The iPad: Get used to blue Lego tiles

Maximillian

Umm…. There’s a special Farmville app for the iPad.

As for an alternative, HTML5 replaces flash video with more friendly options.

Trent Hawkins

really? well, keep holding your breath till Hulu switches to HTML5.

Anonymous

ok,

1: i know flash developers producing excellent work with entirely third party tools

2: flash is quite often annoying and badly done, but it can just as often add great functionality and improve your browsing experience. most probably aren’t aware how much it’s used in the sites they browse.

3: whatever your thoughts about the first two points are, the fact is that a huge number of sites (as the original post alludes to) use flash, and to deny users access to it on what is predominantly going to be an internet browser is frankly moronic.

Deviant

I dislike Flash, but I dislike Apple more for not giving me the choice.

karrock

I’m surprised nobody noticed that the screenshot below Hulu is for “Bang Bros” — a PORN site… Yeah, that’ll make Apple want to get Flash working on the iPhone/iPad! :D

joeposts

Right. There’s really no reason that web designers shouldn’t abandon this unpopular method of animation and video delivery so that iPad users can use every website. Most people will be buying these things, so the influence they will have over the market will be HUGE, and I doubt we’ll be seeing any websites Flash by December 2010. Maybe it’ll be some quicktime variant – stick it to the PC users for a change!

Volker

The motto of the flash blocker for safari (http://rentzsch.github.com/clicktoflash) sums it up nicely:

“any crash is probably Flash”

jungletek

Yes, flash is lame and the video tag will save us all…

Fanboys who will apologize for ANYTHING, however, are lamer.

And hilarious.

mdh

I use Flashblock most of the time as it is. Flash annoys me.

Apple enforces quality standards on their users experience, and they’re open and straightforward about it.

and good at it.

Oh noes, someone might call me a fanboi.

Anonymous

What about the 64 gig memory/harddrive limitation? I couldn’t even fit my music much less much of a video collection on this device.

joeposts

Whatever. Apple doesn’t need Flash. The iMac doesn’t support Flash either, and that doesn’t prevent me from enjoying my girlfriend’s computer. Oh wait, that apple product does support Flash. But it doesn’t need to, because Apple products are taking back the free web with their open standards and such.

fxq

I hate Flash AND DRM AND Communist Republicans, but I love KITTENS. I find it sad that Boing Boing isn’t the Flash-Hating-DRM-Hating-Communist-Republican-Hating-Kitten-Loving place it used to be.

benher

Why is making an internet so hard?

MasterSauce

Also, Good reading on HTML5 and Flash:

The state of HTML5 video:
http://diveintohtml5.org/

Flash’s thoughts on HTML5:
http://theflashblog.com/?p=1698

zyodei

To all you Flash Haters – FF FLASHBLOCK FOR THE WIN!

I consider it the most indispensable FF extension.

Now, I really hate Adobe – I mean, what sort of crap is it that maybe 15 years after introduction, Acrobat still freezes your whole damned computer for 45 seconds whenever you accidently click a PDF. One of the first things I do on a computer I use is install an alternative, like the excellent PDF-Xchange. Adobe as a company just sucks.

Thus, I see what Apple is doing here. They are trying to kill Flash. They are trying to force web developers to stop using it so much, to stop making flash only sites.

But I really feel it’s going to backfire. On the iPhone, that’s fine – it’s mobile web, after all, people don’t expect it to be perfect. But this is designed to replace a full desktop. In the words of Apple’s own video, to provide “the best web browsing experience possible.” Unfortunately, without flash, it isn’t.

I suspect we’re going to have a lot of pissed off newbs in the next several months, who bought it because of it’s sparkle, and took it home to realize it won’t display 75% of the web sites they visit.

zyodei

A final point, the iPad is primarily an ENTERTAINMENT DEVICE. Its primary use is to VIEW MEDIA. Sure, it has productivity software, but you don’t need all that screen real estate to view your calendar, and with only an akward virtual keyboard, no native USB, and other proprietary ports, it just won’t be that useful as a productivity tool.

Unfortunately, the Kindle already exists to read books on, and most of the people interested in that functionality already have one.

And is it true that you have to convert to proprietary Apple codecs to watch video? I want to drop some shit on in while i’m in the shower so I have something to watch on the subway.

Entertainment device – flash – universal media codecs = fail, no matter how slick it is.

peterbruells

I have to politely disagree. As I wrote in one comment, the absence of flash doesn’t really bite me. Youtube works (though I estimate that I didn’t watch more then 50 videos during the last two years).

Sometimes I can’t watch an embedded videos, yes, but I rarely feel the need or eben the hurt, as lots of these videos are just idle distractions. I can’t see a kitten on a Roomba or falling asleep? Meh. And only a few videos are interesting to me in the sense that I *have* do watch them to get the point. Usually the one liners like “TV crew films falling people, doesn’t warn them that ice is slippery” save me 5 minutes of my live.

Same with flash games.

I’m not dissing this stuff, mind you. I someone likes it, fine. I someone needs it, that’s a deal breaker, also fine.

But to claim that this is a deal breaker for everyone and that the iPad is doomed to fail is patently absurd.

It’s a media player – not all sources, but otherwise headache free.

It’s an internet device – not everything, but for many surely better than “good enough”.

It’s a digital foto album – no, really. It’s be absolutely overpriced if that was the only reason to get one, but I gave my digital frame away. *)

It’s a console for casual gaming and playing. It does that well enough. Yes, there are probably tons of super flash games. But there are tons of decent games and toys on the iPlatform. Is there something like the Ocarina on Flash?

And then the apps. There’s ton of them, most dirt cheap. People buy them instead of researching for a free flash app oder downloadable program on the internet for the connivence, the same way why they don’t pack lunch boxed, but get stuff from the deli, fast food, whatever.

*)If I ever like one of my digital fotos so much, I’d sent it to a printer. But I do have the need for a decent album, to take the picture of my niece to my parents-in-law, to show my vacation pictures to my mother, etc. Frankly, even if I could take a SD card it’s a hassle. Every dam TV set or DVD Player which support it have another interface, the rendering’s often impossible slow. Sometimes I take my MBP, but quite frankly: It’s a little boorish.

slappy

I wonder how apple would like if adobe decided to flip a bitch on them and decided to stop allowing any of their software to run on all those expensive silvery macs. Because, as we all know, not many creative types out there are making content for the web on a mac running adobe software.

Adobe and apple need each other. They’d better get back to playing nice, or lots of their respective customers loose.

P.S. Tell me, how do I get in touch with this secret organization of html5 developers that have pledged their allegiance to good design and usability? Because it’s just inconceivable that anyone would use a technology that would allow motion on the web for anything besides the betterment of mankind.

Brainspore

As far as I’m concerned if it doesn’t have Trogdor, it doesn’t have the web.

Anonymous

You guys call Flash proprietary, but it’s the same as any IDE. I’d argue it’s so ubiquitous it is a standard. You say it isn’t secure? Nothing on the web is secure. The anti-flash crowd writes this stuff from linux, but most of the world isn’t there. HTML5 is a pipe dream until IE supports it. No business is going to support only 30% of their customers. And having dual code bases is a maintenance nightmare and cost-prohibitive. There is no replacement for flash for 3-5 years I bet, before html5 becomes a standard. There are no replacements for tools like flex that mix interactivity and data. So get off your nerd high horses. Block flash if you want to, but the rest of us need to live in reality.

