OF FLASH AND MOBILE DEVICES… A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

Getting back on the topic of the so-called demise of Mobile Flash, I had to share this rather lengthy but intriguing comment that I received from fellow CZ Blog member Monty Python. Yes, Monty Python himself! Okay so maybe CZ Monty isn’t the “full Monty”, but hey, we’ll enjoy his handle all the same.

What sparked all of this discussion was my bringing up the fact that Adobe Flash support will not just suddenly disappear overnight. There was a lot of “celebration” among the Apple community when the original announcement was made, and I am led to believe that many Flashless iPhone fans thought all of my glorious flash content would erased from my Android browser the day after.

That just isn’t the case. I’m still enjoying 3 websites that have extremely high utility to me that are all Flash-based, and I will probably be using them for a long time before an HTML5 version replaces them. That’s where my guest poster seems to be able to shed more light.

With no corrections or fact-checking, I want to share his insight on this issue as-is. This should spark some great discussion! I hope you enjoy this as much as I did when he originally posted the comment on the”My Official Thoughts On The Death Of Flash For Mobile” blog page.

With no further adieu, here’s Monty Python on Flash!

———————

I’d like to clarify some things about FLASH on Mobiles and especially for both Android and RIM devices. RIM has even announced that they are integrating a FLASH player right into QNX and it’s Browser. Not just for Playbook, but for upcoming BB phones running QNX too! (Samsung, because Bada OS is based on the same RTOS kernel as QNX, will also integrate Flash player into their browser as well)

As for Android? FLASH Player is also being built into their mobile browser, as it was in Chrome Browser. Because Google+, YouTube, Picasa, etc are running FLASH+ HTML5. Now Google is in a strategic partnership with Adobe to put both HTML5 and FLASH together for online content for platform wide accessibility. So Flash isn’t so dead afterall. It’s a renaming ploy to shift attention away from it’s past bad reputation traits and bring it’s best features out in the Open… AIR!

Adobe makes their money by selling Developer Tools!!! ….not off developing Free Flash players as… PLUGINS. Anyone can make a stand alone FLASH player free of licensing. Because it’s above all an OPEN platform. Only the content creation tools are Proprietary. The Actionscript (C and C++ like language) is as open to use as C++ and Objective C are. The main division between platforms (like iOS, QNX, Android) is in the code base (language) they use. That’s where Adobe’s Tools shine the Brightest. In transcoding content from one code base to another w/o lifting a finger to do it, in their compiler tools.

For instance, at Adobe Max Unreal Engine 3 game UT3, was shown running on the Web in a Flash Player at 1080p w/ better graphics than the original for PC’s, Xbox and PS3. How did they do that? Simple….. the game itself is still in C++, but because Adobe is so good and experienced at building great Tools, they used their new tool called Alchemy to transcode UT3 C++ commands into Actionscript’s newest 3D Molehill API’s. The game can now run in a FLASH container streamed over the web, rather than being installed on a desktop!

This is a huge breakthrough for 3D gaming (including mobile gaming), but with smaller content games that can be streamed or installed as AIR Apps across all mobile platforms (but includes Desktops too). It brings Desktop Performance to Internet based GAMING, but creates a new dilemma on how to differentiate Desktop Platform capabilities from that on mobile platforms, that rely on less GPU power, less memory, less speed of web access, etc.

But I don’t think we’ll be seeing UT3 type games running in FLASH for a while anyway. But you can expect other major developers to begin to use Alchemy to port other game engines to FLASH’s Actionscript. This is Great News for the future of FLASH. Because it signals the Revolution of FLASH from a plugin state (that has to be approved by browser makers on all platforms), to being integrated into programs that run within Apps or Programs. Adobe now has AIR and it’s FLEX Browser (Flash Player) running on all Platforms both Desktop and Mobiles. AIR is the new name for FLASH. So now FLASH has now been Trojan Horse’d into iOS… right under Steve Jobs’s nose and over his dead body! lol…. sorry for being elated over this, but the iDiot and his ultra self religious followers had it coming to them!

