NBC & TW to Apple, we're sticking with Flash

[scottjl]

cute comic..

[Trubu]

Originally Posted by scottjl

nbc has flip-flopped on similar decisions before..

I'm guessing this will last about as long as their absence from the iTunes video store did a few years ago...

Maybe not, though. This could be a play to make the eventual Hulu app and subscription service more enticing. Fox doesn't seem in any hurry to make its video iPad-compatible either.

On a semi-related note, I had to spend 3 hours today troubleshooting my Flash CS4 install - it suddenly decided to stop exporting .swf files. It would either crash completely when I tried to publish, or simply fail to output the file. It was eventually resolved by a complete uninstall/reinstall (which is a whole other circle of hell due to the horrible CS4 installation program). Of course, along the way I had to retry the install three times because it kept choking on a font it thought was corrupted. This is just a couple of weeks after I did a routine Acrobat update and it hosed my licensing information (and refused to take the correct serial number) because I failed to open another CS4 app before opening the updated Acrobat. That required another uninstall/reinstall and 2 wasted hours.

When people accuse me of being down on Flash because I'm a drooling Jobs sheeple, I have to laugh. Part of the reason I'm down on Flash is because I've used Adobe products virtually every day for the last 15 years, and since they acquired Macromedia, their focus has shifted to pushing Flash as a platform and loading up their overpriced, forced-bundle CS with useless bloatware while making only incremental improvements to the core apps I actually care about. And on top of that, implementing one of the most customer-hostile, bug-ridden DRM systems known to man.

Sorry. It was a frustrating afternoon, needed to vent.

[scottjl]

i work with several web designers and graphic artists, you're not alone in your complaints.. not one bit.

personally i got tired of photoshop upgrades and troubles that i went to elements since that's all i really needed for my photography enhancements. and since the mac version wasn't updated as much as the pc version i sadly went over to the windows version of that. adobe used to produce quality applications, now they care about quality as much as microsoft does.

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

Interesting. Guess it's up to the individual sites then rather than TW as a whole--unless they go crazy and take away the non-flash videos on CNN.com.

Time Warner's issue was about the cost of converting all the stuff they already had not about new stuff so it seems quite unlikely they would take anything away.

[StevenK]

Originally Posted by Tamara

I'm betting they change their minds in the next 6 months.

Yeah, when there are millions upon millions of iPad users who can't buy their product, they'll suddenly discover the benefits of HTML 5.

[leebase]

It's not just the iPad. No phones but the most recent few Android phones can run full flash. That's a HUGE market they are ignoring.

Lee

[dmaul1114]

That's true, but most people I know with smartphones aren't doing much web browsing anyway. They just check e-mail, and view some mobile sites for sports scores when they're on the go, look up an address to a restaurant etc.

So I don't think they're missing a huge chunk of people, and they can always make adds for the mobile sites where all phones are going to get default directed to anyway--assuming they have mobile sites of course.

Again, I don't have a dog in the fight either way. I couldn't give a shit less about Flash or Apple and this battle.

All I care about is any tablet I buy must have the exact same web browsing capabilities as my PCs or I won't buy it. So Flash support is a deal breaker for me until some future date when every site I visit regularly has switched away from Flash.

Others don't frequent Flash sites, and thus are fine with the iPad's browsing experience.

That's really all it boils down to--how much Flash is prevalent in people's daily web browsing, so it's really not worth all the heated arguments we've had on here over the months.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

That's true, but most people I know with smartphones aren't doing much web browsing anyway. They just check e-mail, and view some mobile sites for sports scores when they're on the go, look up an address to a restaurant etc....
...
All I care about is any tablet I buy must have the exact same web browsing capabilities as my PCs or I won't buy it. So Flash support is a deal breaker for me until some future date when every site I visit regularly has switched away from Flash.....

+1

The reality is that the full Flash Player will be available on Android, Blackberry, WebOS and Symbian in the second half of 2010, and Windows Mobile 7 in the first half of 2011.

Which means that all tablets and most phones running any of these systems will have full Flash capability, including hardware acceleration.

Plus, most tablets and many phones will run on Tegra 2 and Atom Z6, thus most likely the minor hiccups we see on the Snapdragon Nexus One will be smoothed out by the more powerful hardware.

The bottom line is, 2010 is the year in which Flash finally comes in full force to the mobile world.

With Android growing exponentially (even AT&T is getting a 4" AMOLED Samsung i897 (running Android 2.2 with Flash) in July), and everyone else getting on the Flash bandwagon, the iPlatform looks pretty isolated in terms of web browsing. I am not certain most companies will continue to invest in mobile sites, once "mobile" comes to mean only "iPlatform."

I personally believe that iPad v.2 or v.3 will get Flash, just like the 3Gs got video, and just like Apple opened iBooks one year after Jobs pronounced that "nobody reads anymore."

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Sonist

+1

I personally believe that iPad v.2 or v.3 will get Flash, just like the 3Gs got video, and just like Apple opened iBooks one year after Jobs pronounced that "nobody reads anymore."

I don't believe anything one way or the other about this, but at this point the onus on Adobe is to deliver a high quality Flash on at least a couple of mobile platforms, and do it before the end of the year, if not sooner. Their credibility is very much in question at this point.

It only makes sense for Apple to support Flash if there's a clear competitive pressure to do so. And that pressure only exists in theory (well, beta) right now.

It would be interesting if Apple were to mitigate their risk by doing their own implementation of Flash or a functional subset thereof (if they aren't working on this already). With fewer constraints concerning requirements (for example, that the code be cross platform, or that it implement the full spec), and full access to iPhone code, they could probably come up with a better solution than Adobe, expose functionality the current Flash specification does not (accelerometer?), while avoiding external dependencies.

[jibril]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I don't believe anything one way or the other about this, but at this point the onus on Adobe is to deliver a high quality Flash on at least a couple of mobile platforms, and do it before the end of the year, if not sooner. Their credibility is very much in question at this point.

It only makes sense for Apple to support Flash if there's a clear competitive pressure to do so. And that pressure only exists in theory (well, beta) right now.

It would be interesting if Apple were to mitigate their risk by doing their own implementation of Flash or a functional subset thereof (if they aren't working on this already). With fewer constraints concerning requirements (for example, that the code be cross platform, or that it implement the full spec), and full access to iPhone code, they could probably come up with a better solution than Adobe, expose functionality the current Flash specification does not (accelerometer?), while avoiding external dependencies.

+1

Don't care if iPhone/iPad is 1st or 3rd place, I just hope flash dies the utter death it deserves.