6 ms·

I'm not sure what your references are, so let's discuss. At the time I was a full time flash developer, doing flex and flash on AIR. One day, Steve Jobs made

by keyle 3y ago

I'm not sure what your references are, so let's discuss. At the time I was a full time flash developer, doing flex and flash on AIR. One day, Steve Jobs made an announcement that Flash was crapware and had to die for standards (sic!) I shook my head in disbelief. The same week, the CEO of Adobe (some shmuck) went to CNN to address what Steve Jobs had said earlier this week. I fully expected a rebuttal, but instead, NOPE: he totally and literally threw his product under the bus, on the world stage. Flash was dead. Its replacement was said to be coming, and yet nothing good came out. Javascript at the time was pitiful. Typescript didn't exist yet, and MVVM in HTML wasn't a thing. We were back to web 1.0.

jadbox 3y ago
This roughly did happen. Apple decided suddenly and publicly that it would reject Flash (and Air), and this decision was a major part of closing the flash project. Flash gaming was a billion dollar market at the time that Apple knew they could convert the big dev shops into native app developers for their app store (see Zynga and others) by enforcing native-only app development. This was the last straw for flash, which was already struggling for funding. See, Flash was already a rather unprofitable project, having no app store, no ad network, or payments platform. The Flex/Flash dev licenses made only peanuts. With Apple closing down roads to adoption, this caused Adobe to finally reconsider its long term investment in runtime engines. source: flash team friends edit: For history completeness, here is CNET's article with Apple's media statement on why it dropped flash. Job's statement was that Flash wasn't a good enough runtime to allow on iOS (or any runtime): https://www.cnet.com/culture/jobs-why-apple-banned-flash-from-the-iphone/ https://www.cnet.com/culture/jobs-why-apple-banned-flash-fro...
- keyle 3y ago
  Thanks for clarifying, you explain it better than I remember it.
- Lammy 3y ago
  > no app store, no ad network, or payments platform Please take me back to that world
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
mlunar 3y ago
For what it's worth as another Flash/AIR developer, this is exactly how it happened. Apple is just very good at spinning the narrative in their favor, i.e. it was because of "stability/security/performance issues" and not "it's a potential App Store competitor, bury it now". See also: Apple preventing apps from downloading/including scripts dynamically (read: AIR), which was a total security risk, until it wasn't when they lifted the restriction years later when AIR was not so relevant anymore. Glad to be corrected tho
- inferiorhuman 3y ago
  The problem with this take is that it pretends that flash provided a decent mobile experience outside of Apple. Adobe couldn't be arsed to create a decent desktop experience for end users. Flash on Android was worse. If flash had survived and become the dominant mobile game engine, would mobile have become as popular? I highly doubt it.
  - fomine3 3y ago
    Yeah, I believe 100% of people who tried Flash for Android convinced that it's dead end.
  - mlunar 3y ago
    I'm not trying to say it was good on mobile, from many accounts it was apparently bad. But we never got to find out for real, did we? It's irrelevant though as if Apple cared so much about preserving the user experience, they would also block slow or crashy websites, which they didn't, because they don't pose a threat to their business model. And it doesn't pose a threat because they (still) control what is possible on iOS web by restricting browser engines to webkit only.
    - inferiorhuman 3y ago
      Well, no. Let's not pretend that Apple is (or was) the only player in the mobile phone space. Had mobile flash actually provided Android with a tangible advantage, it wouldn't have died. Adobe couldn't provide a decent experience on desktop, couldn't provide a decent experience on any of the non-Apple mobile platforms they supported, but suddenly the downfall of flash was Apple's responsibility? We really did see what flash could do on mobile and it wasn't great, there was no reason for Apple to put more lipstick on that pig. Dunno about Android, but crashy web sites weren't really a thing I've ever had to deal with on iOS (or BB10).
kergonath 3y ago
> I'm not sure what your references are, so let's discuss. Sure. I did not put a wall of text because I thought the context was still clear but apparently not, fair enough. * Adobe's CEO was far from compliant, fought as he could and pushed development up to the point where even he saw the writing on the wall: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/apr/29/adobe-chief-executive-flash-apple-reply https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/apr/29/adob... Eventually they just cut their losses, without having put working versions for Android tablets or Windows Phone, and the implementations on Android and BlackberryOS having their own issues. * Even by the end of its run on mobile, Flash had performance and stability issues: https://www.wired.com/2011/11/adobe-mobile-flash-dead/ https://www.wired.com/2011/11/adobe-mobile-flash-dead/ https://www.extremetech.com/computing/134551-why-flash-failed-on-android-and-what-it-means-for-adobe https://www.extremetech.com/computing/134551-why-flash-faile... It was also the leading cause of crashes on OS X at the time. That was a big point when process separation for plugins was added to Safari: https://www.macworld.com/article/198369/keynote-48.html https://www.macworld.com/article/198369/keynote-48.html * It was also disastrous effects on laptops' battery life: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/11/the-future-of-notebooks-ars-reviews-the-11-macbook-air/3/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/11/the-future-of-notebo... * I am not going to link stories on security issues (there have been tons of those all the time when Flash was used, so it's difficult to find some from around 2010), but I hope you agree on that one. * To this day, there has not been any convincing argument regarding the lack of accessibility and bad user experience with websites that included Flash elements, or the privacy issues related to Flash cookies that kept appearing. * I don't have a link offhand because the instance I remember was in Walter Isaacson's book, but there were several people saying that Adobe engineers had been pitching Flash for iPhone to Jobs, with demonstrations, for quite a while and never managed to solve the technical issues. It is completely untrue to say that Jobs was dead set against Flash from the beginning. Overall, there is a summary of technical arguments here: https://daringfireball.net/2010/01/apple_adobe_flash https://daringfireball.net/2010/01/apple_adobe_flash > At the time I was a full time flash developer, doing flex and flash on AIR. At the time I was a student and relied on Flash for several things (websites we had to use for lectures, games, even some development in CS courses, etc). This may be why we seem to have wildly different perspectives. But I can assure you, Flash had been rubbish for quite a long time in 2009. It was buggy, crashy, notorious for turning laptops' fans the moment it appeared on a web page and sucking batteries dry. > One day, Steve Jobs made an announcement that Flash was crapware and had to die for standards (sic!) Come on, Adobe is and has been many things, but certainly not a champion of open standards. Apple's track record of supporting standards is stellar in comparison. > I fully expected a rebuttal, but instead, NOPE: he totally and literally threw his product under the bus, on the world stage. He really did not. He complained that it was unfair, threw a lot of FUD around (there even was that Flash evangelist telling Apple to go screw itself, and look into any post by Kevin Lynch from that time if you want more vitriol). They lead an anti-Apple campaign for about 2 years at that time. What he could not do is contest the technical points, because they were founded. If it were not for the Android community trying to convince itself that Flash was great because was not on iPhones, there would be absolutely no discussion. Then, Flash for Android stopped in late 2011 (more than 18 monts after Jobs' letter, at which point Apple and Adobe had been talking about what to do with Flash for years). This would make absolutely no sense if its only issues were politics and Apple (it was still on pretty much any device on the Internet except for iPhones and iPads), and development stopped for all platforms around 2015. None of that is the kind of capitulation you describe. > Flash was dead. Its replacement was said to be coming, and yet nothing good came out. That much is right Web apps took a long time to improve. > Javascript at the time was pitiful. Typescript didn't exist yet, and MVVM in HTML wasn't a thing. We were back to web 1.0. Come on. None of the popular websites stopped functioning. All the things we associated with Web 2.0 worked just fine on iPhones and iPads. What we lost was games, which should not have been in a browser in the first place.