So what does this all mean to us the Real Consumer Public? How will this all affect us in the future? Is it really the end of FLASH on the Web? Answer: Absolutely NOT!!! ….this is just the beginning and Adobe using some misdirection tactics (Sun Tsu – Chinese Art of War) to throw the haters off track and make them think they’ve won! haha…… ;-P

When in actuality, it’s not FLASH (Actionscript) that’s being killed and it’s not Adobe doing the killing. It’s the Proprietary (closed) Operating System and Browser Makers that are killing…… PLUGINS! ……so therefore the smart ones are building support (a FLASH Player) right into their Browsers, while the idiotic and moronic OS makers, can’t kill our ability to install Programs (3rd party Apps or Browser installs) on our own hardware and OS (like CrApple and Microcrotchrot are trying to control and do), that we pay for in the first place. Because then they would be killing themselves and their own ability to install programs!!! …..and the really… really… smart browser makers and OS makers are and will be building FLASH support right into their products, like Chrome OS, Chrome Browser, Android and RIM QNX Browser!!! DD

Adobe is bringing the weapons (tools) to Win this War…. it’s up to us to support them by using, viewing and playing all this future FLASH content!!!

Monty Python

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I must say that Monty is just about as entertaining as his “other brother Monty”, the classic comedian! Thank you Mr. Python for sharing your thoughts and insight on this topic, and please do feel free to share again with the CZ Blog community in the future!

Carlton Flowers
CZ – The Holy Grail Of Tech Blogs

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FLASH PERFORMANCE ON A SAMSUNG GALAXY S2 – DOES IT CUT THE MUSTARD?

As I am getting more into the depths of running my new Samsung Galaxy S2 smartphone, I am finally able to report my experience on one hot topic… Adobe Flash and browsing the Internet.

As you know, I previously owned an iPhone 3GS and also an iPhone 4, and I took every opportunity to whine and complain about the lack of Adobe Flash support within the Safari browser.

The reason that I complained so much was that I frequently use two particular websites that require Flash support, and I wanted to be able to use these sites with my  smartphone instead of a laptop computer.

During the two years that I owned Apple iPhone products, the corporation hinted at making deals with Adobe on allowing Flash on their devices, but when it came down to it, Steve Jobs put the kibosh on it and never turned back for even the slightest consideration.

The “warnings” about allowing Flash on Apple’s portable devices were battery drain, system instability, and vulnerability. All the while, my theory was that it would threaten Apple’s walled garden business model because Flash would allow their devices to run web apps that do not come from Apple’s App Store.

While I moaned and groaned about the lack of Flash, many of my iPhone and iPad toting friends claimed that they never missed it on their browser. I couldn’t quite understand how a person couldn’t miss Flash content on the web, but I supposed that once you get used to avoiding certain sites you would not seem to have a problem with it.

To me, restricting Flash support from a mobile device is like removing much of its basic functionality and usefulness. It prompted me to write this silly spoof post that a few people apparently took as serious news (I had to chuckle about that!). But again, apparently there are a lot of people who don’t see it as a fundamental component of their web surfing experience on their mobile devices.

Enough about Apple and their Flashless devices. The purpose of this post is to report my findings on the functionality and usefulness of the Flash-enabled browser on my Android device, the Samsung Galaxy S2. Have I had any serious issues or complications with my smartphone due to its allowance of Flash content?

No.

Maybe I haven’t used my Galaxy S2 enough as of yet, but thus far I can’t tell you one single negative story that has resulted from enjoying sites that have Flash content while using my mobile device. I don’t see the supposed enormous battery drain, because I just don’t go far without a charger. I haven’t had a single crash. Running Flash-enabled sites has not shaken up my device’s operating system. Neither have I had any security issues or virus problems.

I’m not saying that there aren’t people who own Android devices that have had these issues due to surfing Flash-rich sites, but I just can’t confirm any of the negative things that the Apple experts have always gone on about when it comes to justifying barring Flash from their devices.

But my biggest surprise with using my Flash-enabled Samsung Galaxy S2 was realizing just how much rich content I was missing out on previously with my iPhone and the Flashless Safari browser. The “we-don’t-really-need-Flash” argument from the Apple loyalists does not stack up one single bit with me any more.

I have not only been enjoying Flash video content with my device, but I now get to listen in to audio content like never before, plus I can use sites that have high utility to me that include Flash programming like Google Analytics, the Amazon Affiliate site, and my Quansite blogging engine. I’m getting more use out of my smartphone than ever before.

Until I see some seriously negative side effects from its use, I will be recommending the purchase of Flash-enabled Android devices to all of my friends and family members. Sure, HTML5 will be the wave of the future, but right now, Flash isn’t going anywhere. If you want the best overall utility from your mobile device, you’ve got to have it. Period.

