Looks like Flash apps are GO on the app store. No Flash player for the browser, but developers can now submit apps to the app store that have been created with CS5.
I wonder if any money changed hands to make this happen? Perhaps Apple has been seeing some quantity/quality of apps coming out on other platforms made with these tools (are there any?) Maybe it was necessary to also allow other tools that many developers had already been using...
I wonder what Adobe is going to say publicly about this latest policy update...
The double standard of forbidding translation of Flash into ObjC but allowing .NET apps to be converted into ObjC was a little stupid to say the least.
Flash on Android is definitely on par with Flash on the desktop, when it comes to security anyhow. Make sure to keep those installs up to date, and be wary of turning Flash on by default.
I wonder if this will have any impact on the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator on the Android platform. One of the markets that actively exploits Flash is the MMO gold farmers. Their main attack up till now has always been keyloggers on the PC of the player to snag their password. There has already been a few attacks on the authenticators too, this may make it worse.
No big loss there. I think I've only come across two sites ever which needed Silverlight and only one of them was mandatory. I just ignored that site and kept looking elsewhere.
Registered: 14/01/2002
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Not really interpreting that as saying they are killing silverlight. I can't imagine they will given that it is 90% the same as wpf and the two are growing closer every release. It isn't going to be the cross platform tech they though, but that doesn't make it unimportant. It's still going to be (alongside wpf) a good option for line of business apps, depending on the need of the business. That is what we are using it for and it is working out great. But if I were developing a media rich consumer facing app, I'd go with something else.
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I doubt they'll kill it outright, but this is the sound of the death note for its consumer-centric web deployment. With any luck MS will end up snubbing Flash as well. It's really not in their long-trm best interests to help out Adobe. They need to figure out their priorities soon. They're a software company and Adobe is much more potential competition to them than Apple is, especially in enterprise.
Both Silverlight and Flash possibly going away on the web and both companies showing their plans to focus on HTML 5. All less then a year after people claimed the iPad would be DOA for not supporting Flash. Things change quickly it seems.
Adobe was demoing a Flash to HTML 5 converter recently. Here's the demo.
I'm betting this is a major part of CS6, if not an update to CS5.
Now to get this whole video codec mess sorted out for HTML 5 video tags, and there might be a proper portable across any platform and browser world wide web.
Registered: 14/01/2002
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I knew the iPad wouldn't suffer for not supporting flash or silverlight- I figured it would go the other way, and it looks like it has. It bums me out that apple has that kind of power to limit the tools available to developers, but I'm not surprised it is working.
Mostly I'm just bummed that xaml development, which is such a better development experience over HTML and JavaScript, will never be a viable option for creating a consumer web application. I can take solace in the fact that I may never be tasked with creating a consumer facing app.
I can also take some solace in the fact that our application has no critical logic in the silverlight portion of the app and if we had to replace the front end with HTML, it would not be that difficult.
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-Jeff Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
I knew the iPad wouldn't suffer for not supporting flash or silverlight- I figured it would go the other way, and it looks like it has. It bums me out that apple has that kind of power to limit the tools available to developers, but I'm not surprised it is working.
Would you have been similarly bummed if Microsoft still had the same power? Silverlight for the web was a direct attempt to kill Flash and limit developers choices. Silverlight was also a factor in several US states extending the Microsoft antitrust settlement terms for 5 more years (till 2012) due to the fear that the Windows platform still has enough power to kill competition if a specific tech is embedded into it with a competitors excluded. Windows XP shipped with Flash. I'm sure Microsoft would have liked to bundle Silverlight into Vista and 7, when they also pulled out Flash.
Should it be easier for developers to do their jobs, at the cost of consumers choice and ease of use? While these two aren't always tied together, it seems they are for web development.
Situation 1. Developers have access to use Microsoft Visual Studio for Silverlight, Adobe Flash Professional for Flash, and other tools for HTML 5. Because of the developer choice here, consumers have to go manually download and install proprietary plugins on their platform, or in the case of Windows today, an alternate browser with proper HTML 5 support. Developers have to spend time writing across multiple languages if they want to reach the widest audience possible, or accept that the use of their app/site will be limited to a smaller group of people.
Situation 2. Developers have access to many tools from many companies, but they all output HTML 5 code. Consumers can just use the browsers they have, on almost any device they have. And competition will be in the tools and browser side, to see who can make the best development tool or runtime platform, not the best development language that ends up fragmenting the market.
