

A year on: Flash still not on the iPad, and that's still a good decision - jfruh
http://www.itworld.com/personal-tech/167413/year-flash-still-not-ipad-and-thats-still-good-decision

======
thailandstartup
Click to Flash is the ideal middle ground for mobile devices. Only load the
Flash when the user explicitly requests. 90% of the time, the user won't
notice the Flash missing, the other 10% it is available on request. That
solves the issues of 1) Flash in the background draining the battery or
exploiting security holes and 2) the annoying advertisements.

It's great to have Flash there when you need it. So many sites still have
integral Flash content.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
That doesn't address the user experience when interacting with the apps
written for desktop computers on a tablet, which was one of the core
complaints.

The truth is that interacting with applications written for a different
platform sucks. It sucks especially for Flash because Flash was generally used
to build interactive applications that HTML/JavaScript couldn't. However, it
isn't confined to Flash. I've had HTML5 apps that expected mouse/keyboard
usage that couldn't be replicated on a tablet and they sucked, too.

~~~
dantheman
I'd rather have a poor user experience than a zero user experience.

~~~
LokiSnake
This will be bad for device manufacturers though. Many users will think "iPad
with Flash still can't use lots of Flash" when many Flash sites depend on
things such as mouseovers and other events that don't make sense on a
touchscreen UI. We would know it's the site's fault, but it'll give
iPad/Android/etc. a bad image.

------
theBobMcCormick
I've used flash on 2 Android devices. My experiences so far:

* On my Nexus One: Yes, flash is to slow to be worthwhile, and input tends to be awkward on the small screen anyway. Uninstalled.

* On a Xoom (running 3.1): I just downloaded flash last week to watch a couple episodes of Legend of Neil while I was at lunch. Playback was great, about what I would expect if I were using a small screen netbook or something like that. I was quite glad I had the _option_ to use flash. My browser is set to only load plugins on "click", so I get the best of both worlds really (not sure if that was the default or not). Flash only loads when I want it to, but it's there if I _do_ want it.

~~~
Relwal
I must echo the experience with Flash on the Xoom running 3.1. Performance is,
finally, quite acceptable.

~~~
illumin8
How is it on battery life?

~~~
joeburke
Probably about the same as if you played that video with some other
technology.

------
bryanlarsen
He even acknowledges in the report that he hasn't tried Android 3.1, in which
the main claim to fame is that Flash doesn't suck.

If you're going to write an inflammatory article, can you at least test
against the latest version, especially when the main improvement in the latest
version is on the thing you're testing?

~~~
barredo
> in which the main claim to fame is that Flash doesn't suck.

Sorry, didn't flash suppose to stop sucking in 2.2, 2.3 and 3.0? Sorry, I'm
just curious, not flaming.

~~~
Tloewald
Surely the article ought to simply be one word: "yes". Apple made its decision
in __2007 __. If and when flash really stops sucking (performance, UX, and
security wise) and users demand it, perhaps Apple will reconsider. Since the
likelihood of two of these three things is almost zero...

------
wccrawford
Yes, because the only use for Flash is games. /sarcasm

No, I use Flash on my Android for those idiotic sites that use it as an
integral part of the site. iPads can't go to those sites, but I can.

I agree that it's a dog and far too slow... But I only use it when I have to.

~~~
SwellJoe
In the past month or so, I've had friends with iPhones ask me several times to
look something up because the website they were checking (restaurant sitesin a
couple of case, and a local band site in another) used a Flash menu or splash
screen. It's obviously idiotic for the website designer to do such a thing,
but it's extremely common. I gloat a little every time an iPhone user has to
ask me to do something on my Android phone.

~~~
andybak
The greatest gift Steve Jobs has given web developers is a cast-iron reason to
give clients why doing their navigation in Flash is a bad idea.

It's saved me hours over trying to explain the proper reasons.

~~~
SwellJoe
You believe restaurant owners are calling up web developers, and saying, "Hey,
we need a new website. Make it with Flash."? And that the web developers are
trying to convince them otherwise? No. The responsible party for the
abomination that is Flash websites lies mostly with web developers. I've even
met a few of them over the years. They use Flash because it is easy/cheap/fast
to produce flashy (pun incidental) websites. Some of them also like it because
it means the client has to call them for updates to the website, even trivial
ones.

