"with over 75 million iPhone and iPod touch units sold to date, only 9.3% of users have mistakenly tried to download lazy Adobe's bloated and buggy proprietary plug-in. "

Flex and Flash Developer – Jesse Warden dot Kizz-ohm » Blog Archive » Steve Jobs on Flash: Correcting the Lies

Lie #1: “Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary.”

The Flash IDE, yes. The Flash Player, no. Here is a list of technologies open sourced/published by Macromedia/Adobe that are in the Flash Player ecosystem:

1. ActionScript 3 runtime, called Tamarin. Given to Mozilla to hopefully utilize in future browsers.
2. RTMP (and it’s ilk), the protocol for real-time video & audio streaming as well as data (AMF). Yes, many want “more” open sourced. Red5 and Wowza seem to be doing just fine with what is there currently.
3. The SWF format itself, which is what Flash Player plays/runs, has most of it’s spec published in case you want to generate SWF files.

This street goes both ways, too. Macromedia/Adobe has adopted open source technologies into Flash Player with the hopes of embracing standards, not just the de-facto ones.

1. ActionScript 1, 2, and 3 are all based on EMCAScript. Yes, it’s not as compliant as many would like. Additionally, Adobe did participate in many ECMA Script discussions/debates. Yes, 4 didn’t turn out so well for Adobe.
2. The XML parsing is based on E4X, ECMA Script for XML.

I’m not saying Adobe’s open sourced a lot of the Flash Player. There’s open source, there’s published, and then there is open source.

Regarding their products, he’s wrong there too. The Flex SDK, one of the biggest boosts for the Flash Platform in the past 4 years, is also open source (yes, the real kind). Most utilize Flex Builder, built on top of the open source Eclipse.

Using a blanket statement saying Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary is a lie. It paints an incorrect & negative picture over all the wonderful things Macromedia/Adobe have done in open source around their products.

Lie #2: “HTML5 being adopted by Google”

Google created the first browser to fully integrate plugins, and continues to work with Adobe to do so. Google also utilizes Flash Player in Gmail for both file uploading, and configuring your web cam. Google utilizes Flash Player in their online maps product for street view. Google Finance utilizes Flash Player for a lot of their charts. Their video site, YouTube, utilizes Flash Player for their videos.

Google didn’t start out with Flash. They started with text, AJAX, and later Flash. They’ve done a lot of forays into HTML5, yes, and will continue to do so. Saying they are “adopting” it, and only it and not Flash Player, is incorrect.

Lie #3: “…75% of video on the web is in Flash. What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads…”

Incorrect. If a video is H264, that doesn’t mean it can play on the iPhone. If you look at the iPhone specs, you’ll see the only support a subset of what H264 offers, specifically 2 major components to quality video: Using a maximum of the Baseline profile, with Simple for higher bitrates/resolutions, as well as 2.5 for maximum (ish) bitrate.

Not all H264 videos conform to these specs. YouTube converted a lot of their Spark (Flash 6/7) videos to H264 to support iPhone because there was money to be gained in the large investment. Even so, not all YouTube videos work on the iPhone, in part because of the aforementioned reasons. There is a reason why when you upload a H264 video to YouTube, they’ll often re-encode it.

I’ve been in web video for 7 years. Getting video to work in the browser is the easy part. Setting up video encoding farms to support thousands/millions of users is not. It’s hard and expensive. Not everyone has the resources (read money and time) Google has, and that’s why companies like Brightcove are trying to capitalize on this problem.

Most importantly, HTML5 currently has no universal DRM solution. That is why Flash Player’s RTMPE, and soon HTTP Streaming via Project Zeri, are the de-facto standard today. Those who deploy video content they either own or license the rights to will not utilize HTML5 because it cannot be protected. There is a reason you rent videos in iTunes using their ACC format vs. straight H264. Legally, those videos CANNOT be utilized via HTML5.

Also, Hulu.com and others aren’t using H264, they’re using On2’s VP6.

Lie #4: “users aren’t missing much video.”

Every time a user see’s a blue lego instead of the video they wanted to see, they are missing a video. There were so many people seeing the blue lego, including Steve Jobs himself on stage demoing the iPad, that they removed the blue lego as a PR effort to make it seem like there was something wrong with the website itself vs. the iPhone/iPad.

…thankfully, Grant Skinner added it back.

Lie #5: “…Flash has recently added support for H.264…”

Incorrect. It’s been there since August of 2007. That’s almost 3 years. That’s a long time in technology.

Lie #6: “…must be run in software…”

Not entirely correct. Apple FINALLY gave Adobe and others access to hardware for desktop systems, which Adobe has recently utilized. The #1 criticism for Mac’s & Flash video is lack of hardware acceleration. This move by Apple will go a long way to improving video experiences, not just for Flash, for browser based video. Meaning, cooler Macs and more battery life.

For mobile, Safari/WebKit is using H264 hardware decoding just fine. They just won’t expose it, forcing yet again, Flash to utilize a sub par video experience for iPhone (having to launch a URL to utilize the iPhone’s default video player vs. incorporating the video into the experience).

Lie #7: “…When websites re-encode their videos using H.264, they can offer them without using Flash at all…”

See #3. Also, not all Flash video is just a video block on a page. Some are immersive experiences, games, or involved in compositing with other objects (alpha channels, easier particle systems, etc). HTML5 does not currently support some of these features.

