10 Apr 2010

Nasty Bite From the Apple

Apple have gone bonkers. They have changed their developers license to make sure that Flash can’t run on iphone, itouch and ipad devices. Do they really have it in for Adobe Flash or are they just trying to hide the possibility that they’re going to launch their own software in competition to Flash, or maybe their devices will run really slowly if they were to support Flash?

Considering that Flash is on 98% of all desktop computers and most of the best or most visited websites use Flash this is very strange behaviour exhibited by Apple.

But you know what, I don’t care! Why? Because I don’t own any Apple kit. I never have done and I’m not sure if I ever will. You see, Apple produce fashionable portable devices and I’m not one to follow fashion, especially if it looks far better than it actually performs as far as features are concerned. (I admit the UI is good but the rest of the world is catching up – seen Windows 7 Mobile?) And denying i(pod|pad|touch) users the ability to tap into Flash is denying them a fair bit of functionality. But do the users really care? Probably not since millions of people have already spoken with their wallets.

3 comments:

  1. Please show me where this Flash mobile is. I haven't seen it yet. Its still vapor-ware. So until Adobe actually releases 10.1 mobile, it doesn't matter.

    I love my iPod touch and my iPad. I don't miss Flash at all. Most sites are already adding MPEG-4 video to their sites anyway.

    Please do not compare Windows 7 to OS X. I run Win 7 at work and its crap. Sure it looks pretty, but its like MS took a photograph of a OS X desktop and said lets build this. But they forgot about the underlying technologies.

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  2. "Most sites are already adding MPEG-4 to their sites"
    No, they still require Flash Player to watch online. I rarely see a website that says hey, if you can't view our video with Flash then click here to download an alternative file that we encoded specially for you.

    I have not compared Windows 7 to OS X as I am not talking about desktop computer. I mentioned Windows 7 Mobile which is nothing at all like the desktop Windows 7 OS - a completely different beast. Take a look at this demo video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IOTrqlz4jo

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  3. "Most sites are already adding MPEG-4 to their sites"

    User demand for accessibility on the iDevices has been a catalyst for getting Web content providers to consider publishing in H.264, but we have a long way to go before "most" sites offer that option.

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