Flash CS5 Will Export iPhone Apps 154
HanClinto was among a number of readers to send word that Adobe has worked around the inability to run Flash on iPhones and iPod Touch devices. Adobe has been trying to work with Apple for more than a year to get its Flash Player software running on Apple's products, but has said it needs more cooperation from Apple to get it done. Now Adobe has come up with a work-around. At its Adobe Max developer conference in Los Angeles Monday, Adobe announced that the CS5 release of Flash Professional, due in beta later this year, will allow developers to write applications and compile the code to run on Apple devices. Getting these into the app store might be tricky, though.
Some apps are already there... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Some apps are already there... (Score:5, Informative)
I would love to see a comparison between developing the iPhone SDK and Flash.
From Daring FireBall [daringfireball.net] :
From the FAQ:
Can I run content created with Flash in the iPhone simulator on Mac? No. Flash content created for the iPhone will not run within the iPhone simulator on Mac.
Thatâ(TM)s because the Simulator runs x86 binaries, but Adobeâ(TM)s compiler only produces ARM code.
Can I use native iPhone OS Controls in my Flash based iPhone content? No.
Not surprising. Iâ(TM)m guessing this will mostly be used to make games anyway.
No debugging. No native controls.
Re:Some apps are already there... (Score:3, Informative)
No native controls makes sense, but "no debugging" doesn't follow from the "can't run in the simulator" statement. With Apple's toolchain, you can still debug while the software is running on the actual device (not the simulator). It's possible that Adobe has done something similar with this. I don't know. It would be interesting to find out one way or the other.
Re:Some apps are already there... (Score:5, Funny)
Less space than the SDK. Lame.
Re:Some apps are already there... (Score:2)
Yet another language (Score:1)
Flash seems like it would need all sort of runtime support to do all the cool things that Flash is supposed to be able to do. If there is no runtime, and the language is just compiled down to native code, and it simply relies on existing iPhone libraries, then is Flash/ActionScript really all that useful and attractive as an implementation language?
This is where Android really shines. You can program in any language, as long as it's Java.
Re:Yet another language (Score:2)
This is where Android really shines. You can program in any language, as long as it's Java.
Android has full C/C++ support, but then you're locked to whatever phone you made it for.
Most devs would rather take a tiny hit in performance to not have to recompile constantly. If you go the C/C++ route, you have the chance that you'll miss out on an Android phone using a different SoC.
With Java, you have languages like Ruby and Python too. ;)
Re:Yet another language (Score:3, Informative)
Android has full C/C++ support
They supply the standard C library, but they expose no other API whatsoever. In practice, this means you cannot do any input/output in C and it's use is limited to processor intensive logic.
Re:Yet another language (Score:2)
http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/1.5_r1/index.html#overview [android.com]
My bad - you still need to tie apps in with the VM - you can just opt to code huge chunks in C/C++ if that's what floats your boat.
You are correct.
Re:Yet another language (Score:3)
It's attractive to people that only know Flash/Actionscript and don't have the time/desire/skill to learn Objective-C.
I fear just what kind of pre-existing crapware this will enable on the iPhone.
Re:Yet another language (Score:2)
I work for a company that makes mainly Flash-based software. The thing about Flash is that with the same source code (totally unchanged between versions) we can output a web application and a stand-alone executable (for example, to go on a CD). Something which our clients love is the multi-format, multi medium nature of Flash. Yes, most of this can be done with Java, but not in the same amount of time and not with the same artist-integration Flash has.
On the topic of iPhone integration, if Flash CS5 lets almost anyone make iPhone apps will this slow the approval of apps as every Tom Dick and Harry will be submitting their Newgrounds fodder? Not only this, but does this mean we can create and compile iPhone apps on the PC? As far as I'm aware it can only be done on Mac OSX with their Objective-C libs at the moment (one of the reasons we've not already started iPhone development is the lack of Macs in our office... or iPhones)
Re:Yet another language (Score:2)
Flash CS5 on both Mac and PC are supported. I am in the same position as you, especially since many people who play my chess game [flashchess3.com] would love to see it on their iPhones.
As for quality, only AS3 is supported. Most simple/crappy flash games are written in AS1/AS2 because of the easier learning curve, but really, considering apps like iFart on IAmRich, I doubt anyone will contend that the quality of the approved flash games could be too low.
Re:Yet another language (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank god only AS3 is supported.
Although, most of what our company outputs is AS2, mainly because our primary clients have paranoid and backwards IT techs who refuse to update their flash players, or low-budget IT Depts who are still using Pentium IIIs.
Anything that'll give us some leverage to put AS3 into practice is well worth it
"Sure, you can have it on the iPhone, but only if you update your flash player on your PCs"
Re:Yet another language (Score:2)
That's absolutely funny, considering how many security flaws existed in earlier versions of flash, including the ability to access the filesystem via exploit.. oh well, tell them I hope they like being pwn'd for their ignorance on the issue.