Situation 2 seems to be where the web is headed, with even Microsoft putting in the proper effort to get IE 9 up to the same level Mozilla, Apple, Google, and Opera have been at in the browser arena for ages. Adobe is developing HTML 5 tools, and many other companies are too. So while developers won't have a wide choice of languages to choose from, they will still have a wide choice of tools to work with. And that little bit of choice restriction on the development side then makes things much simpler, and much more consistent for the people that mater, the end users of the developers content. Without the end users (be it actual home users, or just other coworkers in an office) to consume the content, there wouldn't be a need for developers.
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
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As a consumer, downloading Flash has never been an issue for me, and it's usually a painless process to acquire. I never wanted MS to kill Flash, I just thought it was nice to have options.
As for your situations- I'd prefer situation 1 if the best plug ins became fairly ubiquitous the way Flash has (until the iPad). If a plug in became favored by developers and a lot of apps were written with it, it's no big deal for consumers to download it once and have it on their systems. Most didn't mind with Flash, and I don't think too many plug ins are going to rise to the top enough to be this common. Maybe it would have never happened with Silverlight- but without the iPad coming out my money would have been on Silverlight becoming fairly common to most computers.
Situation 2 is where we're going to end up, and it sucks (imo) because we're still tethered to a language that was never designed for applications. Sure we are making changes (and I'll admit, I haven't looked deep into HTML 5 which I know has drastic changes), but at the end of the day we are still shoehorning in application-like behavior into something that was designed for presenting and navigating documents.
The thing that bums me out is that on one hand you have something designed from the bottom up for creating web applications. On other other, you have something shoehorned into a document presentation language that wasn't originally meant for writing applications. Web development is constantly about abusing HTML enough to trick the browser into behaving like an application, and it's the users who suffer because they want to have the kind of behavior they see in traditional desktop applications in their web applications.
I've been waiting for YEARS for someone to come along and come up with a better way to write web apps than pushing HTML to limits. When Flash came out I REALLY thought that was going to be it, but Flash really didn't work out that way- as flashy as it was, it was never a good choice for line of business apps, and that is a huge driver of software that is written today. Once Silverlight 3 hit the shelves, we finally had a well designed product that could do the flashy stuff, but ALSO allowed the ability of writing really great line of business apps across the web. I actually regret that it came from Microsoft, because if it had been developed by someone else I think people would've given it a lot more credit.
So what I see is that, despite having a powerful tool with XAML based applications that can run on the web, once again we are returning to shoehorning stuff into our beloved hypertext markup language. It isn't that I want to make the developers lives easier in spite of the consumer. It just seems to me that it is far more challenging to write a web app than it needs to be, and ultimately the consumers suffer because of this.
An example- people have become so used to certain aspects of web apps that are there because of the limitations of the toolset we've had for the last 10 years that those behaviors become expected even when superior options are available. In the current app we're writing (in Silverlight) we have so many tools that behave in a more intuitive, easier to use way, but the product owner continually asks for things to be done in a way resulting in a more difficult end-user experience because it is a "web app". In fact, once we went out of browser (essentially turning it into a desktop app) she all of the sudden started becoming OK with certain controls because it no longer felt like a web app. Our abilities hadn't change, but suddenly since we weren't in a browser more fluid presentation became OK.
My point is, consumers have gotten used to a crummy user experience because of the toolset we've had available and they would be better off if we were able to develop apps in a better way. It isn't just about making the developers lives easier, it's about building a better product.
_________________________
-Jeff Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
Situation 2 is where we're going to end up, and it sucks (imo) because we're still tethered to a language that was never designed for applications.
The web wasn't designed for applications. Many times people are trying to shoehorn what belongs on the desktop into a web browser. Adobe bought Macromedia because of Flash and only because of Flash. They saw how ubiquitous it was getting. MS likely developed Silverlight for pretty much nothing else than to compete in the same space.
If you need something that so advanced that it can't be done in Javascript or on the server side, then re-consider using the default web browser. Develop something to download and launch.
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
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Originally Posted By: hybrid8
Originally Posted By: JeffS
Situation 2 is where we're going to end up, and it sucks (imo) because we're still tethered to a language that was never designed for applications.
The web wasn't designed for applications. Many times people are trying to shoehorn what belongs on the desktop into a web browser. Adobe bought Macromedia because of Flash and only because of Flash. They saw how ubiquitous it was getting. MS likely developed Silverlight for pretty much nothing else than to compete in the same space.
