Why do some people hate Adobe Flash so much? Because it crashes? Cars crash, too. Does that mean cars are inherently evil? Of course not. Like Flash, what people do with their cars is why they cause crashes and slow-downs.
I have had iPhone apps that crash. Does that mean the iPhone platform is full of bugs and prone to crashes? Again, no, because the platform itself may be near-solid, but when developers push the platform to capacity or don’t fully button-up their code, sometimes a crash will occur.
Sure, there’s a lot of Flash crap out there (website intros anyone?), but there’s also a lot of crap iPhone apps, too (how many fart apps do we need?).
My point is this: there is a place for Flash on the web. Anyone pretending there isn’t is merely trying to ignore reality. Perhaps that place isn’t with delivering video, but until someone can tell me how I can bit-for-bit recreate my thesis without Flash and instead with Open Web technologies but still have it available as a stand-alone app offline, I won’t believe there is a viable alternative for everything Flash is capable of today. Please discuss.
Posted: 09 February 2010 at 12:26 ET | Permalink
I have been firmly in the anti-Flash camp for years now; way before this whole Apple multitouch device brouhaha broke out. Why? I use a Mac.
Adobe, it seems, has decided Mac optimization for Flash just isn’t worth their time. Flash has ALWAYS been buggy on the Mac.
Let me be clear before I begin ranting: my experience is not that of a Flash power-user. I don’t and never have used Flash in my creative process and therefore I don’t romanticize it or hold sentimentality over it. I feel as if a lot of the pro-Flash camp are those who make a living using Flash; those who don’t want to abandon their past work or learn new processes to continue working.
The extent of my Flash use is everyday web browsing. Most of my frustration with the platform comes from interaction with mainstream content providers, like Hulu, or with ads, like on ESPN.com.
In my experience, Flash doesn’t actually crash all that often. Instead — to work off your car analogy — it jumps in the front seat, pushes the driver (me) out of the way, takes over the wheel, mashes the gas, and proceeds to drive recklessly for a bit. My only option is to sit back, wait for it to come to its senses and then reclaim the wheel. Simply, it hijacks my user experience; something a widely used third-party plugin should not be able to do. Apple agrees and that is evident in the lack of Flash support on their multitouch devices.
Here’s an example: I went to Hulu last night to watch Andy Samberg’s great Rahm Emanuel skit from SNL. I decided, admittedly against my better judgment, to click the fullscreen button. The video filled the screen but it paused for no less than a full minute. During that time, I was still getting audio but could not interact with my MacBook in any way. The fan inside the MacBook — which almost never cranks up to an audible level — quickly revved so loudly you would’ve thought it was prepping for take-off. The reason for this was that the underside of the laptop went from room temperature to burning hot in an instant. Eventually, the video broke out of pause, I finished watching, the fan slowed down and the laptop returned to a temperature I felt comfortable placing on my lap without the fear of future sterility. Too late though, my experience was ruined. That *never* happens to me when I watch a video encoded in h.264; even with the 720p videos Apple serves up on its movie trailer site.
Flash does have its place and should continue to be used for interactivity both on and off the web. Not for video, not for games, but for interactive infographics like your thesis. Aside from that single use though, like Director and Shockwave before it, it may be time for Flash to fall out of favor.
When it comes to video, there’s no reason why the web as a whole shouldn’t abandon Flash for HTML5/h.264. The results can be astounding (http://jilion.com/sublime/video). YouTube and Vimeo already have started the process, and it is only a matter of time before others do as well.
I installed ClickToFlash, a Safari plugin that only loads Flash into a page if you click on the content, and I’m loving it. I completely avoid Flash ads now, but still can reach the content I want.
Provided Adobe works to improve Flash optimization on Apple platforms — which they should, just to save face — I’d like to see Flash get treated in such a way on Apple multitouch devices in the future. I’d love to have the option of loading Flash content on my iPhone or iPad if it doesn’t act like Flash currently does on my MacBook. If Flash continues to struggle however, I’m with Apple — I’d rather forgo Flash altogether.
Posted: 09 February 2010 at 14:53 ET | Permalink
Thank you, Mr. Nagle, for your extensive and intelligent reply. I agree with many of the points you made in your post. My frustration over this issue comes from two sources: Mac users who let Steve Jobs be their puppet master and Adobe/former-Macromedia developers who haven’t stepped up. Perhaps I hear things from very biased sources, but the Mac users I hear don’t, in fact, talk about Flash; they trash it. So reading your very level-headed argument was refreshing. And about those plug-in developers: why after all these years is there not a more efficient Flash plug-in for Mac? I suppose, as Steve Jobs said, it may be out of laziness.
For sure, though, I agree with you that Flash is not the best technology anymore for web video. HTML5 has, as you’ve pointed out, demonstrated its ability to deliver multimedia content. One of the reasons I’ve heard to dump Flash is that the technology is locked-down by a single company. This, of course, can also be said against H.264, so I hope the future of web technologies isn’t going to be transferred from one locked company to another.
I wouldn’t say I am sentimentalizing over Flash or that I romanticize it, but I don’t know of a viable alternative for what I use and have used Flash for. If there is one, I’ll gladly be interested in learning.
Still, though, I’m disappointed that Apple and Adobe can’t work something out. As a pervasive iPhone user, I feel locked-out of a large amount of content because of Apple’s decision. Apple is helping to create a segregated web, an I’m not a fan.