Re:Yet another language (Score:2)
if Flash CS5 lets almost anyone make iPhone apps will this slow the approval of apps as every Tom Dick and Harry will be submitting their Newgrounds fodder?
You mean, slower than it already is, with everyone submitting their flashlight and other extra-generic apps?
Re:Yet another language (Score:2)
What's a Hero?
Play nice! (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Play nice! (Score:2)
Re:Play nice! (Score:2)
Effectively, that's the whole point of my comment: this announcement has nothing to do with my desire for Safari to either support Flash or for websites to ditch it, and that sucks.
I'm glad we both agree your reply has nothing to do with this article.
Re:Play nice! (Score:2)
Watching videos on your cellphone?
We get charged by the kilobytes for online cellphone useage here in New Zealand, watching a 30 minutes youtube movie would probably cost at least 50USD
If your annoyed that you can't download movies to your cellphone, i can't help but think your doing something wrong.
Flash pages on the otherhand i can understand, especially since there are so many websites that don't function correctly without flash
Re:Play nice! (Score:2)
We get charged by the kilobytes for online cellphone useage here in New Zealand, watching a 30 minutes youtube movie would probably cost at least 50USD
iPhone users in the U.S. are typically REQUIRED to pay for a $30/month unlimited data plan, on the assumption that you will either use a lot of data, or AT&T still wants to make a buck off you.
Why would this be tricky? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why would this be tricky? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why would this be tricky? (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, but there's no rule that says that the code has to be hand-written. If it uses all the right APIs chances are that Apple will never even notice how the app was generated in the first place.
Re:Why would this be tricky? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, but there's no rule that says that the code has to be hand-written. If it uses all the right APIs chances are that Apple will never even notice how the app was generated in the first place.
No, there is no specific rule, but there are a lot of complaints from developers using Phonegap [phonegap.com]. This framework allows HTML/JavaScript based development on iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. Apps developed using this framework have been rejected from the App Store in unusually high percentages.
There are a lot of unwritten rules to the App Store as well. One of them is: don't use frameworks.
Re:Why would this be tricky? (Score:2)
It's interesting if that is indeed the case, because there are a lot of apps out there that have been written using Unity3D [unity3d.com]...
Re:Why would this be tricky? (Score:2)
The same note is present in Adobe's case - see here [adobe.com] (scroll to bottom): "Delivery through the App Store requires participation in the iPhone Developer Program and approval of the application by Apple."
It's worth noting that there are already a few apps made with Flash on Adobe store.
Also not mentioned in the summary is that this is actually native code being generated:
"We created a new compiler front end that allowed LLVM to understand ActionScript 3 and used its existing ARM back end to output native ARM assembly code. We call this Ahead of Time (AOT) compilationâ"in contrast to the way Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR function on the desktop using Just in Time (JIT) compilation. Since we are able to compile ActionScript to ARM ahead of time, the application gets all the performance benefits that the JIT would offer and the license compliance of not requiring a runtime in the final application."
Re:Why would this be tricky? (Score:2)
Apple's XCode iPhone SDK tool chain supports development and building apps using ARM (armv6 armv7) assembly language, as well as Objective C, C, and even Javascript wrapped up in a local web viewer. Developers occasionally use just a tiny bit of ARM assembly for DSP or vectorized floating point stuff, but there's nothing to prevent 99.9% of an apps source from being compiled from ARM assembly language. So this Flash authoring tool is likely an intermediate assembly language source code generator, with just a bit of Objective C glue to connect to the UI, all compiled into an app using XCode on a Mac.
Re:Why would this be tricky? (Score:2)
Re:Why would this be tricky? (Score:2)
So you're saying Flash CS5 for Windows will not be able to create iPhone apps? I doubt that.
Yes. The required libraries and code signing tools are very likely not licensed for redistribution by Adobe. Good luck creating an app without any libraries, and installing on a non-jailbroken device or submitting an unsigned app to the App store.
Re:Why would this be tricky? (Score:2)
"What operating systems are supported for authoring iPhone content using Flash?"
iPhone application development will be supported on operating systems supported by Adobe Flash Professional CS5. This includes both Mac and Windows based operating systems.
Also note this Tweet [twitter.com] from Ryan Stewert, saying:
"One of the biggest things about the Flash/iPhone news is that you no longer need a Mac to build iPhone apps."
So yeah, unless Apple does something radical, Flash CS5 will be able to export to iPhone from Windows.
Re:Why would this be tricky? (Score:2)
So yeah, unless Apple does something radical, Flash CS5 will be able to export to iPhone from Windows.
Apple's already done that. It's their iTunes DRM.
Their iPhone libraries also have a license restriction, try reading it.
