The poll is, of course, over-simplified: Flash vs. HTML5
The issues that sparked the controversy is Flash on Apple MOBILE devices.
I am not anti-Flash. Flash can be great! Flash is at its best when used to create and deliver interactive content! Like this:
http://www.presstube.com/project.php?id=259
The original founding fathers of flash understood this better than Adobe.
But, back to the topic of Flash on Apple MOBILE devices - I am rapidly becoming anti-Adobe. Adobe is noisy, mis-leading, and anti-customer! This is especially true if there is any truth to the rumor that they are whining to the feds - REALLY Adobe?
I can use resource-hungry tech like Flash on my non-mobile devices – and that is good enough! Flash runs on non-mobile Apple computers.
As a serious mobile tech USER, I am fed up with Adobe. Adobe has had YEARS to develop effective tools for mobile and have done next to nothing. Adobe thinks the world owes them a livin’. Blech!
Flash on the iPhone would be great - it does not work. This has little to do with Apple. Adobe has had YEARS to make a Flash "Lite" that works. YEARS! And they still have not done it! If they cared about their mobile customers, they would have ALREADY done it.
If Adobe put the same effort into product development, as they put into spinning their partisan politics, they could be a mobile leader. Adobe should let their products do their talking.
SKIP INTRO! Adobe customers want(ed) more than Flash from Adobe!
Mobile devices are evolving into mainstream computing tools. Mobile is more than consuming force-fed crap-ads, toy-games, and gratuitous-fluff. It is more than consuming video.
Adobe does not care about mobile and they are ignoring long-time customers.
What has Apple done for it's customers recently? iPhone & iPad! No matter who butters your bread -OR- no matter how much of an anti-Apple nutter you are -OR- no matter how fervently you wish it were not true - most sincere condolences -BUT- Apple has re-defined the mobile computing space. I voluntarily give them money in exchange for well-thought-out, well-designed, quality products -AND- a killer mobile computing experience. Apple offers a superior, complete experience - TODAY!
REPEAT – TODAY! NOW! – I have an iPhone and a 3G iPad TODAY – I am productively using many REAL, full-blown applications on them both TODAY! If you don’t like Apple, just don’t buy their products and go flip pages on your Androld tablet. The anti-Apple nutters can ratchet it down a notch - Apple is a world-class AMERICAN company that makes world-class products with MILLIONS of satisfied customers!
Meanwhile, back @ Adobe: Where was Adobe during the last few YEARS while this mobile reality was happening? Photoshop.com for the iPhone? HAHAHA! ... and Ideas for the iPad? HEHEHE! ... ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Both are bad jokes on users who expect and deserve more from a competent, caring software developer. Flash "Mobile" for the iPhone/iPad is a myth. Where is Photoshop "Mobile"? ... Illustrator "Mobile"? ... Etc, Etc! There is a pattern here. Adobe simply does not seriously develop for mobile. Adobe does not care about their customers who live in the mobile market.
MANY other companies are QUIETLY making products that satisfy mobile customers (Apple, Autodesk, Stunt, MANY, MANY, MANY others.) AND- some of those same companies are taking over markets that Adobe would have owned by brand-recognition alone. Adobe is collectively stoopid. Too many suits and too few developers who care about quality USER experience. Adobe is doing essentially nothing and whining about anti-compete and they are not even in the game!
As a long-time Adobe customer: Adobe does not give a rip about making mobile tools for customers who are re-defining how mobile tech is being used.
So ... which mobile garden do you want to play in TODAY?
BTW ... Adobe says they are developing HTML 5 tools! Apple
BetterSolutions - 14 years ago
Silly argument!
Isn't HTML 5 technically RICH MEDIA, but in its infancy.
There are lots of situations where RICH MEDIA does work better i.e. online TV. This will still stuggle with HTML 5 you'll need seperate software to watch that in the future.
Why not intergrate FLASH, QUICKTIME and other Rich Media Technology into all browsers surely this would solve most of the arguments as its then native?
So technically RICH MEDIA is the future get over it HTML lovers. Static sites are nearly at the end, you're getting a little long in the tooth if you can't see it coming.
AE - 14 years ago
The question isn't between Flash and HTML5 but rather between the plug-ins (Flash, Silverlight) & the browser. With the new Adobe AIR 2.0 runtime being released the Flash platform is moving across all devices, and is able to be hardware specific in its distribution. This will mean a huge change for browser technologies as web aware applications become more common and force a different way of thinking/developing. Think about it, will companies want to spend extra money to make sure their apps work consistently across all browser enabled devices, or will they like the idea of developing once and distributing everywhere?
