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Oh that evil Flash
15 years ago
As a web developer by trade, I've got a few things to say about the whole HTML5 vs Flash debate that Apple is stirring up.
First of all, way to bite the hand that fed you, Apple. Where would Apple be today if it weren't for Adobe? There was a time (the late 90's) where if you were any sort of graphic designer, and you suggested NOT using Adobe software on Apple computers to do your work, you would simply be laughed out of the room by the other designers, their berets tilting limply on their heads.
On to the meat of the argument:
The biggest argument against Flash is that it's "not open" and everyone should use H.264 for video instead. But two things. One, Flash video often IS in H.264, and B, H.264 is not open either. It's patented by the MPEG-LA consortium. You need to buy a license to use it in any commercial sense.
This is already causing a rift in HTML5 video land. Firefox, being a free open-source product, cannot include the patented H.264 codec. They're pushing the open-source video codec Ogg Theora instead, but that's currently under investigation for possible patent infringements against MPEG-4 (it also has a terribly silly name). Google is also messing up the mix, as they've bought video codec company On2 and are rumored to be open-sourcing On2's VP8 codec for an HTML5 push lead by Chrome. And Microsoft Internet Explorer (which, believe it or not, still has a massive market share) doesn't support ANY of the above yet! This pot is still boiling, but the other kettle of fish is calling it black before its eggs hatch. Or something.
Does anyone remember what online video was like before Flash Video became mainstream via YouTube? Do you remember the pain of tracking down dozens of obscure video and audio codecs for every little thing? We're headed right back into that hell again if we aren't careful.
And I don't know if you've noticed, but Flash does more than video. Do you think mainstream Flash usage will go anywhere while Farmville is only playable in Flash? Your mom needs to tend to her crops every day, don't you know. (I'll tend to your mom's crop...)
Look, I agree that Flash is a lumbering beast of a plug-in that is often abused to do horrible, unspeakable things (use FlashBlock!). I agree that its days are going to be numbered when -- WHEN -- HTML5 is ready for prime time with near-global support and reasonable alternatives for the few useful things that Flash does. That time is not now.
So why is Apple trying so desperately to force this transition early? Let's go through their stated reasons. It's not about battery use (iPhones still get hot and drain battery when they play native H.264 videos, go ahead and try it). It's not about inefficiency (Ask anyone who remembers Real Media what true inefficiency was). It's not about stability ("Apples Never Crash" has always been a myth). It's certainly not about openness (we're talking about a computer company that used to put custom cable ports on its computers to prevent people from buying 3rd party keyboards and mice). No, it's all about money.
Apple is dead set about not allowing Flash to be ported to the iPhone/iPad simply because many of the most popular iStore sellers are games that are available online as embedded Flash (either originally or a reasonable facsimile thereof). They want you to buy your little web games through the iStore, and not to play them in your mobile web browser. Apple wants to get a slice of the pie.
Just like how they won't sell a computer with a Blu-Ray drive. You want high-definition video on your Mac? It's in the iStore. Apple gets a slice of the pie.
Just like how the iPad is nice and shiny but it doesn't really do much without apps. What's the one and only way to get apps onto an iPad? The iStore! Apple gets a slice of the pie every time. Soon they'll even get a slice of the pie from "free" apps, thanks to iAd.
So just remember -- and this goes not just for Apple but ANY megahuge technology company -- they aren't looking out for you, the user. They're looking out for their own bottom line.
First of all, way to bite the hand that fed you, Apple. Where would Apple be today if it weren't for Adobe? There was a time (the late 90's) where if you were any sort of graphic designer, and you suggested NOT using Adobe software on Apple computers to do your work, you would simply be laughed out of the room by the other designers, their berets tilting limply on their heads.
On to the meat of the argument:
The biggest argument against Flash is that it's "not open" and everyone should use H.264 for video instead. But two things. One, Flash video often IS in H.264, and B, H.264 is not open either. It's patented by the MPEG-LA consortium. You need to buy a license to use it in any commercial sense.
This is already causing a rift in HTML5 video land. Firefox, being a free open-source product, cannot include the patented H.264 codec. They're pushing the open-source video codec Ogg Theora instead, but that's currently under investigation for possible patent infringements against MPEG-4 (it also has a terribly silly name). Google is also messing up the mix, as they've bought video codec company On2 and are rumored to be open-sourcing On2's VP8 codec for an HTML5 push lead by Chrome. And Microsoft Internet Explorer (which, believe it or not, still has a massive market share) doesn't support ANY of the above yet! This pot is still boiling, but the other kettle of fish is calling it black before its eggs hatch. Or something.
Does anyone remember what online video was like before Flash Video became mainstream via YouTube? Do you remember the pain of tracking down dozens of obscure video and audio codecs for every little thing? We're headed right back into that hell again if we aren't careful.
And I don't know if you've noticed, but Flash does more than video. Do you think mainstream Flash usage will go anywhere while Farmville is only playable in Flash? Your mom needs to tend to her crops every day, don't you know. (I'll tend to your mom's crop...)
