The Future of Web Content – HTML5, Flash & Mobile Apps | Hacker News Reader

The Future of Web Content – HTML5, Flash & Mobile Apps

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18 pointshackerbob13 comments

I understand that this is the future and hate Flash as much as the next guy, but I just don't understand why we're just suddenly bashing Adobe.

What we hate about Flash (the annoying ads, the annoying preloaders), etc, isn't going away. It's being replaced with identical clones made with HTML5. That's not a victory for me.

I also find it extremely ironic that CPU usage is brought up when we still don't know how great HTML5 is with CPU as it's thoroughly untested.

As a Flash enthusiast I say thanks for being reasonable. In turn, I'm looking forward to what will happen with HTML5 (there's some great potiential in there).

Personally, I won't be using media-rich HTML5 until someone (probably Adobe) provides tools similar to what we have with Flash/Flex. Good interfaces are hard enough to create without having to hand-code everything.

because we went to all the trouble to build an open network only to have a proprietary virtual machine run on top of it.

Flash shouldn't be necessary - they filled a gap caused by infighting within the various standards bodies

> I understand that this is the future and hate Flash as > much as the next guy, but I just don't understand why > we're just suddenly bashing Adobe.

I've been wondering about the recent change myself. Considering that it's not election season, it seems prudent to wonder about the sudden flood of unverifiable identities in discussion forums. Hard to tell, but necessary to wonder.

Hi jd. I applaud your willingness to ask tough questions like 'who are these (unspecified) unverifiable identities posting (unspecified) things about Flash on (unspecified) forums who only started posting (unspecified) days ago?'. If you ask me this smacks of a sweeping anti-Adobe conspiracy, no doubt orchestrated by (malicious Apple fanboys|the Moonlight development team|those sneaky swedes).

The current outpouring of negativity over Flash is in no way a continuation of past trends and does not represent any sort of culmination of widespread customer anguish over Adobe's (perceived or real) failure to address paying and nonpaying customers' needs for a stable, performant, secure way to create interactive media.

The comparatively rapid progress of <canvas>, <video> and <audio> in the past few years versus the rest of Flash's lifespan should in no way be interpreted as a sign that people have become fed up with being dependent on a badly engineered, unreliable, overpriced piece of technology from a self-sabotaging software juggernaut.

Continuation of past trends? Flash has always been mildly despised, but ever since the announcement of the iPad, this Flash-bashing and consequent Adobe-bashing has meteorically risen. Every day now, there are multiple articles on HN and elsewhere justifying why the iPad doesn't and shouldn't run Flash.

JD, I understand that you can't speak for Adobe as a whole, but in your perception, what would be the biggest obstacles to open-sourcing the Flash Player? Apart from inertia, what is the value in keeping it a proprietary product when, as has been voiced by John Nack, Adobe's stake is in the creation apps and not in the runtime?

Parts are (Tamarin, frameworks, Open Screen Project partnerships), but parts cannot (codecs licensed from third-parties are a key blocker).

Dave McAllister has a single-screen summary, and I've got some background history, both with plenty of links: http://blogs.adobe.com/open/2010/02/following_the_open_trail... http://blogs.adobe.com/jd/2009/07/opening_the_flash_file_for...

"I understand that this is the future and hate Flash as much as the next guy, but I just don't understand why we're just suddenly bashing Adobe."

The reason is Steve Jobs' reality distortion field. This bashing all came about after it was announced the iPad wont support Flash.

> For most web and content app developers, this is fine, it is a great run-time and offers an excellent user experience and Adobe has done a very good job keeping the platform contemporary with the most demanding needs of video delivery and quality.

That's from the Flash-as-a-video-platform section. Really? How come I can't play Hulu in full screen on Linux unless I have a quad core CPU and a GPU with a gig of ram?

At least Adobe is willing to try.

How's Hulu on your iPhone?

The only reason Hulu doesn't work on the iPhone is that Hulu videos are delivered in a proprietary Flash-based container instead of in a standard (like h264) or open (like Theora) format. The iPhone does a perfectly good job of playing video content delivered in non-proprietary formats, as demonstrated by the fact that you can watch Youtube videos on it (once they are freed from their Flash containers).

But you probably knew that already.

That, or the other reason, that Apple won't let flash onto the iPhone.

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