In the interest of fairness, a rebuttal to Steve Jobs’ letter regarding Flash courtesy of Jesse Warden. Here’s a sampling:
Lie #3: “…75% of video on the web is in Flash. What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads…”
Incorrect. If a video is H264, that doesn’t mean it can play on the iPhone. If you look at the iPhone specs, you’ll see the only support a subset of what H264 offers, specifically 2 major components to quality video: Using a maximum of the Baseline profile, with Simple for higher bitrates/resolutions, as well as 2.5 for maximum (ish) bitrate.
Not all H264 videos conform to these specs. YouTube converted a lot of their Spark (Flash 6/7) videos to H264 to support iPhone because there was money to be gained in the large investment. Even so, not all YouTube videos work on the iPhone, in part because of the aforementioned reasons. There is a reason why when you upload a H264 video to YouTube, they’ll often re-encode it…
Lie #6: “…must be run in software…”
Not entirely correct. Apple FINALLY gave Adobe and others access to hardware for desktop systems, which Adobe has recently utilized. The #1 criticism for Mac’s & Flash video is lack of hardware acceleration. This move by Apple will go a long way to improving video experiences, not just for Flash, for browser based video. Meaning, cooler Macs and more battery life.
For mobile, Safari/WebKit is using H264 hardware decoding just fine. They just won’t expose it, forcing yet again, Flash to utilize a sub par video experience for iPhone (having to launch a URL to utilize the iPhone’s default video player vs. incorporating the video into the experience).
Lie #10: “Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover.”
Incorrect. There are roll over states for buttons on the iPhone/iPad because you can click/touch on something, which shows the roll over state, but then drag off to not trigger the up, thus canceling your button click if you didn’t meant to touch something. Works the exact same way as a mouse does.
In the end though, all of the “lies” pointed out by Warden are irrelevant because the underlying reason behind Apple’s anti-Flash stance is that they simply don’t want an intermediary layer between the developer and the platform. That’s the heart of the matter, and all the other issues are merely talking points for nerds to get angry and fight over.
via Jesse Warden
May 5th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
And the only reason the J. Warden wrote this lie on a lie is to cover his profit Margin, The problem is that when flash is gone his work is done, Fewer people to see him talk and this is how he makes his living.
It is really pathetic that he has skirted around the question’s on Flash and the SDK openness, and then he has his friend Mike from Adobe show up on his blog to ridicule and turn the facts and legitimate questions around from some poster on where they can obtain Flash Pro kits free so they may make flash based Apps or videos, Both J.Warden and Mike from Adobe said the poster that asked that question was angry and being unfair asking a simple question on how to find the Flash open source kits “That Really Don’t Exist” But both Warden and Mike says Flash is open.
This is a Perfect example of technology getting caught in a “Comfort Zone” and Adobe has not innovated in years and now see a threat to there being stagnant.
Plain and Simple Adobe and the Apologist for them are stuck and are really the support for Flash is Dwindling fast and this has frightened them to go as far as asking for a DOJ antitrust action due to Adobe dragging their own feet in the hopes it will slow Apple down enough so they can play catch up.
Really It’s to late foe Adobe and flash and this has put the fear of God into Adobe and they now must fight with the only thing they have left.
If you can’t innovate Just Litigate right Adobe.
Very Pathetic Adobe including your small apologist employees it’s backfiring on Adobe now and the genie is out and so is flash.