And previous posts are right. javascript is slow and not OOP. HTML 5 will have the same problems that others have complained about in relation to Flash once it comes into its own.
There is a BIG difference between the two. HTML5 is ok for video and
other content but Flash is easy to create stuff
for "with flash cs4)
I still think that until someone makes an easy to use,
visual editor for html5.
Also, html5 video is slower
on a slow connection compared to flv. The question
shouldve been flv vs html5
To be honest: flash. I say we all pitch in and buy isteve a wahmbulance
David Meyers - 14 years ago
Remember the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD war? Blu-Ray won out because it was the better format. Please understand, I fully welcome the transition to HTML 5 (ANY improvement to HTML is a good thing...) but nothing will kill Flash. I believe it's a good thing Steve Jobs is giving Adobe a swift kick in the pants, but Mr. Jobs also needs to brush that chip off his shoulder. It's flat out WRONG to say about the iPad: "It is the best browsing experience you've ever had" when 1/4 of the web (I'm talking about mostly the interesting, recent web pages most people surf on a dialy basis, not including most of the crap that hasn't been updated or even viewed since it's creation before 2000...) simply won't work on it. I'll admit I'm biased toward Flash; I've been immensely impressed with its capabilities for years now. One thing's for certain, the web browsing experience on the new iPad will be lacking (like it is on the iPhone), but this time the users will notice it now more than ever before. I envision the requests for Flash to be included on all of Apple's mobile devices will more than triple before summer's end....
Matt - 14 years ago
I would actually say this has everything to do with Apple. Apple has had a grudge w/ Adobe for years and has been as uncooperative as possible. You don't think SJ is pissed that Adobe started developing software for the x86 platform after Photoshop 2.5, killing his near monopoly as the platform for graphic developers? Or maybe he is happy that even though Apple had the first online video delivery with Quicktime, Adobe flash now delivers 70% of internet video? And now Adobe want to make Flash Player available to mobile devices with free web applications at a URL's reach, making the App Store obsolete!!!
Sure , Adobe has admitted that Flash runs slow and buggy on Macs, but your leaving out the follow up..Apple has refused to provide an open programming API, and only Quicktime is allowed access to hardware acceleration!
Apple's decision to leave out flash for the iPhone OS platform seems ridiculous to me. From what I understand, Flash support is the #1 change request for the iPhone. While iPhone sales have been strong without it to date, I'm having a hard time seeing that continue in the near future with the wave of new feature packed, flash compatible phones coming out soon(Flash Player 10.1 released H1 '10). Why can't Apple just play nice with everyone?
"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana
pethr - 14 years ago
Mauro, well, this isn't that much about Apple as it is about Adobe. Adobe itself admits Flash is slow and buggy on macs. If Apple was to blame they'd be screaming about it everywhere, you can be sure about that. But Apple is no Microsoft and simply doesn't need to support buggy stuff that would hurt its mobile products. Also please note that it's been only very recently that real flash support started to appear on other mobile platforms. It simly needs a lot of resources and content mostly doesn't require more than a fraction of the whole feature set and complexity.
We have interactive content on our website that just can't displayed in anything but flash,It is also valuable to us that search engines can't access our data within flash because it would be easy to steal the content which is our lifeblood.
How long have we been trying to get browsers that display info in the same manner??
It is a real problem that apple do not support flash for us as more and more people are using their mobiles to browse our site. Jobs should not be dictating what we as consumers want to use, if there is a better product I will use it, untill then I don't appreciate being forced to compromise my browsing experience.
Another stupid comparison. HTML 5 can't compare to Flash.
Sure if you add complex javascript in your html code, you could do some interesting things (at the cost of big amounts of CPU ressources).
So this battle is more about java script, a simple scripting language versus ActionScript 3, a complex, cooperative, mature and object oriented language.
And Actionscript 3 win:
- OOP (wil only this one, AS3 win. JavaScript is not a true OOP language)
- Events system
- GarbageCollector and memory handling
- now hardware accélération,
- native XML
- sockets connectors
- remoting tools (JAVA, PHP, C++)
- a true opensource production tool: flex,
- CSS (yes, css.)
- 3D : directly with flash or better, with papervision 3D,
- RED5 (free open source media server for streaming videos),
- PDF creation, free Wiimote connectors (www.bytearray.org)
- ... (long long list)
Stop the HTML5/flash buzz, please. This is nonsense.
