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Iphone Apple

The Surprising Statistics Behind Flash and Apple 630

Barence writes "PC Pro's Tom Arah has dug up some statistics that cast severe doubt over Steve Jobs' assertion that Flash is the technology of the past, and Apple's iOS is the platform of the future. He quibbles with Net Applications' assertion that iOS growth is 'massive,' considering that mobile accounts for only 2.6% of web views, and the iOS share stands at only 1.1%. By comparison, Silverlight penetration now stands at 51% while 97% of web surfers have Flash installed, according to Stat Owl. 'At least when Bill Gates held the web to ransom he had the decency to first establish a dominant position,' Arah claims. 'In Steve Jobs' case, with only 1.1% market share, the would-be emperor isn't even wearing any clothes.'"
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The Surprising Statistics Behind Flash and Apple

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  • Oh dear... (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) * <slashdot@grub.net> on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @05:53PM (#33656604) Homepage Journal

    How to we mark an entire story as -1, Flamebait?
    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @05:56PM (#33656632)

      How to we mark an entire story as -1, Flamebait?

      I don't know, I suppose the same way we mark you as -1, Fanboy

      • Re:Oh dear... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by wealthychef ( 584778 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @09:07PM (#33658174)

        I don't know, I suppose the same way we mark you as -1, Fanboy

        Thus you make his point for him nicely. There is no way to express an opinion on this subject without pissing people off, and it's mostly due to the tone of this article.

    • by Monkeedude1212 ( 1560403 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @05:57PM (#33656638) Journal

      Change the Posted editor from CmdrTaco to kdawson.

      • Re:Oh dear... (Score:5, Informative)

        by blair1q ( 305137 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @06:32PM (#33656950) Journal

        It doesn't matter.

        They aren't the real kdawson and CmdrTaco any more.

        They've been replaced by a Python script.

        The script cruises the firehose every 25 minutes and takes the top-scoring article no matter how stupid, stale, or binspam it is.

        Every few hours it to the next name in the Poster-bot list, to give the impression that management is keeping the staff levels up.

    • There's an app for that.

    • Re:Oh dear... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by evil9000 ( 72113 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @06:16PM (#33656818) Homepage

      I agree.

      Jobs' position is one where key technologies, such as playing video, should be done by the web browser and not held for randsom by 3rd party plugin developers who'se best interest is to put their app on every device out there. Posting articles like this only pushes the debate back afew steps.

      Flash + silverlight = can play video = browser plugins = win for particular corporations with vested interests to win at any cost
      HTML5 (ie iOS, firefox 4) = can play video = html5 inside webbrowser = open standards = win for all

      • by tepples ( 727027 ) <.tepples. .at. .gmail.com.> on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @09:23PM (#33658290) Homepage Journal

        Flash + silverlight = can play video = browser plugins = win for particular corporations with vested interests to win at any cost
        HTML5 (ie iOS, firefox 4) = can play video = html5 inside webbrowser = open standards = win for all

        The "particular corporations with vested interests" being the MPEG-LA members, I take it? There are two kinds of video codecs: those that work in Safari for iOS and don't work in Firefox 4, and those that work in Firefox 4 and don't work in Safari for iOS. Apple has chosen not to implement any permissively licensed audio or video codec in Safari for iOS, not Vorbis, not Theora, and not VP8. How is this any improvement over the QuickTime vs. Windows Media Player war that existed before FLV?

      • Re:Oh dear... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dubbreak ( 623656 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @10:04PM (#33658548)

        Flash + silverlight = can play video = browser plugins = win for particular corporations with vested interests to win at any cost HTML5 (ie iOS, firefox 4) = can play video = html5 inside webbrowser = open standards = win for all

        Exactly.

        What point was missed in the stats was that while 97% of people may have flash installed and 51% have silverlight 100% of "web surfers" (hate that term) have a web browser installed.

        Rather than 3rd party extensions to get the functionality needed for media doesn't it make a lot more sense to have open standards so that all browsers can display the media by implementing the standard? It becomes platform agnostic when you don't have to rely on a single vendor to release a binary for your particular platform (in this case platform being OS and browser combination).