Look, I agree that Flash is a lumbering beast of a plug-in that is often abused to do horrible, unspeakable things (use FlashBlock!). I agree that its days are going to be numbered when -- WHEN -- HTML5 is ready for prime time with near-global support and reasonable alternatives for the few useful things that Flash does. That time is not now.
So why is Apple trying so desperately to force this transition early? Let's go through their stated reasons. It's not about battery use (iPhones still get hot and drain battery when they play native H.264 videos, go ahead and try it). It's not about inefficiency (Ask anyone who remembers Real Media what true inefficiency was). It's not about stability ("Apples Never Crash" has always been a myth). It's certainly not about openness (we're talking about a computer company that used to put custom cable ports on its computers to prevent people from buying 3rd party keyboards and mice). No, it's all about money.
Apple is dead set about not allowing Flash to be ported to the iPhone/iPad simply because many of the most popular iStore sellers are games that are available online as embedded Flash (either originally or a reasonable facsimile thereof). They want you to buy your little web games through the iStore, and not to play them in your mobile web browser. Apple wants to get a slice of the pie.
Just like how they won't sell a computer with a Blu-Ray drive. You want high-definition video on your Mac? It's in the iStore. Apple gets a slice of the pie.
Just like how the iPad is nice and shiny but it doesn't really do much without apps. What's the one and only way to get apps onto an iPad? The iStore! Apple gets a slice of the pie every time. Soon they'll even get a slice of the pie from "free" apps, thanks to iAd.
So just remember -- and this goes not just for Apple but ANY megahuge technology company -- they aren't looking out for you, the user. They're looking out for their own bottom line.
Isn't that any big megahuge company, period?
Seriously, dont we have better things to worry about than that?
Why is it proclaimed that "World War 3" will be between Apple and Google - do people who come up with such stupid titles even have an idea what World War I and II was - it wasnt a sleek PR gag or a film series than ran in a cinema - people fucking died there. So now are we assuming fanboys will go at each others throats, trying to bash heads in with their phones and tablets? Way to go humanity, evolution really paid for itself.
if you make an interface using flash you're pretty much doing it wrong
(For those not in the know - Lala allowed linking to music for websites, one free listen to albums, a nifty upload feature where you can store music and listen to it anywhere, and other nifty features.)
As for Adobe, they used to be a top notch company, giving visual artists EXACTLY what they need..
Now they seem to produce what they think the users will like, and ignore the actual needs of the industry.
Apple seems to be leaning that direction if they haven't already.
Microsoft has thrown its support behind H.264 for IE9.
HTML5 Video post on the IE Blog. Relevant quote is "In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video only."
As for H.264, as I began reading your message I immediately commented to myself, 'H.264 isn't open.' and then you go on to state that. :P As I recall, HTML5 is based on ogg as the codec of choice, not H.264. Ogg, on the other hand, is fully open in source and standards. It does seem, on the other hand, that the VP6 codec (used more commonly by Flash than H.264) is rumored to be under consideration for becoming an open-source and open standard now that Google has purchased it. All anyone outside of these companies can say right now is that we can only hope.
Right now, in web browsers, of the 5 major browser makers, the support breakdown for HTML5 codecs is this:
Ogg Theora:
Google
Mozilla
Opera
H.264:
Google
Apple
Microsoft
Google now owns On2, and there's a persistent rumor that VP8 is going to be open sourced. If it really is better than Theora, I'd much rather that be used instead.
I guess it's entirely possible that HTML5 will become the new platform for Mobile web. I can't say I have much/any experience in mobile development, but it stands to reason that if the dominating smartphone OS' move to full HTML5 support, and do it well, then we'll see a bigger push on the desktop side of things.
(I doubt I'm saying anything new here, but it's my 2 cents so :P)
As of Wednesday, they're still not commenting on it.
But for what it's worth, I do hate how Apple tries to portray itself as open and indie and kind when it's really just another heartless technological hegemony no different from anyone else.
Thank god the current day Windows branched off of the business (NT) branch instead of ME.
(Should disagree with that name being silly though; MPEG is at least as silly. I bet you hate the binary prefixes because they sound silly, too. )
Sadly Dell followed Apple's steps, they make it so you can't upgrade without sending your stuff back to them because they don't use industry standard parts *shruges* Companies really don't give two cruds about us consumers now days they just make it look all flashy so every wants to run out going "I HAVE TO HAVE IT!!!!!!!"
Mobile computing is an entirely new frontier, straight from the 1980s, and all those non-PC marketing tactics are making a serious comeback. The devices are fully integrated, and people expect them to offer less functionality than a PC. It's only natural that they are glued shut, and designed to be disposable. It's not a serious tool to be used for work. It only offers "what you need", and nothing else.