HTML will embed videos and use a panel to draw animations. Cool. How long since flash did this 10, 15 years ?
The reason Steve Jobs is pushing for the end of Flash - the only reason I can see, rather - is that Microsoft browsers, including the latest IE8, DON'T support HTML 5. What better way to hurt the competition than to try to push for technology it doesn't support? If he's successful, it will be a blow, but is it REALLY what is best for the industry?
What a stupid, meaningless poll. It's like choosing between a hammer and a screwdriver. Which is the best tool? It depends on the job. Same with HTML and Flash. Both have merits and both have down sides. But used appropriately, both can work wonders. Used badly, both can crash your browser and hog CPU.
Stop thinking about technology first. Think about the user, their interaction, their experience and use whatever tool is right for the job, whether it's HTML *OR* Flash.
It depends on what you want to do. HTML 5 can do a lot of things better than flash. But there are a lot of things Flash does than HTML 5 just can't. Infographics are an example. It's like comparing a car and a road.
FLASH! There is more to content than just video, animation and sound. I develop browser based interactive entertainment and HTML 5 just cant compete merging the raft of content that Flash does. Also, its userbase is almost ubiquitous already. It seems selfish and childish for Apple to omit Flash, infact I'm going to go to move to Android from iPhone because of exactly this. After all, why cant we have both?
Pethr is those WRONG assumptions that is making the new buzz around HTML5. You have a Mac right? Well, you should return your Mac to Apple and complain about bad performance. Better! Ask Apple why they are closing Adobe's opportunity to make a better Flash Player so everyone benefit from it!
About this fight. Really? With all the buzz around and so so so so many wrong assumptions and stupid conclusions that are being written all days, I have no doubt HTML5 will win.
Kurt - 14 years ago
The 2 technology's army completely comparable. For basic things, HTML5 should be used like for video players, ads and simple interactive things but you still need Flash for games and more advanced things because of it's powerful interactive features.
Pethr - 14 years ago
When researching stuff online or while simly reading and browsing the web I often open an awful lot of tabs in Firefox often storing a lot of media rich websites for later. I wouldn' be able to if I didn't have Flashblock plugin... Let's kill the beast once and for all.
have to vote for the adobe issue.
(sooorry, went too long)
Adobe says they are developing HTML 5 tools!
Apple is supporting HTML 5.
PROBLEM SOLVED!
... adios adobe ...
The poll is, of course, over-simplified: Flash vs. HTML5
The issues that sparked the controversy is Flash on Apple MOBILE devices.
I am not anti-Flash. Flash can be great! Flash is at its best when used to create and deliver interactive content! Like this:
http://www.presstube.com/project.php?id=259
The original founding fathers of flash understood this better than Adobe.
But, back to the topic of Flash on Apple MOBILE devices - I am rapidly becoming anti-Adobe. Adobe is noisy, mis-leading, and anti-customer! This is especially true if there is any truth to the rumor that they are whining to the feds - REALLY Adobe?
I can use resource-hungry tech like Flash on my non-mobile devices – and that is good enough! Flash runs on non-mobile Apple computers.
As a serious mobile tech USER, I am fed up with Adobe. Adobe has had YEARS to develop effective tools for mobile and have done next to nothing. Adobe thinks the world owes them a livin’. Blech!
Flash on the iPhone would be great - it does not work. This has little to do with Apple. Adobe has had YEARS to make a Flash "Lite" that works. YEARS! And they still have not done it! If they cared about their mobile customers, they would have ALREADY done it.
If Adobe put the same effort into product development, as they put into spinning their partisan politics, they could be a mobile leader. Adobe should let their products do their talking.
SKIP INTRO! Adobe customers want(ed) more than Flash from Adobe!
Mobile devices are evolving into mainstream computing tools. Mobile is more than consuming force-fed crap-ads, toy-games, and gratuitous-fluff. It is more than consuming video.
Adobe does not care about mobile and they are ignoring long-time customers.
What has Apple done for it's customers recently? iPhone & iPad! No matter who butters your bread -OR- no matter how much of an anti-Apple nutter you are -OR- no matter how fervently you wish it were not true - most sincere condolences -BUT- Apple has re-defined the mobile computing space. I voluntarily give them money in exchange for well-thought-out, well-designed, quality products -AND- a killer mobile computing experience. Apple offers a superior, complete experience - TODAY!