Cowicide

I really think the OPTION to use Flash should be on the iPhone, iPad, Touch, etc. Sure, HTML 5 is down the road, but the current reality is that Flash is ubiquitous on the internet and will be so for years to come until it (thankfully) dies off for the most part.

That said, I’m sure one of the reasons Apple keeps it off is because Flash runs like shit and would probably dog down the devices to a crawl, cause horrible security issues and just plain make Jobs pissed. But, I still want the fricken’ option, dammit.

Luco

Apple fanboys are like communists.

you can rub their idolised leader’s mistakes on their face, showing just how similar to the opposition he is – but they still come up with some clever reasoning for it.

frankly, it’s like talking to a wall.

I’ve already been accused of “trolling” the MacRumors forum just for pointing out some dumb interface quirks about Snow Leopard.

it’s hopeless.

nemofazer

Full disclosure: I love apple. I love my 2 apple desktops, my laptop and my iTouch and I’ve been using their products for 20 years but I think the iPad is a huge disappointment.

There you go. A non-wall response. Apple fans are not all blinkered. Some can recognize when Apple drop the ball. The good news for me is I’m not tempted to spend money on it. No flash (yes the iTouch doesn’t’ have it and I still bought it but its annoying), no camera, no voip, no phone calls, no multitasking and has anyone addressed the curved back? Is that going to rock from side to side when you put it one a flat surface and type?

With skype and a built-in camera I could have overlooked the flash but this isn’t for me.

Anonymous

Screw flash. If this is another nail in it’s coffin then so be it.

Anonymous

Flash : 2010 :: 3.5″ floppy drive : 1998

Mark my words: Flash is dying. And no, Netcraft hasn’t confirmed this yet, but it is. Apple killed the 3.5 floppy drive, and it will kill Flash.

zyodei

On reflection, Apple may indeed succeed in their ultimate goal of killing Flash as the defacto standard. But it may prove a Pyrrhic victory, betraying to users the limitations of Apple’s walled garden approach.

mc

Real quickly, let’s go through those examples in the picture and see which of those could use HTML 5 instead.

Farmville, no
Hulu, yes
CNN, yes
Bang Bros HD, yes
FWA, yes
Addicting Games, no
Google finance, no
Aviary, no
Disney, no
Spongebob, not sure

So of those examples about half could be replaced by HTML 5, basically the ones that are soley used for videos. Now I am all for as much flash free video serving as can be but that leaves the other half, the interactive, the animated, and the games. Now for all those crying out good riddance, what do you propose as an alternative to this? Or would you rather see this segment removed from the web altogether? Hey, maybe we can go back to just all text on the interwebs!

Anonymous

My problem with the “no flash” thing is not so much that one piece of technology is unavailable, it’s that Apple REFUSES to allow Adobe to provide Flash on the iPhone OS. At least allow consumers the choice instead of making it for them.

Anonymous

http://kuoi.com/~kamikaze/read.php?topic=Mac&id=264

“Adobe’s Flash Evangelist Lee Brimelow posted a bunch of sites (tackily including porn site Bang Bros) as examples of how the iPad won’t work without Flash.

Except, in typical incompetent Adobe fashion, he’s wrong about most of the sites!”

ManParrish

If you REALLY need ur porn on your iPhone or iPad without flash, it’s already here folks.. http://m.pornhub.com/ or a simple Goggle search for iPhone porn will get you there. What I want from the iPad is the ability to NOT burn up the display on my $2500 laptop, just to surf, email and watch video, Hulu, Netflix, etc. I understand that if Apple made this like a MacBook, they would cannibalize their own money making division. I now need a new laptop, but I’m finding myself asking what for? Should I spend another $2500 for a MacBookPro just to surf, email and video stream? I bought 2 netbooks already with high hopes. Guess what, I can’t get video to run smooth enough on my damn expensive Vaio P or my cheap EeePc, even after upgrading to Win 7. So here I am, again I’m hoping Apple will address these issues before the iPad final release date. I do think there’s enough pressure now that Apple HAS to do something. Steve’s ego must be going thru changes right now. What I think Apple needs to do is show off some great apps for the iPad AND .. Apple needs to take the low end MacBooks and make THEM into full functioning tablets. Take this technology and run with it and own it ! Now that’s something I’d rush out and pre-order. Are you listening Steve? Rock the world with a MacBook/Tablet as a logical evolution of the MacBook. You have the technology now, apply it to your MacBooks. If that works, extend it to the MacBook Pro line too.. Apple has some serious decisions to make here. They let a very big cat out of the bag and are at a crossroad. Don’t you think Sony, HP and others aren’t sniffing around at Apple’s expense? Watch out Apple, drop the ego and grab the market buy it’s “you know what” and run with it.

Scixual

@18: Um, “The Internet: You’re Doing It Wrong.”

@37: Savior of the Universe!

my_belly

No thanks. I’ll stick to my betamax with superior stereo sound.

andygates

Your porn link is broken in Firefox. Anyway wouldn’t it put out nasty little phone-sized porn? Who wants that, especially in a huge lovely screen like the ipad?

Flash is a de facto standard, simply because there’s a lot of it about. On a technical level it’s as welcome as Comic Sans in business email, but hey, it’s out there. The job of a web device is to give the user fresh piping-hot web, not half a web.

The user who sees a page that says “sad flash” instead of giving them their videos (be they news reports or flash comis (newgrounds!) or bewbs) isn’t going to give half a damn about the nerdly wrangling here, they will just think that their device is broken.

That’s a bad user experience, which is why it’s weird that Apple, lords high master of the user experience, think it’s okay to make it bad for so many people.

codeman38

Something else that really hasn’t been touched on is the distinction between Flash and other things like H.264 when it comes to openness or the lack thereof.

H.264 is a patented codec, and so it’s not entirely kosher to use open-source implementations for commercial purposes without paying the MPEG licensing agency. But that’s the thing: although the format is subject to licensing fees, the codec itself is an openly available ISO standard, and there are numerous implementations out there to view it, including Apple’s QuickTime.

Same thing with the much-maligned PDF. Acrobat’s not the only reader out there for that format, and some of the alternatives are even more efficient. Indeed, the PDF viewer on the iPhone is Apple’s implementation, not Adobe’s.

With Flash, however, the format itself is closed, and so the only decent implementation is Adobe’s. There are attempts at open-source Flash viewers, but their functionality is still quite limited compared to the official Flash plugin. And Adobe doesn’t even bother to develop the plugin for certain platforms. I have a PowerPC box running Linux, and the official Flash plugin for that processor/OS combination simply does not exist.

Anonymous

This is the #1 reason that I won’t get one… It also means that if it was able to play flash, I’d get one.

not_kevitivity

Flash will NEVER be on the iPhone or iPad and and thats a GOOD thing because it’s a proprietary technology and it reduces the reliability of the device.

Instead, HTML5 (an actual web standard) will bring us what we want…

Ambiguity

Flash will NEVER be on the iPhone or iPad and and thats a GOOD thing because it’s a proprietary technology and it reduces the reliability of the device.

Apple…proprietary….is the irony intended?
Anonymous

propriety technology – ipad – snigger
tboy

Flash will NEVER be on the iPhone or iPad and and thats a GOOD thing because it’s a proprietary technology

Ha ha ha so funny and ironic.

You mean proprietary like MOST APPLE PRODUCTS?

+1 for humour at least. Ha ha ha ha ha!
Inventorjack

Isn’t the iPad itself “proprietary technology”?