If you need something that so advanced that it can't be done in Javascript or on the server side, then re-consider using the default web browser. Develop something to download and launch.
I agree 100% here. The problem is, people are demanding apps to be done in browser even when a desktop app would be better. I would be more than happy to keep the web within the confines of what HTML does well, but the people who pay my bills may not allow it. I've actually been fairly fortunate in my ability to avoid most of the craptastic technologies for writing web apps. I avoided asp classic completely and only built the smallest of apps with asp.net. I did write a huge jsp app, unfortunately, and that was enough to convince me that writing web apps in browser fundamentally is a broken concept. At the end of the day, web apps are all the rage and it's what product owners demand, even if there isn't a good reason to do it.
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Registered: 25/12/2000
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Yeah, but you're not even really writing a web app. You're writing a Silverlight app whose VM happens to exist inside a web browser. Based on what you've said before, the exact same thing could just as easily run outside the web browser, and even be launched from the browser itself. And if it can run inside the browser, the software already exists on the machine to run it completely independently of the browser. I suppose that at least starting it from the web browser gives you some control over version management.
So what you're saying is that your customer wants a desktop app, but they also want it, for no good reason, surrounded by the trappings of a web browser window.
I'm not saying you can do anything about that. I'm just pointing out the absurdity.
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
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Yes, it is absurd. In fact, our SL app IS being deployed out of browser now, but it took a while to get the PO to this point, and I'm not sure she's altogether pleased with it. She agreed when one of our TAs convinced her that a SL app using client certificates would be more secure than running in browser.
I suppose what I can see as a good evolution is something akin to a browser that can run on any platform, but is designed for running applications. This would allow people to write applications that are easily accessible and rich in behavior. I guess I kind of hoped that plug ins would serve this need, as everyone already has a browser. The problem, of course, is that plug ins are all proprietary, and what we'd really need is a good, open standard that was built from the ground up for writing apps.
_________________________
-Jeff Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
As a consumer, downloading Flash has never been an issue for me, and it's usually a painless process to acquire. I never wanted MS to kill Flash, I just thought it was nice to have options.
For you it's never been an issue. For many people who lack the technical skills this community has, the situation is different. They may download and install Flash properly, and get to the content out there. But do they keep Flash updated properly to avoid the security implications it brings to the table? Are they even aware of the security problems? In most cases, no.
Originally Posted By: JeffS
Situation 2 is where we're going to end up, and it sucks (imo) because we're still tethered to a language that was never designed for applications. Sure we are making changes (and I'll admit, I haven't looked deep into HTML 5 which I know has drastic changes), but at the end of the day we are still shoehorning in application-like behavior into something that was designed for presenting and navigating documents.
I definitely see your point, but the answer to the problem isn't to run off and go create more proprietary languages and plugins. Even if Apple hadn't come along with the iPad, some other company would have changed the face of computing with a similar device, and we already see computing changing on the really mobile side due to smart phones. The more proprietary languages people are tied to, the more they can't move to new computing platforms. If Apple was out of the picture, I'm sure Microsoft would have had no problem continuing on their path of proprietary technology while entering the era of these new computing platforms. In the particular case of Flash, Adobe never demonstrated Flash running on iOS at a sufficient quality level for such devices, so ultimately situation 2 is occurring due to the inactions by Adobe as much as the actions of Apple.
Originally Posted By: JeffS
I've been waiting for YEARS for someone to come along and come up with a better way to write web apps than pushing HTML to limits. When Flash came out I REALLY thought that was going to be it, but Flash really didn't work out that way- as flashy as it was, it was never a good choice for line of business apps, and that is a huge driver of software that is written today. Once Silverlight 3 hit the shelves, we finally had a well designed product that could do the flashy stuff, but ALSO allowed the ability of writing really great line of business apps across the web. I actually regret that it came from Microsoft, because if it had been developed by someone else I think people would've given it a lot more credit.
What's stopping the industry from getting together and creating a new, proper, open standard for running applications on the internet? Why do we instead have a situation where Microsoft, Adobe, and to some extent Sun feel the need to own and control the technology? It took the iPads success to sound a wakeup call to these companies that they needed to start working harder, due to them watching their monopoly, or near monopolies start to erode.. Maybe from here, they will work towards ensuring HTML 6 or whatever follows does what it needs to, without being tied to just one company.
