Why Apple’s Culture War against Adobe was bad for everyone
Wow what a lockstep industry reaction to support Steve Jobs own protectionist nature at Apple. Even Microsoft got on the bandwagon about this.. But really is moving away from innovative technologies like Flash and Silverlight that give us more power where it’s available a bad idea versus trying for one size fits all ??
To quote Upton Sinclair “"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
On Flash Mobile and the Loss of Adobe Jobs
Bad move Adobe!! I will just say Adobe Flash works great on Android tablets and I have one and I also own an original Apple iPad. The web experience with the Android Tablet with Mobile Chrome (HTML 5) and Flash Mobile is much better than the experience I have using Safari on the iPad at any given time. It’s not selling as well either. The Android/ Flash Mobile experience is just as good as sitting down to a PC or a Mac with a non-mobile web browser. Everything JUST WORKS.. Not true on the iPad. But people accept this about them and buy them anyway ? Why because of blind loyalty to Apple and Steve Jobs..
I have been using Flash since it was Future Splash animator. All of the animation tools Adobe has shown or announced for HTML 5 look and are feature set equivalent to a 10 year old product. I think it's a completely ridiculous assumption that Flash should not be continued. The HTML 5 including canvas really doesn’t make up for the lack of Flash.
The canvas element is broken because it lacks a retained mode graphics system for reusable graphics. Also, resources and libraries will be insanely large because JavaScript (even compile fast JS) isn't designed for moving large amounts of data around like that and keeping up consistent speeds. Even with GPU enhanced browser rendering dealing with huge amounts of data in a scripting language (such as graphics and animation) can still be very unwieldy)
Canvas is underpowered thanks to Apple
The CANVAS element was a HUGE setback in functionality and it was proposed to the W3C by Apple engineers. It lacks power and functionality for it's purpose. Things like collision detection, touch, etc. are all missing from this at a base level. It will be a long while before we see an HTML 6…We had systems like HTML 5’s canvas element way back in 1996..
This is a completely bad move for the industry both technically and for the people who have to make great "experiences".
The Apple people complaining about Flash don't even know why Apple was complaining in the first place. Whatever Jobs said to them they blindly embrace.. Here's another did you know on Flash. Flash never had full GPU access to Mac OSX until it was granted access with Mac OS X 10.5 and then only on SOME Macs that supported it (with NVIDIA GPUs).. Apple really didn't have full hardware acceleration or video available even for VIDEO until then and the CPU controlled it all..
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/04/29/adobe_previews_gpu_acceleration_support_for_flash_in_mac_os_x.html
The real reason Steve Jobs was anti-Flash is he was afraid too many people would use Flash Builder to create iOS apps and they would take over the App Store. That's why they came out with ridiculous rules saying you had to use "Apple's SDK" only when creating apps.
Adobe’s CTO at the time Kevin Lynch got it correct..
http://allthingsd.com/20100411/exclusive-video-adobe-cto-lynch-smacks-back-at-apples-protectionist-strategy-calling-it-bad-for-consumers-but-hell-swing-chickens-if-forced/
This was a political move and Apple “sheeples” were dumb enough to believe his complaints, which had merit on the Mac (which his rant was mostly about) but only when you realize that Adobe Flash was being broken on the Mac by Apple itself in the first place by lack of providing the Mac platform GPU assistance as an API, making the CPU do all rendering).. This is because Apple spent forever moving away from PowerPC and emulated code to a full Intel CPU based OS that directly could access the hardware and the GPU itself. Was this on purpose ? Survey says yes. It’s also true that many Apple folks don’t upgrade as often as PC folks do to the latest and greatest hardware.
People who say way to go aren't smart about what we are all losing here and don't realize the superior experiences that could be created that are are now being all mothballed out of stupidity..
Retained Mode Graphics versus Immediate Graphics (why Flash is better)
”A retained-mode API is declarative. The application constructs a scene from graphics primitives, such as shapes and lines. The graphics library stores a model of the scene in memory. To draw a frame, the graphics library transforms the scene into a set of drawing commands. Between frames, the graphics library keeps the scene in memory. To change what is rendered, the application issues a command to update the scene — for example, to add or remove a shape. The library is then responsible for redrawing the scene”
”An immediate-mode API is procedural. Each time a new frame is drawn, the application directly issues the drawing commands. The graphics library does not store a scene model between frames. Instead, the application keeps track of the scene.”