And really, when *most* of the websites your target market will want to visit use some amount of Flash, shouldn’t it be supported?

I’m not saying I think Flash is wonderful, and I hope to see lots of awesome HTML5 sites as time goes on, but putting out a device without supporting the technology *currently* used by tons of popular sites seems a bit foolish.
- Anonymous
  
  “but putting out a device without supporting the technology *currently* used by tons of popular sites seems a bit foolish.”
  
  You mean like when the original iMac ditched floppies for a CD-ROM?
  
  That didn’t work out too bad for Apple.
Anonymous

I used to hold/state the same position, but Rob Reinhardt offers a pretty compelling counter-argument. He knows A LOT about this stuff – as much as anyone. If you can spare five minutes, you should take a look at his latest rant at http://blogs.flashsupport.com/robert/?p=180.

Also, consider:
– iTunes is open, and DRM-free?
– QuickTime is open, and standards-based??
– Apple’s lock-in approach is better than Adobe’s???
Anonymous

Yes, and the thousands and thousands of sites that now rely on Flash for video and animations will magically convert to HTML5 overnight! Please.. even a rabid Apple fanboy should realize that not supporting Flash is a control freak move designed to DRM us all back into the stone age.
Anonymous

developers will “bring you what you want”. and at the moment, a great many leading developers prefer to develop with flash and flex. it’s open, and it’s more reliable than supporting an unknown number of implementations of HTML5.

markup is markup… flash is a runtime and a programming language.

it’s sad that it’s not in the browser, but flash developers can create ipad apps with CS5.

Xopher

I’ll wait until the iPad can do something that 1. I want to do and 2. nothing else can. Til then, hell with it.

Anonymous

Yup. Their inability to get a Flash solution hurts the iPhone but is going to devastate the iPad

darren

The absence of annoying Flash ads during the iPad demo is not a compelling argument for Flash.

Sharkhunt

…Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause…

noinfo_de

Bad user experience without flash? Yes you might be right. But honestly, have you used flash on an lower-end machine recently? After a few years on a MacBook Pro I recently bought a Nettop computer with that dual 1.6 Ghz Intel Atom processor to keep in touch with the windows world. I’ve had the most horrible user expierence with it – as soon as flash comes into play. This machine works really well and impressively fast, especially for a device with such low-end specifications. But flash is plain unusable on the thing. I can’t even watch a low-res youtube video on it because it lacks the processing and/or graphics power.

Until I experienced that, I always wanted flash for my iphone. Now I pray I’ll never have to endure it on the iPhone or any iPad I might come across. 1 Ghz is just not enough for the bloat that is flash nowadays. Honestly I really long for a click-to-flash or flashblock plugin for SRWare Iron so I can surf the net normally without blocking off my machine, when using the windows box.

There are a few very great flash games (e.g. canabalt) that I’d really hate to see go, but everything else? Flash has become such an annoyance to me that I really want it gone.

phisrow

Oh snap.

Unfortunately, thanks to devices that do support flash, I’ve gotten used to extraordinarily high CPU usage, poor integration with HTML, absurdly frequent updates to address amateurish security issues, the usual aspects of the Adobe Experience.

Halloween Jack

Funny, I remember when this blog used to decry the number of sites that depended on Flash. But now, it’s apparently some sort of crime to be unable to get to FarmVille or Bang Bros HD. Oh, well.

Karl Jones

” … FarmVille or Bang Bros HD.”

Two things I really didn’t need to think about at the same time. Now my web synesthesia is kicking in. Thanks a lot.
dculberson

I can’t believe how perceptive you are, divining all that value judgment out of a simple one-line title and single image post! You must be a mind reader!

Hint: a statement of fact does not condemn something as a “crime.” I saw this post and interpreted it as commentary on the poor web design that so many sites have fallen prey to. But that’s just me. Really it’s a comment on something that’s true. I use a couple devices that have no flash support, and see a lot of “missing plug-in” symbols. iPad users will similarly see a lot of them.
- Halloween Jack
  
  Good grief, man, lighten up.
  - dculberson
    
    Sorry.

http://www.facebook.com/jana.miller.photography GatoRanch

I honestly didn’t even realize that I didn’t have Flash capabilities on my iPhone until recently, but when I did I was quite annoyed. Not being about to listen to music on MySpace REALLY sucks for me. I know, who goes there anymore right? Well, that’s all they are good for until Facebook masters music players.

Victor Bogado

I think this is a bless, in one side it takes values out of flash, that is evil as many people here said before me. On the other hand, it makes it obvious that the ipad is defective by design, this is simply a way of making people running only what apple want them to run.

sirkowski

Crazy Apple cult is crazy.

Anonymous

Seriously – there’s tens of millions of iPhones and iPod Touches out there, with more being bought everyday, and they don’t have Flash either. Why the sudden rush to defend that bloated software which clutters my web experience with obtrusive ads all day? Especially from a blog that used to rail against — oh, wait. Looks like Boing Boing is pretty full of Flash these days, too.

Anonymous

All that needs to be said on this:
http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/apple_adobe_flash

Just like their Acrobat Reader, the Flash plug-in is a horrid piece of bloatware that people should shirk away from horror. Just because a lot of websites use it isn’t a reason to keep it.

ikoino

Hmmm, non-issue: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcs5/appsfor_iphone/

Most sites with budget will test which browser and switch to flash, or iP[adone]{2,4}

Nelson.C

That’s more of a lego brick than a tile, isn’t it?

lhopitalified

EXACTLY!
Mark, bricks are the pieces that are 3 plates tall, and tiles are plates that do not have studs on the top.

Ackumen

Who’s really steering the ship here, Adobe or Apple? If your job as a content creator is to get content to as many people as possible don’t you think you should develop using a standard that is compatible with current HTML standards?

Flash had it’s day, but HTML5 is going to make it near obsolete?

Anonymous

No flash no buy – it would be useless to me or my clients.

mrgoldenbrown

#1, you have to admit it’s kind of funny painting Flash as bad because it is proprietary, as if Apple isn’t the king of proprietary tech. They have no desire for HTML5 to be good, because that would mean less apple specific apps in the app store.

danfan

Flash’s badness isn’t *only* because it’s proprietary – it’s also bloated, crashes frequently, and is a memory/CPU hog. I guess as a Microsoft fanboi you’re used to those things, though.

dancentury

With HTML 5 able to handle video (and YouTube and Vimeo both working on such interfaces), this doesn’t bother me as a user. I do use Flashblock when I surf the web most of the time. As someone working in advertising, with lots of Flash developer buddies, it is a bit disappointing. Oh well.

jdixon

Adobe has a dog in this fight? Duh. It’s an Adobe site, right? Read Daring fireball.

Anonymous

no bang bros hd?!?!?! well there goes your netbook killer.

mrgoldenbrown

#1, Does this mean apple will not allow proprietary video codecs like h254 or MP3? somehow I don’t think it is the proprietary nature that bothers apple. It is more the desire to force developers to create apple specific apps rather than apps everyone can use.

thequickbrownfox

Stockholm Syndrome.

Anonymous

You know, I’d buy an iPad even if it was utter crap (what it is not) just out of sympathy because it hates flash as much as I do.

