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A business decision pretending to be a technology decision. In the end, there were just as many shitty Flash sites as there were shitty iOS apps. The legacy of

by shove 3y ago

A business decision pretending to be a technology decision. In the end, there were just as many shitty Flash sites as there were shitty iOS apps. The legacy of this choice turns out to be the beginning-of-the-end for the broad market in high(er)-end, custom website development and the move towards the walled gardens of app stores and social media giants.

camillomiller 3y ago
So you’re saying that refusing to support a subpar competing format on your own devices was just business? Of course it was ALSO business, but are you telling me, for real, that Adobe Flash and Flash Reader, 100% proprietary non-easily-portable technologies, where the tentpoles of the free internet?!
- shove 3y ago
  Subpar is really stretching it. With some care, Flash content could behave quite well on the iPhone. It was not 100% proprietary. Of course it wasn’t 100% open either, but then I direct your attention to the Apple App Store. Edit: Flash Paper was hot garbage. Definitely not going to defend that one lol
  - KerrAvon 3y ago
    Subpar was accurate. What you can theoretically do with an SWF file given a new from-scratch runtime and what you could actually do with the extant Flash player at the time are different topics.
  - nemothekid 3y ago
    It came out years later that Apple hired Adobe to help, if Adobe couldn't do it, I don't blame Apple for abandoning it. Looking at how difficult it is to build an open implementation of Flash via Ruffle, I don't think subpar is a stretch. https://9to5mac.com/2021/04/27/apple-tried-to-help-adobe-bring-flash-to-ios-but-the-results-were-embarrassing/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/04/27/apple-tried-to-help-adobe-bri...
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    Flash couldn’t run well on a 1Ghz Android phone with 1GB RAM. That was Adobe’s minimum requirement in 2010. The original iPhone had 128MB RAM and a 400Mhz processor

by shove 3y ago

camillomiller 3y ago

So you’re saying that refusing to support a subpar competing format on your own devices was just business? Of course it was ALSO business, but are you telling me, for real, that Adobe Flash and Flash Reader, 100% proprietary non-easily-portable technologies, where the tentpoles of the free internet?!

shove 3y ago
Subpar is really stretching it. With some care, Flash content could behave quite well on the iPhone. It was not 100% proprietary. Of course it wasn’t 100% open either, but then I direct your attention to the Apple App Store. Edit: Flash Paper was hot garbage. Definitely not going to defend that one lol
- KerrAvon 3y ago
  Subpar was accurate. What you can theoretically do with an SWF file given a new from-scratch runtime and what you could actually do with the extant Flash player at the time are different topics.
- nemothekid 3y ago
  It came out years later that Apple hired Adobe to help, if Adobe couldn't do it, I don't blame Apple for abandoning it. Looking at how difficult it is to build an open implementation of Flash via Ruffle, I don't think subpar is a stretch. https://9to5mac.com/2021/04/27/apple-tried-to-help-adobe-bring-flash-to-ios-but-the-results-were-embarrassing/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/04/27/apple-tried-to-help-adobe-bri...
- scarface_74 3y ago
  Flash couldn’t run well on a 1Ghz Android phone with 1GB RAM. That was Adobe’s minimum requirement in 2010. The original iPhone had 128MB RAM and a 400Mhz processor