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Re:Oh dear... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by kikito ( 971480 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2010 @01:56AM (#33659496) Homepage

        HTML5 video playback is limited compared to what flash can do.

        Not only on the implementation; on the (yet to be implemented completely on any browser) standard. Youtube flash player allows you to go to a specific part of a video, even if you have not pre-downloaded it. HTML 5 (the standard) lacks such mechanism.

        Maybe in 5-7 years we'll have something worth it on the HTML5 field.

        The HTML5 vs Flash, at least in the video section, is to me a "existing technology that works" vs "possible technology that might work in the future. Stress on 'might'". For now, I'll stick with what works.

      • "Jobs' position is one where key technologies, such as playing video, should be done by the web browser and not held for randsom by 3rd party plugin developers who'se best interest is to put their app on every device out there."

        Exactly. They should be held ransom by the person who knows whats best for you .. His Jobness and his High Council of the Apple.

    • by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @07:46PM (#33657610) Homepage Journal

      How to we mark an entire story as -1, Flamebait?

      Let's see, Steve Jobs says a technology is complete crap and nobody would ever want to use it. So, that means in a year and a half, Jobs will be having a Flash love-in on stage somewhere.

  • by Brannon ( 221550 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @05:56PM (#33656630)

    How is SJ holding the web at ransom if he is in such a weak position?

    • Exactly.

      It's like saying "At least the local sports team had the decency to score more points than it's opponent before winning the game!" ... Doesn't winning (or holding ransom) require points (dominant positon) in the first place?

    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @06:02PM (#33656688)

      How is SJ holding the web at ransom if he is in such a weak position?

      He isn't, SJ is just trying to make it sound like he is able to hold the web ransom and making the same BS claims about Flash in an effort to hold it ransom to his whims. SJ hopes to spout enough lies about Flash so everyone will adopt his version of HTML5 (not the so far agreed upon version since nothing is completely official), and if he can make his version of HTML5 the standard it will give him a lot of power on the web that he wants to use to leverage things like the iOS to his standards to keep more competition out of the game (similar to how IE was the 'standard' in the late 90's and helped lock out others like Netscape with sites "recommending IE only").

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        Are there any major differences between Google's or Mozilla's HTML5 proposals and Apple's, besides video? And how can Apple leverage that? You need a dominant position already to pull that kind of stunt - no webdev, even the very incompetent ones, will write HTML that only works for less than 10% of viewers. IE had already a dominant position because of OS integration.

        If someone holds the Web at ransom is Adobe itself with Flash - although less than before.

        • by IntlHarvester ( 11985 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @09:32PM (#33658346) Journal

          Are there any major differences between Google's or Mozilla's HTML5 proposals and Apple's, besides video?

          No real major differences, but a load of minor proprietary webkit extensions to CSS.

          no webdev, even the very incompetent ones, will write HTML that only works for less than 10% of viewers.

          O rly? There's a ton of stuff which target the iPad and nothing but the iPad. It kinda feels like the good old days of IE6.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by jo_ham ( 604554 )

        [citation needed]

        Can you show me how Apple's HTML5 implementation differs from anyone elses with some actual proof, or is this just biased anti-Apple ranting, just like the entire article?

        I am betting on the former, but I am willing to listen to anyone who can actually back this claim up - a fragmented HTML5 serves no one.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Tharsman ( 1364603 )

        How is SJ holding the web at ransom if he is in such a weak position?

        He isn't, SJ is just trying to make it sound like he is able to hold the web ransom and making the same BS claims about Flash in an effort to hold it ransom to his whims. SJ hopes to spout enough lies about Flash so everyone will adopt his version of HTML5 (not the so far agreed upon version since nothing is completely official), and if he can make his version of HTML5 the standard it will give him a lot of power on the web that he wants to use to leverage things like the iOS to his standards to keep more competition out of the game (similar to how IE was the 'standard' in the late 90's and helped lock out others like Netscape with sites "recommending IE only").