Anonymous

I think the thing we don’t realise, being people who may be moderately interested in gadget blogs and the like is that John Q Public has different needs to us, probably doesn’t care about flash and still needs the sales assistant in the computer shop to tell them that yes, they do still need an antivirus if they only want to browse facebook and get emails.
I find that my friends (who are a mixed bunch of academics and software types) have lost sight of the wants and needs of the average person. Case in point where I had bought a new DVD player/recorder and one of my friends asked me what the point was because I could just play it back on one of my other devices. It just didn’t register in his thoughts that people still want to record TV on a regular basis as he hasn’t done so in several years.
I’m not saying Flash-haters are wrong or right or that the iPad is good or bad… just that having read the posts here, it strikes me that we’ve lost sight of the actual point the article makes. Whether Flash crashes operating systems isn’t the point, it could be the anti-christ for all I care. All I want is for something that I’ll potentially have to deal with in the future to be able to meet the needs of the John Q Public on the street who’ll come in and tell me that (s)he wants an iPad for Facebook, emails and playing games on the internet and when I tell him that he can do that, for it not to have to be caveated into the next millenium…

Francesco Fondi

Flash is bad?! Fanboism got no limit… ^_^

dculberson

Oh, and yes – flash sucks. I have an adblocker solely because of flash. It’s resource intensive, irritating, and user unfriendly. It’s a bedrock of lazy and terrible web design. Using it to show a video is great. Using it to present 100% of your company’s product (or design) portfolio is horrible. Using it to animate ads that bounce all over your visitor’s screens is offensive.
- slywy
  
  What one type of company relies heavily heavily heavily on Flash? Ad agencies. I’d rather see the Lego tile/brick than their content.
  - Karl Jones
    
    “What one type of company relies heavily heavily heavily on Flash? Ad agencies.”
    
    Architectural firms are also Flash-crazed. I used to consult for an architect, in the course of which I browsed a lot of architect web sites. Flash everywhere! Apparently they can’t get enough.
- Anonymous
  
  Not to mention that you can’t use standard tracking mechanisms to see what people are doing inside your Flash app. You have to code it all yourself. And since standard tracking code doesn’t work, clients have no way of investigating actual customer experiences and working up improvements.
  
  Yes, I’m an Apple fanboi – but even I was saying “Meh” at the iPad announcement. So it’s a big iPod Touch. so what.
- grimc
  
  So HTML5 is going to kill off bad web design along with Flash, huh? Amazing.
  - dculberson
    
    Did I even imply that? Amazing, indeed.

Anonymous

Not being able to play flash is the only thing that the iPad does right. Flash is a horrible headache, especially if you use something else than Windows. It will regularly crash your browser, needlessly empty your battery, and make your whole life miserable.
The internet needs open video, as in HTML5 video tag + Ogg Theora.

Stooge

The real reason Apple won’t let Adobe include a Flash plug-in for Mobile Safari on the iPad is because Genius Bars worldwide would be over-run by people asking the same question: “My favorite Flash game loads OK, but then it says ‘Press any key to start’. Where’s the any key?”

Anonymous

i am absolutely not a mac fan (currently own 3 PCs),but as an artist i had hope that mac would finally show the world how to make a decent tablet. something convenient and portable, but with enough meat for me to really sink my artistic teeth into. sadly they debut this ifad. the blue lego tiles sum it up pretty well.

Anonymous

So, porn and games? Not exactly a compelling argument.

Anonymous

Flash is the devil, flash is the worst nightmare everyone ever had – but for the sake of common sense and not hypocrisy give the user the option to use it or not.

Do you people think banners will magically go away with HTML 5???? You’ll always have them either in html 5 format or flash. You know what? Adblock on Firefox takes care of a large amount of them. How about making something like that for iPad Safari instead of lying about the best web experience that is simply crippled in order to defend Apple’s closed stream revenue – the App Store. If Flash is the end of the world for non PC OSs why not block it also on OSX? Why stop on iPad?

The way I remember it, it was MS the greedy corporation that bullied its way around, now Apple is just what we grew to fear and avoid.

Anonymous

You can actually see Adobe losing their grip on the internet.

badger510

“iPad Promotional Video and Images Show Properly-Displayed Flash Content”

http://www.macrumors.com/2010/01/29/ipad-promotional-video-and-images-show-properly-displayed-flash-content/

Anonymous

Wait it won’t play Farmville?! Screw that.

That’s my one problem with the iPhone too. Yes I do have a problem.

Thlom

The reason Apple doesn’t include flash on the iPhone and iPad is simple. It is bad software, and bad software that Apple can’t fix. It’s a resource hog, it drains battery and it crashes. So, why won’t Apple give you your god given CHOICE? Simple, they don’t want you to ruin the user experience, that UX is their capital. I’m not saying wether it’s right or wrong, good or bad, I’m just saying it’s the Apple way.

Anonymous

no bang bros. so what porn sites can I use with my ipad?!?

Anonymous

I think Pink Visual Pad was made specifically for the iPad.

Anonymous

Oh nos, the flash doesn’t work, OMG the interwebs is broken.

1. Flash broke the internet, it’s proprietary
2. there is a replacement already it’s called HTML5 Canvas

I think people need to educate themselves

Anonymous

personally i think its great because i hate flash, except for games. but if i put my prejudices aside, i think its really stupid for apple to do this since this particular device is supposed to be for the masses who just expect something like the ipad to work.

but it has nothing to do with proprietary technologies, just that flash crashes and hangs a lot plus sucks down the battery big time.

Anonymous

I’m NOT an Apple fanboy but I am a developer and programmer for large to medium scale universities and colleges and this I have to say… Flash sucks. Sucks. Sucks. Sucks.

It’s not ADA compliant (Mark, I guess you wouldn’t mind, say, BoingBoing.net not being able to show content to visually impaired I guess? Or are you as hypocritical now as Cory), the whole ADA is the type of the bloated pointless needless iceberg with Flash.

It’s bloatware Flash is. If I go to a web page with even a Flash banner on my Asus I’ll glance at the battery indicator and see instead of having four hours of time left I have about 40 minutes. Why? Flash is a huge resource hog, it requires so much processor power, just when you’re sitting there doing nothing.

It’s pointless for 99.5 percent of the web yet sadly idiots who cling to their outdated ActionScript or just are too lazy still use it.

Why is it pointless? Most the stuff people are using it for are images that move, transitions and stuff, all that can be done in jquery, javascript, AJAX, or other similar languages.

You can deploy javascript without a plug in, meaning it’ll run on Windows, Mac, or Linux browsers, ANY browser because all support them, without a plug in, and without having to install one more thing on your computer is a good thing.

Oh, and javascript not only is far more lean and capable, it’s ADA compliant, and doesn’t ding your battery life.

It’s not about choice, people moronically still choose IE6 as their browser, whatev, it’s that Flash sucks sucks SUCKs for developers and, most importantly, Flash, again for most applications, sucks for the end user, just most end users don’t know it.

End of discussion.

KeithIrwin

It’s not so much either “Flash is good!” or “Flash is evil!” Flash is terrific for certain things like making audio and video accessible across a wide variety of platforms and making simple on-line games. On the other hand, flash used to make web sites harder to navigate or to make ads more irritating, not so good.

It’s also a proprietary standard, but at this point there are a number of free tools which you can use to build flash content.

Anonymous

I agree that flash provides functionality that can’t be done in simple HTML and that couldn’t even be done with JS and html until recently, but how does “a wide variety of platforms” fit in with that? It’s basically x86 Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. Anything else and you have to rely on an incomplete reimplementation that’ll never be able to fully copy the proprietary behavior perfectly and that doesn’t solve the design problems, like needing the plugin most of the time to find the URL of the actual video file that’s played with a Flash-based embedded video.

