MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Mar 05, 08 - 11:25 am Comment from: Jay-Z

As someone who integrates interactive media into branding systems day in and day out, Flash is an outdated technology. In the wrong hands, it hampers usability on a web site. And anyone with the right hands uses other more efficient, non-proprietary technology.

Mar 05, 08 - 11:32 am Comment from: Ampar

So, it's up in the AIR?

(pun, as usual, intended)

Mar 05, 08 - 11:33 am Comment from: Jamie

Flash is crap. I'm glad it's not on my iPod touch, no annoying flashing adverts EVER!

I think the lack of Flash is a selling point!

Jay-Z:

Serious question: if you had to make a list of the best "efficient, non-proprietary technology" to replace Flash's functionality (not just its video-embedding capabilities), what would that list be?

(I know it's probably all "AJAX" but more specifically if you would be so kind.)

This is Jobs' first intimation that he has embraced MS Silverfish.

To most people, no flash no sell. It'll take time before they digest what Jobs said.

Mar 05, 08 - 11:57 am Comment from: Jay-Z

@ Fred:

Our interactive director looks at what we want to do and chooses the best technology for that situation. He has said numerous times that he avoids Flash like the plague.

Mar 05, 08 - 12:00 pm Comment from: Grifterus

Flash is an awful technology. It has its place, but I'd replace whatever Flash with AJAX, wherever possible.

Mar 05, 08 - 12:17 pm Comment from: Rainer

@Cassandra:

This is a not as silly as it sounds.
MSFT has been hyping Silverlight since the beginning - even going as far as doing the initial presentations almost exclusively on OS X and MBPs...
Of course, Steve wouldn't make such a decision without a *significant* favour from MSFT.

So, I wouldn't say it's impossible, but it wouldn't be "cheap" for MSFT either.

Oh, you've got to be kidding. No Flash? No JavaFX? Silverlight had better be a 'No' as well then.
Just as we're moving away from web sites which are IE only, we had better not be going back to a web only accessible by using Microsoft products? And you thought the Mac MS Office situation had been bad!

I hope, with future (faster) versions of iPhone, it'll start supporting flash.

Mar 05, 08 - 12:46 pm Comment from: shen

flash is a pathetic slow old dog. get it through your heads people. it can make a modern dual core machine slow down. it. is. crap.

i hope they keep it off my iPhone.

i wish they could keep it off the web.....

I love my iphone, but not having flash is ridiculous. And I'd like to see you develop in ajax what you can do in flash - not even close.

Steve should talk to the Board at Disney. Disney's website is all flash and can't be viewed on the iPhone.

Mar 05, 08 - 12:52 pm Comment from: jjjj

silverlight!

Mar 05, 08 - 12:55 pm Comment from: Mr. Peabody

I've been saying we need to move beyond Flash for a long time - Not to mention (but in fact am obviously mentioning anyway), that all Flash really is, is Adobe trying to be the only player.

There you have it...Flash Lite Sucks.

shen, where's your example? You've obviously never developed anything using Flash - there's no substitute for integrating dynamic animated content for the web quickly (and with about as small a file size as you can get), and displaying it the same way across browsers/OS's.

Mar 05, 08 - 12:59 pm Comment from: Mo

Apple got rogered with Flash integration in QuickTime. Actually we got rogered stupidly using Flash layers in QuickTime. All that content we produced is now useless.

Flash: the opiate of the cyber-masses. We need to wean ourselves off of this foul substance.

Mar 05, 08 - 01:06 pm Comment from: effwerd

Good. I hope this heralds the death of this useless technology.

Mar 05, 08 - 01:09 pm Comment from: Predrag

The only reason Flash has enormous popularity and is a complete lock-in for multimedia content online is the flat learning curve for developers. Built-in tutorials start you off within an hour or two. There is so much flash content out there that was built by ordinary DreamWeaver users who know nothing about programming, who took the first two or three tutorials inside Flash and are already designing their animated stuff. As rich and lean as AJAX as a concept (and all the underlying technologies with it) can be, you need to have serious programming skills in order to create such content. For Flash, you can be an ordinary graphic designer with no clue about programming and you'll be deploying Flash content in a day or two.

This is the only reason why Flash survives. Unfortunately, it will be the same reason why it will be difficult, if not impossible, to displace. IPhone might help in the process, though, by never having it.