Re:Why would this be tricky? (Score:2)
You're suggesting Adobe can't read or understand the iPhone license restrictions and will release Flash (one of their major applications) with a key feature that breaks Apple's rules?
Yeah, right.
Re:Why would this be tricky? (Score:2)
It looks someone didn't read the SDK license when they first started talking about porting Flash early last year. Since then they have which is probably why they created this new tool.
The way not to break the rules is to finish building the translated lash the iPhone app on a Mac using Apple's SDK.
No other way that I know of.
Re:Why would this be tricky? (Score:2)
Well Adobe found a way, that's for sure, because they're saying on their official site right now that you'll be able to build iPhone apps using Windows.
I don't think Adobe would say this without the legal department knowing, so they either did something clever or they're lying. I don't find the second option to be very credible.
Re:Why would this be tricky? (Score:2)
Where does it say that whatever it builds on Windows will be directly installable on an iPhone or submittable to the App store without also requiring a Mac somewhere for "post-processing"?
Monotouch (Score:4, Informative)
Compile C# code written against
Re:Why would this be tricky? (Score:2)
Do they? You've got to use iPhone APIs, but that's not the same thing as saying you've got to use Apple's SDK. We saw this also with last month's announcement of using .Net to build apps. [slashdot.org] As long as you wind up producing code that runs naively on the iPhone, I don't think it matters how you generate the code.
Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2)
Serious question - I have no idea what their beef is. Is it yet more paranoid control of the apps , even apps running in a VM , that can run on their system or is some sort of security issue , or is it just sour grapes?
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:4, Interesting)
The main reason Apple and Adobe fight over Flash is because Adobe doesn't want to do a complete rewrite of Flash for the iPhone and instead just wants to modify its Mac-version to run in Safari Mobile.
Apple however isn't content with this, because it's their opinion that Flash for Mac/iPhone takes up too much resources, which will harm the "browsing experience" and drain the battery.
Basically, Apple demands something better than Adobe is willing to develop.
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2)
Basically, Apple demands something better than Adobe is willing to develop.
Do you have a non-speculative source for this?
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2)
Basically, Apple demands something better than Adobe is willing to develop.
Do you have a non-speculative source for this?
Have you ever used Flash on the Mac?
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2)
It seems to work fine for me.
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2)
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2)
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2)
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2, Interesting)
Adobe treats mac users as second class citizens thus treating many of their power users like dirt. If you think like Steve Jobs, this is an insult to Apple since they went and did want industry members like Adobe have long demanded of them and built a better OS than Windows (much better) and built really solid hardware, the iPod Touch/iPhone anyways, and then been plagued with monopolists like Adobe/Microsoft shutting them out. If history is a lesson, (think iWork) Apple will soon deliver a native version of Inkscape and dump resources into Pixelmator, and start bundling them with Final Cut studio and new iMacs (well a trial version in Pixelmator's case). Apple somewhat reasonably demands more, Adobe and Microsoft refuse to/can't deliver so Apple just raises the bar... this is capitalism at its best; even if the Google Voice fiasco is capitalism at its worst.
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2)
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, I know. Until just last week I ran Ubuntu on a 2.8ghz machine, and believe me, I know how painful it is to hear your CPU fan spin up to max as you're watching a TV show that if you had pirated would take almost no system resources to run.
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2)
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2)
That's not an argument. Flash is too ineficient, bloated and plain sucks in any platform.
The Windows version of Flash craps out unicorns compared to the Mac version.
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2)
Apple however isn't content with this, because it's their opinion that Flash for Mac/iPhone takes up too much resources, which will harm the "browsing experience" and drain the battery.
True. Flash on mobile browsers might be too much (hardware wise) for the current generation of smartphones. But we're getting there fast.
Also, a proper flash plug-in would mean arbitrary code (which in Apple speak is code word for communism), and we can't have that sort of thing, no sir. Users must be protected from it at all cost.
Apple: Making trusted computing cool since 2008.
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2)
Actually, if you want to try surfing the flash based web, you really should try turning off adblock and noscript. If one flash ad doesn't bring your phone to its knees, a few of them will.
I've tried flash on mobile devices. It's horrible. You're surfing around, and all of a sudden, your device hangs as it loads and runs some flash app. Worse yet, it won't budge since the flash plugins are taking 100% of your multi-core multi-GHz ARM processors. Now say you want to look up some data off the web on your phone, and boom, the page you want to access has a flash ad and now you can't scroll, exit, or do anything because the CPU is bogged down processing flash more than handling the UI or other issue.