Anonymous

Waiting for a non-appstore flash browser or similar programme. I just got an iPAD despide being a flash developer and addict. There will be flash on iPAD despite Jobs and everything else. I jailbroke iPAD 30 minutes after I purchased it and I am not feeling sorry even a bit. Jobs is right – iPad is a magical device, only when it is without Jobs and his stupid appstore. Thanks to non-apple developers I now got everything I want on it – tethering, mywi, root access, and all the apps I wasn’t allowed to buy from the appstore because of Jobs’s idiosyncrasies. Long live liberated iPhones and IPads! Screw Jobs!

Anonymous

I was just using a MacBook to watch a flash video – two technology pundits discussing how the iPad sucks for not supporting flash. – when all of a sudden, the Flash plug-in for Safari crashed and got replaced by the blue legos and a Crash Reporter button asking me to send the details to Apple.

I think that sums up the problem, really.

Apple can’t fix the implementation of Flash on OSX because they don’t have access to the source code. Adobe can’t write / optimise / test in advance of launch a version of Flash for the proprietary processors that Apple are developing.

Flash would also cannibalise most 99c App Store sales, so there’s no business reason to support it.

Who is going to produce Flash for the A4 processor?

adonai

Something the Apple fans may wish to consider – the iPad has little use as a business device (too locked down, its own ecosystem etc). It is squarely aimed at the consumer market. Fair enough. But if Joe & Jane Public can’t play their little Facebook games, or see the video their friend linked to…it’ll get a lot more negative attention. They won’t care if it’s HTML5 compliant (& I’ve never heard Apple to be big into standards). They’ll want it to Just Work. Which it won’t.

Anonymous

Oh, sorry, second post, CSS 3 and CSS 4 do a lot of transitions and other things that also make Flash redundant and pointless. Forgot to throw that in there.

And forgot to mention that video, if the developer/deployment people know what they’re doing, doesn’t need Flash as a container (i.e. way of transporting video). In fact Flash is really one of the WORST least efficient ways of using a container for the web, for both the video quality and a list of other reasons. New CSS and new javascript ways allow you to stream various types of media or even H.264 compliant everywhere high end video to any device minus Flash.

Again, except for maybe Farmville (which, c’mon, WTF) or that person above trying to see his p0rn (even then, they could much more effectively use something other than Flash for p0rn) Flash = NOT necessary.

The only time Flash for now is needed is maybe Homestarrunner, but even then, the Bros Chaps could simply make movies and stream them that way.

sidb

I think the in-your-face, not interested in discussion headline style encourages comments that are similarly snippy and argumentative. “Oh, snap”-style headline-only posts about ideologically fraught topics can’t do much to further discourse. I’d rather have an index of wonderful things filled with thoughtful comments by people who wish to share, understand each other, and learn.

Gloria

Hmm, regardless of whether Flash is offensive or not, I’d like to be able to access the format if I needed to. It’s not my fault if something I want to see has been prepared in any particular format.

You’re free to think poorly of Flash, but I don’t think it justifies Apple’s lack of support for it.

mc

I’ll be the first to say it. I like flash. But I come from a different place than many of you I should imagine, for I am a web designer specializing in flash pages. My clients like the animation and interactivity I can give them. Many of my clients are bands or artists that want something different from the standard blog with images, text and video. I am primarily an animator but I make my money doing websites because there is less money in animation (independent), and so I peddle my wares to those interested in such things for their websites. I for one am glad such a technology exists as I am not an advanced programmer nor do I want to be at the moment. What flash does for me is gives me the option to incorporate my art and animation on the web in ways I wouldn’t be able to without the technology. I have never looked too closely at silverlight and javascript isn’t nearly accessible enough for what I want to do. Here’s to the web being open and to their being more ways than one to do something. I am glad not all webpages look and function exactly the same, even if a vast majority of sites that use flash use it somewhat obtrusively.

Mac

http://www.lawrence-corp.net M. Rosin

I’m all for open standards and so on but this is silly. Flash was said to be on like 95% of all browsers. There is a lot of the web in flash, period.

Put it this way. The iPad would be a nice way to have tons of books, board games, and stuff around in the house and I can see people fighting over who gets to use the iPad.

My young nephews spend a lot of time playing the tons of simple but free flash games on the web. And there are a lot of sites that use Flash video too.

All of that will be inaccessible. My impression is that the iPad hardware is up to it though.

I think people will not realize and just buy it, then have many experiences when they are unable to view content due to Apple trying to control their web experience. This is evil. (As I type this from a MacBook Pro. Still evil.)

M. Rosin

acb

Flash is not so much part of the web as a parasite on the web. It’s a proprietary monolith that somehow got accepted as a standard; the spec is controlled by one company, and there’s only one implementation. That implementation is crappy; it causes a lot of browser crashes, and runs like a dog on non-Windows platforms.

Unfortunately, a lot of naÃ¯ve web designers (or clients) regard Flash as much cooler and more impressive than boring old HTML because you can do zappy animated transitions and such, which is why you have a lot of sites which are just a Flash applet, so Flash is here to stay. Or was here to stay before Apple declared war on it. Apple’s gadgets (love them or loathe them or have mixed feelings about them) may be the only chance of ridding the web of this craptacular de facto standard.

Anonymous

I’m happy to report that Apple products’ inability to display flash content has allowed me to eradicate flash entirely from several major web sites. Big win.

Now if only they would do the same to the abomination that is PDF….

Anonymous

Flash will never be on the iPad because then anyone could write an app for the iPad and host it anywhere on the web, rather than having to make it available through the AppStore.

Anonymous

As much of a drag flash is, unless the tablet can do hulu and netflix some other way… the tablet is not in my future. I think apple really underestimated how people are going to feel about flash not being supported. Don’t give me that crap about system instability and closed standards, the average joe wants to be able to watch video from the major networks online. Not being able to do this is going to be like asking somone to buy a new tv with sound coming from the left channel only.

I’m just jaded enough to think that “standards” are only half the story. its more likely that they don’t want people to watch tv or movies for free. They want you to buy that shit from them and blocking flash is the easiest way to make that happen. The iphone? I get it. However, this is not a phone and this trend of locking down the device and basically saying “fuck you, you will only be able put the stuff we ALLOW you to put on the ipad” is getting into cell phone territory.

I have never jailbroken my iphone but if somone comes up with a way to view flash on the ipad, I am so there it aint funny

Anonymous

hulu and netflix? Sure….if you’re American. Try to remember that America isn’t the world. ^_^

Anonymous

isn’t Lego copyrighted? or is the image of generic BRICKS (not tiles, I’ve never heard that before)?

freshyill

I consider the lack of Flash to be a feature. Flash on the web can’t die soon enough.

Xopher

“FLASH! Ah-ahhhh!”

MrMonkey

Thanks a lot. Now I’m going to have that song stuck in my head for the rest of the day. OTOH, I used to love that movie, so thanks for the flashback. :)
Anonymous

He’ll save every one of us!

ahankinson

1. When people try to load up their favourite flash site and get a big blue lego, they won’t go crying to Apple; they’ll complain to the site. If content creators want to take advantage of this market, they’ll need to start using actual standards, not Flash. This is a good thing.

2. I think the comments about this being like the floppy drive are spot on. This is Apple’s MO: ruthlessly push forward without regard for the current status quo. See also: including USB when everyone was still on serial/parallel ports; the AIO form factor when everyone was still monitor/tower; Firewire on the iPod when everyone was still on USB1, etc.