People aren't buying these things because they are flashy and cool, it's because of the fact that computers are no longer tools and thus the functionality isn't as relevant as it once way. They are now just toys, and are basically expensive but largely disposable luxuries designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It's easy to get people to buy toys with the right marketing campaign. People who buy tools know what the hell they need and are far more selective and critical.
The infestation of toys wouldn't really be a problem, if not for the trickle-down effect. I don't care if the iPad sucks and doesn't have Flash. I just care if those proprietary marketing attitudes slowly inch their way back into the tools that I do use, because Joe Average doesn't care about actually using the devices he pays for. Hence, I hate Macs. If someone wants an iPad to browse the web and they are willing to pay a fortune for no Flash, that's fine. But, dammit, don't build your Macs out of laptop parts and glue, too. People shouldn't have to pay thousands of dollars just for the privilege of having a PCI slot! Yes, I actually do need that sound card and hard drive controller, and I'm not going to pay $2,500 to get it, thank you.
If it ever does become competitive, Apple can just start changing their developer's guidelines. Currently, iPad apps have to be written natively only in the languages that Apple chooses, and they can't be ported from other languages, which rules out re-compilers. Take a wild guess as to why that requirement exists.
And this is a problem why? Nothin' wrong with making money.
What's up with that?
I outgrew it a long time ago.
It's sad, really.
I outgrew it back when it was called Harvest Moon..
Is it any wonder their machines have gone from futuristic pieces of art deco, to bland rectangular slabs? Is it any wonder that their new hot item for this year, is last year's hot item, now in a slightly bigger box?
I've been an apple user since the days of the old black Bell & Howell apple IIs - and even I have to admit that right now, they've got nothing.
They need the Woz back.
What one works with OS/2 Warp?
Oh yeah, and it's not just HTML 5 that has the potential to supplant Flash. You also need a combination of other things, like SVG and codecs. It's a compatibility and political war zone. Flash is a fully contained environment. "HTML 5" is a whole ton of different things that all have to come together just right. W3C standards are fine for documents, but... web apps? Hell, we don't even have a reasonable set of GUI toolkits for JavaScript, yet. At least, none that prioritize functionality over eye candy. How are we supposed to make all this wonderful HTML 5 content? Do you have the tools, Apple? No?
As usual, Apple chooses the path of no compromise and doing things their way, and geeks are already siding with Apple and celebrating the potential death of Flash. If Flash didn't have so many problems (like CPU utilization and security issues), would people still side with Apple so easily? What if Flash were open?
Does anyone remember how much Apple screwed up Java by using a horrible proprietary implementation when the Java spec is both open and open source? Trying to update the oekaki applets with Mac compatibility has been a nightmare for me. Nothing works the way it's supposed to on the Mac, and my "old" PPC Mac can't even run the version of Java I'm trying to support, so I can't even test my own software, anymore. Java wasn't causing the problems with Apple's computers -- Apple's own terrible version of Java was the problem. Apple didn't give a damn about an open standard. They just worked out a contract with their infamous "no compete" clause so they could rip control of the platform from Sun. I have no idea why Sun went along with that. I have a feeling Apple tried to pull the same crap on Adobe, but they said no. Like patent disputes, it's not always wise to fight with each other. Adobe and Apple probably tried to come to an agreement, and it just didn't work out. Rather than just admit that they didn't want to use Flash, Apple starts this campaign that Flash is bad and it's iPad customers that don't want it. Uh, what? Most web browsers still ask us if customers want to install the Flash plug-in. We're not allowed to choose for ourselves? Of course not.
Forcing Adobe to open up the Flash spec would have been awesome. But, you're right... it's all about the App Store. Crippling HTML 5 would have drawn serious anger from the community, but I can't wait to see what Apple is going to do to discourage HTML 5 apps from showing up, so they can still force people to buy native iPad apps. Oh, wait... that's why they insist that iPad apps have to be written natively in only the languages Apple chooses. You can't make a web app and port it to the iPad without rewriting it from scratch. Might as well just write a native app for Apple due to their market share and forget the open standards, huh?
And oh man, Mac isn't the only platform with a dark history of Java meddling. A lot of these oekaki applets were made for Microsoft Visual J++, which was MicroSoft's "embrace and extend" attempt with the Java language. J++ was bitch-slapped into non-existence by Sun lawyers, but not before it confused the whole Java applet landscape to death.
I also think that the complaints about Flash's inefficiency really only apply to ActionScript 1. ActionScript (the internal scripting language Flash uses) was originally patterned on JavaScript, and was an interpreted language with very loose syntax. ActionScript 3 is patterned on Java more, so it's a bytecode-compiled language with a much stricter object-oriented style. People have written analog-modeled synthesizers and physics engines with AS3 that work in real time. But most of the shlocky developers stick to AS1 because that's all they can figure out how to use.
I have yet to find a plugin that enables tablet pressure sensitivity support for either Flash or any particular browser. If such a thing existed, an oekaki app written in Flash or HTML5 might not be far behind...