About those blue lego tiles

John Gruber (and Rob Scoble) explain why the iPad's lack of Flash is a bigger problem for Adobe than it is for Apple. Just one example: some of the sites featured in the already-infamous 'blue legos' image already had Flash-free editions.

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Marcel

Apple: “This round hole is wrong for my square peg!”
t1wl3t

exactly … about time flash got a kick up the ass .. maybe they’ll pull their finger out and streamline their code or html5 will take over..
Anonymous

@#1 http://theflashblog.com/?p=1641

But letâ€™s talk more about the Flash Player on the Mac. If it is not 100% on par with the Windows player people assume that it is all our fault. The facts show that this is simply not the case. Letâ€™s take for example the question of hardware acceleration for H.264 video that we released with Flash Player 10.1. Here you can see some published results for how much the situation has improved on Windows. Unfortunately we could not add this acceleration to the Mac player because Apple does not provide a public API to make this happen. You can easily verify that by asking Apple. Iâ€™m happy to say that we still made some improvements for the Mac player when it comes to video playback, but we simply could not implement the hardware acceleration. This is but one example of stumbling blocks we face when it comes to Apple.
- arkizzle / Moderator
  
  “But letâ€™s talk more about the Flash Player on the Mac. If it is not 100% on par with the Windows player people assume that it is all our fault. The facts show that this is simply not the case. Letâ€™s take for example the question of hardware acceleration for H.264 video ..
  
  Always with the API restrictions on H.264..
  
  Flash was shit on the Mac before it was even capable of streaming video. What excuse now?
EH

i have to imagine that adobe is at least a little shatbrix about the iphone/ipad. flash unavailability on the platform has gone on for far too long for me to think that they have a handle on it.
Anonymous

Does anyone really think Steve Jobs cares that 75 million (and counting) iPhone OS users can’t access Hulu? When Apple’s generating $50 billion in annual revenue, and sitting on $40 billion in cash reserves? Please.

Meanwhile, do you think Hulu cares that there are 75 million mobile media consumers currently out of reach to them? (And now here comes the iPad?) You bet your ass they do.

The bigger than number gets, the weaker Flash gets.

Hulu will go HTML5/H.264 and/or release an iApp by summer.
Anonymous

Bricks. They’re very clearly bricks, not tiles.
Anonymous

Blue lego tiles totally overblown. The popular comparison page is some “artists” rendering not accounting for the fact all the sites except for two have optimized iPhone apps that provide access to the missing video content. Yes, even the the bangbros!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kigiphoto/4314276957/sizes/o/
gobo

I remember hearing an Adobe rep telling me how wonderful it would be when their new version of Flash came out specifically made to run on celphones. “It’ll be a tiny OS that will work on every celphone, and allow any sort of video or interactivity. All celphones will use it — it’s the future!”

That was 2005. Still waiting, guys. Hard to feel sorry for you — you had this in mind five years ago.
gobo

I remember hearing an Adobe rep telling me how wonderful it would be when their new version of Flash came out specifically made to run on celphones. “It’ll be a tiny OS that will work on every celphone, and allow any sort of video or interactivity. All celphones will use it — it’s the future!”

That was 2005. Still waiting, guys. Hard to feel sorry for you — you had this in mind five years ago.
dougrogers

Is that what those little blue lego blocks are then? Shatbrix?
Halloween Jack

Flash evangelist Lee Brimelow made his little poster showing what a bunch of Flash-using web sites look like without Flash without actually looking to see how they render on MobileSafari.

On his blog, he makes a big deal out of deleting the Bang Bros screenshot, but doesn’t mention the above tidbit. MEMEFAIL
grimc

iPhone apps and mobile sites are “Flash-free”, but aren’t really a good counterpoint to Brimelow’s argument. It’s the iTouchXL v. full-sized web browsing, not v. mobile browsing.
booticon

First off, it’s cute to see this guy chasing around blog posts to defend himself.

Anyway, I don’t have nearly as many problems with Flash in OSX than I used to, but they’re still there. Flash and other plugins have even inspired the Chome and Firefox teams to segregate tabs into their own running processes, so if a plugin freaks out you don’t lose your whole browser.

In my experience, Flash has only worked acceptably in a single set of OSes: Windows. Freakin’ SILVERLIGHT works better for me in OSX.

Not only that, but how well do people expect Flash to work on a mobile platform? I’m not sure if there’s anything in place to account for mouseovers for menu drop downs and the like. Maybe Flash Lite for video sites would be a good compromise.