3. I was ‘meh’ about the iPad until I watched the intro video. Now I know that this will be my next laptop, especially with the keyboard attachment. It’s not the specs that got me, it’s the multi-touch manipulation of content. That’s going to be absolutely *huge* in the years to come, and will eventually make any keyboard/mouse interaction seem limited and slow.

I think we’re really heading towards a “Star Trek” future. We’ll have a big central computer in our homes, and then mobile devices that link and sync to it.

Padraig

You lot haven’t got a clue:

1. NOT having a feature is itself a feature – get with it!

2. Flash is proprietary. It is not owned by Apple and therefore is bad, bad, bad and Apple will not pay Adobe ANY money to use bad things.

3. Multi-tasking is complicated and not something that Apple users are used to. Buyers of Apple products like the simpler things in life and so should you.

4. Gilded cages are good for you.

5. Look closely into the reality distortion field. You know you want to.

6. It is spelt ‘fanbois’ not fanboys…get a clue!

7. Get an iPad or get a life…you can’t have both.

8. Wait for the release of the slimmer version of the iPad which has wings and better moisture absorbency.

Anonymous

Flash is the single worst thing that’s ever happened to the WWW. It’s a terrible piece of software, and violates every design goal the web was based on.

Anyone who choses to use it is an idiot.

The sooner we can get past it, the better, and I am shocked that boingboing isn’t trumpeting apple’s choice to eschew it (but then, boingboing’s page is full of flash now, so I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise.)

Anonymous

The iPhone doesn’t do Flash, either. Many people complain about it. It doesn’t seem to be hurting sales. Given their main interest is commercial, I don’t think Apple are too worried.

Anonymous

Par the course, commentators blame Flash for all their problems, and for having bugs. How dare software have bugs. Firefox has low CPU/memory usage and never crashes, and the rest is to blame on Flash.

HTML5 will fix everything by using the more restrictive H.264 format, and by not actually addressing major advantages Flash still has over JavaScript.

I want HTML/JavaScript to win. I really do. But I can’t go anywhere on the Internet without some nerds hating on something that’s actually totally reasonable, all while trumpeting inferior solutions that usually don’t exist yet. Sigh.

Anonymous

Love the apple fanboys who are trying to justify why Flash isn’t supported. It’s actually not about Flash being good or bad but it’s about giving the consumers the choice to use or not use it. Apple doesn’t give you the choice.

Anonymous

If this puts pressure on Adobe to open source Flash, then it’s a good thing. If it puts pressure on Apple to beef up HTML standards compliance in WebKit, then it’s good. If it makes folks reconsider “Do I really need a Flash based interface for my login screen?” then it’s good.

In terms of an open web, I see a kick in the right direction with those blue lego bricks.

Anonymous

It’s not a matter of Flash being horrible, it’s a matter of buying a web browsing appliance which can’t do so properly.

When HTML5 becomes the standard then perhaps the IPad will be a sound purchase. Until then, a netbook with a touch screen will have to suffice.

arkizzle / Moderator

I reckon Flash will never be on the iPhone/iPod/iPad because devs could build 90% of the functionality (and responsiveness) of AppStore apps in Flash, but not bother with the AppStore.

That’s not necessarily true of lots of WebApps (responsiveness, permissions), which are allowed.

evilpeacock

If nothing else, this whole debate has revealed how many sites using Flash have failed to provide fallback alternate content. With everybody chanting “SEO”, “SEO” nowadays you’d think this would be more commonplace.

If they had built fallback content the lack of Flash would matter much less for navigation and content, although not video.

Central Squared

I’d like any of the flash haters to tell me what you’d use as a replacement for say dynamic charting as an example. There is no other technology that is currently cross-browser friendly that can do it. You may not use flash, but there’s a reason it’s on 99% of machines these days. And nothing close to Flex in the slightest. I have a vested interest, I’m an interactive designer/developer, and it’s not that I’m married to flash, there’s just no replacement. I write all kinds of interactive data-driven apps that would be impossible to do otherwise. Apple should just give users the choice. I can live without it not on the iphone, but on the ipad, I don’t think so.

Volker

> There is no other technology that is currently cross-browser friendly that can do it.

First of all, flash is not cross-browser friendly. On anything but windows/x86 it just limps along, if it exists at all. Text mode browsers? What, there are blind people?

Data-driven charting could be (or can be soon) either done with javascript+svg in simple cases, or java applets for more serious stuff.

microcars

Hey Restaurants!
Guess what I see on my iPhone when I look up your website to find out more info before I go to your establishment to spend money?

yeah.

and that is another reason your website won’t show up when I search for it.

Google maps can only do so much.

Anonymous

Love it or hate it there’s a lot of personal and business cloud computing getting done through Flash UIs. To tout the iPad as a device for browsing the web and cloud computing and not support Flash is a grave oversight. I agree that HTML5 is a better standard but Flash is here now and any device intended for cloud computing needs to support it.

zio_donnie

in previous posts Apple fanbois said that the iPad was a netbook for grannies. an all in one no-hassle solution for easy web browsing for the complete web illiterate.

now they back pedal saying that actually flash is not important and it is an inferior standard and other geek mumbo jumbo. the tecno-neanderthal granma is forgotten and they are talking about tech savvy people again.

HTML5? yeah sure i am all for it. but why the “it just works” demographic should know what HTML5 is and why if it has that kind of knowledge it would not notice the complete absence of USB, camera and multitasking?

let me get this straight. is the ipad a plug and play web device? no it is not. flash being a turd has nothing to do with it. the iPad is not grandma friendly because the web is what it is NOW not after 10 years of wishful thinking.

seriously now. grandmas savvy enough to wait for HTML5 and not care about flash yet somehow indifferent for USB and multitasking? who the fuck is going to buy one and for what reason?

Padraig

LOL

People posting here about Flash not being a standard or that the reason Apple don’t LET you use it is because it’s so bad.

Apple don’t care about ISO standards. They don’t care about standards, full stop. They want to make their own PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE the standard. They want you to stay within their little garden and do what they think you should be doing.

If you seriously don’t get this, then you really need to lift up your head and compare and contrast what others are able to do with what Apple want you to do.

It is a no-brainer.

Apple fanbois (and by this I do not mean Apple users collectively, just the reactionary, knee-jerk, flag-wavers) cannot be reasoned with. They like having their machines deliberately crippled for their own good.

I really think Apple should create it’s own Internet. At least that way they can all stay within their own walled garden and they won’t be out here annoying the average ‘net user.

Go Steve, make you’re own intratube world. Call it iNet or iTube (TM being applied for at present).

LOL

joeposts

“They like having their machines deliberately crippled for their own good.”

you got it all wrong. Adobe is screwing up flash for Macs to make Apple look bad. And to make Adobe look bad. Adobe is a loose cannon.
- Brainspore
  
  Adobe is screwing up flash for Macs to make Apple look bad. And to make Adobe look bad. Adobe is a loose cannon.
  
  Flash has been around since 1996. If your newfangled gadget can’t support a 14-year-old web technology then maybe it’s not such an amazing gadget after all. I still own a PowerMac G4 with a 450Ghz processor and it can handle most Flash sites just fine. If the iPad can’t keep up with what Apple themselves were selling over a decade ago then that’s on them, not Adobe.
  - Brainspore
    
    I just realized that I’m so tired I missed joeposts’ now-obvious ironic tone in that last post. Good night!
  - Volker
    
    > Flash has been around since 1996.
    
