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Comment by whacked_new | Hacker News Reader

Obviously, Flash on iPhone is in Adobe's interests, and against Apple's interests.

But in terms of consumer interests, is it such a bad thing? There are three posts in favor of Flash on the iPhone here and as of this posting, they have all been downmodded to -1. Assuming they are legit opinions, I don't understand the Flash hate.

In the face of standards, fine. But knowing that the consumer doesn't care about standards, the ability for a Flash application to appear consistent across platforms, which is plain drudgery in HTML now (and given IE6's prevalence, will last for a good while, like it or not), I can see downsides, but it doesn't look overwhelmingly bad.

Or, would you explain the principle argument against it, aside of the standards bit?

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> Or, would you explain the principle argument against it, aside of the standards bit?

Flash is a proprietary runtime. That means Adobe has to support whatever platform you're running at the moment.

Flash support for linux has only recently become somewhat decent. And that's IA32 - if you're running a 64-bit OS on your 64-bit processor, you have to use the IA32 compatibility libraries to run flash. If, for whatever reason, you decide to go with NetBSD/SPARC64 - you don't have flash.

You do, of course, have all the open web technologies because you simply recompile them for your platform.

Flash is proprietary and tying yourself to that runtime will restrict not only your choices, but also the direction the web takes.

The exact same holds true for Silverlight.

I left out standards and their long-term development, because you specifically requested it, but that's also a major factor.

What is the alternative? AFAICT, Flash has no real competition.

With modern browsers supporting decent (now getting very fast) JS, HTML5, CSS3/4, Canvas and SVG, you can write pretty much anything.

The appearance of Objective-J and Cappucino opens up new possibilities, too. (Wouldn't have thought it efficient enough, but the 280 folks have proven that wrong. And that's with current-generation JS implementations; more modern JS VM's are getting 10X and more over current.)

With modern browsers supporting decent (now getting very fast) JS, HTML5, CSS3/4, Canvas and SVG, you can write pretty much anything.

How would you implement justin.tv, using these technologies?

You still need Flash to make it work in the 80% of browsers that don't support that stuff.

Java applets or silverlight

But there is probably some overlap in the anti-java, anti-silverlight, and anti-flash groups

I think in open Web land the alternative is to just not write the app.

"the ability for a Flash application to appear consistent across platforms"

If you read the blog article linked above (I am the author) you will see that Flash doesn't even have a native multi-touch framework, thereby making that "consistent across platforms" promise hollow on the iPhone and other similar devices to come. I think you'll find useful pointers in that article as to why Apple can't and won't just let Flash ruin iPhone's user experience coherency, both strategically and tactically.

In fact, I think the opposite is true - Flash will appear 'consistent across platforms', as there is no way to use multi-touch and Flash on your computer screen today either. How this affects coherency on the iPhone is up for debate, but regardless I don't think Flash's lack of multi-touch should restrict me from using stormpulse from my iPhone.

"...as there is no way to use multi-touch and Flash on your computer screen today either."

And that's one of the principal points: Flash is yesteryear's technology.

"How this affects coherency on the iPhone is up for debate"

What's there to debate? Flash doesn't support multi-touch, iPhone runs on it.

"I don't think Flash's lack of multi-touch should restrict me from using stormpulse from my iPhone."

I have written another article:

Runtime wars (2): Apple's answer to Flash, Silverlight and JavaFX

http://counternotions.com/2007/11/15/apple-runtime-answer-2/

wherein I explain how emerging standard technologies are essentially rendering most (not all) of Flash's advantages moot. Actually, since I wrote that article, advances in JavaScript, canvas, CSS animation, etc., have been pouring in at an astounding pace.

So most (not all) folks out there will take a harder look and see if they can easily do now with HTML5 what they could only do with Flash yesterday. Apple, like Google, is riding on that wave.

I find that your argument against Flash on the iPhone misses the point. I don't want to create iPhone-specific apps with Flash (yet!). A similar argument could be provided for any web technology:

"HTML doesn't support multi-touch, iPhone runs on it...hence, iPhone should not support HTML"...?

All multi-touch does in Safari is zoom! Flash could support the very same functionality. I think you're focusing on the limitations of the technology instead of focusing on the limitations inherent to the iPhone today.

My reasoning goes something like this: the Internet contains information that I want to access. Often, that information is embedded in Flash widgets, Flex RIAs, iPapers, etc. As an end-user, I could care less that the information, the video, the whatever is in Flash, HTML, or sign language - I just want to be able to see it. Continuing with my previous example: I don't care that I can't use two fingers to control stormpulse, my only requirement is that I can access the existing information! I want to be able to see the content in the links my friends send me, to see the videos embedded in the pages I'm looking at. That alone should be a large enough requirement to make Flash on the iPhone useful. You can argue for days about the best technology to build something in, but the fact is that when I can't see a video I want to see on the iPhone, I'm frustrated.

  "I don't want to create iPhone-specific apps with Flash (yet!)."

You shouldn't. But a lot of Flash apps made for WIMP won't run smoothly or, in many ceases, at all on the iPhone.

  "All multi-touch does in Safari is zoom!"

Nothing is perfect, but the iPhone, unlike any other mobile on the planet, does in fact have a coherent user experience. And the basis of that is multi-touch, not just in Safari but everywhere on the phone. This isn't some Linux distro where all apps have their own UX paradigm. You can't expect iPhone users to switch UI paradigms when they encounter Flash apps just because Flash can't handle multi-touch or because its WIMP conventions conflict with the iPhone's. (The vast majority of Flash apps/sites are predicated upon mouse rollover, for example, that doesn't work on the iPhone.)

This is a movie we've seen before. You could give the same example with friends sending you links for stuff buried in Active X containers in IE that no other non-Windows browser could properly render. What happened? MS has gradually abandoned Active X, and much of what Active X could do can now be done via non-proprietary browser technologies. The scenario won't be so different for Flash. Nothing will be black and white, but that's the trend.

With WebKit 3.0, will/does SVG have a drawing API as powerful as that of Flash? If not now, when?

Fact: IE 6 still represents 29% of all traffic to www.stormpulse.com.

"With WebKit 3.0, will/does SVG have a drawing API as powerful as that of Flash? If not now, when?"

No it doesn't. The point you might be missing is that a huge portion of apps/sites that currently use Flash in fact don't need to. I'm not saying Flash/Flex/AIR have no place on the webscape. I'm saying that an awful lot of stuff that could only be done via Flash in the past, don't have to use it any longer. And that's an upward trend.

The point you might be missing is that a huge portion of apps/sites that currently use Flash in fact don't need to.

No argument here. It's definitely an over-prescribed technology. Maybe the alternatives could use better marketing. "JavaScript and SVG" just doesn't sound as whiz-bang or easy as "Flash".

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