Business apps have been a main driver in the past, but I think thats only been due to the lack of focus on the consumer market. We are starting to see a new era where consumers are finally integrating more computing devices into their daily lives, and there is going to be more and more demand from the space for good applications, web or normal ones. Apple is doing well today because they saw this, and put proper focus on the consumer market first. Microsoft is still mostly focused on the enterprise and OEMs, and unless they change a bit more rapidly, they may see the end of their consumer rule over computing. Consumers will one day get so fed up of "the damn PC not working again" that they may just move entirely to a device like the iPad. $500 looks cheap compared to the cost of a PC, and repeated visits to the Geek Squad desk to clean up a machine due to a single web link. Once consumers aren't afraid of harming their machines, the app market will explode in the consumer space.
Registered: 14/01/2002
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I WILL point out this though- the PO doesn't really know the difference between an SL app running in browser or a JavaScript site. All they know is you are running a "web app", and that's what they want.
To be fair, our current PO was burned before by a thick client app because of deploying patches- she doesn't want to experience that again. Fact is that can easily be dealt with, but once you've been burned you don't want to go down that road again. When we decided to take our app out of browser, she had to be assured that we'd be able to update the application seamlessly (which we will have no problem doing). I think the update issue is a large reason people choose web apps, but there are correct ways to deal with this that do not involve running in a browser.
On a different note- I'll also mention that as great as I think SL is as a technology, there are a lot of surrounding technologies in the MS stack that I believe are very misguided. It seems that everyone I hear talking about SL is trying to write apps in a way that hides (from the developer) the idea that you are actually writing an app communicating over the web. This was what made asp.net trash (you try to abstract the disconnect nature of developing a web page, and you get developers who don't understand the consequences of some very natural decisions) and I see it with a lot of the stuff that is being pushed for Silverlight. Out of browser or in browser, there are fundamental difference between an app running with all of its resources locally available, and one that has to communicate over the web in order to do its business. You cannot treat these problems the same no matter how hard you try, and it seems MS keeps trying to help developers out by giving them tools to do exactly that.
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Registered: 14/01/2002
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Originally Posted By: drakino
What's stopping the industry from getting together and creating a new, proper, open standard for running applications on the internet? Why do we instead have a situation where Microsoft, Adobe, and to some extent Sun feel the need to own and control the technology?
What's stopping it, I imagine, is that it is a difficult task to come up with such a thing, and it is far more likely for someone driven by selfish interests to focus on the problem, devote the resources, and come up with a solution. Unfortunately, this ends up with a proprietary solution that is a non-starter for the community at large.
I mean, jeez, how successful has the community been at creating (and following) a simple standard for displaying and navigating documents? Sure MS has been the real problem child here, but the point still stands- you STILL cannot fire up a browser and expect it to behave in a consistent way when it comes to interpreting HTML, a far simpler task than running an application.
Now with XAML you have a really powerful language, designed from the ground up to write applications. You have out of the box support for MVVM, clean separation of your view and data/BL, flexibility, power, and all manner of other great things. The problem is, the only interpreter for it is something controlled by MS. And say they released it into the wild and said "have at it- it's completely open- we just want to make money off of our tools" no one would go for it because they don't want to be tied to something born from MS. And of course this is a legitimate response.
It just sucks, imo, that the situation is the way that it is, and I have no idea how to fix it. I truly believe we need a clean break from HTML for running apps on the web, and now I see that the solution cannot be proprietary. I believe it will be decades before anything like the web browser, but designed from the ground up for apps, is available as an open standard, and it's a sorry state because the technology exists RIGHT NOW but we cannot use it. I just get frustrated when politics get in the way of progress, however necessary it may be.
And please note- I don't really include the plug in itself as the technology that exists "right now". In a perfect world you'd have something like XAML, but as an open standard, and many different interpreters (analogous to IE, Safari, FireFox, etc.) that would run it, thereby not tying ourselves to a less than perfect solution controlled by a single company.
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Registered: 25/12/2000
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How is the answer not already existent in Java, or more specifically, the JVM? Save some codec-type stuff with patent issues, and copyright issues with using the name "Java", it's a completely open specification (well, GPL open), with a number of alternative implementations, it's not language-dependent, etc., etc.