Do you have any Flash-related stories or experiences with your Android device? Are you for or against enabling Flash in your browser? Id’ sure like to hear your opinion. I’m open to all viewpoints!

Carlton Flowers
Flash Fan I Am

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MOVE OVER APPLE, YOUR APP MONOPOLY COULD BE IN DANGER!

Facebook is making serious plans to muscle in on the exclusivity that Apple enjoys with their app store. By creating a hub that features HTML5-bases apps that run on any mobile browser, iPhone users would have a serious alternative to enjoying and using apps outside of Apple’s current ecosystem.

It is ironic that Apple closed the door on Adobe Flash, blocking it’s use on all Apple mobile devices claiming that Flash causes battery drain and device vulnerability. But I have always believed that part of Apple’s decision had to do with the fact that developers could bypass the App Store by creating Flash-based programs that would work through the browser.All the while, Apple executives preached that they were taking the high road in supporting HTML5 as an internet standard over Adobe’s proprietary Flash platform.

If Facebook is serious and they actually throw money at providing HTML5 web apps that can run on any mobile device, this could undermine Apple’s efforts to keep the door shut on what apps they allow to be run on their devices.

Currently, I have found only a handful of HTML5 apps on the web that you can use on a mobile device. It seems that nobody (including Apple) has taken HTML5 programming seriously. Having a major player like Facebook throw their name into the game means that we could very well see a monumental shift towards the development of quality HTML5 apps in the foreseeable future.

Look out Apple, this one could come back to bite you.

Carlton Flowers
HTML5 App Fanboy

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DOES FLASH-BASHING APPLE REALLY SUPPORT HTML5 OR ARE THEY BLOWING HOT AIR?

Over the past year, I have complained about Apple corporation’s snubbing of Adobe Flash on iPhones and iPad devices. Apple tells us that HTML5 is the future of the web. They also bash Flash and don’t want it on their devices for a variety of reasons. As far as Apple being the big supporter of steering everyone to the bright future of HTML5 by keeping Flash out of their playground, well, I call shenanigans on Apple. They are feeding us all a load of horse manure.

Apple enthusiasts (aka Koolaid drinkers) believe Steve Jobs when he says Flash is a memory hog, causes system crashes on iOS devices, and is a proprietary product that should be replaced with HTML5. “Flash is outdated”, he tells us. That’s why you don’t get to enjoy Flash on your iPads, iPhones, and iPods (we won’t even get into that debate, though). Mr. Jobs is going to help usher in the dawn of the new HTML5 millennium and save the Internet… or so he says.

My reaction? Nonsense! He is feeding us a shovel-full of horse crap and telling us it’s health food.

Think I am off-base by saying that? Well I have two words that will shut you up immediately: App Store. Think about it! There are 350,000 native applications in the Apple app store. Read that again slowly. There are 350,000 native apps in the app store. If you think Steve Jobs and the Apple Corporation would really push a web standard like HTML5 to their developers over native apps, then you are stupid.

Read this post on the revenue from Apple apps in January of 2010 on GigaOm’s site. Fast forward a  year and triple the amount of applications, then think about the revenue it is producing. Sure, HTML5 will be growing, but native apps for Apple’s app store are exploding. This is one of their biggest revenue sources. So while they sit and tout HTML5 as the reason they won’t allow Flash on their portable devices, don’t believe the hype.

Apple is controlling the app market right now. It is nearly a monopoly, and they are putting the pinch on developers by taking a 30% chunk out of app revenue. If you are a developer, are you going to take a chance writing an HTML5 app, or are you going to spend the time and money writing a native app for Apple with a built-in client base of millions of people? The answer is the number of top-quality Apple apps on the market, and the number of garbage-quality HTML5 apps available on the net for free.

When a developer submits and app to Apple for approval, and they get rejected, the corporation encourages the developer by telling them they are welcomed to create an HTML5 version that can run on the iPhone browser. What a joke! You can do a Google search to find out how many top-notch apps are re-coded in HTML5 that were rejected by Apple (or save your time and believe the fact that they don’t exist).

The point is, before you believe Apple’s high-mindedness in their stand against Flash for a better Internet, give yourself a reality check and consider where their main revenue source is coming from: native apps.

I am done.