(BTW, this was on multiple devices that support it - a Nokia N810, Archos 605). You won't notice on a number of pages because the flash ads don't hog the CPU, but then you'll hit one that does. Not fun at all. Oh yeah, while your device is "hung" trying to update the latest punch-the-monkey, it's CPUs have ramped up to max speed, and your battery life will be depleting before your eyes - you can see the gauge go down. (ARMs are power efficient, yes, but you're still talking a wide range of power consumption - from multiple watts with everything full on, to fractions of a milliwatt when in powersaving mode).
And since most flash is done to watch video these days, it's probably better to have it shell out and run a video player than try to run an emulated codec - my Archos could play all sorts of Flash video (that's why it supported it) pretty flawlessly, but the Nokia dropped frames on practically every YouTube.
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2)
More importantly its a platform to run ad-hoc applications on top of (like Java or Commodore 64) and Apple doesn't want their customers having freedom of choice to run applications on their phones.
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2)
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2)
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2, Insightful)
Paranoia is an irrational fear.
Apple strongly controlling apps is a business decision.
There's a difference.
It's one of many business decisions that makes up the iPhone ecosystem. Something which has been phenomenally successful. Consumers like the end result, and vote with their dollars.
Whilst Apple employees do make mistakes with edge cases of their rules, the rules themselves are not irrational. And Flash isn't an edge case.
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2)
Probably at least 3 issues:
Apple doesn't want any other company in charge of the API for distributing apps on the iPhone. Open web standards that they can influence are OK. But they don't want to give yet another potentially competing company an opportunity to "extend and embrace".
Apple doesn't want any other company responsible for the security of a language interpreter or publicly exposed library. They want to be able or fix (or not fix) security problems on their own schedule.
Current Flash implementations have terrible performance (s*cks actually) for a given battery life.
Re:Whats the issue Apple have with Flash? (Score:2)
Not really though, because even if a JVM or Flash Player existed on the iPhone, you wouldn't be able to install stuff on the iPhone without getting it from the App Store.
The only way you could provide applications would be throug the web, but web apps [apple.com] are currently also not being screened by Apple.
Clarification (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Clarification (Score:2)
There are a lot of Phonegap [phonegap.com]-based apps in the App Store, too. But there have been a lot of rejections as well. Apple doesn't like you using third-party frameworks. This will be no exception -- a couple of apps in the App Store is not evidence that it's OK to use 3rd-party frameworks.
Same as Mono? (Score:2)
So they've written a static compiler, just like mono did?
ahref=http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/01/open-source-mono-framework-brings-c-to-iphone-and-wii.arsrel=url2html-27181 [slashdot.org]http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/01/open-source-mono-framework-brings-c-to-iphone-and-wii.ars />
Re:Same as Mono? (Score:2)
Yes, that's exactly what they did. Another commenter posted from another source that they modified LLVM to understand Actionscript and output AOT-compiled ARM code.
Do you still have to... (Score:2, Insightful)
...sign that horrid SDK license?
Do you still have to buy a hideously overpriced Apple machine to use as a dev box?
Flash (REAL, unchained and fettered, Flash) and Java do not exist on the iPhone for one simple reason: GREED.
If a complete Flash Player and Java are on the iPhone, everyone can develop for the iPhone without an SDK, everyone can publish/sell applications without the crApp Store.
I have no problem with a company making money off its products, but the lengths to which Apple disciples will go to justify the hideousness of its corporate behavior is only matched by their ability to ignore Apple's ridiculous prices.
Re:Do you still have to... (Score:4, Informative)
If a complete Flash Player and Java are on the iPhone, everyone can develop for the iPhone without an SDK, everyone can publish/sell applications without the crApp Store.
Your argument makes no sense at all. First of all, there are already lots of ways to build iPhone apps without using a Mac, like Unity 3D [unity3d.com] or MonoTouch [monotouch.net]. So you don't need a Mac, even without a JVM or Flash player.
Secondly, you wouldn't be able to publish and sell apps if a JVM or Flash Player would exist on an iPhone, because without jailbreaking the device, the only way to install apps remains through the App Store. Supporting Java or Flash has nothing to do with the way apps are distributed.
Rant all you want, but at least make sense while doing so.
Re:Do you still have to... (Score:2)
Why? Maybe I want to sell through Apple's App store but also through my site directly and avoid their fees.
Whether or not I use the SDK is kinda irrelevant as long I pay to join the developer program and get an iPhone to test (the simulator is not enough for serious testing, especially for the actual user experience, sensors, etc).
Re:Do you still have to... (Score:2)
Why? Maybe I want to sell through Apple's App store but also through my site directly and avoid their fees.
You can't install apps from a website on an iPhone.
Re:Do you still have to... (Score:2)
Unless your phone is jailbroken, but that's not the route Adobe is going for, here, obviously.
Re:Do you still have to... (Score:5, Informative)
Your argument makes no sense at all. First of all, there are already lots of ways to build iPhone apps without using a Mac, like Unity 3D [unity3d.com] or MonoTouch [monotouch.net]. So you don't need a Mac, even without a JVM or Flash player.