        Actually, Steve Jobs has made it very clear he does not care about "holding the web ransom". They already are allowing flash wrapping applications. But they will not support flash within their browser. It is their choice, not a ransom. Adobe is the one that makes it sound as if they were being held hostage for not being accepted into the iOS Safari club. The irony is that most people that complain about the lack of Flash in the iPhone are people that either don't have an iOS device (and will never get one e

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by chaboud ( 231590 )

          The irony is that most people that complain about the lack of Flash in the iPhone are people that either don't have an iOS device (and will never get one even if there was flash) or work for Adobe.

          Now there's a blind assertion. I have two iOS devices and two Android devices, and I've bitched about the closed-off nature of things in iOS, Flash included (and I think Flash sucks). Count me as one chink in your pulled-from-thin-air armor.

    • by mysidia ( 191772 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @06:03PM (#33656696)

      He's not holding the web at ransom, he's holding iPhone and iPad users at ransom, because they are the only people this really hurts (or helps).

      Except it's Stevie, so he's not making any compromises.

      There is some merit to his position, by the way, but it may be at Apple's expense (depending on how much $$$ Adobe wants to license Flash)

      It's not a question of how great cool or widespread the Flash technology is in general.... its a question more of cost and how suitable the implementations are available for the iOS devices.

      If most Flash apps won't work anyways, there's no point in allowing a broken framework, instead of pushing the next greatest standard.

      It's risky, but if Flash is not suitable for mobile platforms it WILL be a thing of the past.

      The question I would have is --- why is the article presenting skewed numbers, and including PC and Netbook users?

      Netbook users may be more comparable to iPad users; but it's totally ridiculous to pit PC users against iOS users, and say a technology used on the web for PC users is suitable for mobile browsing

      • Flash is dog, dog slow on OS X right now, even with a lot of CPU grunt, and it has nothing to do with Apple "blocking access to necessary APIs" or the lack of hardware accelerated h.264 that Adobe (or others) will try to claim. It really is woeful at all animation, even when H.264 video is not involved at all. An iPhone version would just be even worse, since there just isn't the CPU grunt to cover up how poor it is. You can get away with it on a desktop machine - you have a 2GHz cpu mostly idle that can help you out with your simple flash page, but on a mobile device you actually have to make the code decent.

        The biggest reason there is no Flash on iOS is performance. The HTML5 and open web are secondary concerns.

        The 10.1 release of flash is much better on OS X, but it is still a terrible resource hog for no good reason. Even the Mac Silverlight player is much better. I assume MS has the same "access" to the core of OS X as Adobe do.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by socsoc ( 1116769 )
        I don't want Flash on my iPhone. There's no content that I'm missing out on and I use iOS way more than my desktop for general browsing.
        • by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @07:43PM (#33657584) Homepage Journal

          There's no content that I'm missing out on

          Well, *of course* there is. You may not value that content, and that's fine.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          I don't want Flash on my iPhone. There's no content that I'm missing out on and I use iOS way more than my desktop for general browsing.

          Except it should be you making the decision, not Steve! I have an Android phone (HTC Aria) and I can use or not use Flash as I please since there's a browser setting for that (javascript too).

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Nyeerrmm ( 940927 )

            I, another iOS user, did make that decision. I decided to buy an iOS device (multiple in fact,) knowing full well that it didn't support flash, because I decided I didn't need or want it. Steve Jobs didn't choose it for me, he just made a device (both hardware and software) that suited my needs, just as HTC made a device that suits yours.

            Steve Jobs doesn't decide things for me. As an informed buyer, I've found that our ideas of what make a good user experience are pretty well in line.

        • by chaboud ( 231590 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @07:56PM (#33657692) Homepage Journal

          So there are people who do. Don't fall prey to the single-minority-myth. We're all part of some minority (or minorities, more likely), and it's fair to want options.

          It's as easy as can be to selectively use Flash in Android.

          First it was precision pointer support vs. touch, then it was performance, then it was stability, then it was "Flash sucks," then it was "why would anyone want it?"