That said, Gruber’s last point is key here. I’d expect to see an HTML5 version of Hulu soon, or even an app (although I’m not sure how Apple would feel about that competing with iTunes).
- joeposts
  
  ‘Flash has only worked acceptably in a single set of OSes: Windows.’
  
  I hear so much about how poorly it runs outside of Windows, but it runs fine in FF on my Ubuntu laptop that was built around 2000. Firefox itself is the real problem in Ubuntu. There’s some lag with flash, but it’s comparable to java applets and other scripts. Mac users seem to be the ones experiencing problems – some people report overheating from Flash?? lol. It’s completely bizarre that Adobe would sabotage Flash for Mac users but make it work for Windows and Linux users. #2′s posting makes sense to me.
  
  Flash-based sites are terrible. But it is a useful animation tool, and there are a lot of small apps that seem to use it effectively. I’d hate to see it disappear just to please Apple.
Anonymous

good news for us odd folk who tinker with systems where there is no flash plugin. eg linux on odd archs.
ikoino

Hey Rob, thanks bumping Gruber and Scobel’s posts. Gruber’s earlier take on Apple, Adobe, and Flash: http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/apple_adobe_flash clear up a few questions. Seemed pretty clear that anything that heats up my MacBook Pro would drain the battery.

Speaking of battery. The other big iPad complaint is lack of multi-tasking. Here’s my experience. Before the SDK, I was developing a Jailbreak app. I had loaded several other apps from Cydia – some, of which ran in the background. The result? A mobile pocket heater with one hour of battery life.
rduncan10

The problem is not that Apple is not allowing Flash on its iP devices, but that Apple is choosing what can and cannot go on to their devices.

Let’s say, as the blogger says, a web site owner were to come up with some alternative to Flash (say Facebook came up with some Flash alternative for playing Facebook games on the iP’s). Would Apple allow this, or would they block it to protect their app store monopoly?
- arkizzle / Moderator
  
  “Would Apple allow this, or would they block it to protect their app store monopoly?”
  
  http://www.google.com/mobile/voice/
  - rduncan10
    
    Google Voice on the iPhone doesn’t really compete with anything. What does the cell phone provider care if you use your voice plan or data plan to talk: you’re paying them either way.
    
    Flash applications, on the other hand, compete with almost everyone on the App Store and threaten’s this revenue stream for Apple
wygit

The Disney page shown is from
home.disney.go.com/iphone

Half the links in the CNN page take you to Flash pages

Several of images, are for APP store apps.

The youtube app displays a SUBSET of what’s on youtube.

Gruber finishes with:
“Whatâ€™s Hulu going to do? Sit there and wait? Whine about the blue boxes? Or do the practical thing and write software that delivers video to iPhone OS?”

So the solution to Flash is to have all websites create a separate freaking version for each possible platform that comes along?
MasterSauce

Goodness.
I feel like all of the defenders of Apple are primarily developers. They all say that HTML5 is better and that Apple is right not to include the support.

I’m a Consumer and I have to ask the question:
WTF?!
I have honestly never seen a group of people defending a company’s decision by saying in essence:
“Screw the consumer. They don’t know what they want or what’s good for them. We’ll decide what they want. Educated consumer, Go f**k yourself, the Future is Now!”

First: I don’t care if they have “mobile versions” of those sites. I want Full sites. The way they would be on a …netbook or laptop perhaps?
Second: The high minded thought that everyone should jump on board the HTML5 train because it’s progress, and ignore everyone else is utter Ayn Rand style BS.
And third: Stop quoting iPhone numbers in the Flash argument insomuch that XX million people are happy without Flash. That doesn’t line up at all. Phones are phones, they’re judged on different standards than a mobile computer.

One consumer who is confused as to why this is such a big deal to Apple,
~Sauce
Anonymous

How about the people who have to actually have to design the motion/graphics. If only there was some sort of toolset or program to let you make ascetically pleasing graphics (*your results may vary)… hmmmm
blax

People are pretty sure Hulu will magically come to the ipad when it more or less duplicates iTunes functionality.
MasterSauce

Oh, and one other thing.
As someone said in the Gizmodo comments,

Quote\
diabolusunknownTheSecond:

“The world is moving to HTML5″
Then that world doesn’t include [Apple], because then I wouldn’t have to f**king install Quicktime to see your iPad keynote and your movie trailers.
And I thought flash was bad. Quicktime is a disaster.
/quote.

