Comments on Dale Fraser's Blog: Wake Up Steve Jobs

This "We <3 Apple" campaign was such ...

2010-06-24T09:51:26.048+10:00

This "We <3 Apple" campaign was such garbage. It should've been renamed to "We <3 $$$." It goes without saying that Adobe has a vested interest in maintaining their Flash runtime as the market leader for RIAs because their tools are friggin' expensive and they make them millions. Kudos to them for trying to make a buck, but it doesn't do much for pushing out newer and more open standards that don't chain us down to their tools and IDEs.

What really boggles my mind is why we gets rants like this one that rather arrogantly declare how a CEO of a company should manage his or her company when it's already successful. I honestly don't believe anyone has the clairvoyance to declare with certainty that Apple will be kicked out of the market because of the decisions of today. As it has been mentioned many times, people speak best with their wallets. If Flash support was really the deal breaker for the masses then you wouldn't be seeing the sales numbers that you're seeing now. Sure, there's Reality Distortion Factor here, some slick marketing there, but one thing that has changed dramatically over the last 10 years is that Apple products have scaled immensely to the world.

As for market domination, let me just close with this. I'm a Web developer who works primarily in ColdFusion. This product is one of those babies that continues to remain profitable despite it not controlling the majority of the server-side language market share. There's no question that it would be great to have more customers and increased revenue, but at this point hoping for that market dominance is a bit of a pipe dream. That's not necessarily a bad thing, however. The idea that you have to be market dominant to survive or be profitable is hogwash. ColdFusion remains profitable, strong, and innovative despite it's lack of "popularity." Sometimes people just need to STFU and let the market decide what's valuable and what's not.

Peace out!

@Dan You had some pretty strong points until you g...

2010-06-24T09:51:12.150+10:00

@Dan
You had some pretty strong points until you got to this one.

"Surely allowing user's to make choices for themselves is the best policy??"

Uh, no. There are gadgets for techies, and there are gadgets for consumers. This is not to say consumers are on some intellectually inferior level as techies are. I'm just of the opinion that most people don't really care about opening up the innards of their device, whether it be hardware or software, and modifying their product to their heart's content. I guess in theory the product is "yours" and you should be able to do what you want with it, but in reality if you don't like what's being offered the market has plenty of substitutes. That's what competition is all about, baby.

The debates we're seeing around Flash vs. no Flash are mainly within circles of people who are more technologically literate. In my anecdotal observations, the most vocal ones are those who have this false perception that they will lose their jobs and revenue just because they have to learn something new aside from ActionScript. Once again, no. If you can write ActionScript and Flex, chances are you're a talented developer and you should have no problems learning new languages. It's part of the game. You pick up. You evolve. You adapt. Even still, Flex and ActionScript developers make very high salaries. It's not like they are starving. Flash will remain potent for RIAs on the desktop, and that's that. HTML5/CSS3? I like the prospect of them cause it means I can create certain rich UI effects without having to dish out a crap ton for the Flash Suite.

As for me, until Flash has proven itself for mobile devices, I don't want it anywhere near my phone. Yes, it's great that Froyo will support it fully, and that Flash 10.1 is leaps and bounds (supposedly) above previous versions, but that doesn't take away the fact that three years since the release of the iPhone we're still waiting for this magical runtime that will run just as smoothly as the Flash Player that's available for Windows. Notice I didn't say Mac. I can testify with first-hand experience that Flash is the #1 crasher of my Web surfing (Steve Jobs exaggerated this point and made it sound like it crashes the OS, not so). On Windows this is not so much the case. Why? We can go back and forth on this one, but IMO it's because Adobe puts their resources where the money is at, and at the moment Windows users far outnumber Mac users.

As a side note, there's an excellent analysis...

2010-06-04T21:18:11.082+10:00

As a side note, there's an excellent analysis of the HTML5 / Flash debate here:

http://gizmodo.com/5461711/giz-explains-why-html5-isnt-going-to-save-the-internet

And I forgot to mention the main reason that as a developer it is a risk to develop content for iDevices and that is the Apple App Store approval process which seems to have the rules made up on a case by case basis depending on which way the wind is blowing and which moral flag Steve Jobs is waving at any one time.

