The iPad Literally Breaks Every Use Case I Had For It
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Rather than rebut the rest of his "points" directly, I'll focus on "multitasking". Frankly, the iPhone and iPad do multitask, in the ways that are important to (most) people. Multitasking in an end user product really means "I can do more than one thing at once", not "The computer runs many processes". The iPhone OS currently accomplishes exactly this, via saved state.
In any well behaved iPhone app, if you quit, the state of the UI and your data is persisted, so that when you return, it's like you never left. The UI for this multitasking is a bit clunky - hit "Home" then pick the app - but for most people, this works fine. There are only two situations when this doesn't - when the app does something interesting in the background, and when the "stack" of application interactions collapses - if I click a mailto: link to open Mail, quitting that doesn't return me to Safari - I have to go there again manually.
The two cases of "Does something interesting in the background" that really people want are audio streaming and notification of some event, and they're real problems. However, Apple's persistently said they're trying to protect the user experience (stability, battery life etc) by denying background apps. I've no reason to believe this isn't the case (I'm mean really, what are they gaining except geek ire by restricting this?). The audio case is annoying and needs a solution - the notification case is slightly better since push was rolled out.
Outside of these cases, the iPhone multitasks well enough for 99% of the world. His reading case, catching up on the news etc all are handled - you just have a slightly painful app switch process (i.e. you press two buttons rather than just one). The only case that isn't is background movies/music from 3rd party apps - and really, the only sensible case out of that is music (Do you really watch a movie and browse at the same time on a 10" screen?). Regardless, I suspect the point will be moot soon enough - OS 4.0 seems very likely to bring some notion of background processes.
The geek anti-iPad ire really confuses me. What did we expect, other than what we got? It was never going to run OS X - the user experience would have been awful without major changes that broke all 3rd party OS X apps (and then, what's the point?). The hardware, modulo camera, seems entirely reasonable at a price that's damn good - who realistically expected anything more from an affordable tablet machine at this point in technology? The "walled garden" is a real issue, but I think we have, as a group, gained far more than we've lost with the App store. All these people saying "I could never have been a tinkerer with an iPad" - poppycock. Download the SDK for free, develop all you want. Pay a nominal fee to deploy to 100 other devices without ever giving Apple a look at your app. Or hell, just jailbreak it if the limits of the SDK are so onerous.
Alternatively, just don't buy it. Having chosen this please, stop filling up HN/Reddit/The Internet with "The iPad doesn't raise the dead, make me a billionaire and cure cancer, so all my dreams are shattered and Apple is awful".
Anyway, an additional multitasking use-case is IRC and other apps where you're in constant contact with a server. With Colloquy, for instance, right now you need to setup a server to bounce off of or else you leave all channels every time you switch apps. Of course, this class of uses is one that you don't want running when the device is off or else the battery drains quickly.
I've always felt that Apple was waiting both for their hardware to become powerful enough (the original iPod touch consistently ran out of RAM with 2 open webpages + music for instance, and page rendering wasn't exactly snappy) and also to come up with a good way of limiting the number of background processes without user involvement. You don't want every other app you launch hanging around so that when you run out of resources, the OS kills the music player which you actually wanted open.
Much more frustrating is something that looks like it could be just exactly perfect for you, but is for some reason fatally flawed, or just out of reach.
How do you video chat using an iPhone, which has a camera on the back?
"Again, we run into a software problem. From what I have seen in images surrounding the iPad, you can only have one tab open at a time. Excellent, if this was 1996. Hell, even Internet Explorer 7 had multitab browsing. Oh, and if that Apple sourced processor is so fast, why the hell can I not use it? Single tabbed browsing is just a plain deal killer for content consumption, period."
The button to switch windows or tabs is located between the forward and bookmarks button. It is located in the bottom right on the iPhone.
"Apple almost got there with this one, copying someone else’s interface for iBooks. But then it hit me again, only one app at a time! I listen to music while I read. And Gmail is never closed. Blast, there goes that."
If you're using the iPod and Mail applications, this isn't an issue, as both of these applications can run in the background.
"Again, when are we going to see HTML5 casual gaming? I love the game “desktop tower defense,” which is flash based. iPad? No."
There are many casual games in the App Store, including many tower defence games (my favourite is Star Defence, but there are plenty of good free ones, if 99c is too dear). This is only going to increase with Flash CS5.
He's saying that even if it (the iPad) had a camera for video chat, he would have to use his iPhone to look up the train times because there is no multi-tasking on the iPad.
Why make people pay when there's FREE games out there online if only flash were supported. Flash support means opening up to a whole world of preexisting games, rich internet applications, and porn sites.