    The 64 bit instruction set used by all PCs nowadays (amd64, later embraced by intel and nowadays called x86_64) has been around 2000, and actual CPUs have been around since 2003.
    
    To this date, a 64-bit flash plugin has not been released. All you can get is a prerelease/alpha version.
    
    If your “web standard” doesn’t run natively on 7-year old hardware, maybe it is not such an amazing web standard after all.
    - Brainspore
      
      I admit much of the technojargon is over my head. All I know is that my 11-year-old mac can handle Flash content just fine while a brand new iPad can’t, and that seems pretty silly.
  - Cowicide
    
    I still own a PowerMac G4 with a 450Ghz processor and it can handle most Flash sites just fine.
    
    Just fine? LOL I doubt that. Unless you stuck a more modern video card in the thing.

Anonymous

Came for the battle over the proper use of “Lego”; leaving unsatisfied.

Sharkhunt

Let’s be clear about a few things…

1. H.264 video, which YouTube and others are using to implement HTML5 video, is not an open standard. It is a proprietary codec with a license that changes from year to year in response to market conditions. The license terms are liberal now, but could change at any year in the future much like the costs associated with .mp3 and .gif did. See the following for more in-depth discussion … http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/2010/01/html5-video-and-h-264-what-history-tells-us-and-why-were-standing-with-the-web/

2. Bringing up that some web apps like Farmville are available from the Apple store isn’t the selling point that it sounds like it should be. Farmville via their flash site is free. The Apple store app is not. I don’t see where having to pay for the privilege of consuming content on the iPad that I would be able to consume for free on a NetBook or non-Apple tablet is a benefit.

3. This is not the same as Apple removing the floppy drive from their iMac. Removing the floppy allowed consumers to but a USB floppy drive if they still needed access to that media; this was a popular accessory when Apple made that transition. With the iPad, there is no user option to consume flash content. With the iMac, the cost was moved to the consumer but there was still choice. With the iPad, there is no choice.

That 1984 commercial just gets more and more ironic every year…

Stooge

Sharkhunt, there’s nothing stopping the producers of Farmville making the game available for free on iTunes.

Volker

I’d go as far as saying that the lack of flash is the iPad’s best feature as far as software is concerned.

Using flashblock on firefox for years now, and there are really only a handful of uses of flash on the web that are worthwhile. And those will be replaced by html5. Looking forward to a faster, safer internet when the last flash plugin is gone the way of the dodo!

jhhl

Flash – back when it was invented – was primarily a way to present animated vector graphics in a highly compressed and simple way. It exports nicely to arbitrary sized pixel frames: see “Waltz With Bashir” and “Sita Sings The Blues” for good uses of Flash. But when you use it as a website content provider, you sacrifice a visibility to search engines. Flash sites generally violate one of my longstanding maxims about interface design: an interface should not be a guessing game. HTML5′s video and Canvas really can handle all the rendering that flash does, and javascript can easily provide all the scripting. What’s missing is an IDE for HTML5 that wraps a lot of flashy gadgetry in javascript classes.
Meanwhile, anyone with a really good flash “app” can translate it into a native code app using Adobe’s Flash Professional CS5 developer tool, and then actually CHARGE for the app and get paid.

peterbruells

Oddly enough, non of these sites matter to me. Not them, not their German counterparts,

I usually surf with a flash blocker on, which excludes only youtube.

I very rarely feel the need to allow the flash content to play.

I refuse to believe that I’m in any way special, so there must be millions of people with a bit of disposable income who would like the device.

I can understand the sentiment, though, but I don’t believe that it will hinder the market, as long as this is only an extension of a “real computer”.

blueelm

Oh eff flash.

ARSullivan

According to the Adobe MAX conference back in October ’09, Flash will finally be available on smart phones, including the iPhone, in 2010. No specific date was given but I was left with the impression it was going to be in the 1st quarter. That release date would tie in nicely with the iPad’s 3G model availability in April.

Here is the link to the entire Adobe MAX conference materials publicly available: http://2009.max.adobe.com/online/

cartisien

Ha, This is great. There is also another site out there that is called Blue Legos that kinda shows the same thing: http://www.bluelegos.com

Caroline

zio_donnie, I was the “fanboi” you were bashing in the other thread for saying the iPad was good for non-tech-savvy folks (even though I’d really have to be a “fangurl”), and I haven’t posted on this thread or said a damn thing about Flash before now. Don’t make judgments about other people for what they haven’t said.

As a matter of fact, it irritates me that Apple is not supporting Flash on this device, and it irritates me that they won’t support it on the iPhone/iPod touch, too. It’s not a dealbreaker for me with the iPhone, but it’s a thorn in my side. I often run into content I’d like to view on my iPhone but can’t, and it’s frustrating.

I’ve heard the arguments for switching to HTML5. Yeah, Flash sucks from a technical standpoint and I’d love to see it go away. But Flash is still a widely accepted standard. You don’t really have the whole internet without it, and Apple should support it on the iPhone and iPad.

Marcel

So waitaminit. Am I correct in assuming that Apple is now more or less blackmailing a whole range of networks into ditching the Flash format alltogether?
Is this a game of Apple’s gong to kill Flash?

Okay, let’s see what’s going to happen.

Fight!

Johnny Blaze

Adobe can take Flash and shove it up its sanctimonious ass.

It’s finally apparent that the reason why most of Adobe applications are broken is because they sit at their computers and jerk it to BangBros porn.

Egypt Urnash

I started working in Flash back in 2000, at the forefront of people using it for animation on the web.

Our shop was pretty much entirely an Apple shop; we had a bunch of gumdrop iMacs and a handful of towers. Flash’s performance was always abysmal compared to that of Windows boxes back then, both the plugin and the editor.

When Flash 5 came out, there was a Mac-only 5.01 release for the special Mac-only crash bugs in the editor.

The situation has not gotten any better over the intervening decade; Flash’s performance is still much worse on my Mac than on my boyfriends’ Windows boxes. In the plugin and in the editor. It maxes my CPU and still can’t deliver a reliable frame-rate, even though similar stuff like Unity can deliver a complicated 3D interactive experience.

If Adobe can’t be bothered to get off their ass and actually optimize Flash’s Mac performance then why should Apple bother bending over backwards to get it working on their devices?

estranged

To contrast with fake photoshop mockups, here’s what a lot of those sites actually look like in mobile safari today.

http://requestresponse.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-bad-is-web-in-mobile-safari.html

Anonymous

The HTML 5 comments sound like ‘please pay today for a hamburger tomorrow’ – sure HTML 5 might be great and put flash to bed but it isn’t here NOW which is when I want to use my devices.