Pretty much sums it up.
ryanrafferty

It’s past due time for Flash to die. It’s a relic that Adobe destroyed when they bought macromedia.

We don’t need flash, it’s quite simply a nightmare from all perspectives.

It drives your CPU into high gear, it allows many sites to install powerful tracking cookies, and it crashes seemingly a lot.

Why anyone would want flash anywhere is beyond me.
- Brainspore
  
  Why anyone would want flash anywhere is beyond me.
  
  OK, you hate Flash and any web site that uses it. Fine. But let’s say I’m in the mood for some Homestar Runner and I’m willing to accept the processor lag that comes with it- why the hell shouldn’t I be able to install the relevant plugin? If I shell out the money for an iPad I should be allowed to use it however I want without having it artificially crippled by a turtleneck-clad megalomaniac.
  - warreno
    
    Not a fan of Flash myself, and do not miss it on my iPhone (which, BTW, is not a phone; it is a small pocket computer). Don’t want it on an iPad either. I just wanted to point this out from Brainspore:
    
    a turtleneck-clad megalomaniac
    
    because it is one of the few descriptions of Steve Jobs that actually made me chuckle.
dolo54

this is the same sort of thing microsoft was sued for when they tried to make it so netscape would not work on windows. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/01/googles-dont-be-evil-mantra-is-bullshit-adobe-is-lazy-apples-steve-jobs
jobs is trying to be the next bill gates? that would be amusing.
arkizzle / Moderator

Q: “Does HTML 5 totally eliminate the need for Flash? I know HTML 5 supports video but there’s a lot more to Flash than video. Does HTML 5 cover it all?”

A: “Perhaps not 100%, but very close – apart from video (which HTML 5 handles separately), most Flash content could be replaced by scripted use of either SVG or the canvas element.”

That’s not really a fair statement, Flash is more than its web-presence. It’s also a content creation tool, that integrates data, scripting and interaction. It makes making interactive content very easy.
arkizzle / Moderator

“What does the cell phone provider care if you use your voice plan or data plan to talk: you’re paying them either way.”

Actually this is a better example than you credit it with, because with things like GVoice and Fring, potential customers are more likely to consider an iPod Touch over an iPhone. Then Apple has to worry about losing the (small) difference in margin, and not getting their ~$18 a month from the AT&T contract.

“Flash applications, on the other hand, compete with almost everyone on the App Store and threaten’s this revenue stream for Apple”

Yep, I made that exact argument on the other blue-Lego thread.

However, the question I answered in this thread, was about Apple blocking things that compete with the appstore. The point I tried to make with the GVoice link was that unregulated webapps are already allowed, and the reason I linked to GV specifically was that it had already been rejected from the appstore as an native app.

I doubt they’d let you install another runtime though (would involve the appstore obviously) to be able to do complex things with your webapp, as Java is uninstallable without jailbreaking.

Besides all that, however, there are already apps in the appstore that compete with Apple apps (not many, maybe), like Perfect Browser which competes directly with Safari (and is considerably better IMO, even if it does look like arse).
mneptok

Gruber completely misses that what drove sites to standardize was the mass adoption of Firefox by Windows users. The December 2009 statistics show Firefox with a 46% market share.

The drive was necessary because the sheer numbers demanded it.

And the Scoble quote starts with Letâ€™s go back a few years… and I don’ think the average consumer is willing to sit back and wait “a few years” for their iPad to have full web functionality.

At the iPad product launch, Jobs said that a new device would have to do some tasks significantly better than a smartphone or a laptop. The first task he mentioned was web browsing. And as it stands, the iPad, today, does not seem to do web browsing appreciably better than does the iPhone.

Scoble also hasn’t looked too hard for sites that require IE. Last I checked, the private MLS site for real estate agents required the use of an ActiveX control.
Chesterfield

Does HTML 5 totally eliminate the need for Flash? I know HTML 5 supports video but there’s a lot more to Flash than video. Does HTML 5 cover it all?
- Anonymous
  
  Does HTML 5 totally eliminate the need for Flash? I know HTML 5 supports video but there’s a lot more to Flash than video. Does HTML 5 cover it all?
  
  Perhaps not 100%, but very close – apart from video (which HTML 5 handles separately), most Flash content could be replaced by scripted use of either SVG or the canvas element.
  
  There are two problems that hold it back for now – first, as ever, is Internet Explorer, a long way behind it’s rivals in terms of implementing the new standards. And second, tools – compared to Flash, writing little games and animations in HTML is a fairly laborious task.