Thoughts on Steve Jobs

[FlexThis]

I have been programing software, websites, games and computer applications since the ripe ole age of 6. My first computer was a TI 99 and my first language was TI-Basic. My first experience with an actual PC was the Apple II e. I have been both an evangelist for MAC during the Adobe/Apple design era and a hater during the MAC-N-CRASH era. Today I work with a PC on my left and a MAC on my right. It is my job to know both and program for both. Not to mention about about 7 different web browsers and another 8 email clients.

Recently Steve Jobs posted his "Thoughts on Flash" on the apple site. With it he pretty much rejected Flash out right. Listing 6 reasons for his decision on the matter. He even touched on Adobe's relationship to Apple in the past and their so called "abandonment of MAC" for the PC today.

I have been programming in Flash since Flash 4. You may remember a fun but roughly made game by the name of shred session. It has always been my intent to update and upgrade the game to one day play on mobile devices with better play and graphics. Now that intent has been somewhat sidelined at least on the iPhone.

While I didn't think at the time this announcement would have such an emotional impact on my life, but it has. I am now torn. I like Apple products but I do not believe they are the way to the future or that the world must adapt to Apple. In fact I believe the world is a free market for ideas and products and no single product should trump another. This is why I must code for multiple browsers, code in Flash and for non-flash users, for the iPhone, as well as, Droid.

Here are some of my thoughts as to why Steve Jobs said the statements he did and my responses to those comments.

1.) Proprietary Content: Steve claims Adobe Flash is 100% proprietary. HTML 5 can do what Flash does. An apple is setting the standard for the web on mobile devices.

Here are the facts: Adobe Flash is 100% proprietary - true. So is Objective C - which 100% of Apple Apps have to be in order to be considered for the App Store. HTML 5 is about 10-12 years from completion. As of today only Safari can fully render HTML 5. No other browser can do this. HTML 5 cannot tween shapes, has no vector render engine, and cannot compress graphics and video to the Nth degree. HTML 5 is also not as powerful as JAVA. HTML 5 cannot create Rich Media Experiences with a minute bandwidth file size (like a 7k fully rendered Pac Man game). All of these things and more can be accomplished with ease by Flash. As for mobile standards, my Blackberry did not have Safari installed, it came equipped with IE and Firefox . So while the claim by Apple is partially true, they have actually only helped to shape themselves. And BTW - you can't even view the source of web page on an iPhone, so what does he mean by "OPEN".

2.) Full Web: Steve claims that the video format H.264 will allow for video to play on the iPhone.

However, flash is not just a video format, it adapted to include video formats several years ago in addition to everything else Flash can do. (starting to sound like a droid commercial). By cleverly side stepping this issue, Steve is washing his hands of the Web for Flash. What he doesn't mention is the 97% of the web is enjoying Flash Player 10 content today! Steve claims that there are 50,000 games in the App Store. What he doesn't mention again are the MILLIONS of free flash games that have been on the web since Flash was invented.

3.) Reliability, security and performance: Steve is claiming that Flash is unsecured according to Symantec and that it doesn't run well on the iPhone.

I actually agree with him about security. Flash is extremely powerful and those issues would need to be and have been addressed by Adobe with the release of CS5. As for performance, his claims are unfounded. I recently downloaded 4 Flash games 2 for free and 2 for $.99 from the Apple App store and had no problems on my iPhone 3GS. Was actually happy to see some Flash on the iPhone.

4.) Battery Life: Steve points once again at video as the battery hog.

This is true, video no matter which format will drain your battery. What he fails to mention are the flash .swf movies that do not drain your battery. Honestly I have played Apps written in Objective C that drained my iPod Touch in under an hour. I mean completely dead. And these are Apple Apps!

5.) Touch: Steve claims Flash is built for mice.

Not even remotely true. With the introduction of Flash CS5 Adobe has launched several iPhone included features such as multi-touch to incorporate this very issue Steve mentions. Check Adobe Labs for yourself to see the complete list f iPhone supported features.

6.) Third party layer: Steve claims that having a third party slows the development process and puts you at the mercy of the third party for adding new features.

