

When Will Apple Cave And Accept Flash? Maybe When It Doesn’t Suck - atrevisan
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/28/apple-flash-suck/

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tomlin
Having been a Flash developer and now an iOS developer, I find most of these
opinion pieces to be agenda driven. Apple's camp doesn't care or what to know
the gritty facts pro-Adobe, and pro-Adobe/Flash users think Steve Jobs is a
dictator.

No matter what side you sit on, make sure your argument is beyond skin-deep.
It's common to see an Apple zealot post about Flash as a proprietary sand
trap, while they are essentially using entirely proprietary, closed software
to do so. The Flash camp isn't much better, claiming a mishmash of mobile
efforts as _ready to ship_ \- and we've yet to see something stable come
forth.

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bradleyland
You're spot on there. I feel like the odd-man-out in a lot of Apple/Flash
discussions. I understand the reasons _why_ Apple doesn't want Flash on their
devices, but I see the hypocrisy in the "open" arguments. On the flip side of
the coin, I'm not crazy about Flash, but I do miss being able to view Flash-
based websites. I think it's a bit disingenuous of the author to suggest he
never encounters this problem. I browse the web a lot on my iPad. We've been
shopping furniture over the last couple of weeks, and IKEA's website uses
Flash. They have an iOS app, but it's formatted for the iPhone, thus I am
unable to shop IKEA furniture on my iPad. Boooooo :(

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zdw
The fundamental problem is that flash sucks, in these ways:

1\. No or "only when the designer feels like it" accessibility. Go ask a blind
person how much they love Flash websites. I've been recommending against flash
since the late 90's for this reason alone.

2\. The performance sucks, and has historically sucked on non-Windows
platforms.

3\. It goes outside the browser security model. Flash cookies anyone?

4\. Every change must go through the designer with the original files, unless
you've decompiled everything (which may or may not work). God help you if you
inherit a site with no source files and someone wants you to change something.

Not a fan, never have been, even before iOS was out. Fix the above

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marknutter
It's not about flash sucking or not. It's about Apple wanting to have more
control over their destiny than they used to. I think the bad years when Adobe
decided to abandon the Mac platform left a bitter taste in Apple's mouth, and
now that they don't have to kowtow to anybody they're making sure they do
things their way.

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vacri
_I have been using my iPhone for years and my iPad for one year. I honestly
can’t remember the last time I went to a Web site that wouldn’t load because I
didn’t have Flash installed._

This seems self-selecting. I use Flashblock with win and lin desktops and are
constantly coming across sites "missing bits" or "missing everything" because
of blocked flash. Half the time this is advertising - I love my Flashblock -
but there's a lot of content blocked as well,

~~~
alanh
Keep in mind many popular sites assume desktop users have Flash and mobile
users don’t.

I use flashblock, too, and see “missing bits” frequently as well — but on my
iPhone, this is indeed relatively rare. Does it happen? Yeah, but in the
literal sense, I can’t remember the last time it did.

Anyway — flagged this article, it’s not HN caliber and nothing more than
fanboy shouting at this point.

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Kylekramer
Flash could end world poverty and somehow increase battery life at the same
time, Apple would still not include it. While I am sure performance doesn't
help, Apple's Flash policy reasoning is very similar to its subscription
policy. Either you are made by Apple or you take a back seat.

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beej71
Why would Flash sucking or not influence Apple's decision?

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bugsy
I suspect that some of the problems with Flash are Apple's fault.

Here is the evidence. Flash crashes in Safari but not in Firefox, using the
same computer and Flash installation.

~~~
dsuriano
Personally, I've found Flash crashes every browser on my Mac including
Firefox.