But not allowing flash creates an artificial monopoly that is the app store.
>Why make people pay when there's FREE games out there online if only flash were supported.
There are also many free games on the App store. Also, with the new version of Adobe Flash, it's a relatively trivial process to turn a Flash game into a native iPhone app.
Click <ok to continue> or <cancel to save your battery>
edit: way to go downmodder, getting modded down for presenting a possible solution to an issue is a new low for HN.
Congratulations. Now if you'd be so kind as to explain why you thought that was not a viable solution?
I'm probably one of the largest flash haters on the planet, it took me all of 7 years to convert our video to flash, because I simply can't stand it that for basic functionality like that we need a plug-in.
That said, that particular plug in is now so widespread that even people that can't stand it also can't really get around it.
HTML5 is not here yet, flash is here today. So, for live content, where downloading and converting is not possible this move by apple limits their users uses of the web.
The best way imo would be to show side-by-side the same functionality, have a period of cross-over, dual implementation and to deprecate flash.
To simply not support it is not going to convince any developers to make HTML5 content, it's simply going to frustrate a lot of end users.
I just got an angry email from some guy ranting at me that since I won't support the iphone he will no longer be frequenting my site. I sympathize, my budget is limited, both in time as well as in funds so he'll have to go his way.
I don't like it when choices are forced, choices ought to be free. HTML5 video capable deployment still sucks, flash is, as annoying as it is, at this moment in time the only viable way of getting good coverage on the majority of platforms.
Battery life decisions should be up to the user, not up to the manufacturer. If you need or want to see that video and there is no very good technical reason why you can't (and shortening battery life is not a good enough reason, if that were a prime decision factor the display in the iPad would have been a more economical model) then you should simply be able to.
That being said, HTML 5 can get people to use it without the help of Apple, by simply being better, not by artificially creating a need for HTML 5.
Your solution is not viable because the problem is not an interface problem. The problem is that Flash does not actually make the iPhone, iPod, or iPad a better product in any way that matters to Apple.
Some potential customers (which Apple surely cares about) may demand it, but they also demand ponies, etc. Whether they would actually buy the product if it had Flash or would like it if they had it is something we can only guess at, but if you had to guess if users would really like poorer performance, poorer battery life, more advertisements, games which run but don't fit on the screen or work well with touch interfaces, choppy video with non-standard controls--well, if that's what Flash support means in practice, it's quite possible that those users really don't know what they want.
If this all sounds very paternal and "Steve (and whoever else at Apple) knows best.", well...it is. Good design often is pretty dictatorial. It's not the only way to design a good product, but it has a pretty good track record, and not just for Apple. They've certainly had a pretty good run in declining to support Flash. Is that going to come to a grinding halt over Farmville and Punch The Monkey? Maybe. Probably not.
Apple generally doesn't want to soak up any of the credit or blame for technology that they don't have any control and hardly any influence over. If Flash on the iPhone/iPad sucked, it would mean something about the iPhone/iPad sucks, and Apple wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
Think about that. Would you want to release a product that not only incorporated a flaw (even potential one) that you couldn't fix, but which you depended on to meet the market's bullet-point test and which you couldn't remove on pain of user revolt? Dreadful scenario. Why not "just" try not to depend on things you can't fix?
The Apple story in the past decade has been shrewd application of this rule to very great effect in every case that I can think of, from touchpads to retail. It isn't an ignorance of real world circumstances (like Flash's installed base), it's a refusal to depend on them. Where they can't roll their own or do without, they tend to bring a ton of leverage to the table and leave with a bag of concessions.
You may have noticed that Apple has a strong brand. They got that way by trying hard to not release crap. Contrast (say) Microsoft which has a wildly uneven product line ranging from really great to utter trash. Contrast the Android platform, "iPhone Killer"s all, and all striving to escape the pit of their own shared mediocrity.
So, they don't want to release crap, and they don't want to depend on anybody else? Now the question is: Do they really have to depend on Flash to make their product great?
The thing is, most people outside of Adobe that "want Flash" don't actually want Flash. They want the things that they currently get through Flash, like games and video and rich interfaces. Now that is something that Apple can work on. And they do. And sites that would otherwise depend on Flash do. And native application developers do. And the result in most cases is a better overall experience for their users for each of those things. And there is more of that every day.
So even though they're losing a bit to the non-fungible nature of the content (i.e. you can get games but not Farmville...yet; you can get video but not Hulu...yet), what they are gaining in the end is actually a higher-quality result overall. Isn't that what it's all really about in the first place?