          When the arguments keep changing, the arguments just sucked.

        • by Tharsman ( 1364603 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @08:55PM (#33658062)

          I don't want Flash on my iPhone. There's no content that I'm missing out on and I use iOS way more than my desktop for general browsing.

          This is something I want to put emphasis on. IF Steve Jobs decides to allow the clumsy Flash to make it into iOS safari, or if Adobe comes up with a version of Flash that is accepted by Steve, I still want an option not to have it at all. I want it to be a down-loadable app or perhaps a flash-enabled browser I'll have to download. I want to be the one to at the end decide if the thing goes into MY iPhone (hint, it wont be going into my iPhone if I have a choice.)

  • by wilsonthecat ( 1043880 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @06:01PM (#33656670)

    I've read a recent statistic that has said that of the 500m Facebook users, 100m visit via the iPhone. So 2% of web views depends entirely on the sites you count, and whether those sites actually make money from their web presence.

  • by ThorGod ( 456163 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @06:02PM (#33656680) Journal

    Back when Apple stopped shipping floppy drives with their computers just about 99% of 'manufactured' computers shipped with floppy drives. People said Apple was moving too fast. Now, a decade or so later, floppies have gone the way of the dinosaur.

    There's probably quite a lot to make that analogy faulty. But I think Apple isn't holding anything randsom. They're just knowingly not supporting (what they see to be) old software.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Although, you have to admit the situation was different. When talking about the era of the floppy, CDs had already gained a huge amount of traction. They stopped shipping floppy drives in 1998; by then, every computer had a CD drive, and high end models were even shipping with DVD drives, two generations ahead of the floppy.

      By contrast, when talking about Flash, there's nothing currently sitting with widespread adoption to usurp it. HTML5 isn't implemented fully, and nothing other than Sliverlight provides

    • by Nemyst ( 1383049 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @06:55PM (#33657210) Homepage
      That Apple removed floppies and they disappeared in the end only means they were 10 years too early. If I remove my DVD drive from my computer now, am I a visionary or just stupid?
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      No, I think the whole god damned world was wondering why they couldn't get rid of the things 5years before apple ever pulled them. The mystery of why my bios still defaults the floppy drive as the first boot device in 2010 will remain a mystery for the ages.
  • by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @06:04PM (#33656698)

    On the other hand, Steve Jobs was right. This [laptopmag.com] is a bigger problem for Adobe. Let them admit thet they need some help wit Flash...maybe Linus hackers can help out.

    Bottom line: Flash sucks on Android big time.

    • by Skuld-Chan ( 302449 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @07:04PM (#33657284)

      Flash on Android is interesting. I think that article really misses the fact that it does in fact work, but some sites are really not designed for touch. I found its pretty fun to watch videos on my phone on sites like escapist.com - you can't do that on IOS, but you can on Android and it does work and its not a battery drain.

      There are in fact examples of HTML 5 based sites [youtube.com] that totally fail on the ipod/iphone/ipad/android as well.

    • by molnarcs ( 675885 ) <csabamolnarNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @07:26PM (#33657448) Homepage Journal
      I don't think you have tried flash on Froyo - I don't care what random author says on the internet, most sites I have ran into work well with flash enabled on my Nexus One. That includes flashgames247, a site I just visited to try out how flash works. Played a game where you had to shoot arrows by dragging backwards and clicking with the mouse. Worked flawlessly with fingers. Then before I bought this phone, I was looking at reviews on youtube. Found a video comparing the Iphone 4 with the Nexus One. By the time the Iphone finished loading the page of one specific site*, the Nexus one has already finished and the flash video was already playing! The slowest site I managed to find was sonystyle, animation is as slow as a slideshow, but so far, the majority of flash heavy sites I visited work very well.

      *www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjhF1xZQRQk - browser test is between the 6th and 7th minute

    • by tknd ( 979052 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @07:26PM (#33657452)

      Bottom line: Flash sucks on Android big time.

