4 ms·

Obviously, Flash on iPhone is in Adobe's interests, and against Apple's interests. But in terms of consumer interests, is it such a bad thing? There are three

Obviously, Flash on iPhone is in Adobe's interests, and against Apple's interests. But in terms of consumer interests, is it such a bad thing? There are three posts in favor of Flash on the iPhone here and as of this posting, they have all been downmodded to -1. Assuming they are legit opinions, I don't understand the Flash hate. In the face of standards, fine. But knowing that the consumer doesn't care about standards, the ability for a Flash application to appear consistent across platforms, which is plain drudgery in HTML now (and given IE6's prevalence, will last for a good while, like it or not), I can see downsides, but it doesn't look overwhelmingly bad. Or, would you explain the principle argument against it, aside of the standards bit?

mpk 18y ago
> Or, would you explain the principle argument against it, aside of the standards bit? Flash is a proprietary runtime. That means Adobe has to support whatever platform you're running at the moment. Flash support for linux has only recently become somewhat decent. And that's IA32 - if you're running a 64-bit OS on your 64-bit processor, you have to use the IA32 compatibility libraries to run flash. If, for whatever reason, you decide to go with NetBSD/SPARC64 - you don't have flash. You do, of course, have all the open web technologies because you simply recompile them for your platform. Flash is proprietary and tying yourself to that runtime will restrict not only your choices, but also the direction the web takes. The exact same holds true for Silverlight. I left out standards and their long-term development, because you specifically requested it, but that's also a major factor.
- briansmith 18y ago
  What is the alternative? AFAICT, Flash has no real competition.
  - wmf 18y ago
    I think in open Web land the alternative is to just not write the app.
  - cpr 18y ago
    With modern browsers supporting decent (now getting very fast) JS, HTML5, CSS3/4, Canvas and SVG, you can write pretty much anything. The appearance of Objective-J and Cappucino opens up new possibilities, too. (Wouldn't have thought it efficient enough, but the 280 folks have proven that wrong. And that's with current-generation JS implementations; more modern JS VM's are getting 10X and more over current.)
    - abstractbill 18y ago
      With modern browsers supporting decent (now getting very fast) JS, HTML5, CSS3/4, Canvas and SVG, you can write pretty much anything. How would you implement justin.tv, using these technologies?
    - briansmith 18y ago
      You still need Flash to make it work in the 80% of browsers that don't support that stuff.
  - utnick 18y ago
    Java applets or silverlight But there is probably some overlap in the anti-java, anti-silverlight, and anti-flash groups
Kontra 18y ago
"the ability for a Flash application to appear consistent across platforms" If you read the blog article linked above (I am the author) you will see that Flash doesn't even have a native multi-touch framework, thereby making that "consistent across platforms" promise hollow on the iPhone and other similar devices to come. I think you'll find useful pointers in that article as to why Apple can't and won't just let Flash ruin iPhone's user experience coherency, both strategically and tactically.
- bporterfield 18y ago
  In fact, I think the opposite is true - Flash will appear 'consistent across platforms', as there is no way to use multi-touch and Flash on your computer screen today either. How this affects coherency on the iPhone is up for debate, but regardless I don't think Flash's lack of multi-touch should restrict me from using stormpulse from my iPhone.
  - Kontra 18y ago
    "...as there is no way to use multi-touch and Flash on your computer screen today either." And that's one of the principal points: Flash is yesteryear's technology. "How this affects coherency on the iPhone is up for debate" What's there to debate? Flash doesn't support multi-touch, iPhone runs on it. "I don't think Flash's lack of multi-touch should restrict me from using stormpulse from my iPhone." I have written another article: Runtime wars (2): Apple's answer to Flash, Silverlight and JavaFX http://counternotions.com/2007/11/15/apple-runtime-answer-2/ http://counternotions.com/2007/11/15/apple-runtime-answer-2/ wherein I explain how emerging standard technologies are essentially rendering most (not all) of Flash's advantages moot. Actually, since I wrote that article, advances in JavaScript, canvas, CSS animation, etc., have been pouring in at an astounding pace. So most (not all) folks out there will take a harder look and see if they can easily do now with HTML5 what they could only do with Flash yesterday. Apple, like Google, is riding on that wave.
    - wensing 18y ago
      With WebKit 3.0, will/does SVG have a drawing API as powerful as that of Flash? If not now, when? Fact: IE 6 still represents 29% of all traffic to www.stormpulse.com.