Mar 05, 08 - 01:12 pm Comment from: doc

I hate flash. Most of the problems I have had with my mac turn out to be caused by flash. Funny thing, if I do not install flash on a system, I am STILL ABLE TO INTERACT with sites using links and so forth. Go figure. The web worked fine before flash, and will work fine long after flash is gone. Frankly, I hate all the flash-n-dazzle the net has become. I have been known to turn off java and uncheck images, no audio, just for the peace and quite while I surf. Much snappier surfing. I turn on the tv if I want to watch tv, plug in my headphones and listen to tunes via itunes, which is less snappy but makes it easier to ignore ambient room noise, if you know what I mean.

On the other hand, any solution should be based on the quicktime codebase.

Mar 05, 08 - 01:15 pm Comment from: the other steve jobs

if we could simply view Flash video - which is nothing more than h.264 wrapped in flash - that at least would be acceptable.

Mar 05, 08 - 01:56 pm Comment from: M. T. MacPhee

'There's this missing product in the middle. It just doesn't exist,' he explained."

At least, it doesn't exist outside of the SkunkWorks at One Infinite Loop.

Maybe Apple will go with Microsoft's Silverlight. From what I've read, it's an excellent piece of technology - very well engineered.

I wouldn't expect MDN - honest and objective as they are - to ever admit that but it does look pretty cool. Wouldn't that be ironic.

@ M. T. MacPhee

I was thinking the same thing!

Go with silverlight despite not being able to author it on Macs. Now that would pretty much put an anchor on Apples multimedia ambitions would it not. Not to mention the control that would give MS once it becomes the solution of choice, something that Apple has been struggling to stop elsewhere

Mar 05, 08 - 02:37 pm Comment from: Mac-nugget

@Predrag
You make a good point. But Flash has a lot more depth then what you can learn in two hours. The problem is that people do not learn how to use the software correctly and they do the bloated graphic intensive tween mess that comes easy instead of the Actionscript lean interactive solutions that are possible once you dive a bit more in to it. The thing is that once you get in to the programing aspects, you are almost to the level of Ajax programing, so what is the point of Flash?

Mar 05, 08 - 03:09 pm Comment from: mossman

One area Flash excels at are vector-based animations. Yes, yes, banner ads suck, etc, etc.

You tell me, then, how to come up with a simulation of how machinery works, with clickable areas (buttons) that change parameters in the sim, that can scale to arbitrary sizes without losing resolution, and doesn't require browser-specific hacks.

It might be possible with SVG (which isn't supported by all browsers) and Javascript, but this would cost us 10x more in terms of time, money and effort.

I already have to fight to ensure standards-based browsers are supported....

Firstly, @doc: You must really miss the internet of 1995.

This is a pretty anti-consumer edict from Lord Jobs! Sure, Flash isn't the most wonderful technology out there and I am not a big fan of all-Flash websites. But they are out there, and iPhone Safari supposedly works just like desktop Safari! Or not.

So if Flash is too slow, give the people Flash Lite. It's certainly better than nothing. But no; Lord Jobs feels it necessary to make the universe bend to his every desire.

Mar 05, 08 - 04:01 pm Comment from: doc

@Jordan

I do miss the pre-web internet. The web has not made anything easier, just flashier. I never had trouble finding any info I needed on usenet. Granted, there was a lot of garbage there, it was just easier to avoid.

If I want flash-n-dazzle, I look at my wife.

Mar 05, 08 - 04:19 pm Comment from: Mizhou

Actually there is quite a good alternative, that doesn't have any of the flaws that Flash has, and it is SVG. SVG is based on XML and can be indexed by search engines, can be generated dynamically, can be animated with JavaScript and more.

Safari 3 has partial support for SVG, and if you read under number 4 here http://webkit.org/blog/122/webkit-3-10-new-things/, you can see that it will be even better quite soon.

Mar 05, 08 - 04:30 pm Comment from: Petey

Flash was originally designed as software to create animations - not websites.

Flash sites are invisible to web crawlers that google and all the search engines use and any designer worth their salt will tell you stear clear from a flash site.

Flash has only one useful thing in web site creation and that is to highlight certain areas of a site by animation.

Flash is highly overrated.