You're right, people who want flash don't want flash. They want rich applications. But Flash is the only thing that can deliver that right now on desktop (and cover a reasonable audience). HTML 5 is still catching up. On the iPhone you may not need flash, but the alternative is Apple's closed iPhone platform. I don't think that's necessarily better than another system which is already a de facto standard.
No, that's not what I'm getting at. What I'm getting at is that if they do, or if they use HTML5, they're still presenting a better quality product to users of this platform than they would using Flash. To Apple, that is a far more important thing than what they're potentially losing from not supporting Flash. Nobody "has to" develop iPhone apps any more than people "have to" develop Flash apps for the web. It's all about what experience you want to deliver to what audience.
Right now, there are compelling reasons to go either way or even both ways. I'm just saying there will never be a time when going in the direction of Flash-based web apps will get you access to the iPhone/iPad audience, an audience which is growing, unlike the Flash audience. So yeah, I think Apple made the right decision both for their own product and for developers who care about the quality of experience they can provide and the money they can make than they do the particular platform they use.
Obviously this makes Flash developers unhappy, and Adobe is doing the best they can to cater to those developers with CS5, even if it hastens their own demise.
They're locked into the iPhone and you have to pay $99 to deploy them on a real one.
Flash apps are locked into the Flash runtime, further locked into whatever platform assumptions you make about performance, etc., and the developer tools are considerably more expensive than $99. You don't get the distribution or sales channel of the App Store (which in spite of all it's faults is still a very valuable thing). If you're developing games, you're going to be giving a cut to whatever sites you're hosted on, etc.
I'm not saying that's worse. It's just a different trade-off, and as long as you're depending on any platform vendor, you're always going to be getting a little bit screwed. The question is really about how dependent, how screwed, and how strong is the platform.
The same applies to an open platform like HTML5. It may have the market penetration to kill Flash for every use, but the overall outlook is pretty good.
But Flash is the only thing that can deliver that right now on desktop (and cover a reasonable audience).
Yeah, but we're not really talking about the desktop when we talk about Flash. We're talking about the web, and the web is increasingly used from machines that aren't desktops or laptops. Flash may be installed on 98% or so of desktops and laptops, but if you include "all devices capable of using the web", Adobe's share is much lower and is actually shrinking, and not just because of Apple's products. In terms of who you can reach, Flash is on much shakier footing than most people realize.
Actually you can use Open source tools to develop flash apps, like OpenLaszlow. And it's not like there are no distribution channels for your flash app, after all the internet is free and open (as long as you're not in China).
I don't really give a damn what's good for Apple. All I know is that there are existing apps I want to use, and I want to use them on my iPhone. I don't care which way makes apple more money.
> Yeah, but we're not really talking about the desktop when we talk about Flash. We're talking about the web, and the web is increasingly used from machines that aren't desktops or laptops. Flash may be installed on 98% or so of desktops and laptops, but if you include "all devices capable of using the web", Adobe's share is much lower and is actually shrinking, and not just because of Apple's products. In terms of who you can reach, Flash is on much shakier footing than most people realize.
And yet there are still flash apps that I want to use that aren't available on the iPhone.
Please understand my concern is not whether this decision was a great decision for Apple. I'm only concerned about whether or not Apple is serving my needs, and whether or not blocking flash is a way to increase their profits or my enjoyment.
And frankly I believe at least part of Apple's intentions in blocking flash is to lock you in their own proprietary platform: the app store.
Yeah, and? You just get more trade-offs. It's turtles all the way down.
And it's not like there are no distribution channels for your flash app, after all the internet is free and open
You'll sell more lemonade from a store shelf than a stand on your front lawn. The reason people are willing to give up 30% to a platform vendor or 50% to a game site is that actually getting your product in front of people and giving them a way to give you money is a pretty valuable service. You cannot just put something on some webpage and expect to make a cent. Believe me, many have tried.
I don't really give a damn what's good for Apple.
I never said you did. I'm just talking about the motives of another party, just like my first post. You seem to care quite a bit about their actions--I'm not clear on whether it's as a developer or as a user or both--so I just assumed that talking about motives would be relevant.
It's not really just about Apple, either. Flash is not going to be unseated by iPhone/iPad applications alone, but by the combination of HTML5 and growth of native applications on every platform that doesn't support Flash.
And yet there are still flash apps that I want to use that aren't available on the iPhone.
Yeah, and? Your point of control here is in choosing not to buy a device which doesn't suit your needs. That should be obvious.