Restaurant owners are victims of Flash websites, just like end users are. They
just don't know enough to know it.

I hate Flash as much as anyone, and I'm glad Jobs refused to put it in the
iPhone, whatever his reasons, because it means Flash is losing its
stranglehold on some kinds of site faster than it otherwise would have. But,
in the meantime, my phone can visit those sites, while iPhones can't.

~~~
andybak
In my experience no. Clients know what Flash is and they will specifically ask
around for a 'web designer' who 'does Flash'.

Heck. I've even got a client who tells me to put some jQuery on the site to
jazz it up a bit! He didn't seem too impressed when I billed him for
optimizing my array access code using jQuery.each()...

------
enjo
I can't speak to tablets, but its great to have on my phone. I'll routinely
pull up things like espn3 when wanting to watch a game when I'm not at home.
For that, it works wonders.

~~~
Qz
Same for me with stock price charts.

~~~
FiddlerClamp
Same for me with Lexulous on Facebook, and some Web sites.

If I load up a restaurant web site, chances are it'll be at least partly in
Flash. Flash may not be perfect on my HTC Desire Z, but it gets the job done
and I appreciate that.

------
idm
I have been using a galaxy tab 10.1 for the last two weeks, and flash was one
of the first apps I installed. As the founder of a hybrid html/flash site, I
have been sorely missing the opportunity to demo my work on a tablet - but I
was elated by the performance of flash on my tablet. What Jobs said is
partially true - I use flash exclusively for video. Fortunatly, the user
interface is html/js - so 'porting' to the tablet is a matter of adding a few
event listeners that respond to 'press in addition to 'click.

------
MatthewPhillips
I find the all-or-nothing articles about Flash to be tiresome. No, flash is
not as good on phones as native apps. No, you can't load up a flash video or
game and know with certainty that it will work well. But yes, you can watch
most videos you find floating around with reasonable framerate, and yes there
are sites which have games that work pretty good (Kongregate is one). I used
to watch Conan on my Nexus One in bed all the time and it worked fine. That
not cutting edge hardware.

Do we have to say something is "worthless". Is the line between worthy and
worthless so razor thin? Why can't we just say something is merely ok, or it's
hit or miss?

------
AndrewDucker
If Flash doesn't work on the web then people won't use it.

But it's my _choice_ whether to use Flash or not, and to decide whether it's
useless, a bit useful, or absolutely vital. It's not for someone else to make
that choice for me.

~~~
technomancy
Agreed. I will never install it on any device I own, but I appreciate being
treated like an adult rather than being told "You'll put your eye out!"

------
IgorPartola
I do not use flash on my Atrix. It is slow, and it sucks to use. The only
legitimate reason to use it is to have access to video streams that are not
YouTube. However, last I checked, streaming video in a supported codec to a
mobile device was a solved problem. Maybe some sort of a standard would emerge
that would allow video hosting sites to not have to use Flash. I feel that it
should have the number 5 in it somewhere. Maybe starts with HTML... </sarcasm>

I have Flash support on one of the fastest phones in the US. Watching Hulu is
_so_ painful that it is useless. I don't care if Adobe wants to give me the
choice. However, I wish more sites would learn to not rely on it.

~~~
Almaviva
The problem is that encoding in multiple codecs is prohibitively expensive,
and it's an ongoing cost that businesses smaller than Youtube don't want to
pay. Therefore the most cost effective solution is to use Flash since you
can't deliver high quality video in a single codec to all PC users without it.

You lose iPad, but at least the codec you're using allows you to deliver HTML5
video there fairly easily. The point is your stuck with Flash unless you want
to incur a cost per video of encoding multiple codecs, and in many cases this
can't even be automated effectively without a human being involved.

~~~
ceejayoz
> The problem is that encoding in multiple codecs is prohibitively
> expensive...

