Apple vs. Adobe (UPDATE)

Daikun

If this topic has been brought up before, sorry. I did a search and didn't find anything regarding this news.

Steve Jobs has recently shut the door in Adobe's face just when they've released their latest Creative Suite. Basically, he has decided to ban Flash from its mobile devices, a controversial choice that's causing quite a shakeup and lots of debate in the tech world.

Yes, he does bring up some good points. Flash is buggy, expensive, and strict on licenses. Adobe is slow to updating on current technologies, their tech support largely ignores user requests, and they still have yet to deliver on their continuing promises of functioning Flash technology on mobile phones, Apple or otherwise.

However, there are also some problems with this decision. Steve makes claims about wanting his devices to be "open" and sharing a "full web experience" when this decision is the exact opposite of his statements. (Click here to read a rebuttal.)

How can a platform be "open" when you're outright refusing to allow support for other companies' products? (On a similar note, their mobile app marketplaces are heavily restricted compared to their more open competitors.) How can you deliver a "full web experience" when Flash accounts for a large portion of the Internet's functions that other standards can't provide? Lots of websites can't even work on most mobile devices, simply because Flash is blocked off.

What do you guys think? Has Steve Jobs made the right decision? Should Flash be allowed on mobile devices?

Li_Akahi

There desperately needs to be an alternative to the Adobe Creative Suite that has all of the same components and features, but in a better package.

lackofcheese

Of course Flash should be allowed. While a better alternative would be preferable, it should still be up to the end user to decide what they want to use.

Luke Burrage

How can a platform be "open" when you're outright refusing to allow support for other companies' products?

It doesn't matter what apple does with their apps, it's still possible to publish anything to an iPhone. It's called the browser. Just the same as any other device or computer with a browser. As long as the browser can render websites coded with the open standards of the Internet, it is an open device. No matter how you cut it, Flash is a standard owned by a single company, a company that can change what it wants at a moments notice. Apple is the same, but only with it's apps.

But then, nintendo is just as closed. So is Sony with their playstation portable. So are many, many other computers, and they have been for a long time.

There is a browser, and an Internet connection. The device is open. Adding flash doesn't make it more open, it just makes it slow and runs down the battery quicker. Personally I'd love to see the use of flash on the Internet reduced, and am quite thankful to apple for hastening that end.

Li_Akahi

Personally I'd love to see the use of flash on the Internet reduced

HTML5 can't come to the entire internet faster.

sK0pe

At the same time I feel like Jobs is being dickish with his public smackdowns, of adobe.
I guess that's Apple's way, now that I think about it, i.e. I'm a Mac / I'm a PC adverts.

It's funny to hear Jobs saying that the majority of crashes on Apple devices are due to flash, when I've never crashed a machine from flash usage.

I also like that Jobs has made a porn free internet experience

Dr. Timo

I don't see the whole Apple vs. Adobe thing. It's more like Adobe vs. everybody else and mostly Adobe vs. progress.

If Adobe had been smart, they would have started working on a flash to html5 converter years ago and incorporated complete html5 publishing into CS5 (not just the canvas element). Adobe has a monopoly on the content production and publishing industry and instead of moaning and bitching about a switch in standards, they should embrace it and make the best html5 authoring suite there is.

If I were a startup right now, I'd get busy writing an IDE for interactive, media rich html5. Start by copying every functionality that Flash offers and then go from there. Oh wait, someone has already done just that.

Rym

When elephants war, it is the grass that suffers.

Or.

When two elephants you dislike equally for different reasons war, it is time for popcorn.

Daikun

Coming from the competition's side:

Android 2.2 will support fully functional Flash.

Either Steve is going to be red in the face, or he's going to be happy to have someone else pick up the pieces.

Dr. Timo

Meanwhile people who are relying on Adobe:

Adobe's repeated delays for Flash are a large part of why smartbooks haven't launched yet, ARM marketing VP Ian Drew said this week. Optimizations needed to make the plugin work have prevented the Lenovo Skylight and similar ARM-based mini notebooks from meeting their original spring targets.

George Patches

Daikun

Ugh. Please don't use Hawk as an example. He's a blind Apple fanboy who lets Jobs formulate his own opinions.

Rym

Ugh. Please don't use Hawk as an example. He's a blind Apple fanboy who lets Jobs formulate his own opinions.

But Flash does suck.

Luke Burrage

Oh, totally.

Jain7th

Or for the more technically inclined 26C3 - Defending the Poor.
And Android tablet prototype running (and crashing) Flash.

George Patches

Ugh. Please don't use Hawk as an example. He's a blind Apple fanboy who lets Jobs formulate his own opinions.

But Flash does suck.

Oh, totally.

Well played gentlemen. I really don't give two shits about what Apple thinks or does, but I do think flash needs to die a horrible, fiery death.

TheWhaleShark

but I do think flash needs to die a horrible, fiery death.

Now that's what I call a...flash fire.

George Patches

YEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

Hitman Hart

I wonder if a lot of why they deny flash is to keep people from getting at content they as it is need to buy from iTunes. I mean, having Flash lets you access legal sites like Hulu and Crackle, as well as things like the far, far shadier Megavideo. Or it could just be because Apple really wants you to only use their proprietary formats. That's, frankly, the more likely answer. Most of the people making Android tablets and whatnot don't have a content store(or a format) to worry about so there's no incentive to keep them tied down.