Carlton Flowers
Non-Koolaid Drinking Apple Fan
www.carltonzone.com
www.microbusinessplans.com
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THINGS I THINK WOULD MAKE THE IPHONE INVINCIBLE

Continuing on with my love-hate relationship with my Apple iPhone 4, I’d like to share with you the changes and additions to the iPhone that I believe would make it a world-dominating device (not that it already isn’t!). As the saying goes, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

There are many things I wish Apple would do improvement-wise on their top device that would add to my satisfaction. But at the same time, there really isn’t another smart phone on the market that fills in these gaps without taking away other fundamental features at the same time. So for now, I’m stuck with this thing.

But back to the story, here are the things I wish my iPhone had, some pet peeves, and suggested changes that would certainly help Apple continue to rule the roost when it comes to smart phones… and here they are:

1. Text Reflow - this is the biggest annoyance that I have with the iPhone. Zoom in on an article and the sentences fly off the sides of the screen. You have to pan back and forth, many times being forced to wait for the screen to redraw all of the graphics, just to read an article in a large font size. They claim the “Retina Display” is so super fine that you can’t see pixels, so there is no need increase text size. This doesn’t make one hill of beans difference to a person who has poor eyesight. I don’t care if the screen had 1920 by 1280 resolution… what good is it on a 3.5″ display? I can’t read printed ink in the maximum font size that my iPhone allows when you double tap to zoom in on an article without forcing the words off the left or right side of the screen. Android devices have Text Reflow, which basically re-wraps the words down beneath so you never have to pan side-to-side to read an article. For nearly blind people like me, I can zoom in on an article and make the font size so big that it only fits one or two words per line, and all I have to do is scroll straight down to quickly read that article.

This is an easy fix. The developers could have this solved over a cup of coffee. But what is sad is the fact that the techs at Apple don’t even know what Text Reflow IS, much less thinking about adding it to the Safari browser. 99% of iPhone owners that I have spoken to have no clue of what Text Reflow is either. This is probably due to the newness of the feature, and that most Android users are not prior iOS fans.

Text Reflow is the deal-breaker for me and my iPhone. If Apple gave me this one gift, I would overlook each and every other shortcoming with the device. I have waited since the 2nd generation iPhone for reflow, and thus far we haven’t even gotten to the awareness point. If Text Reflow is not incorporated into iOS4 by the time my contract with AT&T is up, I’m switching to Verizon.

2. Flash Support - We aren’t going to beat this dead horse. It is a known fact that Steve Jobs has openly declared war on Adobe, and he’s not going to budge on disallowing Flash for iOS devices. They toyed around with the idea of allowing flash-based apps 2 years ago, but we know how that ended. They have good reason to ban flash. It could allow a work-around for the iTunes store, which is a revenue stream they have to protect.

Their reasoning? They believe the world should stick with the open standard of HTML5. While I agree that we should push for the standardization of the web, it’s going to take a long time (if ever) for Flash to disappear from the web. Until then, I can’t view some of my favorite Flash-based sites from my Apple device like NFL.com, and Quansite.com. This very blog post that I am writing comes from an amazing service (Quansite) that is Flash-based. I want the ability to use this site on my mobile devices. But this is not going to ever become a reality if I stick with Apple. But we’ll just leave this one alone.

3. iPhone 4’s Antenna - I have taped up m iPhone 4 to prevent signal loss from touching the wide band of metal that surrounds the device which serves as an antenna. Yes, I did order my free case from Apple which would solve this problem, but the Speck case that I ordered was broken within 3 weeks (cheap crap). The iPhone 4 is the world’s thinnest smart phone. That’s really cool. But what good is it if you have to put a case or bumper on it to make it work right?

I was shocked at the level of denial by Steve Jobs over the antenna issue. He just flat-out denied that it was happening. I wish Steve would come to my house and sit next to me while I hold this phone in the way that he dictates so he can see that the reception still goes straight out the window no matter what. His denial doesn’t make my reception get any better. What it boils down to is the simple fact that this phone is not a finished usable product as it is right out of the box.

4. SWYPE - This is just a wish that will never get fulfilled. SWYPE is the most amazing innovation to hit smart phones since the first buttonless touch screen. You can enter text at a rate of up to 50 words per minute using SWYPE, and it just seems like a natural way to enter data. I’m fairly impressed at the accuracy of SWYPE on correctly predicting what I am wanting to input into the device. Maybe Apple could come up with something similar, but I see this feature as one that will be swept underneath the rug for a few years by the Apple geniuses.