The flaws of flash are easy to spot but it does have a lot of features as well and it is more than apparent that part of Apple’s problem with it is that flash on an iphone, touch, or ipad would provide an equal or often better free source for many of what are currently pay apps and remove their ability to keep users from having apps they (apple) don’t like.

batu b

Software working on hardware: I thought that was traditionally an adaptation software makers had to make? Why is this Apple’s fault? Adobe’s got some money in the bank, I’m sure they can figure out how to get vector graphics working on an ARM clone. Get used to the blue lego? How about Flash getting used to getting left behind?

dolo54

choice is better than no choice. there is no defending lack of choice. most people want to be able to view flash when necessary or desired. the main reason apple doesn’t put flash on their ipad is $$$. they charge for apps. you can make games and many other apps in flash and they wouldn’t go through apple. html5 may replace flash but the ipad doesn’t support it either. not to mention as a developer, the pain involved in testing html on many different platforms and browsers. at least when you make an app in flash you know it will look the same on every computer.

madzack

LOL @ lack of flash being a software feature. no matter how much the few of you who hate flash dislike it it wont change the fact a lot of websites people “casually browse” use flash. its one thing not to have it on your phone where the primary function of the device is to be a phone. but on a device where its supposed to be some always connected magic internet tablet to leave it out is to say the least disappointing.

wrybread

I’m surprised to see so many people defending Apple’s exclusion of Flash, as if it were an idealogical choice. Newsflash: Flash works great on an iPod/iPhone IF you jailbreak it. The only reason Apple excludes Flash is that if Flash worked on iWhatevers, people wouldn’t rely on the AppStore any longer since you would run apps in a browsers.

Still think Apple is an angel for keeping Flash off the device?

blueelm

I agree with you as far as the reasoning. I don’t thiink apple is trying to promote a better internet so much as promote a better fiscal year.

I’m not really an apple fan so much actually. In fact my phone and Ipod are my only apple products. But… I still dislike flash. I used to work with flash, it was a chunk of what I had to do in school. I think it’s neat for some things, but I don’t like it so much when I encounter it on the web. In fact I dread it.

zio_donnie

hey don’t take this personally. it is not just you there are many many people arguing that the iPad is good enough a MID for the non tech savvy. yet when one mentions flash (and the inability to save files from the web on the device or the akward IMing what with the virtual keyboard no webcam and all) magically the non tech savvy transform in HTML5 geek enthusiasts that block flash anyway and dont give a damn about farmville or the rest of the flash based internet.

as i said before i own an itouch so i know the loops of surfing on iphone OS. it is something i can live with after all the ipod’s core function is music (at least it is for me) and the browsing is a welcome extra, so i don’t expect it to be perfect. i would buy one even without the browsing feature.

but a 10″ screen device that is promoted as an internet browsing all in one machine it is a dealbreaker not supporting basic stuff as flash, videoiming and file saving. WTF this stuff IS casual browsing. but apple fanboi will have none of that. it will invent the neandertal granma with an interest in HTML5 as the target demographic instead of admitting the fail.

don’t get me wrong. i hate flash as much as everybody. but i don’t think that apple is a solution actually they are more evil with their tie-in monopoly. apple does not support flash because it competes with their itunes offerings not because it is an inferior tech. Jobs is not an open standard paladin but pure monopolist evil far worse than Gates would ever have dreamed. I would like to see both the itunes “ecosystem” and flash die a horrible death ASAP.

hep cat

Flash sucks on windows and linux too.
One of my biggest desires is a way to kill the flash process when it is hidden from the windows task manager like it was some virus.

I wonder what the carbon footprint of all those busy looping CPU hogging flash apps is.

I really wish that flash would just go away, and if Apple can speed that along it’s fine with me.

I don’t have anything against Apple or Adobe , in fact if adobe ever gets around to making a version of 64 bit photoshop for Mac I’d buy it and an apple to go with it.

Did I mention how much flash sucks?

Volker

Whoa, quite a number of Flash astroturfers comming out in support! Is it getting lonely on the “flashblog.com”?

You only have to use a non-x86 or non-windows machine once and the limitations of flash become painfully obvious. On windows/x86 it takes a little bit longer (namely until you become aware of the scary security track record).

zio_donnie

LOL so the iPad does not support flash for security reasons? why is it then that OSX supports flash? and how come mac users have not complained for the security holes on their macbooks? why jesus Jobs the good software paladin does not drop flash alltogether? is it maybe that flash apps are free and compete directly with itunes offerings? just maybe? or maybe i should take off my tinfoil hat and see the truth that apple wants me to have the best of the best experience no strings attached.
- Volker
  
  > i should take off my tinfoil hat and see the truth that apple wants me to have the best of the best experience no strings attached.
  
  Huh? I don’t own a single Apple product. Of course Apple only wants to maximize its own bottom line by locking out flash.
  
  I have no interest in walled gardens and locked down systems. I don’t like flash for exactly the same reason that I don’t have an iphone.
  - zio_donnie
    
    but i do own an ipod touch and i am willing to buy whatever device fits my needs specially if hackable. i ain’t no fanboi of whatever corporation i am interested only at the bottomline.
    
    so flash sucks everyone knows that. but apple not supporting it is not a good thing. if flash dies because of apple it will all be for the sake of a crippled itunes-y controlled internet not for security or stability reasons.
    
    flash should be substituted by another standard not killed by the walled garden mentallity. if you think flash sucks think of a world where content is only available through toy iphone apps delivered on locked down ipads or kindles or whatever appliances. i defend the idea of the generic pc with a full OS. i predict that this closed “ecosystem” crap will make windows the free software platform of the future.

MasterSauce

My question is this: Why Not Flash?

I understand on the iPhone that Flash might have overwhelmed the small processor or Safari. Ok, I’d accept that for the sake of argument. But not supporting Flash on a device that’s supposed to bridge the gap between a lappy and a phone just gives fuel to the fire to the argument that this device is pointless/a large iPhone. Killing all Flash is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Second, saying HTML 5 is better is NOT a reason to leave out Flash support. It’s like saying we should stop shoveling coal because wind/hydro power is better. Yeah, it’s better, but we still run on coal, so please keep shoveling till we catch up.

With not enough disposable income to iPad Apple’s pockets,
~Sauce

Anonymous

I am used to blue icons– I use Flashblock. Safer that way…

Anonymous

Flash sucks, yeah… on my 64-bit linux, it crashes all the time. Good thing Chrome can resist a plugin-crash. Other browsers would have died with it. As for the alternatives, gnash only supports very few flash applets (uhm… applet is the name for a java thingy, but what’s the official name for a flash thingy???) On a 32-bit OS, flash is more stable, but it’s very CPU-hungry. If it’s adobe to blaim, or programmers of the flash-applets, that I do not know. All I know is, it eats a lot of my CPU and that doesn’t make me happy. As for the iPad, well… HTML5 is the way it should support video stuff, and then it should also support theora. But flash is being used for more then just video. Is there an HTML5 replacement for all other uses? I guess not.

Anonymous

I’ll be ending up with an Android based tablet. It will be more powerful anyway, and more affordable.

danegeld

The whole reason PostScript and PDF are widely adopted is because the formats are open – Adobe still manages to make money from them by selling Illustrator, Acrobat, etc.

with Flash from the same company, the format is closed. Is it the case that the format is closed to protect the revenue that Adobe derive from selling competing authoring tools, or is it a consequence of the way that Adobe got Flash – via acquiring Macromedia, rather than by inventing it?

You might think Adobe would see that publishing the source code to the flash player is vital to getting it widely adopted – or perhaps Adobe are going to produce an HTML5 authoring suite?

Stooge

danegeld, whatever one’s opinion of Flash, it certainly qualifies as a widely adopted format.

I’d call it a partially-open format, as Adobe have published a good chunk of the spec: last year they finally published the RTMP spec, for example. However, important bits still remain unpublished, and those seem to be the bits encumbered with licensed proprietary IP.

rushkoff

If Flash sucks (I’m not saying it doesn’t), why does a site like Hulu or Netflix choose to use it for movie-playing?

And, more importantly – what should I use instead?

The iPad: Get used to blue Lego tiles

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