On 30/04/2010, at 12:10 PM, Oleg Sivokon wrote: > > I've got this same link from my friend, and it's funny how it serves the > facts... well, flash was in fact the first to use h.264 codec for video on > the web (could be that some other existed before, but the HTML5 wasn't the > first, that's for sure),
Quicktime 7 had H.264 support, so if you used that to view video content you'd have been able to see h.264 video as early as April 2005....of course video on the web prior to html5 pretty much relied on Flash to make it work nicely, so of course Flash supporting h.264 in 2007 was arguably a bigger deal to all intents and purposes. > and it does use hardware rendering to display that on Windows. It is true it > uses pure CPU rendering on Macs and both sides blame it on poor cooperation > of the other side. Which kinda makes Steve's point, that a cross-platform runtime will never maximise the performance of individual platforms unless there is a commercial incentive to do so. > I think, maybe one valid point that he makes is that Adobe didn't invest to > much into mobile market until very recently... and, to be honest, flash > rendering may be more optimized... like using platform available graphics > tools - be it DirectX or OpenGL. It is also true that flash is kind of stuck > in it's development... well, the language hadn't seen any significant change > in years... > But I don't think that what Apple cares about is how flash performs... not is > it at all familiar with the situation around the product... For example I > have Adobe tools to develop for flash on my Windows installation, but on > Linux I have only non-Adobe tools, which is more by accident, but, anyway, > this kind of contradicts what he says about non openess of the platform. Yes, but that's not the point he's making. He's saying they see Flash crashing macs more often than any other technology. They think it's insecure and inefficient and doesn't run well on their platform and they see an open alternative that they believe both performs better and makes better commercial sense for them, so that's what they are choosing to use. > > I also think that the main profit from banning other popular development > tools like .NET and Java from Macs Apple may hope for good revenues from > selling their development tools... Their development tools are free, go get them - http://developer.apple.com/technologies/xcode.html. So, interesting idea, but wrong. > Think about that due to iProducts popularity the popularity of Obj-C grew a > lot. It was a marginal language in terms of penetration until iPhone... So, > they may hope to build a community of developers, who would develop in this > language and thus became dependent on Apple's tools and the entire > ecosystem... well, just like there's a lot of C# programmers in the world, > not because it's the best language ever, but because of the demand. Yes, of course, I'm sure they do hope the success of the iPhone, iPad and the Mac in general will help drive developers to their platforms. What is your point? > > I think that Mac world sees the surrounding world from the entrenchment > level, it's like "after all those years!" they are going to win one marketing > war. They won't think about that their "victory" may turn into much larger > loss on a general scale. Like, what good will come out of promoting obsolete > technologies like HTML and JavaScript? LOL. Obsolete? Please. If you think that you are totally misguided. > And that's after it's been proven many times that the disadvantages are > inherent to the technology and it is probably seeing it's last years... Well, > for me going back to making web apps in HTML and JavaScript would be like > dark ages comparing to any technology, not necessarily Flash, that offers > compiled language and better integration with the native API... No, Flash is not going to ever dominate in the way you imagine. Ever. It will see a decline over time as people adopt HTML5, and competing products such as Silverlight. I think it will continue to be the most-used plug-in for some time, but I think the need for it will wane over time. Think about it. What is Flash MOSTLY used for today? Video players and simple animations? Both of those can and will soon be done in HTML 5. RIAs will continue to be done in Flash/Flex/Silverlight for years to come, but the ubiquity of Flash as a runtime will wane as the need most users have for it today evaporates over the next few years. > > There may be to many marketing factors involved, of which I have little > knowledge... and this may sound out of place... but, what would be if Abobe > have cooperated with projects like HaXe and GNash? Or, offer to download the > SWFTools' AS3 compiler along with Flex / Flash Builder? Or, at least bring > their existence to the public attention somehow. What would that achieve? People who want those things today know where to get them. Adobe, rightly, has no interest in promoting free Flash implementations and it doesn't undermine Jobs' points anyway. > What I'm saying is, this will not be a turning point in this pure battle of > commercial interests, but, maybe it's a good time to put the plans of world > domination aside and invest a bit more in the technical aspect of things? I think you are wrong to see it as a pure battle of commercial interests. I think Jobs has plenty of money and doesn't see this as a being about profits - if he did, why not just support Flash and be done with it? Instead he is giving Google a potential commercial advantage in having Android support Flash. I, personally, am taking Jobs at face-value here. He probably sees this as a strategic decision and hopes it will benefit Apple longer term, but it's hard to see how in the short-term his stance is making Apple's products more saleable. I think he's doing it because he believes he's right about Flash and HTML 5 et al and that the world will eventually agree with him. Guy >
