apple vs. adobe?

[Blankity Blank]

Well, some at Adobe seem to think so. One of Adobe's official Flash "platform evangelists", Lee Brimelow, just put up a blog post that begins with a 'my opinion only' disclaimer at the request of Adobe, by the second paragraph has a sentence redacted at the request of Adobe, and ends, "Go screw yourself Apple." It also includes an entire paragraph about how the author will "not be giving Apple another cent of my money until there is a leadership change over there.", though he says he's not suggesting others do the same. He also notes that some are suggesting that Adobe discontinue Creative Suite for OS X in retaliation; he again avers that he is not in favor of anything of the sort.

The posting ends with this note, "Comments disabled as I’m not interested in hearing from the Cupertino Comment SPAM bots."

An amazingly incendiary piece to come directly from an Adobe employee as public comment.

[M A V I C]

The UnDoug wrote:
M A V I C, are you saying that Apple's HTML 5 implementation is not adhering to the standards set forth in the HTML 5 drafts?

They are, but the HTML5 standard does not define what video codec should be used. Apple has chosen for Safari a closed, patented, proprietary, royalty-collecting format. Firefox, on the other hand, has chosen an open source, no-royalty-collecting format.

[silvarios]

I agree that HTML5 is a standard, but I also agree that the video codec choosen by Apple is far from perfect when considering the licensing and patent perspectives. However, I will still take HTML5 and h.264 over Flash and h.264.

I also agree with the sentiment that Apple is not attacking Adobe, at least not solely. Apple doesn't allow Silverlight on their mobile devices either. Nor Java. Yet, there isn't article after article griping about how Apple hates Microsoft and Oracle.


Nathan

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M A V I C wrote:
[quote=The UnDoug]
M A V I C, are you saying that Apple's HTML 5 implementation is not adhering to the standards set forth in the HTML 5 drafts?

They are, but the HTML5 standard does not define what video codec should be used. Apple has chosen for Safari a closed, patented, proprietary, royalty-collecting format. Firefox, on the other hand, has chosen an open source, no-royalty-collecting format.
Not quite that simple. First, Theora is a sub-optimal video codec:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg_theora
"It supports intra-coded frames and forward predictive frames, but not bi-predictive frames which are found in H.264 and VC-1. Theora also does not support interlacing, or bit-depths larger than 8 bits per component."

Second, it may be subject to submarine patents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg_theora#History

http://daringfireball.net/2010/03/on_submarine_patents

Finally, there are no firmware-based encoder/decoder implementations for Theora. On the other hand, the same for H.264 are ubiquitous.

One more thing: H.264 will remain royalty-free through 2015:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20000040-264.html

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samintx wrote:
Isn't Steve cutting off his nose.....etc etc....What is his problem with Flash?

Apple's problem with Flash are many and varied, Suzanne. Flash is a prime source of security and stability problems. It is also a processor hog and that, in turn, leads to excess power consumption and heat. While processor hogging is significantly more serious on the Mac platform, Flash implementations on Windows encounter the same issues.

Beyond those problems, Flash is owned and entirely controlled by Adobe. Because of Flash's unfortunate ubiquity on the commons known as the World Wide Web, Adobe can hold this commons (or elements of it) hostage to its private interests. Apple, on the other hand, is promoting open standards in general and, in particular, the open HTML5 standard as a specific replacement for Flash technologies.

[silvarios]

Google has come out and unequivocally stated their support for Theora as a truly open standard. If Google thinks that Theora is safe from patent litigation, then maybe things are better than we dared hoped.

Google is also funding development for an optimized Theora decoder for ARM. Do I think h.264 will be supplanted? Probably not, but a truly free and open video codec option would be nice.


Nathan

[blooz]

Interesting discussion.
Is Apple fighting for the good, by taking away Adobe's Flash monopoly, or is it evil, trying to set up it's own proprietary code, or process, or whatever.

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M A V I C wrote:
[He just doesn't support it on the iP* devices. Some have said it has to do with user experience, but actions they put into place yesterday don't align with that.

Yes, they do. As I cited before,

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1250946
"Adobe's Flash compiler is a classic maneuver to "commoditize your complements," as Joel put it so well. Apple don't want to be commoditized, especially if it means having apps that don't take advantage of the iPhone's strengths."

[ my emphasis ]

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...and Daniel Eran Dilger explains a specific--and important--aspect to that "user experience" issue:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/...sking.html
"Apple's new iPhone 4.0 SDK license now blocks cross-compiled third party apps, such as those built from Flash CS5. Rather than being just a competitive blow directed at Adobe however, it appears the real motivation is to support sophisticated new multitasking features in the new operating system."

[M A V I C]

Article Accelerator wrote: Not quite that simple. First, Theora is a sub-optimal video codec:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg_theora
"It supports intra-coded frames and forward predictive frames, but not bi-predictive frames which are found in H.264 and VC-1. Theora also does not support interlacing, or bit-depths larger than 8 bits per component."

Oh no, only 8 bit per component. How many of us have monitors that support more than that?

Article Accelerator wrote: Apple's problem with Flash are many and varied, Suzanne. Flash is a prime source of security and stability problems. It is also a processor hog and that, in turn, leads to excess power consumption and heat. While processor hogging is significantly more serious on the Mac platform, Flash implementations on Windows encounter the same issues.

And all those problems can be created by the technologies Apple allows on the iPhone. JavaScript is often worse than Flash, but most people aren't knowledgeable on the subject to discover that.

To reiterate, those problems can be created by poor Flash development, just like they can be created by poor C++, JavaScript... development.

Apple, on the other hand, is promoting open standards in general and, in particular, the open HTML5 standard as a specific replacement for Flash technologies.

Please explain how you can honestly say that. As previously discussed, H.264 is not open, nor a standard. Apple is pushing H.264, it's not an open standard...

Apple is pushing yet another proprietary solution on us. Many years ago we were fighting the battle with Windows Media, and it not playing on Macs. And also RealPlayer, and its general relegation of Macs. Finally Flash started playing video and it worked on multiple platforms. It took off, and now the majority of video on the web is Flash.

Article Accelerator wrote:
[quote=M A V I C]
[He just doesn't support it on the iP* devices. Some have said it has to do with user experience, but actions they put into place yesterday don't align with that.

Yes, they do. As I cited before,

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1250946
"Adobe's Flash compiler is a classic maneuver to "commoditize your complements," as Joel put it so well. Apple don't want to be commoditized, especially if it means having apps that don't take advantage of the iPhone's strengths."

[ my emphasis ]
Your citation isn't relavant. If Apple's goal was to enforce some sort of QA on user experience, they could have just put that in the EULA. They also enforce this in their general app approval process by forcing people to use the AppStore.

They make a EULA change that was different than that. It excludes any interpretation layer regardless of the user experience it creates. An interpretation layer can take advantage of the iPhone's strengths.

If using third party development tools always equaled poor user experience, your assertion may be correct. But since it doesn't equate and because Apple didn't make the EULA change about user experience, it should be clear that Apple has other motives.