So, earlier this week Apple announced iPad.
Everyone and their mom has already blogged about it, but my view is kind of different. Considering other blog posts I’ve read so far.
Is iPad a failure?
First of all, people were waiting for a MacBook Touch but got a giant iPod. Second, the majority of bloggers are IT specialists or geeks. iPad isn’t a MacBook Touch and isn’t really for geeks –> iPad == failure. That’s the logic I see everywhere.
I was thinking same way until I tried to look at the device from a common user’s view. Let’s take my mom. iPad is actually how she sees a computer. It’s easy to use, fast, can browse internet for news and play videos. And it’s cheap. iPad is perfect for her. I’m seriously thinking to buy her one when it comes out.
iPad is a tablet PC for common people not for geeks like us.
So, no, iPad is not a failure.
What if Apple released something like a MacBook Touch?
Well, what do we have now (actually, will have in 2 months). A fast, easy to use device with big cool multi-touch screen. App store offers a lot of software and soon there will be a lot of apps adapted for large screen. It can work for 10 hours straight. Millions of iPhone/iPod owners know how to use it. And it’s cheap.
Now imagine a MacBook Touch.
- It’s damn expensive,
- It can work for 2 hours without recharge,
- It’s kind of slow and everything is too small for a touch interface,
- There are no apps for it, existing OS X software is unusable with touch screen,
- Common users don’t really know how to use it.
Apple tries to hold everything in their hands. That’s why general non-geek users will love the ease of use and good usability. I predict it to be very popular.
Unlike other tablets with Windows 7 trying to be small laptops without keyboards. I’m sure a lot of geeks will buy those, but geeks are a small percent of people. Do you think why iPhone is so popular? It’s a closed platform too. Unlike Android which is a geeks-2-geeks product.
So, how iPad affects flash developers.
Personally, I pray for CS5 to be able to publish real iPad applications. Adjusted for big screen, working fast and smooth. Otherwise I’ll have to learn Objective-C. iPad will definitely be a trend which you can’t just ignore. Apple vs. Adobe war makes us flash developers suffer according to theflashblog.
I understand why Apple is doing this but nowadays web experience without Flash isn’t full. Flash is everywhere. If it wasn’t a big problem with iPhone, it definitely will be with iPad. It is targeted for common users and they don’t care why sites can’t be shown as they are used to. Hope Apple and Adobe will come to an agreement some day.
As for now flash developers are not needed for iPad because there’s no flash. If mobile Safari supports HTML5 and the power of AJAX there will be more sites using these technologies instead of Flash.
But as I already said, if CS5 is able to create full-featured iPad apps it will be TOTALLY AWESOME! Flash developers will rock the world!
Well, here are the options as I see it. Adobe could fix Flash so it operates without running the CPU full-bore to do the simplest tasks. Then maybe Apple would utilize it and everyone could be happy.
Or, developers might start realizing their content isn’t working on a rather large segment of devices and start coding without Flash… everyone but Adobe is happy then.
I think I’m hoping for HTML5. Adobe kind of had their shot at this and blew it.
I agree with the rest of the article though. The iPad is perfect for the typical non-power-user. It does exactly what they do with computers. I’m even considering going to just one home desktop and replacing my laptop with one. I’ll have to use it first, but I think I’d be fine for 95% of what I do when mobile.
Apple vs. Adobe is more about App Store vs. free flash games and apps. Performance is another issue.
Performance is THE issue…. I don’t think anyone cares about free flash games. Trust me, if Flash were performing properly, you’d hear a major outcry from the Mac community over the lack of support on the iPad. But, Mac users are pretty much sick of Flash and want to see it just go away. And, I know where I’m betting my money if Adobe is stupid enough to do a Flash vs Apple battle.
Hm, yeah, as a flash developer on a Mac I’d agree. Flash eats a lot of CPU on advanced games and video. But simple menus or image slideshows are not that resource intensive.
There could be a button “show flash content” instead of that blue lego icon. If you want to see flash click it.
I’ve never seen Flash not eat a lot of CPU, or at least way more than it should for what it is accomplishing. I suppose that is not a bad idea… kind of pre-install something like ClickToFlash.
My advice to Adobe… fix this quickly if you want Flash to survive. I think Job’s move was very deliberate to raise awareness on this issue… and since he’s totally correct, I think it would be unwise for Adobe to brush this off (which it seems they are doing).
As a Flash developer… if that is your main source of income, I’d be writing Adobe if I were you.
I think performance is the main issue from Adobe’s perspective.
They earn comparatively little from the app store, I don’t think it’s a loss of profit which concerns them so much as a loss of user-experience.