REPEAT – TODAY! NOW! – I have an iPhone and a 3G iPad TODAY – I am productively using many REAL, full-blown applications on them both TODAY! If you don’t like Apple, just don’t buy their products and go flip pages on your Androld tablet. The anti-Apple nutters can ratchet it down a notch - Apple is a world-class AMERICAN company that makes world-class products with MILLIONS of satisfied customers!
Meanwhile, back @ Adobe: Where was Adobe during the last few YEARS while this mobile reality was happening? Photoshop.com for the iPhone? HAHAHA! ... and Ideas for the iPad? HEHEHE! ... ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Both are bad jokes on users who expect and deserve more from a competent, caring software developer. Flash "Mobile" for the iPhone/iPad is a myth. Where is Photoshop "Mobile"? ... Illustrator "Mobile"? ... Etc, Etc! There is a pattern here. Adobe simply does not seriously develop for mobile. Adobe does not care about their customers who live in the mobile market.
MANY other companies are QUIETLY making products that satisfy mobile customers (Apple, Autodesk, Stunt, MANY, MANY, MANY others.) AND- some of those same companies are taking over markets that Adobe would have owned by brand-recognition alone. Adobe is collectively stoopid. Too many suits and too few developers who care about quality USER experience. Adobe is doing essentially nothing and whining about anti-compete and they are not even in the game!
As a long-time Adobe customer: Adobe does not give a rip about making mobile tools for customers who are re-defining how mobile tech is being used.
So ... which mobile garden do you want to play in TODAY?
BTW ... Adobe says they are developing HTML 5 tools! Apple
Silly argument!
Isn't HTML 5 technically RICH MEDIA, but in its infancy.
There are lots of situations where RICH MEDIA does work better i.e. online TV. This will still stuggle with HTML 5 you'll need seperate software to watch that in the future.
Why not intergrate FLASH, QUICKTIME and other Rich Media Technology into all browsers surely this would solve most of the arguments as its then native?
So technically RICH MEDIA is the future get over it HTML lovers. Static sites are nearly at the end, you're getting a little long in the tooth if you can't see it coming.
The question isn't between Flash and HTML5 but rather between the plug-ins (Flash, Silverlight) & the browser. With the new Adobe AIR 2.0 runtime being released the Flash platform is moving across all devices, and is able to be hardware specific in its distribution. This will mean a huge change for browser technologies as web aware applications become more common and force a different way of thinking/developing. Think about it, will companies want to spend extra money to make sure their apps work consistently across all browser enabled devices, or will they like the idea of developing once and distributing everywhere?
And previous posts are right. javascript is slow and not OOP. HTML 5 will have the same problems that others have complained about in relation to Flash once it comes into its own.
There is a BIG difference between the two. HTML5 is ok for video and
other content but Flash is easy to create stuff
for "with flash cs4)
I still think that until someone makes an easy to use,
visual editor for html5.
Also, html5 video is slower
on a slow connection compared to flv. The question
shouldve been flv vs html5
Is it just me who sees 6 finger fist? :)
To be honest: flash. I say we all pitch in and buy isteve a wahmbulance
Remember the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD war? Blu-Ray won out because it was the better format. Please understand, I fully welcome the transition to HTML 5 (ANY improvement to HTML is a good thing...) but nothing will kill Flash. I believe it's a good thing Steve Jobs is giving Adobe a swift kick in the pants, but Mr. Jobs also needs to brush that chip off his shoulder. It's flat out WRONG to say about the iPad: "It is the best browsing experience you've ever had" when 1/4 of the web (I'm talking about mostly the interesting, recent web pages most people surf on a dialy basis, not including most of the crap that hasn't been updated or even viewed since it's creation before 2000...) simply won't work on it. I'll admit I'm biased toward Flash; I've been immensely impressed with its capabilities for years now. One thing's for certain, the web browsing experience on the new iPad will be lacking (like it is on the iPhone), but this time the users will notice it now more than ever before. I envision the requests for Flash to be included on all of Apple's mobile devices will more than triple before summer's end....
I would actually say this has everything to do with Apple. Apple has had a grudge w/ Adobe for years and has been as uncooperative as possible. You don't think SJ is pissed that Adobe started developing software for the x86 platform after Photoshop 2.5, killing his near monopoly as the platform for graphic developers? Or maybe he is happy that even though Apple had the first online video delivery with Quicktime, Adobe flash now delivers 70% of internet video? And now Adobe want to make Flash Player available to mobile devices with free web applications at a URL's reach, making the App Store obsolete!!!
Sure , Adobe has admitted that Flash runs slow and buggy on Macs, but your leaving out the follow up..Apple has refused to provide an open programming API, and only Quicktime is allowed access to hardware acceleration!