by keyle 3y ago

jadbox 3y ago

This roughly did happen. Apple decided suddenly and publicly that it would reject Flash (and Air), and this decision was a major part of closing the flash project. Flash gaming was a billion dollar market at the time that Apple knew they could convert the big dev shops into native app developers for their app store (see Zynga and others) by enforcing native-only app development. This was the last straw for flash, which was already struggling for funding. See, Flash was already a rather unprofitable project, having no app store, no ad network, or payments platform. The Flex/Flash dev licenses made only peanuts. With Apple closing down roads to adoption, this caused Adobe to finally reconsider its long term investment in runtime engines. source: flash team friends edit: For history completeness, here is CNET's article with Apple's media statement on why it dropped flash. Job's statement was that Flash wasn't a good enough runtime to allow on iOS (or any runtime): https://www.cnet.com/culture/jobs-why-apple-banned-flash-from-the-iphone/ https://www.cnet.com/culture/jobs-why-apple-banned-flash-fro...

keyle 3y ago
Thanks for clarifying, you explain it better than I remember it.
Lammy 3y ago
> no app store, no ad network, or payments platform Please take me back to that world
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

mlunar 3y ago

For what it's worth as another Flash/AIR developer, this is exactly how it happened. Apple is just very good at spinning the narrative in their favor, i.e. it was because of "stability/security/performance issues" and not "it's a potential App Store competitor, bury it now". See also: Apple preventing apps from downloading/including scripts dynamically (read: AIR), which was a total security risk, until it wasn't when they lifted the restriction years later when AIR was not so relevant anymore. Glad to be corrected tho