      I don't get it. I have a nexus one. I have flash installed and I have it set to load when I ask it to. So here's what happens:

      • Go to webpage with flash
      • See a flash box
      • Tap the flash box if I want to see the flash rendered

      Here's what happens on the ipod touch:

      • Go to webpage with flash
      • See the "you can't see this, no matter what you do, because Jobs-says-so icon"
      • Leave website.

      So how does this suck?

      If you're talking about the user experience, yes, many flash pages were not designed for a touch device because you can't completely emulate the mouse pointer with touch. But many javascript pages don't work well either when they assume a mouse pointer as well.

  • Wrong number (Score:5, Insightful)

    by funkatron ( 912521 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @06:06PM (#33656722)

    This:

    mobile accounts for only 2.6% of web views, and the iOS share stands at only 1.1%.

    is presumably measured over a single set time period and is not a rate of change. It says nothing about this:

    iOS growth is "massive"

    I have no idea what the ransom bit is on about tho. Troll?

  • by Reeses ( 5069 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @06:09PM (#33656732)

    Just because hundreds of millions of people have it installed, doesn't mean they like it.

    Silverlight is probably closer to what Flash's market penetration would be if Flash hadn't become a compulsory install. If it weren't installed by default. SIlverlight is only installed because it blocks the path to content that people want to see. There's no SilverlightTube (yet). Few Silverlight webgames. It's only there because people want access to what it blocks.

    When the day comes where it isn't assumed you need Flash player in order to be a good Internet consumer, you can expect to see it's market share plummet.

    The numbers also don't account for the amount of frustration Flash causes people who have to use it. It's only been recently (version 10.1.18xxxxxx) that I can run Flash on my MacBook and not have it cripple the performance.

    I think they should give it a few years and see what happens. It smells a lot like the same argument that used to be thrown against Firefox when it had only been out a little while versus. IE's market share.

    Look where that wound up.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Rogerborg ( 306625 )

      Dude. Dude.

      It's only been recently (version 10.1.18xxxxxx) that I can run Flash on my MacBook and not have it cripple the performance.

      If you're going to try to make a point about how Flash is on the way out, it's best not to talk about how you just adopted it yourself.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @06:13PM (#33656780)

    I'm really curious how Silverlight got to 51% unless it's a default install for Windows 7 or something of the sort. So far I've only seen it in the wild three times: Photosynth, the Feynmann Lectures (posted by MS...), and some random video at MSNBC or similar news site. I don't even really know what it does, so how is it at 51%? I'm really not trolling; I'm genuinely curious.

    And to generalize a bit, what do statistics like this actually say? I promise you my parents don't know what Flash is, although they've probably seen plenty of irritating animated ads. The numbers they quote for Apple and Flash are on opposite ends of the spectrum, but based on their numbers for Silverlight versus the apparent usage of Silverlight, I'm having a tough time deciding what to take away from this article.

    • by keytoe ( 91531 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @06:31PM (#33656942) Homepage

      So far I've only seen it in the wild three times: Photosynth, the Feynmann Lectures (posted by MS...), and some random video at MSNBC or similar news site.

      You need it for Netflix streaming. I know that's the only reason I have it installed on two of my computers, and that's the only thing it's used for.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Netflix uses Silverlight. That's a rather large chunk of the intentional deployment, beyond the "Oh, it's here on Windows Update, I better install it" crowd, I would imagine.
  • Never again (Score:4, Funny)

    by seanonymous ( 964897 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @06:15PM (#33656808)
    "In Steve Jobs' case, with only 1.1% market share, the would-be emperor isn't even wearing any clothes."

    Dear Slashdot,
    Please do not ever make me picture Steve Jobs naked again.