Finally, not all video is pre-recorded and progressive. Live and streamed events are currently done using Flash Player and Silverlight. Yes, I’ve seen systems that can do live H264 via progressive with only seconds latency over CDN’s, regardless, they aren’t what’s being used en masse today. This includes DVR like functionality that both technologies offer, including Adative Streaming capabilities to ensure you can see un-interrupted video regardless of your internet connections’s integrity.

Lie #8: “…Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers…”

Incorrect. The whole reason Flash Player has continued to stay ahead of the curve is because Macromedia/Adobe innovates it. There are gesture & touch API’s in the Flash Player; I and many others have used them for the iPhone resulting in a 100+ apps on the App Store.

Lie #9: “For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot.”

Incorrect. This was already discounted 2 months ago by Mike Chambers. Additionally, I tested both MouseEvent.CLICK, MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, and MouseEvent.ROLL_OVER, and all 3 worked just fine on my iPhone. Additionally, I’ve seen video of a Nexus One using the native Flash Player 10.1 that plays a Flex website I made just fine with no code changes to support touch.

Lie #10: “Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover.”

Incorrect. There are roll over states for buttons on the iPhone/iPad because you can click/touch on something, which shows the roll over state, but then drag off to not trigger the up, thus canceling your button click if you didn’t meant to touch something. Works the exact same way as a mouse does.

Lie #11: “Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices.”

Incorrect, see Mike Chambers’ post in #9.

Lie #12: “If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?”

Those same JavaScript Developers need to do the same work Flash Developers need to do: Nothing.

If both wish to utilize Gesture or Touch events, then BOTH need to re-write/adjust their content to support these events.

Lie #13: “The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content.”

Incorrect. See #3. Media companies will have to create players like Netflix did to support those devices; these aren’t HTML5, they’re Cocoa.

Half-Truth #1: “Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.”

iTunes, flagship Apple software product enabling the success of the iPod, selling over 1 billion songs, and empowering digital movie rentals, isn’t Cocoa.

Gruber, the same guy who Apple apparently used as an example of why Flash doesn’t belong on the iPhone, was quoted, when referring to why Apple hasn’t ported iTunes to Cocoa:

Gimme that source please?

And that supposes that everyone with an ipod touch accesses the interweb.

Adobe claims 7 million attempted Flash downloads via iPhone | iPodNN ..... http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2010/04/29/technology-technology-hardware-amp-equipment-us-earns-motorola_7560046.html

I'd like to find updated stats. Again, iPod Touch users are limited to wi-fi and who knows how many of them actually use the browser.

Care to refute any of the points in the post above?

Need I remind you that I work on an iMac, I have an iPhone and I have an iPod Touch.

I love Apple products. But I am tired of the Flash bashing b/c Steve is bitter.

no , man I don't see it that way, he wants them to get off their arses and fix this, instead they've decided to ride the mr. softy and android wave.....we're going into the world of "touch" and flash isn't optimized for that... Hp bought Palm, why would they do that? Hp slate is dead.... and mr softy killed their courier, why? On a personal note: I don't have a problem not having flash, I just go to different sight(which isn't often) the alternative isn't an alternative..gulp: widoze 7ista YECK! not to mention Virus protection

I think that the death of MS is a little bit early. AT&T is certainly not ready for 24/7 wireless PCs.

I have used a jailbroken iPhone for over a year - awesome tool. Last night I needed a new phone due to a bad 3G radio - I can no longer jailbreak. This new phone works fine but it only 1/3 of the tool it used to be.

Jobs is an ahole.

Edit:

Jobs is an egotistic ahole.

Just sell me the phone and let me do whatever I want with it.

No, how do you really feel?

BTW, Woot was selling 8GB iPhones for $138 yesterday...

Then, after jailbreaking it something unknown happens and we expect Apple to fix it. Then, when they don't we can start a thread about how Apple doesn't stand behind their products. :rolleyes:

exactly!

true "a little bit"

I bought, still have a $450 Nokia E62. US version of the EU E61. Was a kick ass phone crippled because it was locked to AT&T.

Got my hands on 1st the Rogers CN firmware, fixed that chit right up. Few days later found a leaked generic US firmware for when the ATT exclusive ends. Flashed to that and life was grand. ATT got Nokia to kill the firmware update utility but who cared, I had the fix, I was in before the lock baby.

Then I got a piece of malware.............

I for one don't have a problem with the iPhone being "tight". Does everything I need without the risk of bricking it.

I used to spend my youth hacking all kinds of stuff, exactly what I won't mention here since.

You know what I found?

90% of the time the hack was more of a PIA to keep up and running than it was worth.

My time got occupied with other hobbies and these days I just want my stuff to work stably.

gr8fl4porsche must have forgotten to start his thread. Maybe you expect Apple to fix your product no matter what.

Try this, you buy a new Porsche. It's great but it doesn't quite do all you want it to. So you upgrade it. Now it runs just as you would like it to. A year later the front suspension falls off. Your modifications or the structural integrity of the mounts could be to blame. Porsche denies your warranty claim. Do you:

1) Do it all over again this time building better. It was perfect the way it was.
2) Buy another Porsche, keep it just the way it is. Wouldn't want to break the warranty
3) start a thread and blame Porsche for not oversizing suspension mounts?

I'm pretty sure those were just Ipod touch for 138. I may be wrong; (boy they sold out quick!)

I hate flash purely because I middle click to open stuff in a new tab a lot. For nearly everything. Flash doesn't let me do that. I can't hit ctrl+F and search for text that's in flash either. So I really don't like Flash - it seems like it's used more to make webpages less useful than anything else.