So what IS the official line on Flash Aversion? Resource Eating? Taking away from QuickTime?

[macphanatic]

I'm thinking that if the iPad becomes even half as successful as the iPod Touch, Adobe might wind up getting serious about improving Flash. By that time though, HTML5 may have gotten a foot hold. Does the Droid support Flash?

[deckeda]

Flash has marketplace inertia. Apple doesn't care. They know better solutions exist: smartly done CSS for navigation, HTML 5 for online videos. Given that as Jobs said, their mobile devices are so popular, they are in a position to move people out of the stone age.

The absence of Flash today looks a lot like a floppy disk-less computer did in 1998: like an oversight of a tremendously useful thing that everyone will forget about within a few years.

[Sam3]

I agree with deckeda, Apple is forward-looking , HTML 5 will render Flash useless.

[thermarest]

The HTML5 stuff on YouTube now works swimmingly for me.

[deckeda]

Sam3 wrote:
I agree with deckeda, Apple is forward-looking , HTML 5 will render Flash useless.

Imagine going to school now, and knowing what HTML 5 video can likely become, and still seeing Flash taught everywhere. So you get a few years of Flash under your belt, maybe even get hired at a place to maintain legacy sites, right—were you supposed to get savvy with HTML 5 on your own during the whole time? HTML 5 browsers are here, now.

Maybe it's already being done out there, but I see education (at least degreed education) as needing to stay ahead of the curve, not merely teaching what employers want today. Kinda depressing, in a way.

[Winston]

thermarest wrote:
The HTML5 stuff on YouTube now works swimmingly for me.

deckeda wrote:
HTML 5 browsers are here, now.

First I've heard of HTML 5 and related browsers. Is this something I can get to make YouTube work on my TiBook?


- W

[clay]

The other thing that hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet is the issue that free video content sites like hulu are competing products to the itunes video store. I'm sure this isn't the only reason (moving in the direction of html 5 is certainly a compelling one), but I'm sure Apple has thought about this as one of the supporting reasons...

[M A V I C]

Wow. Ok. There appears to be some misunderstandings in this thread...

silvarios wrote:
Here's a non Adobe link (Lifehacker) if you are interested. h.264 acceleration only works on Windows Flash.


Nathan

Forrest wrote:
Flash 10.0 and prior versions is not well optimized for Windows either. Even on Hulu's lowest quality setting, it stumbles a lot on 1.6 GHz Intel Atom based Netbook running Windows XP.

You guys are both citing video problems as problems with Flash. This is like citing Safari for problems with Flash. There isn't a Flash video codec. All Flash provides is a wrapper for third party video codecs. The problem is, the most commonly used codecs are processor intensive.

The Lifehacker link talks about GPU acceleration. Chances are they're using DirectX since almost no one develops in assembly anymore.

H.264 is playback intensive no matter what you're on. Apple is notorious for putting slow video cards into their systems. They're generally a generation behind. So including GPU acceleration for Macs doesn't make a ton of sense.

It would be interesting to see how Flash H.264 compares to Silverlight H.264 with the same quality video. Comparing Hulu to Netflix is pointless.

deckeda wrote:
Flash has marketplace inertia. Apple doesn't care. They know better solutions exist: smartly done CSS for navigation, HTML 5 for online videos. Given that as Jobs said, their mobile devices are so popular, they are in a position to move people out of the stone age.

The absence of Flash today looks a lot like a floppy disk-less computer did in 1998: like an oversight of a tremendously useful thing that everyone will forget about within a few years.

Not even close. CSS & HTML 5 only partially replace what Flash offers. To use your comparison, the absence of Flash today looks a lot like a optical disc drive-less computer would have in 1998.

[Winston]

The YouTube page on HTML 5 shows a blank list of supported browsers, and the page looks unfinished:

http://www.youtube.com/html5

Supported Browsers
Right now we support browsers that support both the wrote:

- W

[deckeda]

Winston, if you click on the "join HTML5 Beta" link and then go play a video, it won't play in Flash. (Some restrictions, as noted on the page apply, like if the video has an ad.)