Geee Steve isn't that exactly what the Apple App Store Board does. When you submit an App for approval to the App Store you have to wait and wait and wait some more and if your app is rejected it is just rejected with no explanation. And if it is accepted and you have a bug in your code, you will need to wait and wait and wait some more for the App Board to approve your changes to your code. This makes life tremendously slow if you are an app developer.

In conclusion, I am not buying it for a second. In my eyes, this all boils down to control of media. Apple has done this from the start and balking at a platform that has earned it's stripes time and time again is foolish. Steve is nutz if he thinks the iPad is the best browsing experience sans Flash. Hell even Apple uses Flash on their site. Amazing!

Sorry to rant - but I needed to get that out!

~peace

[Allan]

I'll bite.

Here are the facts: Adobe Flash is 100% proprietary - true. So is Objective C - which 100% of Apple Apps have to be in order to be considered for the App Store.

1) One point here is that you can write Objective C in any editor you want. In order to write Actionscript, you are pretty much tied to Adobe's 100% proprietary (and bloody expensive) authoring tool.

2) There are also a lot of open source programs available that are coded in Obj.C.

3) You don't need Obj.C or the App store to write web apps. You can, however, write web apps in pretty much any other language you care to mention.

HTML 5 is about 10-12 years from completion. As of today only Safari can fully render HTML 5. No other browser can do this.

HTML5 and its surrounding standards are much closer than that to practical completion. It may not be ratified as a full W3C/ISO standard for quite some time, but many features are already supported in most browsers, and the others are coming along in every other browser forthwith. Even IE will be providing wide support for HTML5 in IE9.

At least HTML5 is going through the process. Do you think Adobe will be submitting Flash as a standard any time soon?

HTML 5 cannot tween shapes, has no vector render engine, and cannot compress graphics and video to the Nth degree. HTML 5 is also not as powerful as JAVA. HTML 5 cannot create Rich Media Experiences with a minute bandwidth file size (like a 7k fully rendered Pac Man game).

Canvas? SVG? Javascript? CSS3 transitions? Video transcoding with other codecs produces similar or superior results. H.264 may not be perfect; Ogg Theora has its issues; Google may be opening the codec (on2?) that it bought last year ...

I just don't understand why some people are so tied to doing things in Flash. There is nothing important you can do in Flash that you can't do with some other technology. If Google can make Quake 2 run in the browser without Flash ...

As for mobile standards, my Blackberry did not have Safari installed, it came equipped with IE and Firefox

Do a firmware upgrade at some point in the not-so-distant future and you may find the situation changed; RIM has adopted Webkit for the future. And your mobile browsing experience on the BB in either FF or IE blows big chunks of monkey poo in comparison to Webkit on iPhone/Android. BB is so far from setting mobile standards at this point, it's funny that you even bring it up.

So while the claim by Apple is partially true, they have actually only helped to shape themselves.

You have to give them more credit than this. Apple supports open source where it serves them, but at least they're supporting it in important areas. Making the Webkit source open was no small thing. Most of the underlying code of OSX is open source. Their contributions may serve themselves, but they also serve a much wider community. I'm not saying that they're angels of the F/OSS movement, but they do deserve more than what you've attributed. You're just mad and biased and not giving credit where it's due as a result.

And BTW - you can't even view the source of web page on an iPhone, so what does he mean by "OPEN".

On a device that isn't designed or intended for content creation, I don't really see how this matters or qualifies anything as not open. Sure, I've found myself wishing I could view source a few times on my phone, but me and you are hardly typical use-cases. Can you view source in mobile FF or IE?

What he doesn't mention is the 97% of the web is enjoying Flash Player 10 content today!

I think this is slightly disingenuous. 97% of browsers have Flash installed, sure; but that doesn't mean that every user actually uses it. Again, not that I'm a typical user, but I actually have a Flash blocker installed. Take away Flash the video codec and I doubt most people would notice or particularly care if Flash stopped working. YouTube already provides an option for alternative players/streams, and most video sites have plans to follow suit if they've not already. I think maybe Hasbro might be pissed at having to recode Scrabble for Facebook in Javascript, but they'd either do it, someone else would, or people will just play it on their desktops instead of on the go. Big loss there.