I’m a Flash animator and I would really love to have Flash on the iPhone and iPad. But then again thinking about how the Flash Player sucks up all the CPU crunching power, an issue that Adobe really has to look in to and fix, I probably can live with out it for both the iPhone and iPad. The App store is a total success and I don’t think at the present moment people in Cupertino will want to share their hard earned share of the pie. They put a lot of $$ in research and development for the iPhone and iPad that’s why their revolutionary devices. If Adobe really wants to put the Flash Player on these platforms then they really need to invest time and money like Apple did. Not including Flash Player on the iPhone / iPad doesn’t lose any of it’s “user-experience” there’s already one hundred forty thousand apps in the App store that justify that the iPhone and the iPad have really great “user-experience”. Personally I would love to write native Objective-C apps for the iPhone and iPad, another skillset that I know is in demand and will continue be in demand as long as Apple’s products are successful. If you can’t beat them, them might as well join them.
This has little to do with Flash applications. People aren’t going to write apps in Flash when they can easily write direct apps for iPhone OS. This is about the performance problems. When we say, ‘user experience’, we mean it forcing our CPUs to max out, browsers to crash, etc… not the ‘user experience’ of not being able to access Flash apps.
The loss of ‘user experience’ is going to a web site and getting the plug-in symbol rather than the video, etc. And that is a loss, unfortunately, iPhone and iPad users will be face with until developers start utilizing better technologies as a ’shell’ for video and sound, etc. Flash just isn’t up to the task (though it has other valuable uses).
Well said Steve. I couldn’t agree more.
I think Apple’s concerned about the degradation in the user-experience caused by flash crashing, using excessive CPU cycles and therefore reducing battery life and generally functioning as a closed platform which they can’t control.
I’m primarily a Flex programmer myself, and personally I’d love to see Flash on the ipad / iphone, I just don’t think Apple has any incentive to integrate it.
I also don’t think that Adobe’s current approach of having extremely vocal evangelists (Lee Brimelow in particular) get unnecessarily confrontational is a good strategy.
I agree, and as a geek and as Valentin said above, I’d love to see something like ClickToFlash so I had the choice. I’m not denying that once in a while I do run across Flash content I would like to use. But, for the average user and considering these kind of devices, I would have to strongly agree with Jobs. He is simply trying to use his political power to force this necessary change in technology (ie: keep pulling the Web back to what the Web was meant to be, and get rid of problems.)
I also really agree with you about Adobe’s response so far. They have just reasserted that without Flash, people aren’t going to have a full Web experience, and folks like Lee have had their hat handed to them. Adobe needs to just meet this head on and fix the problems. However, even if they do, I still don’t feel Flash is the proper default container for basic video and audio on the Web.
Sorry Steve, I must disagree. ‘the Web back to what the Web was meant to be’ Huh? I’m not buying that.
The web ‘was meant to be’ an all inclusive open platform that helps foster innovation, hardly the closed ecosystem vision that Apple envisions. The refusal to allow flash on the iPad is really almost besides the point…and ALL developers should be concerned.
Umm… there is a difference between a product (iPad) and an OS (iPhone OS) being closed… and something like technologies that are behind the Internet (HTML, CSS, etc.). Apple is supporting Web standards which any browser can code to. HTML5 is a standard and open, Flash is a closed, proprietary plug-in that some browsers support.
It’s not that I’m against custom plug-ins for custom purposes (which Flash is perfect for), but against using a proprietary plug-in to replace standard containers which should be coded in open ways. ie: web video and audio really shouldn’t be stuck into a Flash container when they can be done in other ways.
Even then, I wouldn’t be so against it if the performance of it wasn’t so abysmal. What I meant by ‘the Web back to what the Web was meant to be’ is that the Web was meant to be platform independent and follow as many of the agreed-upon standards as possible to help keep it that way. Flash breaks that model (mainly because developers are improperly using it).
Exactly. Adobe has way too much tied up with Flash being ubiquitous, and the main reason why it’s ubiquitous is because it does something that should be done natively in the first place, which is play video.
There’s no reason to be using a proprietary platform to do something so basic. Sure if you want interactive video, dynamic, user-generated special effects/animation or commercial RIAs Flash is great. Adobe has also done some amazing stuff with the player itself in terms of writing bytecode for the respective OSes.
However I think what the ‘anti-flash’ crowd is really arguing is just that Flash should be used appropriately. And 95% of what consumers are currently using it for is not appropriate.
Jimb
if you really want the Flash Player on the iPhone and iPad then here’s a project that you maybe interested in. This is an open source Flash runtime called “Gordon” written in pure JavaScript with SVG by Tobias Schnieder. http://github.com/tobeytailor
http://paulirish.com/work/gordon/demos/
Ha-ha. Apple blames Flash being slow. And now you advise to use a JavaScript emulation of Flash virtual machine. (8
Only for the die hard Flashers. LOL!
Steve / Theo,
I can’t agree with you more on the points you made about HTML 5 and Flash. I wish that Adobe realizes that just because people are “Pro HTML 5″ doesn’t mean that these people are “Anti Flash”. It’s all about choosing the appropriate tools for the job.
Yes.
And then there is the additional issue of Flash performing horribly on OSX (and probably iPhone OS as well if they used it). It is unstable and eats batteries up like crazy.
If Adobe fixed that, then I think Apple would be much more likely to implement it… but still against using it as a kind of universal plug-in to do everything.