mpk 18y ago

> Or, would you explain the principle argument against it, aside of the standards bit? Flash is a proprietary runtime. That means Adobe has to support whatever platform you're running at the moment. Flash support for linux has only recently become somewhat decent. And that's IA32 - if you're running a 64-bit OS on your 64-bit processor, you have to use the IA32 compatibility libraries to run flash. If, for whatever reason, you decide to go with NetBSD/SPARC64 - you don't have flash. You do, of course, have all the open web technologies because you simply recompile them for your platform. Flash is proprietary and tying yourself to that runtime will restrict not only your choices, but also the direction the web takes. The exact same holds true for Silverlight. I left out standards and their long-term development, because you specifically requested it, but that's also a major factor.

briansmith 18y ago
What is the alternative? AFAICT, Flash has no real competition.
- wmf 18y ago
  I think in open Web land the alternative is to just not write the app.
- cpr 18y ago
  With modern browsers supporting decent (now getting very fast) JS, HTML5, CSS3/4, Canvas and SVG, you can write pretty much anything. The appearance of Objective-J and Cappucino opens up new possibilities, too. (Wouldn't have thought it efficient enough, but the 280 folks have proven that wrong. And that's with current-generation JS implementations; more modern JS VM's are getting 10X and more over current.)
  - abstractbill 18y ago
    With modern browsers supporting decent (now getting very fast) JS, HTML5, CSS3/4, Canvas and SVG, you can write pretty much anything. How would you implement justin.tv, using these technologies?
  - briansmith 18y ago
    You still need Flash to make it work in the 80% of browsers that don't support that stuff.
- utnick 18y ago
  Java applets or silverlight But there is probably some overlap in the anti-java, anti-silverlight, and anti-flash groups

Kontra 18y ago

"the ability for a Flash application to appear consistent across platforms" If you read the blog article linked above (I am the author) you will see that Flash doesn't even have a native multi-touch framework, thereby making that "consistent across platforms" promise hollow on the iPhone and other similar devices to come. I think you'll find useful pointers in that article as to why Apple can't and won't just let Flash ruin iPhone's user experience coherency, both strategically and tactically.

bporterfield 18y ago
In fact, I think the opposite is true - Flash will appear 'consistent across platforms', as there is no way to use multi-touch and Flash on your computer screen today either. How this affects coherency on the iPhone is up for debate, but regardless I don't think Flash's lack of multi-touch should restrict me from using stormpulse from my iPhone.
- Kontra 18y ago
  "...as there is no way to use multi-touch and Flash on your computer screen today either." And that's one of the principal points: Flash is yesteryear's technology. "How this affects coherency on the iPhone is up for debate" What's there to debate? Flash doesn't support multi-touch, iPhone runs on it. "I don't think Flash's lack of multi-touch should restrict me from using stormpulse from my iPhone." I have written another article: Runtime wars (2): Apple's answer to Flash, Silverlight and JavaFX http://counternotions.com/2007/11/15/apple-runtime-answer-2/ http://counternotions.com/2007/11/15/apple-runtime-answer-2/ wherein I explain how emerging standard technologies are essentially rendering most (not all) of Flash's advantages moot. Actually, since I wrote that article, advances in JavaScript, canvas, CSS animation, etc., have been pouring in at an astounding pace. So most (not all) folks out there will take a harder look and see if they can easily do now with HTML5 what they could only do with Flash yesterday. Apple, like Google, is riding on that wave.
  - wensing 18y ago
    With WebKit 3.0, will/does SVG have a drawing API as powerful as that of Flash? If not now, when? Fact: IE 6 still represents 29% of all traffic to www.stormpulse.com.