Until this changes, Google/Android/ChromeOS has a very bright future.

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/62944,news-comment,news-politics,apples-moral-superiority-leaves-sour-taste-for-iphone-and-ipad-fans

jp, Thanks for your detailed response but it was ...

2010-06-04T20:52:44.344+10:00

jp,

Thanks for your detailed response but it was me (Dan) that wrote the last comment, not Dale.

I don't mean to be rude but I swear you must have decided your opinion from the front page of Aviary. Did you even open any of the apps?

Please take a proper look at the whole Aviary suite as at present there is nothing anywhere near as sophisticated for audio/image manipulation on ANY other RIA technology today.

I'm not suggesting that at some stage the competing technology may deliver similar experiences, but at present this is not the case.

The closest rival flash has for designer/developer workflow and features is Silverlight 4 (awesome!) which doesn't currently target the range of devices Flash can.

I have nearly 10 years experience doing web development and have absolutely nothing against HTML5/JS but am very aware of the problems with browser inconsistencies and different interpretations of 'Standards'.
This is not relevant with Flash (particularly from 10.1 onwards)

As for security holes, yes Flash has had it's share of problems and there seems a new sense of responsibility at Adobe to get these resolved and make the platform better. However Flash is not alone in having security flaws. I need not remind you that the iPhone itself has had several serious exploits found in it's time.

Of course the VM is not as quick as native code, but Adobe (and others) have developed tools that create native applications, so your point it mute. Unfortunately Apple realised this and used legal means to stop it.

Jobs decision is purely based on tying consumers into Apple products and services which in my opinion is not a positive step for anyone but Apple themselves.

Surely allowing user's to make choices for themselves is the best policy??

Most Google apps are not made in Flash becuase Google has invested a lot of time/money in it's tools (GWT, etc..) and has lots of Java developers.
They use Flash where it makes sense and need to provide a richer experience to the end user (video/audio/animation)

I'm sorry the AudioTool site seems down, it is an incredible example of the kind of apps that we will all be using in future when desktop apps become irrelevant.

Thanks,

Dan

Hey Dale, This link doesn't work. http://www....

2010-06-04T19:44:32.551+10:00

Hey Dale,

This link doesn't work.
http://www.audiotool.com/

http://aviary.com/ is ok but it will be soon be overtaken by HTML apps like http://mugtug.com/sketchpad/. This is only the beginning. Not to mention that a lot of developers are slowly moving to HTML5, JavaScript and CSS3 for building RIAs because being at the mercy and shackled up by a proprietary Flash Player doesn't really add up to an "Open Web".

The Flash Player has so much security holes. It'll be a cat and mouse game forever with hackers exploiting these security holes and Adobe trying to plug them up. At least HTML5, JavaScript and CSS3 are web standards that Apple, Google, Mozilla are pushing and investing tons of research money to make sure that they're secure versus one company. Adobe will never match Apple, Google, and Mozilla with financial resources and research capabilities. Not to mention that MS IE9 will be fully standards compliant so now you have Apple, Google, Mozilla and Microsoft making sure that the Web Standards are secure and updated.

http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/259425

If Flash Player is so great for RIAs then why are a lot of Google Apps not made with Flash? Upcoming Microsoft 2010 Online isn't made with Flash? Flickr, Facebook, Scribd, Twitter? Even Salesforce.com isn't fully entrenching itself with Flash. They're actually doing smart business by not being held down by the Flash Player.

http://cloudblog.salesforce.com/2010/05/flash-forward-the-future-is-dim.html

http://cloudblog.salesforce.com/2010/05/no-flash-lasts-forever.html

http://cloudblog.salesforce.com/2010/05/think-different-or-else.html

On mobiles devices can you actually prove that a VM (Flash Player) can be as blistering fast as native code (C, C++, and Objective-C)? As far as I know the Flash Player will always be a virtual machine no matter how much hardware acceleration it supports, it will never beat the native speed and hardware integration of compiled native code.