But again: you probably don't care about those applications and not the fact that they're built on Flash. From Apple's perspective there are really only two possibilities: either development of Flash alternatives in the form of HTML5 and native applications eventually reach the point that your demands are met by their products, or they that never happens and that forever remains barrier to your interest in what they want to sell. I think there are very good reasons to believe the former is more probable than the latter. You may have dozens of other reasons to not want their product, but so long as you (and most people) don't demand Flash for the sake of Flash, it's nonsensical to include it.
I'm only concerned about whether or not Apple is serving my needs...
That's your business. I'm simply responding to your comments on my comments.
...whether or not blocking flash is a way to increase their profits or my enjoyment
The two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they usually go hand in hand. If you buy a product and like it, you have both increased the maker's profits and your enjoyment. Everybody wins.
I believe at least part of Apple's intentions in blocking flash is to lock you in their own proprietary platform
How? Apple can't force anybody to develop for their platform.
I don't see how someone who develops iPhone applications is anymore "locked in" to the platform than someone who develops for the Mac, or Windows, or Flash, or Android, or Xbox, or whatever. I thought the whole complaint about the App Store was that everyone else was "locked out"?
The iPhone has what is essentially 8 tabs for browsing. Music is able to be played in the background. Gmail will have push email so how is that different than running in the background from a use-case perspective?
This post does not deserve to make it such a high spot on HN. Not even on the weekend.
Apple almost got there with this one, copying someone else’s interface for iBooks. But then it hit me again, only one app at a time! I listen to music while I read.
In the article strongly suggests he has an iphone.
After all, doing six things at once while remembering the state of a bunch of invisible stateful objects -- tabs, background apps, file hierarchies -- is the nerd core skill.
Meanwhile, I would note that Apple has apparently sold about 35 million iPod Touches:
http://theappleblog.com/2010/01/28/ipod-touch-now-outselling...
... which exhibit the exact same set of "missing features" as the iPad.
- sub $300 pricing
- fit in pocketsYou're right about the pocket factor: The iPad is a gamble, of course, which is what makes it interesting. It's hard to know, without trying, how many people will trade the inconvenience of a larger device for much more screen real estate, higher performance, and optional 3G networking. All we know is that there's a market for netbooks, a market for Kindles, and a market for iPod Touches, which seems to suggest that the potential market for the iPad -- which is both like and not like each of these things -- is worth sampling.
Also, I question "a lot more powerful." if you mean powerful in terms of range of apps or peripherals, then I see your point. If you are talking about raw performance, you are probably right, but I doubt the difference is going to be that significant.
I have access to a netbook, but I almost never use it. There aren't many situations that I'd choose it over either my iPhone or my laptop. The size, runtime and interaction model of the iPad, on the other hand, suggests advantages over both a laptop and my iPhone for situations I'm in every day (not that I won't have me iPhone with me a. The same time).
Annoying workaround, but Air Video can stream from your desktop.
Woz is on the board of advisors.
Apple doesn't have a problem with third-party web browsers as long as they use the WebKit engine. Otherwise, the app would be implementing its own language interpreter and therefore be against the developer agreement.
http://theappleblog.com/2010/01/28/ipod-touch-now-outselling....
Sales are apparently up 55% year-over-year.
These devices do exactly what the iPad does, only with a much smaller screen, far fewer networking options, and (if rumors are to be believed) slower performance.
These numbers are trying to tell us something. Perhaps we should listen?
A lot of tech nerds don't understand just how unnecessarily complex computers are today. Watch a 60 year old try and use a PC for the first time and you'll realise how non-intuitive the modern desktop OS is today.
The iPhone OS moves away from antiquated input devices (mice and keyboards with cursor keys and function buttons) and towards a touch interface that is simple and intuitive.
The other benefit is the sandboxed limited nature of the native apps. The average user is tired of having to do a clean wipe of their computer every couple of years because the software they've installed has slowed down the OS. I think that in the future, apps won't be allowed to make changes to the underlying OS. If you want to do something complicated, you'll need offload your app to the cloud.
But after a little bit of practice just about anybody can use a PC, or a Mac (or a linux box) for that matter.
The learning curve was not as steep and the rewards for learning the device were more direct and obvious. Anyone can eventually learn to use a computer running Linux, OS X, or Windows if they really have to, but there is a big difference between needing to learn how to use something and getting past that initial hump so quickly that you don't even notice it.
With the iphone's touch interface this is painless and I can't imagine it'll be any worse for the ipad.
His example of having (AT LEAST) 8 tabs open is not the same as eight windows. Searching through all of them can be quite the inconvenience. I, for example, currently have 14 tabs open, and six applications running. I do not want to search through all of those to get to what should be "another tab." I understand what he's talking about...