iPad Why Flash Is Fundamentally Flawed On Touchscreen Devices

[jibril]

Seen this article on /.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/02...ices?art_pos=8

and here is the article itself:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2010/0...ant-use-flash/

I know that some people here are passionate about or against flash in Apple's devices. Here is an actual flash developer posting his thought against it in touchscreen devices.

It's an interesting read. Here is the beginning of the article:

I’m biased. I’m a full-time Flash developer and I’d love to get paid to make Flash sites for iPad. I want that to make sense—but it doesn’t. Flash on the iPad will not (and should not) happen—and the main reason, as I see it, is one that never gets talked about:

Current Flash sites could never be made work well on any touchscreen device, and this cannot be solved by Apple, Adobe, or magical new hardware.

That’s not because of slow mobile performance, battery drain or crashes. It’s because of the hover or mouseover problem.

Many (if not most) current Flash games, menus, and even video players require a visible mouse pointer. They are coded to rely on the difference between hovering over something (mouseover) vs. actually clicking. This distinction is not rare. It’s pervasive, fundamental to interactive design, and vital to the basic use of Flash content. New Flash content designed just for touchscreens can be done, but people want existing Flash sites to work. All of them—not just some here and there—and in a usable manner. That’s impossible no matter what.

There's more, but it's only fair to give the article clicks. /. is usually good for some techie commentary.

[Bremen Cole]

I know nothing about the inner workings of flash, but what he said makes since. But it seems to me the smart minds at Adobe could come up with a way around it......

[cmdahler]

Originally Posted by Bremen Cole

But it seems to me the smart minds at Adobe could come up with a way around it......

It's basically already too late for Adobe to fix this issue. They've had years and have turned a deaf ear to the complaints about their Flash crapware, and now that Jobs refused to let Flash have a place on the iPad, they're scrambling to patch it up. But it's a lost cause. Why? Because the iPad is going to be a game-changer in the entire computer industry, and Adobe recognizes that. This device is going to become the de facto standard for anyone like my mom and my wife: people who have zero need for a full blown computer but just want something that is compact and will let them check facebook and email so forth. My wife practically fell down when she saw the presentation on the iPad, so it's a given that we must own one: absolutely perfect for someone like her.

And that's what will destroy Flash entirely, and Adobe knows it. The market for the iPad is enormous. And once the sheer volume of web hits from the mobile safari web browser starts to skyrocket in a few months, web designers are going to leave Flash in droves just so their websites will work on the iPad. They'll move to HTML5, and that will be the eventual standard. Within about a year or two, if that long, Flash will basically no longer exist on most well-maintained websites. Adobe took too long to fix their issues, which has unfortunately become the standard modus operandi for Adobe, and Jobs basically got fed up and killed Flash singlehandedly.

[weateallthepies]

I happen to think he's talking out of his rear.

It seems he is trying to disprove the existence of my old N800 which as a touch screen device works fine with plenty of flash sites. Sure there are probably things which won't work but most of the large sites people are interested in and sites using flash as menus and media players will work fine.

There are plenty of other devices too which seem to cope with flash and a touch screen.

It seems to me more an effort to force developers to create applications which are iPad/phone specific.

[Gaurnim]

I don't see how HTML 5 will solve this issue, except that it will force people to code anew their sites, at which time they could redesign them to take into account the touchscreen functionality. So it's just like his "potential solution" A, but with a new language.

The problem does not come from Flash itself, the problem comes from the fact that current content has mostly been designed for PC, mouse and keyboard interfaces and not for touchscreen. If you don't design your content for touchscreen, it won't work in HTML 5 either.

[jibril]

I don't think supporting flash will affect a lot of navigation menus or movies, but I think a lot of games won't work on a touchscreen like he describes. Lots of them use the position of the mouse cursor for certain things.

Like Robokill 1 or 2, which are fun games btw.

[weateallthepies]

Originally Posted by jibril

I don't think supporting flash will affect a lot of navigation menus or movies, but I think a lot of games won't work on a touchscreen like he describes. Lots of them use the position of the mouse cursor for certain things.

Like Robokill 1 or 2, which are fun games btw.

That's true but I don't buy his "everything must work now" idea, plenty of games and websites would be developed to take advantage if the market was there.

