworks. But we all know how that ended and now we have the App Store.
To support his fears on crossplatform frameworks they would have to supplant native apps and I just don't think it happens. OSX's problems with inferior crossplatform titles stem from a comparative lack of native applications - not from the crossplatform software itself.
> Surely the best argument against Job's position is the iPhone itself. The most important and dominant crossplatform framework in the world is HTML+JS and Apple actually wanted it to take the place of native frameworks. But we all know how that ended and now we have the App Store.
And with this paragraph you exactly proved why Flash doesn't have sense on the iPhone.
Another aspect to this is the constantly cited metric of "number of apps" (which seems totally bogus to me, but that's another argument). The instant Flash arrives on a platform it becomes arguable that that platform rivals if not exceeds the iPhone app store in number of "apps".
When iPhone advocates say "but we have 200,000 apps" and Android advocates can simply reply "well we have 50,000 apps and 200,000 flash apps of at least the same quality as 150,000 of the apps on the iPhone".
Apple could buy Adobe. They have more than double Adobe's market cap sitting around in cash. Forgetting Flash, Adobe is a cash cow, has a lot of great engineers, and some amazing software I'm sure Apple would love to brand as their own.
I've also been thinking about this lately. Flash and related products are only a small part of a not very large company, relatively speaking. Why can't Google or Apple just make a deal for Flash/Flex? It's clear that the web (and mobile web) is critical for both.
When it comes to products with strong network effects, you really don't. Sometimes an inferior product (i should say platform) can take over a market simply because it was there first. You can find any number of examples of this in the tech world.
It's going to be very interesting to see how Adobe handles Flash on all these different platforms. There's a lot to consider: Various screen resolutions, CPU/GPU speeds, memory capacities, browsers, touch vs. non-touch devices, etc. This covers about half a dozen major platforms and probably hundreds of different handset models. It seems like a monumental task to take on. Can they keep up with frequent platform updates?
Devil's advocate, I'm not a big fan of Flash, but: with the exception of touch, this is exactly the diverse situation Flash has dealt with -- and partially derived its popularity from -- on the desktop.
There response was brilliant, and it is right on the money. Steve Jobs arguments are contradictory and largely asinine, and they aren't worth retort. Adobe has essentially wiped their hands and said "Whatever, troll" which is truly brilliant.
Apple had to speak at length to explain all the mess it has created in the last few weeks, and it tried its best to make it all about Adobe.
Adobe didn't need to make such grandiose statement, there was no messiah speaking here; just a humble CTO with better things to do in his day than write press releases.
"Clearly, a lot of people are passionate about both Apple and Adobe and our technologies."
Ha. I haven't met many people who are "passionate" about Adobe technologies. I don't see Flash stickers on cars or people lining up around the block to buy Photoshop CS5.
I don't think the people taking Adobe's side on this do it out of passion–they do it because they don't like how Apple is handling the situation.
You bought a Mac to run Photoshop and After Effects, instead of just installing Windows on your PC that's running Ubuntu if I understand things right here? Nice.
in fact i run ubuntu on a mac mini (in addition to lots of generic pc hardware). i like mac hardware. some of it is overpriced, but some of it is fine.
As somebody said in another post, Flash great distribution it's because it was something that designers could do with little programming (if not none at all). What Adobe should really focus is to create a valid equivalent for HTML5 and try to become the standard editor for HTML5 for all those people who don't know how to code.
A good strategy might be to go ahead and make flash work on the Apple devices. Being able to demonstrate that the limitation is purely political and not technological would be helpful for people that don't understand what's going on. Plus when Apple reverses this silly nonsense, they'll be ready to roll.
Does this sentence make zero sense to anyone else?
We feel confident that were Apple and Adobe to work together as we are with a number of other partners, we could provide a terrific experience with Flash on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
I makes total sense. Shall I reword it slightly for you?
Were Apple and Adobe to work together, as we are with a number of other partners, we feel confident that we could provide a terrific experience with Flash on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch
Yeah, it's a terrible sentence. First they're "we," then they're "Adobe," then they're "we" again, and while you were distracted by all that, behind your back they snuck in "as we are [working]" when they meant "as we do."
With HTML/CSS/JavaScript, hover events (both the :hover and "onmouseover" event in JavaScript) are typically used for visual feedback (the :hover event being strictly presentation...)
There's a reason for this: Users can disable JavaScript.
A core fundamental of web development (graceful degradation or progressive enhancements) is the result of this. As a developer, you can't assume the "mouseover" event will be available.
Web developers write functional pages first. They then progressively enhance it with JavaScript. This is why the web does (or, theoretically) works (contrary to what you said...)
Flash, on the other hand, is different by nature. It doesn't permit users to disable mouse events (or any other events), from firing. As a Flash developer, you can write code that requires a hover event, with fair confidence that it won't hinder a visitors interaction with the site/project.
To be honest, it's what made Flash so tempting to develop for. You're given an equal playing field through the SWF player.
Unfortunately for Adobe, with Safari/Chrome/FireFox/Opera pushing web standards, HTML5/CSS3/JS are making things (quite) interesting for web developers.
You're confusing best practices with common practices. The vast majority of sites are developed with the assumption that javascript will be enabled in the viewer's browser.
You're right. That's why I included, "This is why the web does (or, theoretically) works..."
To be honest, I know a few developers that develop with the assumption that JavaScript will be enabled. I've also worked at a few companies that assume clients should have JavaScript enabled...
Unfortunately, I see too many sites that completely fall apart if you disable JavaScript (some sites that are even selling a product!)
JavaScript still has a stigma as being a "toy" language and until developers understand/utilize it's full potential, a lot of crummy code will still be written. Thankfully, jQuery (and other great JS libraries) are opening the potential for JavaScript to developers.
Yes, and because Apple controls WebKit they were able to add a workaround to MobileSafari's touch interactions to prevent breakage on sites that use CSS hover menus (give it a try, they work).
Will Adobe's mobile Flash have a similar attention to detail in user interaction design? We'll see.
Agreed that it's a red herring from a pure technology standpoint: they both expose hover events, for better or for worse.
And I agree that a large portion of things like navigation elements and the like will work fine because of the way mobile Flash Player passes those events on touch devices to apps. But I think nearly all of us agree that nav elements shouldn't be done in Flash. They work best and it makes the most sense to use built-in browser technologies for them.
So, other than video (the recent trend there seems strongly to be toward HTML5 <video>), that leaves mostly Flash games.
Many existing Flash games will work with a touch interface enough to get to an intro screen, and perhaps even into the game itself. But it seems like a good majority will be unplayable, and doubly frustrating because you can see the game running, but not actually control it.
While I don't appreciate much of what Apple is doing these days, surely one has to also appreciate the draconian, closed nature of Flash? At least HTML5 is some kind of standard. Now, if we could just get Apple on the Ogg train...
Haha. Touche, sir. Apple is certainly draconian, but Adobe is no saint I guess was my point. Flash and HTML5 are competing technologies, and one is an open format.