inferiorhuman 3y ago
The problem with this take is that it pretends that flash provided a decent mobile experience outside of Apple. Adobe couldn't be arsed to create a decent desktop experience for end users. Flash on Android was worse. If flash had survived and become the dominant mobile game engine, would mobile have become as popular? I highly doubt it.
- fomine3 3y ago
  Yeah, I believe 100% of people who tried Flash for Android convinced that it's dead end.
- mlunar 3y ago
  I'm not trying to say it was good on mobile, from many accounts it was apparently bad. But we never got to find out for real, did we? It's irrelevant though as if Apple cared so much about preserving the user experience, they would also block slow or crashy websites, which they didn't, because they don't pose a threat to their business model. And it doesn't pose a threat because they (still) control what is possible on iOS web by restricting browser engines to webkit only.
  - inferiorhuman 3y ago
    Well, no. Let's not pretend that Apple is (or was) the only player in the mobile phone space. Had mobile flash actually provided Android with a tangible advantage, it wouldn't have died. Adobe couldn't provide a decent experience on desktop, couldn't provide a decent experience on any of the non-Apple mobile platforms they supported, but suddenly the downfall of flash was Apple's responsibility? We really did see what flash could do on mobile and it wasn't great, there was no reason for Apple to put more lipstick on that pig. Dunno about Android, but crashy web sites weren't really a thing I've ever had to deal with on iOS (or BB10).

kergonath 3y ago

> I'm not sure what your references are, so let's discuss. Sure. I did not put a wall of text because I thought the context was still clear but apparently not, fair enough. * Adobe's CEO was far from compliant, fought as he could and pushed development up to the point where even he saw the writing on the wall: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/apr/29/adobe-chief-executive-flash-apple-reply https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/apr/29/adob... Eventually they just cut their losses, without having put working versions for Android tablets or Windows Phone, and the implementations on Android and BlackberryOS having their own issues. * Even by the end of its run on mobile, Flash had performance and stability issues: https://www.wired.com/2011/11/adobe-mobile-flash-dead/ https://www.wired.com/2011/11/adobe-mobile-flash-dead/ https://www.extremetech.com/computing/134551-why-flash-failed-on-android-and-what-it-means-for-adobe https://www.extremetech.com/computing/134551-why-flash-faile... It was also the leading cause of crashes on OS X at the time. That was a big point when process separation for plugins was added to Safari: https://www.macworld.com/article/198369/keynote-48.html https://www.macworld.com/article/198369/keynote-48.html * It was also disastrous effects on laptops' battery life: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/11/the-future-of-notebooks-ars-reviews-the-11-macbook-air/3/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/11/the-future-of-notebo... * I am not going to link stories on security issues (there have been tons of those all the time when Flash was used, so it's difficult to find some from around 2010), but I hope you agree on that one. * To this day, there has not been any convincing argument regarding the lack of accessibility and bad user experience with websites that included Flash elements, or the privacy issues related to Flash cookies that kept appearing. * I don't have a link offhand because the instance I remember was in Walter Isaacson's book, but there were several people saying that Adobe engineers had been pitching Flash for iPhone to Jobs, with demonstrations, for quite a while and never managed to solve the technical issues. It is completely untrue to say that Jobs was dead set against Flash from the beginning. Overall, there is a summary of technical arguments here: https://daringfireball.net/2010/01/apple_adobe_flash https://daringfireball.net/2010/01/apple_adobe_flash > At the time I was a full time flash developer, doing flex and flash on AIR. At the time I was a student and relied on Flash for several things (websites we had to use for lectures, games, even some development in CS courses, etc). This may be why we seem to have wildly different perspectives. But I can assure you, Flash had been rubbish for quite a long time in 2009. It was buggy, crashy, notorious for turning laptops' fans the moment it appeared on a web page and sucking batteries dry. > One day, Steve Jobs made an announcement that Flash was crapware and had to die for standards (sic!) Come on, Adobe is and has been many things, but certainly not a champion of open standards. Apple's track record of supporting standards is stellar in comparison. > I fully expected a rebuttal, but instead, NOPE: he totally and literally threw his product under the bus, on the world stage. He really did not. He complained that it was unfair, threw a lot of FUD around (there even was that Flash evangelist telling Apple to go screw itself, and look into any post by Kevin Lynch from that time if you want more vitriol). They lead an anti-Apple campaign for about 2 years at that time. What he could not do is contest the technical points, because they were founded. If it were not for the Android community trying to convince itself that Flash was great because was not on iPhones, there would be absolutely no discussion. Then, Flash for Android stopped in late 2011 (more than 18 monts after Jobs' letter, at which point Apple and Adobe had been talking about what to do with Flash for years). This would make absolutely no sense if its only issues were politics and Apple (it was still on pretty much any device on the Internet except for iPhones and iPads), and development stopped for all platforms around 2015. None of that is the kind of capitulation you describe. > Flash was dead. Its replacement was said to be coming, and yet nothing good came out. That much is right Web apps took a long time to improve. > Javascript at the time was pitiful. Typescript didn't exist yet, and MVVM in HTML wasn't a thing. We were back to web 1.0. Come on. None of the popular websites stopped functioning. All the things we associated with Web 2.0 worked just fine on iPhones and iPads. What we lost was games, which should not have been in a browser in the first place.