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Steve Jobs kills flash...

lokerd

lokerd

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 2, 2010
595
4
Beaumont
I have found this to be a VERY interesting side story.

I don't think the iPhone was quite as successful at literally destroying another technology. But, it seems that with the success that iPad has and will continue to have in spite of the lack of flash, and already a turn of events AGAINST flash, it is COMPLETELY realistic that Apple will actually force an industry (website, companies, etc.) to abandon flash.

I mean, I can see clearly how somebody who has an iPad calls a local business who is using flash and complains that they can't view their site...and that business actually recognizing the number of people with iT/P/P and changes their website completely. I mean...I have flash on my personal site...and as soon as I can...I intend to delete the flash slide show player.

It makes me wonder just how many other times in history something like this has happened. I would like to talk about this to my Communication Graphics class if I can come up with some other examples. Can anybody else think of other such significant catalysts that an entire industry stops dead in it's tracks and yields to a company's insistence that they do things their way?
 
lokerd said:
I mean, I can see clearly how somebody who has an iPad calls a local business who is using flash and complains that they can't view their site.
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You have a point there. I have been to a few store sites and I am obviously put off if I can't view anything. The entire site for the mall of america is flash-mania and useless to me on my iPad.
 
Zepaw said:
The entire site for the mall of america is flash-mania and useless to me on my iPad.
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Yeah, I see this changing PDQ with the iPad hitting the numbers that it is hitting.

There are a couple of local news stations that I intend to call as soon as I get a spare moment...or it frustrates me enough that I make the time.
 
Ooh, Westinghouse vs. Edison is a good one!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents

We'll know which one is "Westinghouse" and which one is "Edison" once we see which one PETA goes after...

Edison backed a DC distribution system, Westinghouse AC. Westinghouse ultimately won, and unlike Beta/VHS, the best technology won: DC is impractical for transmission beyond very short distances.

Edison tried to obscure the argument with side-issues, for example safety. He claimed that AC was much more dangerous to work with than DC, and electrocuted a number of animals in public demonstrations...
 
After over a month, the only sites I couldn't view have been a couple of embedded videos and one restaurant menu. I was going to say Flash was already doomed, Jobs just sped it up. But I guess I could see restaurants and the like never changing unless forced to. Sometimes technologies do hang on long after it seems reasonable.
 
miles01110 said:
BluRay vs. HD-DVD
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I wouldn't consider that a good example considering both formats had just surfaced and one of them won. It's not as if HD-DVD had been around for 10 years. There are plenty of examples of newly launched competing technologies arrive and one loses. Take Tivo vs. Replay. Replay went down fairly quickly (in the Panasonic Showstopper days) even though multiple sales of the company attempted to keep it alive. Once Tivo took hold Replay was left to die (albeit slowly and painfully) without much of a market share.
 
So did 8 track versus video tape.

I emailed Charlie Rose and told him "you said you loved the iPad, you better change your flash to html5 man. My PC keeps overheating and my iPad can't watch you, don't you think it is time to do it?"
 
In the early days of TV there were multiple standards being used until the FCC imposed NTSC.
 
BTW, CBS is apparently already streaming H.264/HTML5. That wasn't clear in the articles I've seen on the subject, just that they were "planning" it. But they don't have the extensive coverage of their shows (100% of prime-time) that ABC has in the ABC Player.

So, I did something that I doubt that 99% of iPad owners will bother to do: dropped a "CBS" link onto the desktop. That provides an experience nearly as good as the ABC Player (absent full access to complete shows). But, alas, I think they will need to come up with a CBS Player, or most iPad users will never visit.

Sadly, Steve's original iPhone concept - that everything would be delivered via the browser, with the UI enhanced by Javascript extensions - was swept way under the rug when Steve changed app religions. Nobody's gonna drop a link. Unfortunate, as well, that Apple won't allow an app that is as simple as a Safari link... Maybe an exception is in order in this case? Or Apple needs to do more to encourage users to drop links, and to publicize web sites that are optimized for iPad. If they're smart, they'll make this an ad campaign. Maybe "You don't even need an app for that"...

Now waiting for the third shoe to drop (NBC). Currently, you get an awful "mobile" version of the NBC web site on iPad. The limited videos are playable, not sure using what technology. I watched about 5 seconds of "Wheel of Carpet Samples" (I can't stand Jimmy Fallon...), yawned, and mentally put NBC in the "one day" category.
 
lokerd said:
I mean, I can see clearly how somebody who has an iPad calls a local business who is using flash and complains that they can't view their site...
Click to expand...

I have doing just that -- emailing website webmasters when I run acrosss a site that I can't view appropriately or has missing flash graphics. Just to let them know. Hope you all are doing the same.
 
Cases like Westinghouse vs. Edison, BluRay vs. HD-DVD, eight-track vs audio casette, are instances of competing similar technologies battling out over a market and one winning out over the other. iPad isn't exactly a competing technology to flash. iPad killing flash is more like, say there were two types of fuel being used to run cars, and one auto company came along and declared it is using Type A fuel as opposed to Type B, and it was so influential it ran Type B fuel out of business.
 
Hmac said:
I have doing just that -- emailing website webmasters when I run acrosss a site that I can't view appropriately or has missing flash graphics. Just to let them know. Hope you all are doing the same.
Click to expand...

I've been emailing about iPad compatibility as well.
 
mlomeli said:
@jtara

How did you drop a link to the ipad desktop?
Click to expand...

1. Go to the site you want to link to. For example, if you want to link to this site, first you have to visit www.macrumors.com in the browser.

2. When there, tap the "+" button.

3. From the menu that appears, tap ''Add to Home Screen''

:)
 
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