Apple's decision to leave out flash for the iPhone OS platform seems ridiculous to me. From what I understand, Flash support is the #1 change request for the iPhone. While iPhone sales have been strong without it to date, I'm having a hard time seeing that continue in the near future with the wave of new feature packed, flash compatible phones coming out soon(Flash Player 10.1 released H1 '10). Why can't Apple just play nice with everyone?
"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana
Mauro, well, this isn't that much about Apple as it is about Adobe. Adobe itself admits Flash is slow and buggy on macs. If Apple was to blame they'd be screaming about it everywhere, you can be sure about that. But Apple is no Microsoft and simply doesn't need to support buggy stuff that would hurt its mobile products. Also please note that it's been only very recently that real flash support started to appear on other mobile platforms. It simly needs a lot of resources and content mostly doesn't require more than a fraction of the whole feature set and complexity.
We have interactive content on our website that just can't displayed in anything but flash,It is also valuable to us that search engines can't access our data within flash because it would be easy to steal the content which is our lifeblood.
How long have we been trying to get browsers that display info in the same manner??
It is a real problem that apple do not support flash for us as more and more people are using their mobiles to browse our site. Jobs should not be dictating what we as consumers want to use, if there is a better product I will use it, untill then I don't appreciate being forced to compromise my browsing experience.
I think adobe flash will publish as html5 and as iPhone or/and other compiled formats
Another stupid comparison. HTML 5 can't compare to Flash.
Sure if you add complex javascript in your html code, you could do some interesting things (at the cost of big amounts of CPU ressources).
So this battle is more about java script, a simple scripting language versus ActionScript 3, a complex, cooperative, mature and object oriented language.
And Actionscript 3 win:
- OOP (wil only this one, AS3 win. JavaScript is not a true OOP language)
- Events system
- GarbageCollector and memory handling
- now hardware accélération,
- native XML
- sockets connectors
- remoting tools (JAVA, PHP, C++)
- a true opensource production tool: flex,
- CSS (yes, css.)
- 3D : directly with flash or better, with papervision 3D,
- RED5 (free open source media server for streaming videos),
- PDF creation, free Wiimote connectors (www.bytearray.org)
- ... (long long list)
Stop the HTML5/flash buzz, please. This is nonsense.
HTML will embed videos and use a panel to draw animations. Cool. How long since flash did this 10, 15 years ?
The reason Steve Jobs is pushing for the end of Flash - the only reason I can see, rather - is that Microsoft browsers, including the latest IE8, DON'T support HTML 5. What better way to hurt the competition than to try to push for technology it doesn't support? If he's successful, it will be a blow, but is it REALLY what is best for the industry?
I don't think so.
What a stupid, meaningless poll. It's like choosing between a hammer and a screwdriver. Which is the best tool? It depends on the job. Same with HTML and Flash. Both have merits and both have down sides. But used appropriately, both can work wonders. Used badly, both can crash your browser and hog CPU.
Stop thinking about technology first. Think about the user, their interaction, their experience and use whatever tool is right for the job, whether it's HTML *OR* Flash.
i voted for HTML5
It depends on what you want to do. HTML 5 can do a lot of things better than flash. But there are a lot of things Flash does than HTML 5 just can't. Infographics are an example. It's like comparing a car and a road.
FLASH! There is more to content than just video, animation and sound. I develop browser based interactive entertainment and HTML 5 just cant compete merging the raft of content that Flash does. Also, its userbase is almost ubiquitous already. It seems selfish and childish for Apple to omit Flash, infact I'm going to go to move to Android from iPhone because of exactly this. After all, why cant we have both?
Pethr is those WRONG assumptions that is making the new buzz around HTML5. You have a Mac right? Well, you should return your Mac to Apple and complain about bad performance. Better! Ask Apple why they are closing Adobe's opportunity to make a better Flash Player so everyone benefit from it!
About this fight. Really? With all the buzz around and so so so so many wrong assumptions and stupid conclusions that are being written all days, I have no doubt HTML5 will win.
The 2 technology's army completely comparable. For basic things, HTML5 should be used like for video players, ads and simple interactive things but you still need Flash for games and more advanced things because of it's powerful interactive features.
When researching stuff online or while simly reading and browsing the web I often open an awful lot of tabs in Firefox often storing a lot of media rich websites for later. I wouldn' be able to if I didn't have Flashblock plugin... Let's kill the beast once and for all.