Besides there are workarounds:

http://maemo.nokia.com/features/maemo-browser/gestures/

I don't really care because I'd probably not buy an iPad but it seems a strange defence of Apple's position.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by cmdahler

....Because the iPad is going to be a game-changer in the entire computer industry, .....The market for the iPad is enormous.....

I think you have a quite inflated belief of the impact (or lack of) of this crippled device.

Yes touchscreens and tablets are going to be big, but it's not the maxi-pad that is going to be the driver.

IMO.

[HarryT]

Given that Adobe have already announced "Flash Lite" for pretty much every mobile device except Apple ones, there clearly are acceptable "workarounds". I suspect that all most people want to be able to do is stream video, rather than use the "fancy" features of Flash.

[cmdahler]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I think you have a quite inflated belief of the impact (or lack of) of this crippled device.

Yes touchscreens and tablets are going to be big, but it's not the maxi-pad that is going to be the driver.

IMO.

We'll see. Of course, given that many other things Apple has done have been industry game-changers, I think I stand on solid footing in expecting this will be no different. It is also telling that Adobe has completely ignored the years of complaints from Mac and Linux users about the bloated, resource-intensive Flash crap, but only when Jobs eliminates the possibility of Flash from the iPad does Adobe immediately start scrambling and back-pedaling. It seems Adobe agrees with me about the potential market of the pad more than you. One way or the other, time will tell.

[kennyc]

Yes it will. Oh and the only thing I'd call industry changing I've seen is maybe the Ipod but even there there was prior devices and they continue to dominate a good chunk of the market due to apple's propitiatory policies.

[Bremen Cole]

Since iPod has 74% of the market http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/19294.cfm and the closest competitor (Sandisk 7%, Microsoft 1.1%)..... At least to me it would seem that other devices are not continuing to "dominate a good chunk of the market".....

I know if I had a company that had 74% market share, I would be quite happy and would not worry so much about my supposed "propitiatory policies"...

I do think the internet appliance is the wave of the future. Apple is a company that could in fact be the game changer.... but the fun thing is we don't know, and ANYTHING can happen. It will be interesting in 5 years to reflect on all this

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Bremen Cole

Since iPod has 74% of the market http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/19294.cfm and the closest competitor (Sandisk 7%, Microsoft 1.1%)..... At least to me it would seem that other devices are not continuing to "dominate a good chunk of the market".....
.....

74% is a lot if that is true....I'll have to check that link to see what "market" they are talking about.

And yes, it's always fun to watch these things develop and to look back (with 20-20 hindsight) and see what happened.

Here's another link that pretty much agrees: http://www.wired.com/entertainment/m...tunes_birthday

Those are both about digital sub downloads. This one says iTunes is 25% of all music - including cds: http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_090818.html

[Jim Lester]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Given that Adobe have already announced "Flash Lite" for pretty much every mobile device except Apple ones, there clearly are acceptable "workarounds". I suspect that all most people want to be able to do is stream video, rather than use the "fancy" features of Flash.

The original article was missing some details. Hover states (more correctly mouse over and mouse out events) are fully supported by flash even on touch devices. For more details set this blog post by Mike Chambers (with demonstration of Flash app on the iPhone)

The difference is in the interaction model of mouse vs. touch requires you to be careful in the design (am I really going to get a mouse over before I get a mouse down, maybe not), so yes it is quite possible to make a flash based app that won't work well on a touch device.

BTW this isn't a strictly flash based issue as there are any number of websites (eBay for instance - hover on the categories menu) that use Javascript to handle hover states on menus. It takes careful coding and consideration (regardless of platform and programming language) to handle the differences in touch vs mouse control.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by Jim Lester

The original article was missing some details. Hover states (more correctly mouse over and mouse out events) are fully supported by flash even on touch devices. For more details set this blog post by Mike Chambers (with demonstration of Flash app on the iPhone)

The difference is in the interaction model of mouse vs. touch requires you to be careful in the design (am I really going to get a mouse over before I get a mouse down, maybe not), so yes it is quite possible to make a flash based app that won't work well on a touch device.

BTW this isn't a strictly flash based issue as there are any number of websites (eBay for instance - hover on the categories menu) that use Javascript to handle hover states on menus. It takes careful coding and consideration (regardless of platform and programming language) to handle the differences in touch vs mouse control.

+1

Excellent points. Nice to see some informed sanity among all the FUD.