Mar 05, 08 - 11:06 pm Comment from: Mizhou

@Petey

I know what Flash was intended for, but in reality many build entire sites in Flash. Mostly because they could get more control over layout and functionality. Now since JavaScript (DOM) and CSS has evolved, I don't see any reason to build web sites in Flash at all.

Most of the interactivity that can be done in Flash, can now be done in XHTML, CSS and JavaScript only. SVG is a pretty good complement to XHTML, CSS and JavaScript though.

Mar 05, 08 - 11:36 pm Comment from: doc

@Mizhou

I thought people used flash because learning to use XHTML, CSS and JavaScript was too hard.

Mar 06, 08 - 01:51 am Comment from: Mizhou

@doc

Learning XHTML is not hard. One problem is that some web browsers interpret the HTML code differently than others. It was too easy to write faulty code in HTML (eg put a h1 element inside a p element or the like). Because this wasn't really defined in HTML, the behaviour from the browsers differed.

The syntax for XHTML is more strict, and the code should be validated, so that it has a proper syntax, and follows the Document Type Definition. The code should be well-formed.

If it is, then it is much easier to get the same behaviour from different browsers. There still are some differences in how the interpret some CSS and JavaScript code, but most browsers adhere much better to the standards now. Except for Internet Explorer of course.

Before XHTML one had to write a lot of JavaScript code, to test for browser and adjust the behavior for accordingly. Hopefully this will be a thing of the past soon.

The intention of HTML was for it to be cross-platform, but in reality you've had to write a lot of specific code for certain browsers. It has always been easy to make a web page, but to get it to look the same, and behave the same in all browsers, has been quite tough.

With Flash it was easier to author once, and don't have to create platform or browser specific code.

Bloody hell, none of you know what you're talking about. It's the canvas tag in HTML in Safari. OpenGL ES, and the iPhone has the hardware support already.

Mar 06, 08 - 10:43 am Comment from: Mr. Peabody

@mossman says, "I already have to fight to ensure standards-based browsers are supported...."

Which retranslated often simply means that, if it works with IE (which is constantly trying to set its own standards and compel everybody else to follow), then it's good. Since I don't know you from Adam I'm not pointing at you, but I am making a real-world observation. When I go to a vendor site or service provider site that uses Flash as a part of it's online business structure, and I have problems using Safari or FireFox or anything other than IE, what's the first response I get to my request for tech. support from that company? "Make sure you're using IE." This doesn't happen once in a great while, it is very frequent, and I think it clearly demonstrates that whoever is doing that actual site development for that particular organization only feels obligated to make their machinery operate with IE.

Whenever possible my response to those responses is, "Buh bye..." Oh, and I often include a little note to the vendor explaining that they need to police their web development staff (who are often contracted), to be sure that their products and services are viable for all potential online customers whether they're using IE or not.

Mar 06, 08 - 11:26 am Comment from: doc

@Mizhou

What you wrote would be funny if it were not so...


You want to differentiate "author" from "use". Please, tell me, what is the difference? If authoring with Flash is easier than it is with the triad of XHTML/Java/CSS, could it be that learning the proper use of the triad is HARDER than learning to use Flash (proper or not)? I often hear that using Flash is CHEAPER. Could that be because it is easier to learn to use?

Creating and managing information systems for a university and IBM are among the things I have done in life. I learned that most data, web sites, and so forth, are not important enough to people with money to actually pay to have things correctly. What is more likely to occur is that things will be done using the easiest tool to use BECAUSE using the tools that are harder to learn, but more powerful/flexible COST TOO MUCH.

Dec 30, 08 - 03:39 am Comment from: Martin M

There may be no products nearly as widely coveted as Apple products, and people have been getting a payday loan and other methods of finance to get their hands on them. The iPod touched off a craze that has yet to completely subside, and the fires were fueled further by the release of the iPhone, Apple's entry into the cellular phone world. The iPhone has proven to be a smashing success, and the next gadget to go with it will probably be just as successful. The iBreath, as it is called, is a portable breathalyzer that mates with both iPhone and iPod, and also doubles as an FM transmitter. A DUI is an awful thing to get on your record, and a portable tester that will keep you off the road, and out of needing a payday loan for bail, is even better. To read more about iBreath and payday loans for financial emergencies, check out this article.