So encode it to H264. It'll work in most browsers natively, and Flash reads it
fine as a fallback.

~~~
IgorPartola
Exactly. That's what I meant by "solved problem". Alternatively, start
supporting WebM:
[http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplatform/2010/05/adobe_support_f...](http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplatform/2010/05/adobe_support_for_vp8.html)

~~~
SoftwareMaven
WebM would not help you at all if you only want one codec, unless youre
comfortable losing every iDevice immediately. If you want one codec, it's
H.264. Native support on iOS and Android devices, and you can support Chrome
via Flash (which is seriously making me think about switching back to
FireFox).

~~~
Xuzz
(Note that Firefox, as well, does not support H.264 for many of the same
reasons — and never did.)

------
smackfu
I know Apple was hoping that not supporting Flash would make everyone provide
alternate avenues to their content but I don't really see it. Just "you need
Flash to view this" and I wish I had even a somewhat buggy Flash version over
nothing.

~~~
glhaynes
My experience has been the opposite (though I don't for a second doubt yours):
I've been surprised by a) how few things I missed having Flash for when I
first started not having it and b) how many _fewer_ things I miss it for in
2011 than when I first started not having it - it used to be that I felt like
I couldn't watch video on the web on my iPhone... now when I hit a site that
doesn't have HTML5 video I'm surprised (and think poorly of the site rather
than of my device).

~~~
MatthewPhillips
I don't think iOS shows the missing plugin box like it used to. It seems that
now it just shows an empty box, which makes it look like you're seeing
everything. Can someone confirm that they changed this on a software version
at some point? It's my experience on the iPad. When I first got it I would run
into 4 or 5 sites a day where I couldn't watch the video. I don't experience
it as much now because I've trained myself not to follow links to videos at
all unless it's YouTube.

------
mikemaccana
For my two phones (HTC Hero, HTC Desire) it's always been rubbish: not touchy,
seconds-per-frame, not fullscreen, frequent massive updates. I've now
uninstalled it as of two months ago.

------
estenh
I still find Flash useful on my Atrix for watching video-on-demand services,
but its ability to use a touch-centric interface is atrocious. Not horribly
upset that it isn't on my iPad.

~~~
joelhooks
The multi-touch APIs are relatively new in Flash Player. Hopefully that will
improve as developers work against those as well as the mouse-centric APIs
that have been used traditionally.

~~~
danssig
No, hopefully it will just go away. Flash should be considered legacy at this
point, we shouldn't be developing new dependencies when we're finally getting
movement on the HTML standard.

~~~
Almaviva
What high quality codec can I encode into such that all common browsers will
be able to view HTML5 video right now?

Also, YouTube doesn't default to HTML5 video for browsers that support Flash.
Why is this?

------
vladikoff
Totally disagree, I've used both the iPad and a Honeycomb tablet. I was able
to watch so much more content with the Android tablet, stuff from blip.tv,
custom players, even custom streaming video players. It's not as good as the
desktop version, but it's a lot better than the Flash player on Boxee and
others.

------
marklubi
There may certainly be issues with Flash on Android, but it's not useless on
all tablets.

Flash works great on the Blackberry Playbook. When other developers ask me
about the device, at some point I typically end up demoing Amazon streaming
video. Most are quite surprised by how well it works.

------
nutjob123
I really enjoy watching south park studios on my xoom. The controls are a
little slow but the frame rate is smooth at hd resolutions.

------
uast23
=>"A few minutes later I suggested that my co-worker buy his mom a netbook."

Since it was for a mom, it had to be Windows but if it's not windows, I would
seriously want to defer the idea of buying even a netbook. It's not just the
mobile devices and OS. It extends even further. Adobe could probably give
genuine reasons for bad flash on Apple devices (they say Apple did not co-
operate enough) but what stops them from making it better on Linux. There is
no bigger pain than running flash on ubuntu. I run ubuntu 11.04 and my laptop
turns off itself within 2 hours of running flash.