Regarding Unity3D, see the Unity for iPhone Requirements page: [unity3d.com]
In order to license and use Unity iPhone Publishing, developers must meet the following requirements:
And regarding MonoTouch, see the MonoTouch FAQ [monotouch.net]:
What is MonoTouch? .NET programming languages to create native applications for Apple iPhone and Apple iPod Touch devices. [...]
MonoTouch is a software development kit for Mac OS X that lets you use
Do I need a Mac to use MonoTouch?
MonoTouch requires a Mac and Apple's iPhone SDK to test on the emulator and deploy on the device.
So no, those aren't ways to build OS X apps without a Mac. For someone who asks his parent poster to rant all he wants, but at least to make sense while doing so, you might check your facts a little better.
Re:Do you still have to... (Score:2)
Do you have any idea what you're talking about?
Re:Do you still have to... (Score:2)
You're seriously confused. The reason a full flash implementation does not exist on the iPhone is precisely because you wouldn't have to use the app store to use flash applications, *they don't have to be installed locally*. You do not have to store a flash application on your local filesystem. You can write quite complex and useful applications as flash (and applets if you enjoy a bit o' UI pain) where absolutely nothing is stored on the local filesystem. Settings, data, history, all easily stored on the server. Our company actually serves a full on application in this fashion to some of its clients.
Oh, by the way, the two methods you proposed for building iPhone apps without needing a Mac explicitly state that you need both a Mac AND the iPhone SDK.
I'm still waiting for you to make sense.
Re:Do you still have to... (Score:3, Interesting)
Flash (REAL, unchained and fettered, Flash) and Java do not exist on the iPhone for one simple reason: GREED.
If a complete Flash Player and Java are on the iPhone, everyone can develop for the iPhone without an SDK, everyone can publish/sell applications without the crApp Store.
Unfortunately, we can demonstrate your thesis incorrect by example.
People are indeed developing for the iPhone without an SDK and publishing/selling applications without the crApp Store right now, using HTML5. I reviewed an example here [alexcurylo.com], ponying up the big $4.95 over the web to do the complete non-crApp Store buying experience, and was quite impressed indeed with how native it appeared.
As a matter of fact, apparently you're a bit young to remember this, my son, but for the first year after the iPhone was released there was no SDK and developers were told that writing HTML apps, as the above cited people are making a business out of now, would be the only way to develop for the iPhone. And although the release of the SDK rather overpowered it, last year a whole metric fluffton of various hooks and APIs were added specifically to make HTML apps like the above examples more powerful, more native looking, and all around better. ... so, looks like your reasoning doesn't hold up. Apple not only approves but is actively promoting the development of non-SDK native-appearing HTML5 apps. Yet, somehow, Flash and Java remain off the phone. Now why, oh why, could that be? Begins with an "S" and ends with a "k", that would be my guess!
Re:Do you still have to... (Score:2)
Actually, you haven't demonstrated anything except for a tendency to wax prosaic as if you were some great learned cove condescending to educate the poor unfortunates, such as myself. :)
"People are indeed developing for the iPhone without an SDK and publishing/selling applications without the crApp Store right now, using HTML5" - Wow, you are proposing that application development in HTML is an acceptable alternative to application development in Java or Flash?
Apparently you're a bit old to recall this, my dear old man, but people have been building HTML applications for years and the results are terrible in comparison to what you can do in Flash or Java. This isn't to diminish those HTML developers because they've chose HTML due to platform/availability/market constraints (which is exactly why you've got an HTML example application for the iPhone.)
I guess, by this logic, Slashdot has published an iPhone application because you can see this website on your iPhone and (probably) put in comments. ;)
As for my "theory" not "holding up" - I guess SUN and Adobe have been repeatedly rebuffed by Apple for the sake of the iPhone users, eh? LOL. Somehow a crippled version of flash is acceptable on the iPhone, but not full Flash - Oh, ye Gods and little boarlets, thanks be to Apple for saving our poor iPhone users from the terrible damage that regular flash would have done. LOL.
Re:Do you still have to... (Score:2)
Apparently you're a bit old to recall this, my dear old man, but people have been building HTML applications for years and the results are terrible in comparison to what you can do in Flash or Java.
And apparently, my dear young pup, you're not aware that HTML5 brings new capabilities, especially on the iPhone. To quote myself:
"Our new MindBeam 'application' has animation, device rotation detection, native alerts, and so forth ... seriously, it's more polished and functional than a lot of native apps we've seen. There's nothing that we see that jars the illusion."
With hardware graphics acceleration, the canvas tag for arbitrary drawing, full SQLite-backed local data access, and all the native device capabilities exposed ... no, as a matter of fact, iPhone HTML5 apps are definitively superior to anything you can achieve in Flash or Java on any other platform. And as I've done some non-trivial Flash programming in my time -- for example, the interactive video player you can check out at videoclix.tv -- I state that with a good deal more experience than I suspect you bring to our discussion.