WindUpBird

as well as things like the far, far shadier Megavideo.

It's not that shady. It's like Rapidshare-shady. However, this:

I wonder if a lot of why they deny flash is to keep people from getting at content they as it is need to buy from iTunes.

is a very interesting idea.

George Patches

Or maybe Flash is just fucking awful code and Apple doesn't feel like bending over backwards to make it work.

WindUpBird

Or maybe Flash is just fucking awful code and Apple doesn't feel like bending over backwards to make it work.

Hey, I didn't say it was the right idea, just an interesting one. I personally would enjoy nothing more than the white-hot, fiery death of Flash.

Apreche

Flash really isn't so bad. Flash is doing just what it was always meant to do.

Way back in the '90s web browsers couldn't do crap. The best you could get in terms of animation was an animated gif. The best you could do for audio was embedding a wav or aiff file directly in the page. The best you could do for video was to let someone download an avi file for a few hours, or stream a horrible real player.

Even then, flash was unstablish, and obviously troublesome. But you know what? It let you do things in a web browser that couldn't be done otherwise. It empowered web sites to be more than what could be provided just by HTML and JavaScript. It also miraculously managed to do it at a tolerable speed over a 56k modem.

As the web progressed, Flash continued to do what it had always done. It provided the features for web pages that browsers did not provide themselves, or did not have a working standard for. Things like video, games, etc.

Obviously many people use Flash inappropriately. They make entire sites that are nothing but flash. They make navigation in flash. The blame for this is not Adobe, but to the web developers.

Recently the web has been advancing. Javascript and HTML5 can do a lot more than it used to be able to. We don't need Flash for video anymore, and nobody is really complaining about that. Even so, there are still things that you can only do with Flash. There's no way for the browser to access your web-cam without it. You can theoretically make a game in canvas, but I'd like to see someone show me even one really complete game written for an HTML canvas. A tower defense will do.

Above all, Flash isn't as much about the plugin as it is about the authoring tool. You know, the part they actually make money from. You might be able to make a game on a canvas, but it's going to be a huge pain in the ass because you don't have the tools beyond your text editor and Photoshop, another Adobe product. With Flash you can easily crank that shit out, and it will be polished.

What kind of tools has Apple provided as an alternative. XCode? HAHAHAHA. Give me a fucking break.

Apple says, use only our tools. Yeah, I'd love to. I hate Adobe as much as everyone else does. But you're no different from them Steve Jobs. You're both devils we hate and are forced to live with because there is no alternative. If you want us to shitcan Adobe, you can't just get rid of the flash plugin. You have to get rid of Flash, and Photoshop. Make some software for content creation, not just consumption, and then you can talk som eshit.

Geo

Gotdamn...you win Scott.

George Patches

That's nice Scott, and you have a point. But people using flash for navigation is not why it should die in a fire. Developers can use whatever they want, I have no problem with what people do with flash. My issue is squarely with Adobe and the fucking god awful code that is the flash plugin. Nothing on my computer causes more random hangs, slow downs, and out right crashes than the flash plugin. And nothing chews my computer's resources to accomplish relatively mundane tasks quite like flash. PDF suffer a similar fate, the idea of the PDF is brilliant, but the PDF reader is such a god awful piece of shit.

theknoxinator

Obviously we should all just migrate to JavaFX and be done with the whole argument.

Apreche

My issue is squarely with Adobe and the fucking god awful code that is the flash plugin. Nothing on my computer causes more random hangs, slow downs, and out right crashes than the flash plugin. And nothing chews my computer's resources to accomplish relatively mundane tasks quite like flash. PDF suffer a similar fate, the idea of the PDF is brilliant, but the PDF reader is such a god awful piece of shit.

Yeah, it's shit, but where would we be without it? Also, where is the competition? Silverlight? Someone else may have shit, but you have to put up or shut up. We're hoping to put up a better Dwarf Fortress to back up our shit talk. If you want to talk shit about Flash, you can't just remove it and it's functionality, you have to beat it.

Think about it. If mobile Safari had flash, think about the crazy shit you could do on there. There are a zillion amazing flash apps out there that would be awesome if mobile. They may crash or slow or eat battery life, but it would still be amazing. If Apple wants to smack talk, let them make some authoring tools that are better than flash for making some HTML5 and canvas and SVG, and let them get a standard way for browsers to access webcams and microphones and such and such that works.

Neito

Except that's never been Apple's MO. They've never been the company that comes up with a new idea and helps you execute it. They're the company that comes up with the new idea and FORCES you to execute it. This is a company that didn't put arrow keys on their keyboards to force developers to use the mouse, after all.

Daikun

PDF suffer a similar fate, the idea of the PDF is brilliant, but the PDF reader is such a god awful piece of shit.

Then just find an alternative. There's plenty of free PDF software out there that's lighter weight.

Omnutia

Yeah, it's shit, but where would we be without it? Also, where is the competition? Silverlight? Someone else may have shit, but you have to put up or shut up. We're hoping to put up a better Dwarf Fortress to back up our shit talk. If you want to talk shit about Flash, you can't just remove it and it's functionality, you have to beat it.

Put up or shut up only works on the small stuff. You still complain about lots of stuff that you can't fix as the act of complaining in itself is doing something.

lackofcheese

It's all a matter of scale. Dwarf Fortress is to this forum as Flash is to Apple.