Can we file a class action against Apple?

[jAQUAN]

I'd still like one atm but that desire is quickly waning. https://typo3.org/community/people/k...e-on-the-ipad/

[FlashLackey]

That answers my "is it easy to type on" question. Given that, it may be annoying to doctors trying to quickly make notes about patients so they can get to the next person.

[hanratty21]

Jobs speaks out...

Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products. Today the two companies still work together to serve their joint creative customers – Mac users buy around half of Adobe’s Creative Suite products – but beyond that there are few joint interests.

I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain.

First, there’s “Open”.

Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.

Apple has many proprietary products too. Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash). HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member.

Apple even creates open standards for the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the Safari web browser used in all our products. WebKit has been widely adopted. Google uses it for Android’s browser, Palm uses it, Nokia uses it, and RIM (Blackberry) has announced they will use it too. Almost every smartphone web browser other than Microsoft’s uses WebKit. By making its WebKit technology open, Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers.

Second, there’s the “full web”.

Adobe has repeatedly said that Apple mobile devices cannot access “the full web” because 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. YouTube, with an estimated 40% of the web’s video, shines in an app bundled on all Apple mobile devices, with the iPad offering perhaps the best YouTube discovery and viewing experience ever. Add to this video from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, and many, many others. iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video.

Another Adobe claim is that Apple devices cannot play Flash games. This is true. Fortunately, there are over 50,000 games and entertainment titles on the App Store, and many of them are free. There are more games and entertainment titles available for iPhone, iPod and iPad than for any other platform in the world.

Third, there’s reliability, security and performance.

Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.

In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?

Fourth, there’s battery life.

To achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware; decoding it in software uses too much power. Many of the chips used in modern mobile devices contain a decoder called H.264 – an industry standard that is used in every Blu-ray DVD player and has been adopted by Apple, Google (YouTube), Vimeo, Netflix and many other companies.

Although Flash has recently added support for H.264, the video on almost all Flash websites currently requires an older generation decoder that is not implemented in mobile chips and must be run in software. The difference is striking: on an iPhone, for example, H.264 videos play for up to 10 hours, while videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is fully drained.

When websites re-encode their videos using H.264, they can offer them without using Flash at all. They play perfectly in browsers like Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome without any plugins whatsoever, and look great on iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Fifth, there’s Touch.

Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?

Even if iPhones, iPods and iPads ran Flash, it would not solve the problem that most Flash websites need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices.

Sixth, the most important reason.

Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms.

Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.

Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins – we sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform.

Conclusions.

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

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. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

Steve Jobs
April, 2010

[WannaBe_80z]

Didn't know which thread to put it in so started it's own.

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

What do you all think about his reasoning?

[hanratty21]

I had posted this in the flash/iPhone thread. If the mods want to kill my post or whatever, that's fine.

[joshstrike]

"If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?"

What a schmuck.

[WannaBe_80z]

Ahh that is much better. a mod can delete this if they want.

[silverx2]

HEY ADOBE!

[jAQUAN]

I'm actually too irritated about the inaccuracies to post about them here. A blog post is in the near possible future.

[flamedude]

Jobs seems convinced he knows the whole story and the intricacies of Flash and is just ploughing on with his rhetoric/rant. The number of mistakes in his essay are quite bewildering.

But worryingly, he sounds very convincing.

What will Brimelow say!???

[flamedude]

"If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?"

What a schmuck.

I think Jobs should at least experience the absolute cluster f*** that is work with those three technologies together trying to create something that Flash does much better, quicker and much more stress free.

"I've finished the web app, at last!"
"It doesn't work in Windows Safari"
"..."

[jasonsplace]

I don't think that his post did anything except confirm what everyone else already assumed. I disagree with his logic though. He complains that Flash isn't open enough but then goes on to defend Apple's closed ecosystem. Flash on mobile devices may not work perfectly but I believe that it should be about choice. An app should be judged by itself and not on the technology that it was built with. If a developer is able to create something that works well using Flash it shouldn't be rejected just for the sake of it being built in Flash.

[Frets]

Honestly it reads like desparation to me. Can't wait for all those Ipad v tablet commercials. At least the pc/mac commercials were passive aggressive vieled in attempts at comedy.

Hi, I'm a tablet and this is an ipad.
So what's new ipad?

[jAQUAN]

I may not blog now since this probably covers my arguments better.
http://jessewarden.com/2010/04/steve...-the-lies.html

Sadly Frets, Apple will lead the tablet market for a while on sheer battery life alone. They've purchased the leading company creating custom hardware specific ARM chips.

[jAQUAN]

Let us not forget to celebrate the comedic value.
http://vimeo.com/11337728

[Frets]

threads merged.


Battery life is being addressed with several tablets via reducing the video output.
check out pixel qi which is being introduced on several tablets including the android based norton ink tablet The tablet has a 3 cell battery, which should run for up to 16 hours in full color. but it also has other modes that will last longer.

http://notionink.in/adamtechspecs.php

[joshstrike]

It seems like the big lie in Jobs' statement is the easiest thing about it to disprove. His implicit argument is that the three "modern technologies" anointed by Apple, JS, CSS and HTML5, when leveraged with webkit to perform similar tasks to those performed by Flash/Flex, create a more stable user experience, longer battery life, and faster execution times. None of that is true. Even the most basic games written with this JCH combo will run much, much slower and heavier in any environment than the same thing written in AS3. I don't think that'll ever change until JS supports strong typing and Canvas performance (even in Safari) is massively improved upon.

What he is saying, without saying it, is that if you want to play games on an iPad, you must go through the app store and download a native app; he's saying that there is no point in browser-based games, period. Whether written in Flash, Java, or anything else. He's saying that the market for casual gaming, as it exists now, must completely move over to his platform or else it's just superfluous.

And other than the hassle of rewriting all your code and libraries in Obj-C, what's the major drawback here? Apple can reject your game. And who does that affect? Whose games will they always reject?

Casinos. All of this works in a way that makes it impossible to gamble online with an iPhone or iPad. I'm not saying that's what this is about, but that's who it affects more than anyone else. IMHO, casinos are also the most likely candidates in the next two years to bring Flash roaring back, if and when online poker is re-legalized in the US.

[Frets]

The illegality of online poker in the U.S. has never stopped people from playing online poker in the U.S.

If they are that addicted they will jailbreak ipads and install apps anyway. Junkies will cut off thier own nose to spite thier face.

Most Ipad users won't care one way or the other. They don't want to think about what is not available to them. And those that do think about what is not available for them via the istore will make a game out of hacking the OS to get it.

[gerbick]

Erm... Frets. Joshstrike was talking about how most online poker games are done up in Flash. And if it's in Flash, it won't be on the iPad/iPhone.

Now... pertaining this "announcement" from Jobs. This is pretty damaging to Adobe's stock one way or another. The burden of proof is now on Adobe despite Jobs' statements being filled with half-truths and pretty damn inaccurate statements...

To me... this is downright dirty. And I say that as an Apple and Adobe stock owner.

[joshstrike]

Calling everyone who likes playing online poker a junkie seems kinda extreme. But there are other classes of gaming that Apple will ban, too. Basically any casual game that can be played in a browser is now under de facto ban by Apple, because you can't write them in HTML5/CSS/JS, and you can't run Flash or Java on the iphone. That's the real core of Jobs' message here: Casual gaming must go through the app store.

I just bring up casino gaming because it's an important instance from my perspective. As someone who codes browser-based casino games, I've been left with no way to reach the iPad audience in the US or abroad. Other than some HTML5 CSS div-hack that would be about as much fun to play as a text-based version.