Linked List: November 9, 2011

Wednesday, 9 November 2011

PlayBook Engineers Get to Work on RIM’s Fork of Mobile Flash Player ★

Amateur hour is over.

RIM Plans to Continue Development of Flash for PlayBook on Its Own ★

Ina Fried, reporting for some website on how iPad rival tablet makers are responding to the Flash news:

Flash support isn’t immediately going away for devices that already have it, but it clearly has lost its luster as a selling point.

When, exactly, did Flash support have luster as a selling point for tablet computers?

RIM, for its part, says it has licensed Adobe’s source code and plans to continue supporting Flash on the PlayBook.

Good luck with that.

Progress Isn’t Always Additive ★

John Nack, last night on Twitter, in response to my wondering when Adobe will discontinue desktop Flash Player too:

In fairness, when will Web standards match all that Flash can do? Adobe’s contributing code to speed that along, but it takes time.

Totally fair question. My answer: It’s like asking when the iPad will match all that the Mac can do. Sometimes the next thing does less, and is better for it — not in every way, but overall. If we never let go of old technology, we’d be buried in complexity and crushed by outdated crap.

Not Just Mobile: Adobe Is Abandoning Flash on TVs as Well ★

An Adobe spokesperson, in a statement to Ryan Lawler at GigaOm:

“Adobe will continue to support existing licensees who are planning on supporting Flash Player for web browsing on digital home devices and are using the Flash Player Porting Kit to do so. However we believe the right approach to deliver content on televisions is through applications, not a web browsing experience, and we will continue to encourage the device and content publishing community down that path.”

Don’t forget that Google comes out of this looking pretty bad. They bet big on Flash over the last year or so, promoting its inclusion on Android and Google TV.

Claim Chowder: ‘Flash Player 10.1 Will Kill HTML5’ ★

Fabio Sonnati, March 2010:

Flash Player, until now, might have problems because of performances on Mac and because of the lack of support in the mobile market. But now with the 10.1 for desktop and with the future diffusion of 10.1 on almost all mobile plaftorms (except iPhone) plus the new set top box rising market, where are the problems? I see only a bright future for Flash, and HTML5 not only will not kill Flash, but it risks even to remain killed itself in the competition. The scenario is clear.

I agree with the last sentence.

Speaking Gig Tomorrow at Drexel ★

Local note: I’m giving a talk tomorrow at my alma mater, the beautiful Drexel University here in Philadelphia. My talk will be followed by a screening of Going National, an “entertaining and informative documentary chronicling the Microcomputer Project of the 1980s, where Drexel became the first University to require students to own a computer (the original Macintosh).”

Should be fun.

Stuck Watching the Seahawks ★

I really enjoyed this week’s episode of The Talk Show. Dan Benjamin and I talk about Adobe killing Flash for mobile devices, iCloud, why there’s not yet an iTunes Match for movies, the future of TV, the curious shoplifting implications of the new Apple Store app, and, on top of all that, a long discussion about Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs.

Brought to you by Raven and Reinvigorate.

Mobile Flash Claim Chowder: ‘Why the Apple Crowd’s Completely Wrong About Flash’ ★

JR Raphael, August 2010:

As the Android 2.2 upgrade makes it way to more and more devices (the Droid Incredible is receiving it as we speak and the Droid X should follow any day now), those of us who value choice in technology are getting the opportunity to experience the Flash-enabled mobile world first hand. Having spent some time using it and seeing how it performs, I have to say: Stevie J. and his legions of followers couldn’t be more wrong.

Nothing about mobile Flash from Raphael so far today.

Update, 8 pm: Here we go. Somehow he wasn’t wrong, we’re supposed to believe, despite the fact that, you know, his entire premise was wrong.

About Those Movie Poster Compilations ★

Remember that thing I linked to the other day, about the 13 movie poster trends? Ends up that was a rip-off of work curated by Christophe Courtois, originally uncredited.

‘Opponents’ ★

Stephen Shankland, writing for CNet on the demise of Flash for mobile devices:

But in context, the cancellation wasn’t a complete surprise. Flash has plenty of opponents, and the biggest one, Apple, also happens to be the single most powerful player in mobile computing. By banning Flash on the browser responsible for 62 percent of mobile Web usage, Apple effectively exercised third-party veto power over Adobe’s ambitions.

Opponent is not the right word. Critic, perhaps. Silverlight was an opponent to Flash. Apple didn’t favor its own proprietary plugin over Flash. There’s no QuickTime plugin on iOS either. Apple’s view was, and is, that there should be no proprietary web browser plugins, period.

And, regarding Apple’s mobile web usage share, remember that in June 2007, Apple’s share was zero. It wasn’t like they built a majority share of mobile web usage and then shut the door on Flash — every single web page ever viewed on an iOS device was done without Flash. I would thus argue that Shankland has the cause and effect backward. It’s not that iOS’s popularity for web browsing led to the death of mobile Flash; it’s that the lack of Flash — and the resulting overall improvement to speed, responsiveness, and battery life — led to the popularity of iOS for web browsing.

Maybe Silverlight Too ★

Mary-Jo Foley:

Several of my customer and partner contacts have told me they have heard from their own Microsoft sources over the past couple of weeks that Silverlight 5 is the last version of Silverlight that Microsoft will release. They said they are unsure whether there will be any service packs for it, and they are also not clear on how long Silverlight 5 will be supported by Microsoft.

I have never installed Silverlight on a single computer I own.

Thoughts on Flash ★

Steve Jobs, April 2010:

In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it.

The whole piece stands the test of time, but the above nugget is the heart of it.

Adobe Makes It Official ★

The lack of plainspoken clarity in this announcement is sad. Just say it.

Everybody Wins ★

Dieter Bohn:

This certainly looks like a sign that Apple has won the battle over whether Flash belongs on mobile devices, as Adobe appears to be transitioning itself to an HTML5 future.

Apple didn’t win. Everybody won. Flash hasn’t been superseded in mobile by any sort of Apple technology. It’s been superseded by truly open web technologies. Dumping Flash will make Android better, it will make BlackBerrys better, it will make the entire web better. iOS users have been benefitting from this ever since day one, in June 2007.

Adobe: The Truth About Flash ★

Some real gems in this classic:

Flash Player performs as well as, if not better than, comparable multimedia technologies.

And:

Security is one of the highest priorities for the Flash Player team.

ZDNet: Adobe to Cease Development of Flash Player for Mobile Browsers ★

Jason Perlow, reporting for ZDNet:

Adobe is stopping development on Flash Player for browsers on mobile.

I’m sure every reviewer who’s ever claimed that iOS’s lack of support for Flash is a disadvantage — the result of nothing more than spite on Apple’s part — will apologize and admit their error.

Anyway: good riddance to bad rubbish.