    Thank you.
  • by zerosomething ( 1353609 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @06:23PM (#33656880) Homepage
    The university I work for has over 25 to 30 percent (5000 +) of it's staff using iOS devices. We gathered this info from our Exchange system. Students don't use Exchange so these are mostly well established professors and staff not a bunch of upstart kids. We have reason the believe the percentage of students using iOS is well over 30% if not closer to 50%. It's important to note that if you own an iOS device you also own a computer of some kind. People aren't using one device to access all content and iOS is by far the primary mobile platform if you are talking about small form factor or phones. You just can't produce stats that say otherwise. And yes Android is moving fast up the stats and they don't like Flash on it. Just think of all the Flash adds you are missing.
  • Silverlight : p (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Beardydog ( 716221 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @06:25PM (#33656896)
    Silverlight would be dead if it weren't for Netflix. I really wish they'd use something else ( although, honestly, it seems to outperform every Flash-based video service on my lower end computers ).
    • Well, I'm not a Netflix user, so Silverlight is certainly dead for me. I still have to find a web site that uses it. Microsoft is being succesful in getting it installed in most Windows computers (something they can't do by default because of legal concerns), but they aren't being very succesful in getting web sites to actually use it.

    • Re:Silverlight : p (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jo_ham ( 604554 ) <joham999@gmail.cTIGERom minus cat> on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @07:04PM (#33657286)

      Silverlight may be a Microsoft product, but it is way better than Flash on my OS X machine. MS may be some sort of boogyman, but they managed to do with Silverlight what Adobe has failed or can't be bothered to do with Flash - make it work well on something other than Windows, which is amusing since I didn't think MS would care about making it work well on the Mac. Certainly less than Adobe should care about decent flash performance.

  • by scromp ( 148280 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @06:27PM (#33656912)

    Flash sucks even on real computers, I don't get why people get so worked up about this. Flash can die in a fire. A *poo* fire.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by BitZtream ( 692029 )

      My laptop has been sitting here on this article for a while, and I had some other pages open in the background and a VM running windows downloading some games to play.

      I pick it up and its piping hot ... like it gets after running some hard core games. Gah, that stupid VM is roasting CPU, freaking Windows ... start top to see whats going on and cofirm ... what? The VM isn't even on the screen its so far down the process list?

      Whats eating CPU? WebKitPlugin ... i.e. FREAKING FLASH.

      Close the one web page wi

  • would-be emporer (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @06:56PM (#33657224) Homepage

    the would-be emperor isn't even wearing any clothes.

    Maybe I'm being pedantic, but it seems like a failed attempt to be clever. "It's like the emperor's new clothes, except this time... HE ISN'T EVEN WEARING ANY CLOTHES!" He's not wearing clothes in the original story.

  • Flashblock (Score:3, Interesting)

    by valkraider ( 611225 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @08:00PM (#33657718) Journal
    I was blocking flash before there ever was such a thing as iPhone or iOS. Between my household and office computers I have it blocked in 7 browsers. But all 7 of my browsers are counted in that "97% of web surfers have Flash installed" statistic.
  • by seebs ( 15766 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @08:01PM (#33657720) Homepage

    I have an iphone. I use it for, oh, a good five or ten percent of my browsing. If that. ... But if a site doesn't work on it, I tend to stop going to that site even when I'm on a different browser. Because I had a bad experience and I didn't like it.

    It doesn't matter how many page hits are iOS; it matters how many page hits are from users who use iOS enough of the time to notice that your page didn't work from their mobile browser.

  • LOL (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MrCrassic ( 994046 ) <deprecated@@@ema...il> on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @08:09PM (#33657776) Journal
    It's super easy to have 97% installation base when the IT guys behind MOST of the Fortune 500 bundle them in their Windows desktop builds and some of the most highly-visited web sites out there (YouTube, a few news sites, a couple of amazing porn sites, etc) still require Flash. Same goes for Silverlight (though Microsoft bundled that in Windows Update, so its numbers should be higher).

    HTML5 video isn't there yet. For starters, Firefox doesn't support H.264, which is the de facto video streaming codec at the moment. Even if it wasn't, Theora doesn't hold a candle to it and seems to be in the middle of growing pains. VP8 is coming, but it isn't here yet. HTML5 YouTube doesn't work all the way yet. Worse still, differences in CPU performance with HTML5 when compared to Flash have been shown [gizmodo.com] to be negligible. (In fact, some of the stats on that page show that Flash 10.1 is more efficient with its CPU utilization.) Worst, and most importantly, of all, tons upon tons of people are still on IE6, which doesn't support HTML5.

