The iPad, and what it means for Flash
// February 1st, 2010 // 3 Comments » // flash
The End?
I don’t think so. And here’s why.
The iPhone
I have to admit that I have been an iPhone owner for as long as I have been developing Flash/Flex applications, which is about 3 years now. I am still using my first-gen iPhone to this day primarily as my mobile phone, music player, mobile browser/email device, calendar/address book , and occasionally a YouTube client. I do all this over Wi-Fi as I am not inclined to pay Rogers an obscene amount of money for band-limited EDGE. I do not think that this is terribly inconvenient because I have Wi-Fi at home, and at school. For my purposes, it has served me well, and I believe it does what it was meant to do quite well and this is why it has had such success. Some people can and do argue that it is a POS, and that may be true because their desires or needs may not correlate with what it offers. Though it lacks Flash support, the iPhone Safari browser is one of the easiest to use and quickest to render content. I let the absence of Flash pass as I believed Apple was telling the truth about it not being practical. The device itself is very rugged, though it doesn’t look it. I have accidently dropped it on multiple occasions (carpet, tile, and concrete) and all I have to show for it is a small dent, and a some barely noticeable scratches with no damage at all to the screen. It is a fantastic mp3 player, and has an abundance of useless applications (and many useful ones). It was the first device to do all this in such an intuitive manner. Which is why I still have some respect for the original iPhone. It was revolutionary. But all that is changing.
Apple’s Greed
Unfortunately, this is where my respect diminishes. The iPhone 3G, and iPhone 3Gs have, in my opinion, been nothing but incremental and almost insignificant changes. iPhone 3G was released a mere 12.5 months later with only 3G support, and a GPS module added (still without turn-by-turn directions). This really annoyed me because I think they should have been able to the same with the first-gen device at it’s launch. Why, if it’s such a revolution, as Steve Jobs would have people believe, would you hold something like that back? And, to my surprise, people went nuts to get their hands on the 3G. The same thing happened 11 months later when the 3GS came out. Only this time, the bait was better performance, higher-res camera, video recording(possible on the 1st-gen with third-party apps), and voice control(gimmick, should have been possible in first-gen). And still no Flash? I’m sure the improvements to the hardware would be enough to run Flash 9 quite easily. If it can run without any hickups on the Nokia n900, and Palm Pre… Why not the iPhone 3GSPEEEED. After all this, I come to the conclusion that Apple intentionally cripples it’s devices to try to suck the most amount of money possible out of its customers with little regard for the value offered in return. There’s no other way to explain rainbow-colored ipods… I’m sure they look pretty, but it was just as easy to offer all those colors at launch.
To re-iterate the above-described events -
- Apple releases a phone, only it’s not just a phone, but also an ipod, and a web browser, and a calendar, and a camera, and a maps browser… and… wait for this… a clock, and an ALARM clock….. and… you get the idea….
- Many people buy this multi-tasker, only that it’s not actually a multi-tasker, for A LOT of money.
- Demand slowly decreases (see source)… so Apple builds a new one with 3G and GPS (only 12 months later).. and sales sky-rocket. It also helped that it was cheaper this time around. (at least seemingly so… over the length of the contract it was actually more expensive)
- Many iPhone 2G (iPhone first-gen) users disappointed.. some with money to throw around, upgrade to 3G and start browsing the internet on the go at breakneck speeds.
- Apple makes a ridiculous amount of money… not only from the device sales, but also the sales of mostly useless $0.99 apps that were now available in the AppStore, as well as new music buyers, paid ringtones?? RILLY???.
- 3GS released.. faster CPU, better camera, and a plethora of some highly mediocre enhancements (i.e. noisy video capture, and higher-res but just as grainy pictures… due to lack of any kind of light source built-in)… more people go ape-shit.
- Apple makes yet more money… the AppStore grows ever-larger… and Apple maintains it’s dictatorship over the content available on it.
Enter, The iPad
At the time of the iPad launch I have severed most of my ties to the Apple mobile division, and felt no eagerness to explore it’s new features. From what I have gathered to some of the blogs I visit like Engadget, The Flash Blog, and the blogs of other Flash/Flex developers. This is what my (admittedly incomplete) impression is -
- iPhone 3GS with a bigger screen MINUS the phone PLUS an e-Book-reader.
If this is in any way incorrect, please let me know.
I had anticipated that whenever the Apple tablet would be released, it would be able to run Mac OSX. I am certain that it is plenty capable, hardware-wise. If apple wanted it to be a serious netbook competitor, this should have been their move. Instead, they chose to cripple it only to continue promoting their AppStore. The fact of the matter is that the only reason why Flash has been abandoned in this market by Apple is that it would compete for sales on the AppStore. Most of the games available on the AppStore have corresponding Flash-versions available online. Supporting Flash would be like opening the doors to hundreds of thousand of games, and for free (for the most part).
Edit: Hitler seems to share my point-of view as well.
The iPad truly would have been revolutionary had it been running OSX and had Flash support, but without its just another one of Apple’s crippled devices. In spite of all this, I believe that it will sell like hot-cakes, and the credit goes to Apple’s marketing department.
What about Flash?
Thankfully, Apple is not the only netbook manufacturer, if you can classify the iPad as a tablet-netbook. Flash will continue to thrive despite the iPad thanks to Adobe’s partnership with Intel, AMD, nVidia, Qualcomm, Nokia, RIM, Motorola, Google, Sony, Toshiba, Palm and many other major players in the mobile computing industry. (See the Open Screen Project) The Open Screen Project is a growing initiative to bring the Flash run-time to all future multimedia device ranging from mobile phone to TVs to tablet PCs as well as improving the performance on netbooks, laptops, and desktop computers. Adobe can be blamed partially for some sluggish performance in the past but it hopes to remedy them with close partnerships with the various hardware manufacturers, software providers, as well as content providers like FOX, The New York Times, BBC, Paramount, and Disney among others. This partnership would likely mean that the same rich applications and web content could be delivered to any and all internet capable devices regardless of Hardware/OS/Browsers.
Another threat against Flash is HTML5. HTML4 did not support video playback, which is one of the reasons why about 75% of the video on the internet is deployed over the Flash Platform. Many open-standards promoters claim that HTML5 will prove to be the end of Flash – Here’s an article debunking that claim – ‘Does Flash Need Saving? Nahh…‘ The reason why I’m not tackling the topic myself is that I have little knowledge of HTML5 at the moment, and it would not be responsible to do so. The gist of the article is that HTML5 will be eventually be crippled for many of the same reasons as HTML4 – cross-browser incompatibilities, resulting in a headache for the developers, and by the time a usable HTML5 spec is implemented in all major browsers, Flash would have evolved as well (thanks to the help of the Open Screen Project).
