Category: flash
Macworld 2010: Violet Blue
Posted by Victor Agreda, Jr. in VioletBlue, app-store, appstore, flash, iPad, macworld, violet blue Monday, 15 February 2010 15:30 No Comments
Filed under: Macworld
A couple of years ago Violet Blue attempted to make nice with Steve Jobs (or just shake his hand, really) and was rather infamously rebuked by the persnickety CEO. Despite this, she's maintained a love affair with Apple before and after, citing the style, design and attention to detail and user experience that Apple products are famous for as logical reasons for her affinity. In addition to being an unrepentant Apple fangirl, Violet is a sex educator and author of several books on the subject, and she stands at the intersection of sex and technology, once giving an excellent talk on sex and privacy on the Internet for Google which you can watch here.
I chatted with Violet about Macworld without Apple, the iPad, the lack of Flash on iPhone and iPad, and the squeaky-clean App Store. Part one is below and part two is on the next page.
Part two of our interview:
TUAWMacworld 2010: Violet Blue originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
16 month-old bug continues to crash Flash
Posted by TJ Luoma in adobe, crashing, flash Saturday, 6 February 2010 21:30 No Comments
Filed under: Multimedia
Matthew Dempsky has discovered a bug which will crash the Flash player on every supported platform. That might not seem like a huge deal, except that he discovered this bug in September of 2008 and has reported it to Adobe, which hasn't fixed it yet.16 months later.
If you'd like to test it for yourself, make sure there's nothing important open in your browser window and head to http://flashcrash.dempsky.org/.
In Safari and Google Chrome, this crashes the plugin but not the browser. It took Firefox 3.6 down entirely.
Why would Matthew post such a page? Isn't that reckless? Well, he explains on that page:
"Regarding crashing, I can tell you that we don't ship Flash with any known crash bugs, and if there was such a widespread problem historically Flash could not have achieved its wide use today," Lynch wrote. "Addressing crash issues is a top priority in the engineering team, and currently there are open reports we are researching in Flash Player 10." (Source: PC Mag, "Adobe Defends Flash, Calls Apple Uncooperative")
He goes on to say:
This page exploits a bug that I reported to Adobe in September 2008, and has affected every release of Flash on every platform since then. Despite numerous email exchanges with the Flash product manager about the bug, the bug report being hidden from the public for "security" reasons, and [although] Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch's claims otherwise, it continues to be an issue.
...I'm not an Apple fan boy out to prove Steve Jobs right in Apple's decision not to support Flash on the iPhone / iPad. Instead, I'm just a software engineer who at one time had to deal with Adobe's sorry excuse for a development platform and made an earnest effort on several occasions at helping them improve it for everyone. (This issue is merely the tip of the iceberg of ridiculous bugs and random backwards and forwards incompatibilities known as Adobe's Flash Player plug-in.) After trying to work with them to fix this issue and experiencing nothing but frustration, I just don't give a damn anymore.
Adobe has been able to rest on its laurels with Flash, because it was a de facto standard. Now that the platform is being left behind by new mobile devices and computing metaphors, Adobe is making an appeal to the public that Flash isn't that bad.
Adobe's been able to do much the same with Photoshop and CS4. Even people who love the apps and use them every day have learned to live with the crashes and other problems. Adobe seemed not to be in too much of a rush to get Snow Leopard compatible versions out. Ditto for when Apple switched to Intel.
I'm amazed by people who continue to defend Flash, including those who believe that alternatives will have a chance if web developers weren't pushed to start using newer alternatives like H.264 and HTML 5. (No, I'm not saying H.264/HTML 5 is a drop-in replacement for Flash, and I'm not even going to mention SVG.)
If we all went with the "de facto standard" we'd be using Internet Explorer 6 on Windows. Actually, we'd probably be using Internet Explorer 4.
No doubt that Flash has done some great things. At one time, it was cutting edge stuff. Now it's a dull butter knife.
And I'd be remiss if I didn't remind you about ClickToFlash which I've reviewed previously.
(Hat tip to Craig Hockenberry and Mike Damm for bringing this story to our attention.)