    I think we all agree that, on paper, HTML5 is a great idea and will do more to unite a powerful web experience with the convenience of mobile computing. In practice, however, it's still very nascent and will take a while before it supplants Flash, et. al. And I guarantee you that Adobe will be on top of that (unless they're stupid and become a numb bystander to their own death).
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Just Some Guy ( 3352 )

      Worse still, differences in CPU performance with HTML5 when compared to Flash have been shown to be negligible. (In fact, some of the stats on that page show that Flash 10.1 is more efficient with its CPU utilization.)

      And in other studies, spaghetti is faster than purple. HTML5 is a standard, not an implementation. Flash may or may not be faster than a given browser's HTML5 video codec, but I'd be willing to bet you can find a different browser that would demonstrate the opposite results.

  • by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @09:09PM (#33658190)

    Steve Jobs listed 6 reasons why Flash wasn't going on iOS devices. In the very last sentence of his thoughts on flash [apple.com] he says:"Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind." While you may not agree with any of the six reasons, Jobs said Flash is archaic is being asserted as the only reason. Also I don't know about anybody else but my understanding is that Jobs has always talked about Flash on mobile devices (Reason#4 was battery life). Even if mobile browsing represents 2.6% of web usage, 1.1% represents 42% of mobile devices. That's a rather large percentage of mobile users.

  • bah (Score:3, Informative)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @11:28PM (#33658916) Homepage Journal

    What a series of ridiculous assertions.

    Silverlight penetration now stands at 51%

    What a surprise. Anything bundled with windos and IE will reach numbers like that quickly and easily. If they were to add a cooking recipe to IE, they would reach those numbers with it. In fact, given the de-facto monopoly especially in companies, and that it was lobbied/bought as the only choice if you wanted streaming videos of the last two Olympics, that is a surprisingly low number

    while 97% of web surfers have Flash installed

    Flash was introduced in 1996. That was 14 years ago. And for many of those years it was a de-facto standard for the loud and colourful parts of the web (games, movie sites, anything that wanted "more interactivity").

    And then he compares two plugin technologies to an operating system. Because, you know, 27% of elephants have one leg slightly shorter than the other, which clearly proves that the 32% of plane flights that are delayed is a much too high number!

  • by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Wednesday September 22, 2010 @02:58AM (#33659676)

    What people don't get is that Jobs makes his claims based on reason and foresight, not on current numbers. And what you will have to admit, most of the time he is dead on.

    I don't like Apples Content Delivery Lock-In as much as the next guy, but what most people rarely get when talking about Steve Jobs and the things he claims is that this guy actually knows what he is talking about.

    He said it time, and time again: Flash got a no-go on the iPhone BECAUSE ADOBE COULDN'T GUARANTEE A MINIMUM PERFORMANCE without hogging the entire iPhone CPU! And given, that is, of course, due to the VM nature of Flash. Ever since the dawn of ActionScript 2, Flash is a plattform, not a mere animation plugin. ... Ok, so this is Slashdot, and most people contiuously ragging on Flash here don't know squat what it actually is all about, but I guess I'll never give up trying.

    Get it in to your freaking skull: Steve said it time and time again: NO VMs and no inner frameworks or inner operating systems on the iPhone. Period. End of story. I might emphasise that he was absolutely right with his strategy, hence the bizarly massive return on investment the iPhone line is racking in to this very day. Check out the smooth performance of the iPhone and the third-party apps crutching around on last generation Android Phones to see what I'm talking about.

    And I am *not*, I repeat *NOT* an iPhone fanboy - in fact, I am, if at all, most probably going to replace my BlackBerry with an Android Phone whenever the need arises. Given, I might take an iPhone after all, if Android and Ubuntu 10 turn out to be just as prissy as last years versions.

    Now go ahead and mod me into oblivion.

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