Or perhaps you have a more complicated Flash project than my videoclix.tv interactive video player that you can make a good argument could not be done better in HTML5 than the way it's done for legacy platforms in Flash? If so, well, I'll start taking you seriously then. But I don't see that happening.
As for my "theory" not "holding up" - I guess SUN and Adobe have been repeatedly rebuffed by Apple for the sake of the iPhone users, eh?
Your theory was that it was all about requiring application sales through the App Store, was it not? The existence of Hottrix selling HTML5 apps, the efforts Apple has put forth to allow HTML apps to appear as native, and the fact that for the year before the SDK came out Apple told developers that HTML was the only way to write applications; all of those show your theory as laughable.
That Apple chooses to not let the inferior legacy technologies of Flash or Java drag down the iPhone user experience, well good for them! Has nothing to do with the observable fact that your theory is bunk.
Re:Do you still have to... (Score:2)
LOL - I'm quite aware of HTML5. The only positives, for application writing, that HTML5 has over Flash (I'm not a flash fan myself but it has its uses) is that you can use structured storage (Flash has unstructured/hackish storage.) All of the other 'pluses' you're referring to with HTML5 existed in Flash/Java ages ago.
Your statement that "iPhone HTML5 apps are definitively superior to anything you can achieve in Flash or Java on any other platform" is patently ridiculous. Of course, given that you are obviously technology biased in this case ("Our new MindBeam 'application'") I'll forgive you for that; however, I'll also happily point out that you don't have sockets, or video, you don't have nearly the animation capabilities of flash, you don't have performance of flash or java (even in chrome, where I have personally written a very simple software 3D renderer), you have enormously larger testing footprints (HTML5 is implemented quite differently in browsers even on the same operating system.) I could go on, but why?
Don't think I am disparaging HTML5, I think it's awesome, if something of a bastardization of the purpose of HTML (something you can accuse flash of being as well - a bastardization of the original purpose of flash), but claiming that it's better for writing applications in than Java or Flash? It might be time to put you in a home ;).
"Your theory was that it was all about requiring application sales through the App Store, was it not" It was mostly based on that premise; however, you forget that Apple chooses what aspects of HTML 5 to implement or not implement, including avoiding support for Ogg/Theora, avoiding the other HTML5 features found in Safari on Mac OSX but NOT on the iPhone; ergo, Apple will not be supporting web sockets in HTML5 on the iPhone until they are forced to via the threat of lawsuit or investigation as just one example.
"That Apple chooses to not let the inferior legacy technologies of Flash or Java drag down the iPhone user experience" - That's a particularly silly statement considering that flash was ok'd by Apple just recently, as long as they crippled it. LOL.
I'm sure you're very happy that Flash and Java are not allowed to run on the iPhone, because you'd face more competition. Oops, sorry, didn't mean to 'out' you.
Re:Do you still have to... (Score:2)
Your statement that "iPhone HTML5 apps are definitively superior to anything you can achieve in Flash or Java on any other platform" is patently ridiculous
I dropped a word there, I meant to say "browser platform". With that correction, I stand by the statement. Since your list of "don't haves" applied to WebKit on the iPhone is, in order, wrong, embarrassingly wrong, wrong as far as I can tell (but please, give me an example of Flash animation that can't be done better in hardware accelerated CSS3 and I'll grant you that trivial point), very wrong, and stupid. So please, go on, because you've provided nothing correct yet.
I'm sure you're very happy that Flash and Java are not allowed to run on the iPhone, because you'd face more competition. Oops, sorry, didn't mean to 'out' you.
Actually no, none of the above are any serious competition for native code. But Objective-C won't be portable to any other platform any time soon; and through WebKit browsers, HTML5 will be. Sooner your decrepit old technologies get consigned to the obsolescence they deserve, the better.
Re:Do you still have to... (Score:2)
"give me an example of Flash animation that can't be done better in hardware accelerated CSS3" - Um... Weren't you talking about HTML 5? Or have you turned this into "any supported browser technology" means that browser apps are better than Java or Flash for applications? LOL. How many browser even support CSS3? How long has it been out? Anyhow, if you want an example of Flash animations that can't be better done in hardware accelerated CSS3 (you do realize that flash is hardware accelerated both at the composition layer and on several platforms at the GPU level, right?) which browser would you like me to pick apart? ALL of them are missing large portions of SVG support (just as an example.)
Objective-C being portable? Good God, why would anyone want that? Webkit browers making HTML5 portable? Well, let's just hope the absolute impossible happens and there's one base browser renderer out there future, eh? LOL. Browser fragmentation is getting worse, and a plugin (sadly) is actually a better solution to combatting such fragmentation.