------
steevdave
Flash sucking on tablets, phones, or even netbooks (at least ARM based), isn't
entirely Adobe's fault. The SoC manufacturers are tasked to get Flash working
on their chipsets. That means nVidia, Freescale, TI, Samsung, Apple. Adobe's
NDA for working on Flash is... well, restrictive. I'd bet that anyone who has
signed it isn't going to be one of the companies top programmers, due to the
nature of some of the restrictions in it.

~~~
nasmorn
Why is an NDA so restrictive that no developer with good outside options would
sign it, not the fault of the company that has written it?

------
runjake
It's not really useless. The sweet spot is to disable browser plugins in the
Android browser by default. And then only enable the Flash elements you
specifically want. It works well for Hulu and whatnot.

Now, if the Android browser didn't let me disable everything by default, I
would run screaming.

But with the scheme it has, it satisfies both camps, the people who don't want
the encumbrance of Flash, and those who do.

------
mike-cardwell
Flash on my Viewsonic G-Tablet running Cyanogenmod 7, is fine.

------
andybak
On my phone I can't say I use Flash, but it's come in very handy at times for
(cough) legacy sites.

~~~
hnsmurf
By "legacy" do you mean restaurant?

~~~
tdoggette
No, I'm pretty sure that he doesn't.

~~~
andybak
It really sounds like I meant porn, didn't it? It's really going to sound even
more like that now, if I deny it, isn't it?

Damn.

------
morphoyle
I can't say anything to tablets with flash just yet, but it works
fantastically on my G2. Every site I've ever tried works perfectly, and
quickly, even with the g2 having a previous gen CPU (single core). I can't
imagine why it would not work on a tablet as well as it does on my phone.

I read the article, and it's kind of annoying that the OP makes this judgement
based off of facebook games. It doesn't sound like he made much effort at all.
It sounds more like that he's trying to reinforce or convince himself that the
lack of flash on ipad isn't a shortcoming. I guess this goes well with the
Apple religion articles I've seen lately.

------
ajross
The title is a strawman. I don't think it's particularly controversial to say
that flash sucks, and Apple is technically justified in not supporting it on
their devices.

But that's not what the issue was. The real controversy was Apple's decision
(via a revision of its developer agreement) to ban the Adobe flash-to-iOS
translator. _That_ is a huge problem, and I don't see how "Flash sucks on
android, see?" has any bearing on it.

~~~
othermaciej
That may be the controversy _you_ are concerned about, but for many, the key
controversy has been Flash in the browser using a plug-in. Some concrete
examples:

[http://www.gottabemobile.com/2010/02/21/my-take-on-the-
flash...](http://www.gottabemobile.com/2010/02/21/my-take-on-the-flash-
controversy/)

[http://www.roytanck.com/2010/02/28/my-thoughts-on-flash-
and-...](http://www.roytanck.com/2010/02/28/my-thoughts-on-flash-and-the-
ipad/)

<http://mashable.com/2010/01/28/flash-ipad/>

So talking about the Flash plug-in isn't a straw-man or a made-up controversy,
it has been a real point of debate.

Note also that the terms of the developer agreement changed in a way that
apparently allows the Flash cross-compiler, so the controversy you are
concerned about has now been resolved:

[http://www.fastcompany.com/1687857/did-apple-just-open-
the-d...](http://www.fastcompany.com/1687857/did-apple-just-open-the-door-to-
adobe-flash-on-iphones)

All told, I think it was unfair of you to whip out the straw man accusation.

------
code_duck
I'm quite fine with no Flash on iOS, too. I never use it on Android - Jobs is
right when he says the interfaces for Flash apps don't work well on touch
screens, and I can't think of any sites where it's required. I guess it's nice
to know it's there on Android if I need it, but I never miss Flash when
browsing on my iPod.

------
Hominem
Gah,I love my iPad but I am constantly annoyed by the lack of flash. There are
more and more videos embedded in web pages and it is only getting worse.
Something has to give and I think I will sooner move awaymfrom the iPad than
the rest of the world will stop using flash for video.

------
neovive
On a related note, has anyone been able to compare the performance of apps
built using the Adobe exporters (iOS and AIR for Android) vs. apps developed
in the native languages (Objective C and Android SDK)?

