
Throwing out software that works - brilliant
http://scripting.com/stories/2010/08/20/throwingOutSoftwareThatWor.html
======
Zak
Since any discussion of the merits of iOS tends to involve a lot of biases,
I'll state mine up front: I don't like the closed, controlled ecosystem. For
that reason, I will likely prefer Android for the foreseeable future.

I have yet to try Flash on Android 2.2, but from everything I've heard, it
isn't quite "software that works", and closed betas for iOS weren't either.
The mismatch between touchscreens and a lot of existing flash content using
hover for input is well known. There was a post to HN yesterday reporting that
some video content had unusably bad performance, and Flash having a greater
impact on battery life than video playback by other means is pretty well
established.

As a user, I'd rather have a buggy flash implementation providing a poor user
experience than be unable to access Flash content at all, but over the long
term, I won't be sad to see Flash go. It's buggy and slow, especially on
anything that isn't x86 or Windows. Even on the desktop, Flash just isn't
"software that works"

------
mattmanser
_We're entering an era of deliberate degradation of the user experience and
throwing overboard of software that works, for corporate reasons._

No, we are throwing out over generalised software that most people can't use
well for software that people delight in using. In order to do that we are
sacrificing flash and finding that parts of the web aren't very well written
for different display options (shock, horror).

The revolution isn't for corporate reasons. It's for usability.

And that is why it's succeeding.

The author was more than welcome to buy the joojoo instead, but he went for
the iPad. I wonder why.

~~~
pragmatic
People "delight" in not seeing videos/pictures etc?

Granted the iPad has a nice experience. But as with the iPhone, the release of
Android tables will crack open the market.

I held on the iPad for just these reasons. I don't want "massa Steve"
[http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/18/Mobile-
Net...](http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/07/18/Mobile-Net-Gloom)
telling me what I can and cant' do on my $900 device.

My personal opinion is that Steve is keeping flash off the phone to control
add revenue and media buys. Since most players are flash based, denying flash
keeps you away from slacker, pandora etc (iTunes revenue). Steve has a way in
with ads now. He can say, hey content producers (news sites, etc) check your
stats, you flash ads aren't showing up, come talk to me about what will work
on those nice juicy devices that rich people buy (targeted ads).

Btw, flash works on my HTC Incredible on adroid 2.1. It's not a great
experience but it is _a phone_. (I personally don't like flash, but so many
sites use it, it's a necessity to be a first class citizen on the net).

------
gaius
A significant number of people consider the lack of Flash on the iPhone/iPad
to be a feature, not a bug. But this is normal for Apple; I'm old enough to
remember when people said the original iMac would fail because it had no
floppy drive.

~~~
ahoyhere
Don't forget when they 'killed' slots… and serial ports… and SCSI…

------
Hoff
tl;dr: No Flash on iPad; differences in book formats from vendors; proprietary
formats; oh, scary.

Mr Winer needs to upgrade the version of blog-post generation software in use
over there, too.