TUAW16 month-old bug continues to crash Flash originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 06 Feb 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
iPad popular on Twitter, biggest complaint is no Flash
Posted by Chris Rawson in Iphone, Polls, Space, Twitter, adobe, attitudes, flash, iPad, ipod touch Tuesday, 2 February 2010 22:00 No Comments
Filed under: Odds and ends, Internet Tools, Surveys and Polls
Attensity Group has published a study showing people's attitudes toward the iPad. Their methodology for the study is fairly interesting: They analyzed 20,000 tweets from Twitter two hours before the iPad announcement, another 20,000 two hours after, and another 15,000 four days later. Two bits of data from Attensity's study are particularly intriguing -- four days after the iPad's introduction, a full 69% of analyzed tweets expressed positive sentiments toward the iPad, with only 27% having negative feelings toward the device. So given a few days' space, the iPad proves pretty popular.Out of the 27% of the twitterverse that disliked or even hated the iPad, what was their biggest complaint? Unsurprisingly, 41% of iPad haters cited its lack of Flash support as their number one gripe.
Of course, Twitter is a self-selecting group as well (I've seen spambots, geeks, and celebrities over there -- in roughly that order), so Attensity Group's analysis is probably not indicative of general public perception of the iPad. While the news media and the online tech community has been on fire all week about the "war" between Apple and Adobe over Flash, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that for average users, the iPad's lack of Flash support isn't going to deter people from purchasing one any more than it did for the iPhone or iPod touch. All the fervor over the Flash issue will eventually die away, but not because Apple's going to cave -- not if Steve Jobs has anything to say about it (and he does).
What do you think about Flash on the iPad? Give us your opinion in a poll by clicking on the "Read More" link below.
[Via Macsimum News]
There's been some extremely lively debate all over the internet on this issue, including here at TUAW. So far my general perception of things is there's been a roughly 50/50 split on Flash, with half of commenters being happy there's no Flash on the iPad or just not caring, and the other half being disappointed, annoyed, or outright angry about it. So let's have a (rather unscientific) poll of our own and see what you really think about Flash on the iPad.
TUAWiPad popular on Twitter, biggest complaint is no Flash originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Steve Jobs at Apple Town Hall meeting: Harsh words for Google, Adobe
Posted by Chris Rawson in Google, Iphone, Lala, Steve Jobs, adobe, android, blu-ray, flash, iPad Sunday, 31 January 2010 23:00 No Comments
Filed under: Other Events, Internet Tools, Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs recently held a Town Hall meeting for Apple employees, and according to Wired, he had some very choice words for both Google and Adobe. While these likely aren't direct, word-for-word quotes, as they come from employees who spoke to Wired and MacRumors on condition of anonymity, if they're even in the ballpark of what Jobs said, Apple's response to both Google and Adobe can be summed up in two words: "Bring it."On Google: "We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake: they want to kill the iPhone. We won't let them [...] This don't be evil mantra? It's bullshit."
Snap. Maybe a tad belligerent there at the end, Mr. Jobs? I wonder what brought that on?
On Adobe: "They are lazy. They have all this potential to do interesting things, but they just refuse to do it. They don't do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it's because of Flash. No one will be using Flash. The world is moving to HTML5." Sounds like the petitions can stop now. If that's really what Apple's CEO thinks of Flash, then make no mistake: Flash is never coming to Apple's mobile devices.
Some other tasty tidbits from the Town Hall courtesy of the folks at MacRumors:
- Jobs considers the iPad on a par with the iPhone and Mac as one of the most important products he's worked on
- Apple acquired Lala because they wanted to bring Lala's people to the iTunes team
- The next iPhone is "an A+ update" that Android won't be able to keep up with
- New Macs this year will take Apple "to the next level"
- Apple is still playing "wait and see" with regards to Blu-Ray, and won't implement it until/unless Blu-Ray sales take off
TUAWSteve Jobs at Apple Town Hall meeting: Harsh words for Google, Adobe originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Join us for a TUAW Talkcast tonight at 10pm Eastern
Filed under: TUAW Business, Apple
Our talkcast returns to the virtual airwaves this evening as usual, bringing your chance to get in on the discussion with us. This week's topic? Obviously, the iPad will be front and center as we discuss and digest what Apple's new device means for the world (and whether it's underwhelming or overpowered), but we'll also talk about Adobe's Flash and whether it's even worth pursuing for us Mac users, as well as the iPhone revision that wasn't (but hopefully will be later this year).Please do come and join us -- we'll kick things off at 10pm Eastern (7pm Pacific), and once you sign in on Talkshoe, you'll be able to call in with your own phone and chat live with TUAW bloggers and listeners. See you then!
To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client, the embedded Facebook app, or the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the "TalkShoe Web" button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (take advantage of your free cellphone weekend minutes if you like): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8.
If you've got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free Gizmo or X-Lite SIP clients; basic instructions are here. Talk with you then!
TUAWJoin us for a TUAW Talkcast tonight at 10pm Eastern originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.