Linked by David Adams on Mon 22nd Feb 2010 08:37 UTC
While it's been a low-level grumbling for years, the issue of Flash on mobile devices (and particularly the iPhone/Touch/iPad ecosystem) has reached fever pitch over the past few weeks, with Steve Jobs as self-appointed Flash basher-in-Chief. The OSNews crowd, that is, dyed-in-the-wool technologists have, by and large, not been big fans of Flash, with its spotty availability and performance on alternative platforms, resource hogging, and instability. And though it's quite useful for web video and other specialized interfaces, it drives the tech savvy crazy when it's used for utterly superfluous multimedia bling. So we've had a lively discussion of the pros and cons of Flash, and whether device users should be free to make their own decision about whether it's worthy to install on their iPads. But we're leaving out an important detail. As Daniel Eran Dilger, a Flash developer, points out, almost all the important existing Flash infrastructure won't work anyway. Update: A worthwhile rebuttal to this point of view.
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Member since:2006-01-04
All your points besides 3. don't really matter. Knowing RD and the internet the guy could be a dog. And "existing flash content" people care about is mostly web video and that seems to work fine on other touch based mobile devices.
I agree that open and free standards are way better than flash and that Flash has to die and before that improve, but I don't like it when people with an agenda disguise some twisted biased world view as some kind of objective reporting and that is what RD does.
Edited 2010-02-22 12:45 UTC
Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2005-11-10
Yes, but then that’s a different article to this one. Let’s focus on reality.
He didn’t claim to be an HTML5 developer. HTML5 is mentioned just once:
Fortunately, those unique Flash applications are 1) in the minority, 2) may be largely duplicable with HTML5 canvas, 3) ported to iPad using Adobe’s Packager for iPhone, or 4) rewritten from the ground up as native apps. The most common uses of Flash on the web—video, ads, and relatively simple menus—can be done in JavaScript and H.264 video.
I don’t see an ounce of bias there. Opinion, maybe, but that’s not unexpected.
Honestly, I’ve written far worse. I don’t admit to being unbiased. I code HTML5, HTML5 is the future in my opinion and one day Flash may be irrelevant and unnecessary as RealPlayer is now.
Member since:2010-01-12
Thom, that was my thoughts exactly!
Remember way back when iPhone did not have a SDK and relied on web content? When the same Apple apologists tried to convince everyone that the web was the future and a native programs were the root of all evil?
Anyone else remembers those days?
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Member since:
2005-11-10
Woah, what is going on with the crazy hate on RD and ignoring the article’s own merit. This article was totally reasonable, better than anything I could write about Flash.
1. He admits to being a Flash developer
2. He admits that he believes that Flash on the iPad is a bad thing, despite point.1
3. Existing Flash content is not compatible with touch interfaces and this would give a bad user experience that would be blamed on Apple and the like and not where the blame should be placed
4. Flash on mobile devices doesn’t solve Flash’s problems
5. He updates his own site to use CSS animation instead of Flash.
WHAT FREAKIN’ GIVES? The site might have a bad history, but lets RTFA first please.