"Sooner your decrepit old technologies" - Wow. First, they're not mine - I'm a software engineer and architect, they're just tools in a toolbox, whatever best fits the problems now and in the future. Second, how is Flash, Java, or anything "not HTML5" decrepit?
People like yourself always overlook two of the most important things in software engineering (probably because you're a programmer and not a software engineer) - the tools available and the talent pool. You think developers should be completely satisfied with Apple and the App store because if you don't like their incredibly restrictive policies, you can use what you consider to be a vastly superior technology - HTML5 (and CSS3 though you kind of lump them together.) Who cares if each browser implements canvas differently, supports video differently, supports AND renders SVG differently. That's not important. Who cares if there are exponentially more Java and Flash developers out there, much more mature and stable tools and IDEs, debugging procedures, testing suites, et cetera. That doesn't matter, because you're cool like that.
Re:Do you still have to... (Score:2)
that intro where you just dismissed cydia offhand took a bit away from it. It would have been one thing if you had numbers,
If you'd like numbers, check out the weekly Admob reports for instance. They will show that less than 8% of user sessions are on jailbroken phones.
I consider that quite sufficient reason to dismiss Cydia offhand. Now, if you have a counterexample -- just one! -- of a publisher that has actually made significant money from a Cydia offering, then I will rethink my offhand dismissal.
Re:Do you still have to... (Score:3, Insightful)
Having worked on Microsoft stuff, I'm wondering why I have to buy a hideously expensive OS, Visual Studio
Nice try, but Visual Studio is available for free (see the Express editions). Plus you don't need to use those, there are other compilers/IDEs available. And you can run on hardware from any manufacturer. And you don't need permission from MS to release your application on their platform.
But apart from all of that, yes, I'm afraid you do need to pay for Windows.
Don't like the hardware prices, don't buy.
Sure, we don't. But all the while there are daily Iphone stories (two today, in fact), it's fair game for people to comment on them. If people don't know about these issues, how will they know not to buy?
My iPhone programming experience is an order of magnitude better than my WinCE and Win Mobile development experience.
Order of magnitude, eh? How do you quantify "experience"?
Compare the real price to get in the door and I think the Apple story is much better.
What's the "real" price, and how does it differ to price?
Re:Do you still have to... (Score:2)
"Don't like the hardware prices, don't buy"? Really? How the heck am I supposed to develop an iPhone app without using the Apple SDK on an Apple machine? I guess I should hack the SDK if I "Don't like the hardware prices" - LOL.
Microsoft? Who cares about Microsoft? (Ignoring that you can get versions of Visual Studio for free and the hardware to run it would save me tons of money compared to buying anything remotely similar at Apple)
I write applications for Android, my IDE - free, my SDK runs on a multitude of platforms, my language - Java, my experience - enjoyable.
"maybe a couple of Win mobile phones" - I guess you don't test your iPhone apps on more than one iPhone then, neh?
Typical Apple disciple, turn this into a Microsoft comparison when that has nothing to do with it.
Palm Pre (Score:2)
Palm seems to have no problem with it. The Palm Pre is going to be the first phone to support Flash:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpI6gA9cuME [youtube.com]
http://www.precentral.net/adobe-flash-player-101-demod-pre [precentral.net]
Re:Palm Pre (Score:2)
The way you write this, it sounds like something positive.
Seriously, I don't like the stronghold of Apple over the iPhone platform but if this prevents the poor iPhone users to ever have to witness the Flash "Experience", I think this is a good thing.
Oh, an if you want video, there is a video player on the iPhone which can display streaming video. Flash is the worst option for watching video so just offer a Video stream on your site instead of a fucking flash applet, dammit!
-S
Re:Palm Pre (Score:3, Insightful)
I love how things not being supported is twisted to be a good thing - we've seen it before: 3G, MMS, video, copy/paste. That last one in particular, it's amazing the lengths people went to to justify how the UI was improved by not being able to do something as simple as copy/paste, by talking about "new paradigms" (but not ever explaining what those were).
The joke is that when the Iphone finally does add those new features, suddenly the argument that it was better off without them vanishes, and the news is accompanied with much hype and fanfare, as if it was the first phone to ever have such a feature.
I wish I thought of these tactics 10-15 years ago for the Amiga, when development for it was disappearing after Commodore's demise. "Why yes, it doesn't matter that AmigaOS doesn't have Java, in fact, that's a reason why it's better than Windows, because Java is horrible!"
Re:Palm Pre (Score:2, Insightful)
It would be amazing if it was true. But it's not.
What people did say was that all the various suggestions that people here and on blogs were making for how to do the UI were shit. And that Apple would probably do cut'n'paste in a future version when they came up with a good UI for it. Which is exactly what happened.
