Apple and Microsoft’s Flash dance

Saha & other Flash users:

Flash Crash: Ain’t that the truth & the platform (not surprisingly) doesn’t matter.

I have 0 (ZERO) problems with Vista x64 and with MacOS Leopard x64 with one common exception: FLASH

Why I don’t want Flash on iPhone without modifications.

I bought a Macbook Pro 15″ less than a year ago (2.4GHz Santa Rosa) with 4GB of RAM and
the other day the CPU was doing 110% and running hot. I looked at the processes
to see track down the culprit. It was Safari, one of the tabs I had left open
the day before was Gizmodo. The Gizmodo webpage about the iPhone was running
two concurrent flash video banners about a competing Blackberry Pearl phone.

Once I killed the Gizmodo website my CPU returned to normal and the laptop
cooled off. This recent trend I’ve noticed on my older Powerbook G4 (1GHz)
with 1GB RAM was fine web browsing, till the advent of flash video banners.
Then my web browsing experience and computer performance went south.

I have nothing against Flash content as long as they give the user control
over the web browsing experience back. On the iPhone this is even more critical,
given that its not running an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz.

Solution for the iPhone would be:

1. Confirm download of Flash video (FLV) content. This saves bandwidth and time
2. Ask the user if they want the Flash video to be played again. Looping Flash videos kill performance.

Flash Lite is used for device UI, an on device portal (NTT DoCoMo) and web browsing. Web browsing is a relatively new addition for Flash Lite it was added with Flash Lite 3.0 (current version) and will be improved in the up coming version that is part of the MS agreement. Adobe expects a significant percentage of websites to be run in the upcoming version of Flash Lite. If you would like some additional information about Flash Lite visit the mobile section of the Adobe website http://www.adobe.com/mobile

Will,
Just because someone is an Apple “toady” does not mean that they cannot put forth a well reasoned argument. Believe me, folks with a lot less credibility and knowledge than Daniel Dilger have repeatedly been cited as sources.

Lame as usual, Adobe Flash maybe on 500m phones but these phones are seldom connected to the net whereas the iPhones and iPod Touchs are different, they are meant for the internet.
Flash does no work well with Safari and installing Flash in Safari will kill the web experience with the iPhone and iPod Touch.
BTW MS don’t make phones and the phone manufacturers are the ones who WILL be suffering because of MS cleverness.

GO ON2 TECHNOLOGIES. Making it all happen! Better Technology, Cheaper Technology, Faster Technology, and Higher Technology.

ON2 Rules.

Isn’t Flash Lite used for the interfaces on most of these phones? That is not exactly a full web implementation. MS? we’ll see when the product actually ships.

Daniel Eran Dilger at Roughly Drafted does have a very strong Apple bias, but he also digs far deeper and more thoroughly into issues than any other journalist I have ever read. For sure you need to read what he writes with discernment, but you’re missing out on some pretty impresive insights if you ignore his coverage.

As far as Flash Lite is concerned, it is NOT the same as the full Flash plug-in you get on desktop PCs. It can not display the vast majority of Flash sites on the web and is instead used to create the user-interface on cheaper phones from Verizon etc.

The web is moving towards the open Web 2.0 standards of Ajax and Javascript that the iPhone fully supports. This is what we should be encouraging – not proprietary processor-hogging, battery-draining Flash.

-Mart

Apple has other plans for a rich-media runtime on the iPhone platform as I explained here:

Runtime wars (1): Does Apple have an answer to Flash, Silverlight and JavaFX?

Runtime wars (2): Apple’s answer to Flash, Silverlight and JavaFX

Are we actually meant to take Daniel Eran Dilger seriously, Philip? He’s quite possibly the biggest Apple toady on the Internet – and that’s saying something. You do yourself no favours by citing him as a ’serious’ analyst.

You should be more careful what sort of garbage sites you’re surfing. I surf far more than most people, and I have never encountered noisy ads with moaning women…

banal? I am having a hard time equating Flash and banal.

Flash on 450 million smart phones while a huge number needs to be compared to phones with web browsers on smart phones as well. Looking at browser share of smart phones verses the newcomer iPhone one might conclude that just because Flash was on so many phones didn’t mean it is useful, just like web browsers on smart phone didn’t mean they were useful. Personally I don’t see what the fuss is on Flash, but perhaps I don’t use sites that utilize it heavily.

Flash slows down my computer like no other! Yes it is useful when it comes to games, but most of its use is in silly ads that slow down the time it takes a page to download and takes up processor and memory resources. Many of these ads are by unscrupulous companies as well. Yes, maybe I need to buy a new computer every six months to keep this from happening, sure whatever…. I think that since the iPhone is a compact device, that it will not have the power of a full size computer, so Apple just wants to make sure it’s customers have the best experience on their products.

@YC – you write: “Apple for example already licences PDF technology from Adobe for it OS X screen display.”

Actually, PDF is a specification Adobe publishes, that Apple pick as the foundation for Quartz and Mac OS X display because the technology that NeXT formally used (Display Postscript, and NeXT being the precursor to the current Mac OS X) Adobe wanted tons and tons of money for, and Apple was not about to be beholden to Adobe for licensing fees per seat that amounted to as much as Apple charges retail for their own OS. PDF is free for Apple to use, as long as they are willing to implement themselves according to the open specifications – which is what they have done.