The fact is that there are essentially no examples of mission critical applications on the web that depend on Flash. Sorry, but 7KB Pacman games don't really count as "useful."

Steve claims that there are 50,000 games in the App Store. What he doesn't mention again are the MILLIONS of free flash games that have been on the web since Flash was invented.

And just like 49,900 of the applications in the app store, there are MILLIONS of completely useless Flash garbage games out there that nobody (important) is going to miss.

As for performance, his claims are unfounded.

His claims are not unfounded. Flash is the #1 reported reason for crashes on OS X. Even on my Macbook Pro w/4gb RAM, Flash encoded movies will spin up my fans almost every time. Sure the situation is getting better. But as of the moment Flash offers a degraded experience for OSX. Since iPhone OS is based on OSX, the situation wouldn't be much better.

This is true, video no matter which format will drain your battery.

But the figure he quoted was that Flash encoded movies will drain the battery something on the order of twice as fast as the same movie encoded in h.264.

What he fails to mention are the flash .swf movies that do not drain your battery. Honestly I have played Apps written in Objective C that drained my iPod Touch in under an hour. I mean completely dead. And these are Apple Apps!

Anecdotal. And probably not true for the majority of users. His specific reference was with Flash-encoded video, not applications. And any application worth its salt could be recoded in some other language. If you're app can't be ported, you're probably a shitty programmer.

5.) Touch: Steve claims Flash is built for mice.

Not even remotely true. With the introduction of Flash CS5 Adobe has launched several iPhone included features such as multi-touch to incorporate this very issue Steve mentions. Check Adobe Labs for yourself to see the complete list f iPhone supported features.

This is, actually, remotely true (though I agree it's a flimsy argument). His point was that traditionally Flash has been exceptionally mouse-oriented and that most *existing* applications would fail to work if Apple suddenly reversed course and added Flash to the platform tomorrow. Yeah, you'll be able to (or not if 3.1.1 of the EULA is enforced with any rigor) write new apps with touch support, but existing apps would need to be re-written.

6.) Third party layer: Steve claims that having a third party slows the development process and puts you at the mercy of the third party for adding new features.

Geee Steve isn't that exactly what the Apple App Store Board does.

I think you've misunderstood this point almost entirely.

1) With the App store, the relationship is two-way; there's Apple and the developer. Granted, their process approval sucks and should be fixed. But it's two way. Add Flash CS5 (or any other 3rd party dev platform) into the mix and now you've got a middle man dictating what features are supported. 2) With web applications there are no such restrictions or limitations and the relationship is developer -> user. Add Flash in and now it's Adobe -> developer -> user. But then if Apple releases a new API for Mobile Safari, Flash devs have to wait for Adobe to implement it before using it. It's not an ideal situation, and I think Apple is totally justified in restricting 3rd party coding platforms given it's market position. Don't like it? Don't code for iPhone. It's that simple.

In conclusion, I am not buying it for a second. In my eyes, this all boils down to control of media.

I don't think you're totally wrong. At the same time, I don't want Adobe controlling the media market any more than I want Apple controlling it. And that what it boils down to me; do you think if Adobe were in Apple's place they be any less aggressive about pushing others out of the market? And I trust Apple more than I do Adobe.

Apple has done this from the start and balking at a platform that has earned it's stripes time and time again is foolish.

Apple has done what any privately held company would do in its position, while at the same time contributing to F/OSS in a way that Adobe would never have done and will never do.

Steve is nutz if he thinks the iPad is the best browsing experience sans Flash.

Name a better mobile browsing experience in the same class? Oh wait, the iPad is in a class by itself at the moment. On my iPhone, I've not once in 3 years of using it found myself thinking "Man, if only I had Flash support on this thing, it would be a much better experience. I don't think I'm alone in that. If Apple offered Flash on iPhone, I'd turn it off

Hell even Apple uses Flash on their site. Amazing!

If it's still in use there, it's being phased out, and fast. I'd actually love to see an example of an apple.com page that uses Flash today.

