The Ohanaware Weblog
Understanding Apple vs Flash, does it really mean anything?
It’s all over the tech news and even made it to regular news, Apple is attacking Flash and Adobe are fighting back. How does it affect you?
There’s two issues I see here, the first is that Flash is a necessary evil and the second is that there is nothing Apple can about it except to flush it away.
What Steve Jobs says is true!
I’m a big fan of Apple (albeit I’m not a big fan of the new mini-display port). However everything that Steve Jobs says about Flash is true, It’s a CPU hog, get a flash animation playing and watch it suck up your CPU. Flash devours batteries, true. Flash crashes, yes it does (thankfully no longer killing the browser). The Mac version is behind the Windows version, as far as I can tell, that’s true too! It’s a security risk, don’t believe Jobs, just ask Symantec (the people behind Norton Antivirus).
So what can Apple do to fix this?
Simply put, not much. The internet is built on open standards, standards that would allow you to obtain documentation, and write your own web browser should you feel inclined. Apple did just this (well sort of, they started with someone else’s and improved it), which means that they have free roam to fix problems, optimize areas and add new features.
However Apple has no control over Flash, when a problem is found with Flash, all Apple can do is report it to Adobe. Reading Steve Jobs’ letter, it appears that Apple got tired of waiting for Adobe to fix Flash, waiting for Adobe to optimize Flash and waiting for Adobe to demonstrate Flash working ‘well’ on any mobile device.
Apple’s only option is move the industry away from Flash, to a video and animation platform that Apple can do something about.
What about the rest of the industry?
Google, on one hand are standing next to Adobe in support of Flash on the Google phone, while behind Adobe’s back, GooTube (Google’s YouTube) is moving away from Flash and supporting Apple’s cause. Google’s Web Browser even supports the newer non-flash features. Microsoft have also announced that they are joining Apple’s side and supporting the never platforms. Leaving Adobe fighting a losing battle.
Others are quick to point out that video is only one aspect of Flash, but video is the most common aspect of Flash, once that’s been broken this paves the way for people to avoid Flash all together.
What about us, at Ohanaware?
Personally, I hated video in Flash, I thought it was a joke and hoped that it would never take off. It didn’t matter and I understand why, Flash makes it easy to include video on a website. We did it on our site also (we still do if your browser cannot do HTML5). On my own machine I have plug-ins disabled in Safari, as this disables a lot of ads, saves me battery life and doesn’t start blaring uncontrollable music when I land on some websites. If I visit a website built in Flash, I simply leave.
What about you?
So where does this leave you? Hopefully if things are done right, you won’t notice the changeover from Flash to new exciting standards. For instance the video on our website is now all in HTML5 (h.264), however if your web browser doesn’t support it, you’ll get a Flash version of the video, you shouldn’t even notice.
As it is any applications written for the iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch are already created in Apple’s tools, so no worries there.
Conclusion.
I’m not sure I agree with Apple banning all apps made with Flash. I’m happy that we’re moving away from Flash video on the internet and I’m hoping that the new animation standards will lead to more exciting and entertaining web pages. As for Flash, maybe the time for closed web standards is drawing an end, if anyone can relinquish a legacy technology it’s Apple, who once again may be ahead of their time.
Tags: Adobe, Apple, Flash, Google, GooTube, Microsoft, YouTube