"Today's internet content is dependant on Flash," said Grønvold. "If you remove Flash you do not have today's internet."
That may be for some folks I guess. I run Safari with all plugins disabled and I'm able to do anything I want to do on the internet. To me, Flash is irrelevant.
I've been using Firefox with Flash disabled for the last couple of days because of the obnoxious flash adds on m-w.com. I keep being surprised by how widely Flash is used.
Sure, and some people are perfectly happy using lynx. But the vast majority of people I know either use Hulu and/or play Flash games frequently, especially those in Apple's target demographic.
> "Because eventually we will have the canvas [of the web] in good quality and we'll have the toolsets to use that canvas in the quality but in the foreseeable future, 18 months or so, Flash is not going away and it is critical."
What? Canvas of the web? Use it in the quality? Is this regarding <canvas>?
I tried Opera on the iPhone last night...seriously disappointing. I used to love Opera on my little Blackberry Pearl, but it's soooo slow on the iPhone. Interface is odd also.
I had the same experience with their Android version. Tried it, but I don't see a reason to use it over the default browser (and yeah, the interface is a little odd).
People would only switch to Opera Mini if that particular app's feature set (a method of low bandwith browsing) appealed to them. People would only be able to switch to Opera Mobile, an actual browser, if Apple allowed people to write apps using the basic technology elements that underlie browsers, but they don't.
Seems like a sane sentiment, although I personally think flash still has a place. I don't imagine that five years from now we'll be looking at flash as a relic.
People seem so focused on Flash in relation to games and video online, but they all fail to take into account the ability of Flash to access things like your webcam and microphone. So far as I know, these are not capabilities that are going to be part of HTML5.
Not even that. Consider apps that are used for screen or desktop sharing, e.g. LogMeIn Express and such. It is basically a Flash version of VNC viewer. I don't think these can be done in HTML5.
Yes, how often are these capabilities used (besides one of the most phenomenal web applications in recent years, but these parentheses let me pretend that nobody cares about something like that)?
ustream, stickam, chatroulette to name of few. ustream and stickam have been around a lot longer than Chatroulette too. I remember Leo Laporte pimping ustream back in '05 or so on one of his podcasts. Services like UStream allowed him to host 'live' video/podcasts where the audience could watch live (or download later) and somewhat participate in the podcast. This is something that would be a lot harder to do with Skype, at least on the video end of things.
I'm not defending Flash here. I'm just annoyed when people declare Flash useless because HTML5 'replaces it,' while completely ignoring aspects of it that HTML5 doesn't replace.
That may be for some folks I guess. I run Safari with all plugins disabled and I'm able to do anything I want to do on the internet. To me, Flash is irrelevant.