At any rate, good times

[FlexThis]

The closest thing to flash on the web is a Java applet. And if you have ever run one through a web browser you would know what a pain that can be, especially if your Java is not up to date. Flash can do all that Java Applets can do, with minimal code. Actionscript is pretty sweet and easy to learn. Java is not, nor is Objective C. You can however, use Appcelerator or Titanium to write Ajax style web apps in Html 5 and JQTouch with JQuery to animate an Apple style interface. But this is NOT a true OOP experience. And typical users don't know nor understand the difference.

I am not an Apple fan boy. I use Adobe products daily. Flash pays my bills and makes life easier in the development process. I know how to write good clean code that won't suck the life out of your processors. I have tried to duplicate Flash OOP techniques and animating tricks that both save bandwidth and processor power, by using Html 5 to no avail. It simply can't be done. Period! And I challenge you to prove me wrong. Pm me for URLS.

As for video, I want it to load fast. I don't care if that means no Flash. I am ok with YouTube on my iPhone.

At the end of the day, I just want my Flash apps and content on my damn phone and I fault both sides for butting heads, but Jobs more for drawing a line.

[FlexThis]

http://quasipartikel.at/tween/

above is a shape tween example in HTML 5. Looks like shit on my iPhone.

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flas ... or_iphone/

now go download the sp avatar creator or fickleblox and tell me your thoughts? Both are written in Flash and converted to OBj C with the CS5 converter. If you are on anything lower than 3gs, you will need to get a new phone. The CS5 converter was written with 3gs in mind.

I really am struggling to see the overall issue. Still looks like monopolization to me.

And BTW- I don't buy the ipad. Acer makes a 200 notebook that runs XP and has a DVD drive. Why can't Apple just make me a touch screen air book? I'd evangelize that! But the iTampon is worthless, can't put it in my pocket, take a photo, or run software. But it will blend in a blender and makes a nice coffee coaster.

[Allan]

If you seriously think an $200 Acer running XP and a DVD drive is in any way comparable to an iPad ... well, I'm leaving this (apparently 1 way anyhow) conversation.

Ciao.

[habitat]

ITT: 2 fanboys that will never reach any sort of agreement.

[FlexThis]

If you are near sighted(old and have trouble seeing small text) and have an IQ less than 90 (easily swayed to buy toys), then the ipad is for you .

However, this is a topic about flash. I don't agree with the Apple agenda. Jobs is bummed that adobe has chosen a larger market to place focus in recent years and now wishes to do the same. Apple makes great canned products that serve their niche well and should be applauded for that. I have always enjoyed the viewing quality of MAC displays and their somewhat (I have spent my share of time resolving extension conflicts) crash free machines.

I got no beef with you Alan. My beef is with Jobs. Don't close your mind because I don't see value in the ipad. I do see potential, just no real value today at the price being charged.

I need help solving my flash crisis. If flash is going the way of the dodo, then I need a replacement that isn't some ginormous JavaScript library. It needs to be better than flash to replace, not just hit on most of what it can do. Understand? I don't want to replace vasek with the hopes of some new replacement that may or may not have the vested dedication of the original.

~peace

[Tsiangkun]

It comes down to advertisers, and other crappy flash based "apps" that suck the life out of the mobile online experience.

Most of the flash that crashes Safari comes from shitty advertisements.

I don't miss them, or the crashes, at all on my IPhoneOS devices.

[FlexThis]

I have to debug those crappy ads when they come through our sites at work. You would be amazed at the short cuts taken or complete lack of experience with OOP.

For those I agree 100%. Not all Flash is worth saving. However, those rich media ads Jack up the CPM rate by $2. Static ads on our sites can go for around $5. While the Flash ads go for $7 in the same location. While I don't like having my screen jump around while I am trying to read, those ads generate real capital and drive up the price.

We are looking to benefit more from mobile and our advertisers want Flash. On mobile all they get is a static jpg. Soon we will be serving semi HTML 5 type ads as well. We havent seen them yet, but are told to prepare to have our sites ready for when they do show up. Until then we benefit from the web for flash and potentially from droid.

