Current Flash bashing mantra

I vowed not to get dragged into this but the fetid stench of bullshit has gotten too overwhelming now.

This whole "No one will be using Flash, the world is moving to HTML5" may be true on mobile browsers and certain mac products due to vendor lock out but lets not believe this hype, the dominant platform today and for the foreseeable future is still windows by a country mile...and I haven't heard that they as a whole, or of any of the primary browsers running on windows are dropping flash support in any way, have you?

Here are some links for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/01/windows-7-growing-faster-than-vista-overtakes-mac-os.ars

Perhaps a more quantifiable statement may read: "No one will be using Mac, the world is moving to Linux". silly huh? and of course will never happen but at least this statement, as ridiculous as it is has some grounding in the real world...

Lets be clear on one thing. There is no reason what so ever not to use both Flash and technology better suited to a non flash capable environment and serve the best experience based on browser capability and user preference...isn't that what we've been banging on about for years now? Just because a minuscule percentage of desktop users have taken the hump at the beck and call of Apple, doesn't mean we should exclude a widely used technology from those that require (and want to use) it. If this is the way we did things then we'd have stopped worrying about rendering content for IE, cause y'know it doesn't run on a mac and the world is moving to chrome...

Monday morning rant over.

Feb 01, 2010

derek said...

A quote from daringfireball:

"Flash is the only de facto web standard based on a proprietary technology. There are numerous proprietary web content plugins — including Apple’s QuickTime — but Flash is the only one that’s so ubiquitous that it’s a de facto standard. Flash is the way video is delivered over the web, and Adobe completely controls Flash. No other aspect of the web works like this. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are all open standards, with numerous implementations, including several that are open source."

And that sums up my "beef" (if any...) with Flash. You can obviously argue that the market "doesn't care", anymore than they care that Windows currently dominates the desktop. But those who care about the future of the Web do.

Feb 02, 2010

mikeduguid said...

I don't have an issue with a proprietary (and optional) plugins providing extra functionality beyond what scraps we get thrown from the glacial pace of web standards advancement.

Take a look at web applications (done in Flash) like aviary, splashup, soundation etc. In 5 years time you might be able to do those sort of things in purely HTML/JS.

There are always going to be talented and innovative developers that want to push the boundaries of what can be done on the web. HTML5 offers a lacklustre subset of what we can already use, and will only be sufficiently ubiquitous in a few years time..? Great.

Are we supposed to hinder innovaters, experimenters and web adventurers -today- because the flat-earth standards lynch mob want to 'burn the flash witch'? Funny they can't see the hypocrisy of chanting for "freedom and openness on the web" (but only use what I allow, everything else is bad)

If you look at games like farmville (27 million users a day) that use flash, common people like and use flash just fine. I find it insulting and selfish that there's a section of anti-flash web developers that actively want to destroy peoples enjoyment and restrict what they interact with on the web.

Oh yeah while I'm at it: iPad

To to be officially known as the iCant

iCant phone, iCant use camera, iCant use usb, iCant use flash

Does come with a free app though..a torch.

It’s for all the mac yes-men, so they can still see while their heads are stuffed up Steve Jobs **** ;-)

Feb 03, 2010

_mark said...

concerning the mobile market, not if Google has anything to do with it. Apple's stronghold on the mobile market will slip with 2010 being a great year for Android.

No access to these slick tools (just a few):
http://www.aviary.com/
http://www.sumopaint.com/
http://www.prezi.com/
http://www.picnik.com/
http://labs.digg.com/arc/

Apple is helping take the web back to 'The Dark Ages' by restricting flash.

And all supposed crashing? It's specific to those machines! Fix your computers people! Most people don't experience this. All these RIA's wouldn't exist if the platform was that unstable!

As far as the iPad?
I find it disturbing that Apple would dictate what information I receive on the web from it’s OS and not allow the user to make this decision. There is something inherently wrong with that and it grinds at the very core of my belief system. It's ridiculous that Apple fanboys are willing to accept this! What a bunch of pussies!

Mark McAulay

Current Flash bashing mantra

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