Registered: 14/01/2002
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Java apps still require an install and you cannot seamlessly navigate between them. Now if Someone would create a java plug in, and if this plug in could be run in all browsers, then you'd have something. An alternative solution is to create a "navigator" shell app that works like a browser, except for java apps. In either case it would be nice to create a display language like xaml designed for visual styling, multimedia, and databinding. This wouldn't be strictly necessary as java has the swing library already (I guess- all my work with java has been limits to jsp, so my visual styling was done in HTML), but it would greatly aid developers in creating the rich content users are expecting these days.
The problem with a new, browser style "navigator" app, is that you have to convince users to install it and developers to write for it. Additionally users have to decide when they start their session whether they are going to be consuming or interacting. The issue with a plug in is getting the ipads of the world to support it. You might have more success with Java because it is open.
Either way, clearly the experience users want is to open his or her browser, hit a link, log in, and do their business. When they are done with that business, the want to go to a new link (maybe found via search) and do new business elsewhere. They may even want to browse some documents in between and likely want to do it all in within the same context. The java of today does not support this experience and the only way to deliver it is through a plug in or manhandling HTML.
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Registered: 10/06/1999
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Originally Posted By: JeffS
The issue with a plug in is getting the ipads of the world to support it. You might have more success with Java because it is open.
Given that Apple are deprecating their porting efforts for the JVM on OSX and Google's troubles with Oracle, I reckon the chances of Java appearing in any form on iOS are as lower than Flash appearing.
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Registered: 25/12/2000
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Originally Posted By: JeffS
Java apps still require an install
Java has "Web Start", which makes installation very easy. Basically, you go to a web page where a small piece of metadata is downloaded which then tells the Web Start application to check to see if it's already cached and if it needs to be updated. This is apparently pretty similar to Microsoft's "One Click", if you're familiar with that. (I'm not.)
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
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Originally Posted By: wfaulk
Originally Posted By: JeffS
you cannot seamlessly navigate between them.
Huh?
I mean that part of the "web experience" people expect is I'm on one "page", be it an application or content, and I have hyperlinks that lead me to another page.Even with lots of different content, the browser adds cohesiveness to the whole experience and I think users expect that.
As for the "Web Start" thing- well all I can say about that is, for whatever reason it doesn't fit the bill for the product owners who "want a web app". It probably should, though.
Do "Web Start" and "One Click" apps allow you to download in pieces? That is, can you dynamically downloaded parts of the app as the user needs them so they aren't hit with a big download all up front? I know you can do this in Silverlight, but I haven't really investigated "One Click" type solutions to see if that is possible. I think it's important because you do want your "web apps" to be quick to load.
Really, though, it's hard for me to really say what is important to users and why certain decisions are made. On every project I've done I've argued against creating web apps unless there was a really good reason- I figure if you want a rich user experience, use a tool designed to provide one.
_________________________
-Jeff Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
Incidentally, with Apple's more relaxed rules for the iOS App store, I can't immediately think of a reason Adobe wouldn't be able to have a stand-alone Flash Player approved. They could create their own web browser using the WebKit API and handle the Flash right within the app.
The one reason I can think of doesn't have anything to do with Apple. The performance would still be complete crap because Flash sucks. Everyone at Adobe knows this. They knew it when they bought Macromedia. But they still want to beat that dead horse in hopes it will bleed more money.
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
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Flash is more than just a video player, though. I installed Kongregate for Android a while back, and I've been having fun playing Flash games on the go.
I just wish sites would use HTML5 video tags properly. Most are still just detecting the user agent strings and feeding HTML 5 video to iPads and IPhones only. This is the wrong approach. Instead they should detect the platforms capabilities and use what is best in the situation.
I tried going without flash on my work laptop, using Safari. It's capable of playing any HTML 5 video the iPad is. Sites would refuse to send it though, unless I faked the user agent string. This is even a problem for other devices, like the Xoom. Until yesterday, Flash wasn't available, but the device could have played video in a ton of places. Sites are already assuming Android will always have Flash it seems, like ESPN. Seems not much has changed since last summer when I had the Captivate that kept being fed Flash it couldn't handle instead of HTML 5 that it could.
With extensions you might be able to force certain sites to use a different user agent string instead of leaving it set all the time. Or, like the YouTube extension I have, it just forces that specific site to use HTML5 video tags. I've found the YouTube preference itself always gets hosed after a while.
But yeah Tom, I totally a agree. You want shameful? TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog was *constantly* posting stories with a flash video as the main image - super annoying. And utterly short-sighted of them.