If Apple said no pluggins, instead of no flash, then flash would just get lumped in and I would agree. Adobe can adapt.

~peace

[Allan]

I got no beef with you Alan. My beef is with Jobs. Don't close your mind because I don't see value in the ipad.

It's not that I'm closing my mind, I just think it's funny that you're comparing a netbook running XP with an optical drive with an iPad. Does the $200 Acer feature a capacitive touch screen and some version of XP I've never heard of that supports it? If it doesn't, then they're simply not in the same class of product, period.

I do see potential, just no real value today at the price being charged.

I don't think that $500 is a bad price at all; the build quality is immaculate in every way possible and the software can be upgraded.

Question: have you played with an iPad yet? I've not It's not gone international yet, and you yanks are buying them so fast they've rolled back the release date.

I need help solving my flash crisis. If flash is going the way of the dodo, then I need a replacement that isn't some ginormous JavaScript library. It needs to be better than flash to replace, not just hit on most of what it can do. Understand?

Understood Frankly, I'd just not worry about it. Keep doing what you're doing. Flash isn't going away any time soon. Google is committed to Flash on Mobile. I do think Flash is going away though. So, I'd recommend learning a bit of Jquery/Mootools/et al., learning a bit of HTML5, practice
graceful degradation, and by the time it really matters Adobe will have created an IDE that you can get down with.

[FlexThis]

We have a MAC guy at work who buys everything that comes out. He's got all 4 phones (1-3g & 3gs) and now the ipad. It is like a giant touch or iPhone really. He uses it for reading books. He says the typing sucks, but he likes the screen.

The acer is a full blown laptop for $200. Only point there is that it makes software not just runs it! It does not have a touch screen. However, we also have some PC fanboys who plan on getting the HP slate to compare.

I am already building HTML 5 apps. The just aren't support on anything but mac and pc safari. We still support IE6. Yeah I know right? So....

Thanks for the input guys. I will get through my crisis. I was forced into flash and hated it at first. Who knows, the next flash type program could be better than ever.

~peace

[Allan]

Only point there is that it makes software not just runs it!

Yeah, I think that's where I see the comparison fail: the iPad isn't really designed to create software, nor should it be. It's primarily designed as a content-delivery vehicle, and fills the niche between a laptop and the iPhone. It's got some productivity apps for creating content, and, as time goes by, we'll see it support more and more types of content creation, but I doubt anyone will ever use that form factor to create software.

And I don't know about you, but I would not be stoked on writing code on a $200 netbook.

However, we also have some PC fanboys who plan on getting the HP slate to compare.

According to headlines yesterday, HP is bailing on Microsoft on the slate, so it may be some time before a true competitor is brought to market. I'm guessing it will be Google that gets there first, but who knows?

I am already building HTML 5 apps. The just aren't support on anything but mac and pc safari. We still support IE6. Yeah I know right? So....

I just charge extra for IE6 support at this point; otherwise, I've been experimenting with detection and supplying a simplified stylesheet to it. Graceful degradation is my mantra

Who knows, the next flash type program could be better than ever.

Adobe makes great software. I'm sure whatever comes along next will be kickass.

[FlexThis]

Did you see the news today about the Anti-trust law thing the govt. is investigating on Apple?

Interesting... but I don't think any action will be taken.

As for the iPad - it is great for around the house or for browsing the web over breakfast or something. It seems like a new niche that Apple created to sell products to fill. I love my iPhone and it does everything I need it to do so far (sans flash). I actually do write code on my iPhone and the China team I work with on occasion has given me praise for being so flexible. I even found a JavaScript book marklet that allows me to view the source of the page.

When I first saw the iPad I was thinking awesome! I can finally write some real code or run photoshop. Nope - all I can do is zoom in even farther. And it's so expensive for what it is. For $200 + contract you can get an iPhone that makes calls and has roll-over minutes. And we actually have a dev at work that uses the Acer. She is a little person so the keyboard is just her size. Remember that the challenged need to work too.