”Retained-mode APIs can be simpler to use, because the API does more of the work for you, such as initialization, state maintenance, and cleanup. On the other hand, they are often less flexible, because the API imposes its own scene model. Also, a retained-mode API can have higher memory requirements, because it needs to provide a general-purpose scene model. With an immediate-mode API, you can implement targeted optimizations.”
For more information read the Microsoft MSDN article on Retained Mode versus Immediate graphics at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff684178(v=vs.85).aspx
Adobe kills 750 people’s jobs (thanks Steve Jobs)
According to CNNMoney:
”Adobe (ADBE) is restructuring and laying off 750 employees in North America and Europe. Also, sources tell ZDNet that the company is stopping development on Flash Player for mobile browsers and focusing its efforts instead on mobile apps, desktop content, and HTML5. That last bit about HTML5 may cause some Apple aficionados to revel, if true, given Steve Jobs' now-famous April 2010 memo, "Thoughts on Flash." In it, the former Apple CEO criticized Flash's reliability, security, and performance. (TechCrunch, ZDNet, and Apple)”
I think this is a huge mistake, after using a honeycomb Android tablet over the past month or so with an NVIDIA TEGRA GPU built-in.. The web experience is MUCH MUCH better than my iPad, which doesn’t have this GPU and doesn’t work with Flash websites.
Flash was Proprietary.. Wait what about the Open Screen Project ??
Really Flash is/was proprietary! Really ? You obviously never heard of the Open Screen Project..
http://www.openscreenproject.org/
Quote:
“The number and diversity of devices in our lives is exploding. Consumers want and demand the total Internet, with open access to websites, applications, and services using all devices. The challenge is that fragmentation across devices, operating systems, and browsers hinders innovation. The result? Consumer demands are not being met. The Open Screen Project™ was established to meet these challenges and expectations. It is an industry-wide initiative, led by Adobe with the participation of other industry leaders, to enable the delivery of rich multiscreen experiences built on a consistent runtime environment for open web browsing and standalone applications.
Establishing a consistent runtime environment
“With a consistent and broadly adopted runtime, stakeholders can focus more closely on developing the next-generation experiences that will differentiate their devices, software, and services. Consumers ultimately win with richer, more interactive, and universal user experiences across devices.
The Adobe® Flash® Platform will provide the consistent runtime environment envisioned by Open Screen Project partners. This technology was chosen because it has the widest reach in the world across operating systems and devices, a community of more than one million developers, and leading authoring tools..”
”Innovating through industry collaboration
Realizing their common vision — to enable consumers to engage with rich Internet experiences seamlessly across any device, anywhere — requires collaboration among operators, OEMs, chipset vendors, content providers, and developers. No one player can do it alone. Working together, Open Screen Project partners will:
- Give consumers greater choice by making implementations of the next major releases of the Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR® runtimes open and addressable by third-party developers
- Mitigate technology fragmentation by allowing Flash Player and AIR to be updated almost seamlessly over the network
- Unleash the creative potential of designers and developers around the world by enabling them to easily publish content and applications across connected devices”
But that’s not really open while giving Adobe the opportunity to keep Flash on the right path right ?? LOL
The silver lining in this is that Flash player was open sourced, so it maybe possible to maintain these products long after they are gone. The same goes for Microsoft Silverlight thanks to the work on the Mono “Moonlight” project, which created an open-source player for Linux called “Moonlight”
It maybe also possible through public initiatives to keep these platforms alive on new devices and open these up, in ways that private companies were unwilling to do..
Still planning to use Flash or Silverlight even if Microsoft and Adobe discontinue ?
Join the “Not giving up superior design tools coalition..” today. Let’s see how many people agree and want to keep these alive..
I started a Facebook page today..
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Not-giving-up-using-superior-design-tools-Coalition/185657671518439#!/pages/Not-giving-up-using-superior-design-tools-Coalition/185657671518439
Let’s show the corporations that we plan on staying with products that make sense and not to jump on something because some management initiative would block over ten years of real internet progress just to cater to selling something “new” that doesn’t build on past progress..
Let’s show the world that keeping up with Microsoft, Adobe, and Especially Apple isn’t the way to superior internet experiences..