5. The Glass Sandwich - This great looking phone owes its aesthetic appeal to two glass layers that are prone to breaking. As time goes on, it becomes more and more of an issue. These phones are just too fragile. I’ve already cracked my front digitizer. I’m one of many people who have crunched their displays from drops that are not that violent. Sure, you can buy a big fat Otterbox to protect your fragile investment, but what good is it to have the “world’s thinnest smart phone” device if you have to add an inch of protective rubber all around the phone? Being the thinnest is rendered useless when the phone is so breakable that you can’t operate it or transport it without an ironclad protective suit. I need a manly phone that will continue to work when it is snatched down to concrete when my headphones get snagged on my car’s rear view mirror. One that has the extra Otter Box capability actually built in to the phone. Wouldn’t that be genius?

6. Small Display - Ok so call me old school, but I like a phone that fits my fat face. If it were up to me, I’d have a smart phone that was shaped like the original Bell Telephone handset. Yeah, that big curvy chunky thing that molds to your jaw. It would have a 6″ color display stuck to the outside of the handle too. Remember those bag phones? Well I had one. And I loved it. That’s what a phone should feel like when you put it up to your face, not like these dinky little credit-card size things that you stick in your ear that don’t fit.

It cracks me up hearing people say that phones like the Droid X and Evo 4G are “too big”. Whatever! I say BIGGER IS BETTER. I have bad eyesight. Staring at this tiny 3.5″ screen just makes me mad! Give me a big fat honking 7″ smart phone and I will carry it around in a bag phone style carrying case, and I’ll attach a spiral-corded handset and look like I did back in the day.

All that said, the iPhone 4 is still the king of the hill when it comes to smart phones. I looked on the AT&T site to try to pick another smart phone and just realized that none of them have a front-facing camera. GACK! Now that I have my front-facing camera, which happens to be one of the features I have waited 2 years to see, I can’t go back. I’m going to have to put up with all of these missing wish-list items and shortcomings until someone comes up with a smart phone that is hitting on all 4 cylinders. Who knows… maybe that perfect phone will be the iPhone 4G next year.

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APPLE CLOSES DOOR ON ADOBE IN RECENT SHOCKING MOVE

If you have been keeping up on tech news, you would know that we are in the midst of a very ugly battle between Apple, Inc. and Adobe, the creator of the Flash programming platform. Recently, Apple handed down a new rule that iPhone and iPad applications must be “originally written” in C/C++/Objective-C. That means that developers cannot use the Adobe Flash software platform to create iPhone or iPad applications.

This is a bold and aggressive move on the part of Apple Inc. that tells us they want to remain 100% in control of their ecosystem. It slams the door in the face of the company who is responsible for two of Apple’s most popular software products that run on the Macintosh system, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop.

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc., stated, “intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform” in response to criticism of the company’s decision to not only ban Flash on its devices, but even as a tool for creating applications. Many of the developers using Flash claim to have spent thousands of hours on applications that will now be dead in the water with this ruling.

Adobe officials and many other critics of Apple claim that this move stifles creativity, and exercises unfair control over developers. But what is more important is the fact that this is a major step backwards for any type of settlement or collaboration to be reached between Adobe and Apple.

Rumors circulated in late 2009 that Apple was considering allowing Flashed-based applications for the iPhone while still preventing Flash to run in the Internet browser. But when Steve Jobs first presented the iPad to the public in March, we plainly saw during the demonstration that there was no plan to allow Flash to even run on the device. It was later stated, rather firmly, that Apple would not allow Adobe Flash to run on its new Internet device.

While HTML5 appears to be the next generation of video encoding for the web, Apple’s bold move may help to speed the process of encouraging website designers to make the transition from Flash to HTML5. But this process could take several years, and we can’t assume that Adobe will discontinue making improvements on its Flash product which could entice developers to continue using it.

What this all boils down to is the fact that the consumer will bear the brunt of this battle as two separate formats will continue to be developed for Internet content. Those in the market for smart phones and tablet devices will have to decide whether or not they want the best operating system and applications or ability to enjoy flash content on the net.

For now, consumers who desire having one standard platform to enjoy web content may not get their wish until the tech giants decide to settle their grudges. It’s either this, or wait until a new contender enters the market that knocks Apple off of it’s device dominance roost.

Carlton Flowers
Marketing Strategist

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