EDIT: I also have a few desktop applications that use Flash as the front end and Apple's OSX local storage as the backend. This works well on my MAC and I was hoping to port it over to the iPhone, but.... oh well. It is so cutting edge it only runs on Safari on a MAC. LOL

~peace

[FlexThis]

Looks like iAds is drawing attention for being the only ad tracker on iPhone. Google is also being looked at for mobAD (?).

In my business ad impressions are money. It will be interesting to see exactly what plays out. All the speculation is wild!

[Tsiangkun]

I saw the headline today . . .
1 million people already forgetting about flash

[FlexThis]

The dev restriction means no HTML5 in the app store either. We use Titanium and Appcelerator at work to convert HTML5 content to Obj C. Under this new restriction, those apps are now banned as well.

After consulting with the powers that be at work, we will be dropping iPhone as they are now too expensive to create apps for. I asked if we would be learning any Obj C and was told " no. It is too overwhelming and has limited application outside of Apple. If the roi were there we would hire a light Obj C dev that only worked on apps."

If Jobs is betting on Apple winning the face off, it is unwarranted at my place of employment. Curious to see what other Internet/app companies will do.

Edit: here is an html5 app I made. Add the page as a bookmark to your home screen to save (create a shortcut) the app in full screen mode. Note this app is banned in the app store, even though it only uses HTML CSS and js. It also looks and runs like shit on anything other than safari. This is the future?

http://www.blurryworld.com/iphone/tiptap/
~peace

[FlexThis]

Real iPad experience this morning:

Apple Fanboy: "Look I brought up scrumy.com on this thing."

Other Devs: "Cool!"

Apple Fanboy: "Isn't this awsome?"

Scrum Master: "Maybe they should get us all one so we can all update our scrumy wall!"

Other Devs: "Ha ha, yeah right! LOL"

Apple Fanboy: "I can't get the tasks to move. Ughhhh! No drag and drop! Here's a place where flash would have been useful."

Me: "You got that right!"

Other Devs: "Ohhh well... it looks cool anyways."

That just happened!

~peace

[Tsiangkun]

iPad/iPhone have a web browser.

HTML5 does not belong in the app store, it can be delivered over the internet using open protocols. It isn't something that runs on the iPhoneOS device, it is something to be delivered to an app that runs on the iPhoneOS device.

Obj-C is the language for apps. The novel features the iPhone offers to developers are in the Obj-C libraries apple provides. Being able to migrate apps between platforms in the past was handled pretty much transparently by using XCode.

[FlexThis]

What we were being told is that the only accepted code in the App Store other than Obj C is HTML 5 converted to Obj C using Xcode (aka Appcelerator).

As of today, this is no longer the case and all those HTML 5 apps built using Xcode will no longer be accepted into the App Store. We have a reader that is being given away for free in the app store that we can no longer update because Apple will no longer be accepting third party blah blah blah...

Which is why I posted a link above to an HTML 5 app rather than a direct link to the App Store. My app would be rejected (I have no intent to submit Tip Tap to the App Store).

But you make an interesting distinction. Bank of America uses an App shell. There App appears to be written in Obj C and is free from the app store. However, when you launch it you are really being taken to the web to view an HTML 5 styled site.

BTW - HTML 5 is just a term being thrown around. The use of the <header> tag and <video> tags are not in use today. The app I made use no HTML 5 at all! It is regular good ole HTML with some advanced JavaScripting and use of the MAC OSX backend to store and load data.

I have an app that actually uses some real HTML 5, but again not for the HTML part, but for the backend Javascripted Database that can now be accessed using HTML 5 techniques.

They should really call these types of Apps CSS3 apps and/or webkit Apps, because it is the advanced webkit styling that makes an app LOOK LIKE Obj C. When in reality it is just some CSS.

If the real OBJ C is anything like JAVA, then I can see why Apple would not want Flash to compete against it. Flash runs on all browsers consistantly. My webkit app does not!!!

Why do I feel like we are traveling back in time? You know Microsoft tried to replace Flash with Silverlight. I program in XAML too, and it ain't no Flash either. Arghhhhhhh!!!

[FlexThis]

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/a ... esrss.html