The emblematic blue Lego block that showed up on Jobs’ iPad this Wednesday is making a whole lot of waves. Adobe, which is getting really upset about this whole deal, actually believes that Apple just wants them to fail:
It looks like Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and consumers. [...] Without Flash support, iPad users will not be able to access the full range of web content, including over 70% of games and 75% of video on the web.
If I want to use the iPad to connect to Disney, Hulu, Miniclip, Farmville, ESPN, Kongregate, or JibJab — not to mention the millions of other sites on the web — I’ll be out of luck.
On another hand, if you look more closely at Apple’s iPad commercials, the mobile safari they display features flash animations and many speculate that this could be some sort of a sign.
So what’s the deal? Well, let’s face it, in my opinion those images are just simulations and anyway, do you really still want flash on your iPad?
The concept of the iPad is to give you the best possible online experience, and honestly, Flash does not fit in there. Of course there is still a lot of content that demands it, but most of the time it’s buggy, slow and just badly integrated. Time for html5!
I really must stop posting to sites on this topic, but one more time for kicks: The best possible online experience is one where I can see whatever the hell I want — where I can stream whatever BS video I want. The best possible online experience is not to have to abandon my iPhone (or iPad) and get to my laptop and find the link to see the MSNBC clip. Or to see ESPN360. Or to see TwitTV. Or CNET. Or whatever.
If Apple was concerned about giving me the best possible online experience, they wouldn’t prevent me from streaming that video. Apple is concerned about Apple.
If they don’t start concerning themselves with what people want they are going to continue to see their stock price go down.
I think Apple is putting all it’s marbles in the continued adoption of HTML5 and is pushing very hard against Adobe.
Their ideology, and one that I agree with, is that if I want to play a game, I’d run a game. If I want to watch a video online, I H.264 in a QuickTime wrapper is the best option. Not flv.
In a perfect world, everything runs on html5, but in reality I still need Flash. This is the one issue that keeps me having to boot up the MacBook instead of getting by on my iTouch. On a positive note, the sites I need to access have gotten more responsible about using flash, but I still need it for much more than stupid games (looking at you farmville) and lolcat videos on Twitter (although those are cool). Flash support is the one feature that seems non-negotiable.
What it sounds like is apple is afraid of being too successful, i think 98% off apple iphone and itouch users would be excited to be able to see flash on the iphones and itouches.
i think it’s a sign all right. If they tried to market this ipod/pad by showing what the internet would really look like they wouldn’t sell any. So yeah it’s a sign they aren’t stupid they just think we are.
It’s simple. Apple doesn’t want websites with bad flash implementations to make people think that the iPad sucks. If a user goes to a site with bad flash and things don’t work properly, they won’t blame the site or Adobe, they’ll blame Apple. Apple just doesn’t want to have to support someone else’s products.
I concur. Flash on the Mac is nothing short of a disaster IMO and the web became alsmost unbearable without use of plugins like ClickToFlash or FlashBlock. Moreover nobody sane wants the web to move away from open (W3C) standards to proprietary environment (Flash, Silverlight) controlled by few companies. Apple should be applauded for their policies in this case!
I still think it is a long lasting battle between Adobe and Apple:
- Apple does not want to pay a licence fee for every handset they enable with Flash … like the other mobile operators do with Flash Light.
- Apple wants a high quality and optimized implementation of Flash … which is a serious task for the Adobe team. Therefore Adobe would need to optimize it for the new Apple A4-processor and the iPhone ARM processors.
- Apple is not interested in the Flash-developer community … they have their own agile iPhone-developer community. They prefer native games and apps because they are more powerful, better integrated, use less power resources … and they sell the native apps at the AppStore
- Apple wants to push new standards in the video streaming sector
… more than 50 million iPhone and iPod touch users got used to the internet without Flash … and we still like it
so this is a major threat to Adobe … not to Apple
First, I love Apple and it’s products. I can’t wait for the iPad. But I am so disappointed it won’t have Flash. I dislike that my iPhone doesn’t have Flash. I get that stupid blue box on too many web sites and emails for me to ignore no Flash. I don’t profess to know all of the financial and political reasons for the decision, but Apple is cheating us of a better user experience.
That isn’t problem!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE2Qs8mQ9Ro
http://d.imobilecinema.com/
The only reason for blocking flash is to keep control of the AppStore. Ignore all the other BS reasons as they are just FUD!
I accept some limitations in my iPhone browsing experience, because it’s so uniquely convenient to have decent web access any time anywhere. The iPad wants to be my primary recreational browser, and it has more competition. I’m not going to accept web access that is so proprietary that it limits what I can do on the web. That’s not what the Internet is all about, and it’s not a good value proposition for users. I love my iPhone, but the ipad is not for me.
Wow!lots of fanboys here! Im with woz here, just think bout it, if i can create apps using flash and post it on the web (games,utility apps, entertainment,etc)what would happen to the appstore? It would certainly fail! Btw, the iPad looks good but its stupid….who wants a glorified ipod touch?no multitasking?no osx?qhat a let down!bad job jobs!