All the Flash Apps made will never go to the 50 million iPhones and 2 Million iPads. These iDevices are selling fast all over the world and I don't know what planet you're at but making your apps not compatible with such a huge market is ludicrous and not a very wise business decision. Android is trying but at the present moment they don't have the sales numbers that iDevices have.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphone

At least Steve Jobs makes sure that the consumers actually have "great use experience" on the awesome iDevices that he spawns.
No crashing and draining battery life. Instead of criticizing the opinions of Steve Jobs, HTML5 and the rest of the web standards on you blog, why not take some time to substantiate your argument about Flash Player's future before wasting your own "precious, valuable time" developing for a soon to be not so significant platform.

Ps. Like I said I don't have anything against Flash or Adobe. I do Flash animation and use Adobe Creative Suite. It's opinion like yours that fires me up because it's so garbage to say that FLASH IS THE ONLY WAY to deliver awesome RIAs for the web and then criticizing platforms that don't support it.

Hey jp, not really sure what to say about your mos...

2010-06-04T00:01:30.087+10:00

Hey jp, not really sure what to say about your mostly misinformed comment.....

What planet are you on to suggest that Smokescreen is anywhere near ready to be "on par" with the Flash Player???

Have you even looked at it? It currently supports the most basic level of features from Flash and only runs on the most recent browsers. Try running it on anything made before 2010 and you are in for disappointment.
It will *never* be able to replace Flash.

When either Smokescreen or HTML5 is capable of creating RIA's like:
http://aviary.com/
http://www.audiotool.com/
etc. please let me know, because so far I'm yet to see anything but primitive content with either.

I've lost count of the number of "revolutionary" gadgets that have come and gone during the 10+ years Flash has been delivering content to the web. iMac, iPhone, etc are just the next evolution (a predictable one at that) of hardware and even they have a shelf life.

Technologies tend to evolve as well, which is exactly what the Flash Platform is doing, mainly driven by developers in the past, but currently with a focus on consumers.

Steve Jobs dictatorial attitude will end up pushing more and more potential developers/customers away from his products and over to Google/Adobe/MS and I for one will be happy.

Instead of criticising the opinions of someone on their blog, why not take some time to substantiate your argument before wasting your own "precious, valuable time" in the future.

2010-06-03T23:56:45.281+10:00

This comment has been removed by the author.

Thanks for highlighting the HTML 5 issue, that lin...

2010-06-03T22:17:54.309+10:00

Thanks for highlighting the HTML 5 issue, that link doesn't work in IE. HTML 5 will render and behave differently in every browser, assuming that the users even have a browser that supports it.

Well at least Steve Jobs has enough drive and tale...

2010-06-03T22:15:37.921+10:00

Well at least Steve Jobs has enough drive and talent to produce revolutionary gadgets that consumers like. iMac, iPod, iPhone and now the iPad. Flash is a technology, technologies come and go. As Steve said in his D8 interview "We choose what tech horses to ride, we look for tech that has a future and is headed up. Different pieces of tech go in cycles... they have summer and then they go to the grave."

http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/01/steve-jobs-live-from-d8/

If you need prove that HTML5 and JavaScript are up to par to what Flash can do then check out the demos at http://smokescreen.us/demo/

Smokescreen is an open source Flash to JavaScript converter and as far as I can see from the demos, combination of HTML5 and JavaScript pretty much reproduces what Flash can do.

I'm actually a Flash Animator. I use Flash and Creative Suite everyday. If you have the time to write this rant post wouldn't it be more productive to just work on your HTML5 and JavaScript skills, get your work compatible with iPhone / iPhone? If you don't like working with Apple devices then you can always develop for the Android platform where they support Flash. Though it's unclear when's any mobile device will actually ship out with Flash 10.1, maybe never for all I know. Why fight a battle that you know you won't be able to win in the first place. What a waste of precious, valuable time.