Needless to say, this is not what Adobe wants – Adobe wants Apple to license THEIR PDF renderer and fork over tons of money for every Mac desktop and every iPhone and every other OS X based device. This is causing a dispute between the two companies – Adobe wants to gain revenue from Apple directly, and right now they are only getting money form the applications they have deployed on the Mac, not from Apple itself.

If I recall correctly, Adobe has already stated that both Flash and Flash Lite will support h.264. i’m pretty sure the h.264 support is already in Flash Player 9 on the desktop. I think they also said the h.264 support will be in Flash Lite 3.1, but I don’t know if they said when that will be available.

I would like to see a real internet site coded in Flash to actually work with my not so long ago super duper Nokia N95’s (one of those so called “Flash equipeed” phones) browser. No, sir, here’s your error, bon appetit. This type of phone Flash is useless and non-functional, included just for name’s sake. Maybe it works with small Flash game applets or some special phone interfaces, but I don’t have time or need to experiment.

AS you point out, each side has their own agenda but just offering a feature on a phone means nothing. Doesn’t Nokia also tout they have more music phones than anyone? How’s that working out for them in the real world? What’s the actual usage – .5% Same with Flash. Of course, phone makers will pile on ‘features’ but that’s exactly the problem – it’s ust another pointless feature. If Flash was ONLY used as video middleware, it might be considered but since Flash is now 98% ads on browsers, it’s a waste of bandwidth and the animated GIF of 2007.

Flash on the iPhone is a VERY BAD IDEA. Web browsing using the iPhone is a very pleasant experience. However, imagine if flash was supported. You are in a business meeting and need to search the web for something real quick. You end up on one of those countless pages (including some Mac websites) that have a very loud sound file attached to an advertisement buried somewhere on the page. Imagine the sounds of a hot woman moaning for you to check her out some more, her and her entire sorority wants you. This is more than just embarrassing, if that hot woman claims to be an underage teen you might have a lot of explaining to do and get into serious legal trouble.

Flash is a pestilence on the Internet. It needs to be eradicated. In fact, everyone should remove the flash plugin from all their computers and refuse to use sites that require or use flash. There’s a reason why the Department of Defense does not allow flash on military computers, the flash architecture puts military computers at risk. The few legitimate uses for flash MUST be replaced with Web 2.0 standards. Flash is just another proprietary enabler for cesspool advertisements.

In classic Apple fashion, the tools have been doled out to the developers to produced superior products for the IPhone.

Let’s look at how Apple is positioning it’s self with the iPhone. Does Apple really care about flash?

No.

Apple is building the iPhone to be a real contender in the business world.

Website flash non sense isn’t the bread and butter.

Adobe isn’t a thorn or an asset to Apple. Adobe is what it is and does what it does.

Flash doesn’t fit the mold for what the iPhone is intended to do.

Some of you knuckleheads and you know who you are, are just looking for something that isn’t there.

Apple and Adobe relationship is fine. This is technology, not Hollywood.

It’s not how many mobile phones are “equipped” with Flash; it’s how many are actually used for that purpose—and that’s a much smaller number, since recent number have shown that iPhone web usage is vastly greater than other platforms. By that measure, Flash has been even further marginalized with no apparent damage to Apple.

And which “proprietary platform” are you suggesting Apple is favoring over Adobe’s Flash? H.264 is an open standard.

Read more at watchingapple.com.

I believe that it is true that adobe requires a license fee for Flash mobile use. And Microsoft only licenses flash because its Windows Mobile licenses probably want it; they would probably prefer to stick Silverlight.

Apple does not licence MacOS X or OS X Touch so they are under no pressure from licensees to bulk up their iPhone architecture with Flash.

I was under the impression that Adobe requires mobile phone companies to pay it a license fee for running Flash on mobiles. If this is true then Apple would not want to pay Adobe a license. Contrast this with Adobe’s strategy on running Flash on the Desktop – which is free..

Again, not sure if the above is 100% true.

Apple has no interest in chocking Adobe flash. Apple just wants to stay consistent with their support for H.264 which is really superior technology for delivering AV over the internet. Apple for example already licences PDF technology from Adobe for it OS X screen display.

Flash while popular is really not that great a technology in terms of footprint and what it offers, and adding it to the iPhone would bulk up to the architecture.

Try Flash on a Mac and you will see Jobs is correct. It is a processor hog and therefore an energy hog on OSX which is what the iPhone is based on.

Why do you put quotes around something that you are paraphrasing? I was at the meeting, and Steve did not say that “Flash Lite is not capable of being used with the Web.” Neither does the article that you link immediately after that quote.

What was really said was “Flash Lite, Adobe’s phone-focused software, isn’t good enough for the iPhone, Jobs said, and the version of Flash that runs on Mac computers is too slow on the iPhone. “There’s this missing product in the middle,” Jobs said.” (taken from your link)

He said Flash lite isn’t good enough. He stresses that while it could work on the iPhone, it would be a sub-par experience for users.

Please practice some responsible journalism.

ex ped: That quote is multiply sourced.