Re:Palm Pre (Score:3, Interesting)
>The way you write this, it sounds like something positive.
Well, it is both positive and negative. Personally, I *hate* what Flash does to web browsing, most of the time. It consumes tons of RAM, makes loading pages slow, eats bandwidth, eats CPU, lowers security, damages compatibility, restricts screen sizes, and most of all- makes animation while I am trying to READ.
And on a phone, it will drain the battery like no tomorrow.
But if they have the ability to turn it on/off or limit/control it's use, that will be the best of both worlds.
>Oh, an if you want video, there is a video player on the iPhone
Well, WebOS/Pre, Android, etc, they all have that- Youtube player, video player, stream player. This is about Flash 10.1 on a phone web browser.
Re:Palm Pre (Score:2)
"for most people flash is a very good thing"
No, for most people flash is the "least bad"* of the available solutions, but it doesn't mean it's good. Many people have problems due to lack of proper hardware acceleration and multi-platform support (as we can see in this very case).
Re:Palm Pre (Score:3, Insightful)
your having problems with logic here but its quite simple, let me help you a bit.
for most people flash is a very good thing, for idiot zealots like you it isn't. flash continues to spread and grow in power.
the increasingly shrill voices of those like you
if you're stupid enough to buy a phone that drops 1/5 of all calls in nyc then they deserve what they get - a walled garden that nobody with half a brain would want to be in.
you just wait for html 5 with svg wundershow extensions /sarcasm.
Well I byte, young man.
Embedded devices have not the same resources available as desktop PCs have. CPU intensive tasks are often offloaded from the CPU to specialized hardware. Video and Audio en-/decoding is a good example for that.
Running a video player as separate application (which is by no means efficent) in another application just isn't going to help the cause (especially, if the same software performs already pretty bad on Desktop hardware).
NAtive video players can take advantage of the environment by default (be it hardware acceleration or desktop integration).
Apple might have an agenda, but if not I see plenty of technical reasons to rather not have flash on the iPhone (doesn't flash videos use h.264 for encoding which is certainly already supoorted on all apple platforms?).
I am still trying to figure out where my logic is flawed, you might be able to help me politely?
-S
Re:Palm Pre (Score:2)
So does that make all Windows Mobile phones somehow the second phone to support Flash, or.. what?
Re:Palm Pre (Score:2)
Well this is Appledot, we can't expect stories about phones from the major companies in the industry like Nokia.
But yes - if not having Flash is a good thing (as some here claim), why isn't there a story for the Motorola V980 not supporting Flash? And if it is a good thing, why aren't there stories for all the phones that do?
Adobe, don't you know Apple? (Score:3, Interesting)
Number 1 rule to make sure something ships on Apple iPhone platform or even OS X is: Keep your mouth shut up about it. Especially if you do "workaround" kind of stuff. Look what they did to Google, Sun (ZFS).
This announcement will not serve anything rather than thousands of trolls and fanboys not knowing a single thing about "Flash lite" kind of things working perfectly on Symbian/Win MO talk how bad Flash is and how it will eat their battery.
They didn't understand the basic but secret reason about why a multimedia/app platform like Flash wasn't shipped with iPhone at first place. We, users have very good guesses.
If I sound paranoid, I ask you what happened to ZFS after Sun CEO blogged about it before SJobs was able to announce it with his genius PR. There are no traces of ZFS on Snow Leopard nor its server. It is amazing that $1 shareware app authors knows how to deal with Apple but multi billion Adobe which somehow owes its existence to Apple does such lame PR announcements.
Have fun with your "export to iPhone" menu option next year. Something tells me something will go wrong with the cunning plan.
Re:Adobe, don't you know Apple? (Score:2)
Number 1 rule to make sure something ships on Apple iPhone platform or even OS X is: Keep your mouth shut up about it. Especially if you do "workaround" kind of stuff.
Kinda hard to sell a product that you can't tell anybody about, isn't it?
Great. NOW you tell me. (Score:2)
After spending a month diving into the iPhone SDK and re-learning C NOW you tell me that I can make iPhone apps with Flash?
Will iPhone apps built in Flash still feature Flash's terrible bitmap scaling and rotation? Will it still allow for sloppy (and dangerous) typing and memory operations? Probably not, I suppose. Still, I can't see myself developing in Flash (or .net for that matter) just because it's more familiar. Tools for jobs. If I want to make a game for the web, I'll use Flash. If I want to make an iPhone app, I'll use X-Code thanks very much.
Wrong wrong wrong wrong WRONG! (Score:5, Informative)
HanClinto was among a number of readers to send word that Adobe has worked around the inability to run Flash on iPhones and iPod Touch devices. Adobe has been trying to work with Apple for more than a year to get its Flash Player software running on Apple's products, but has said it needs more cooperation from Apple to get it done. Now Adobe has come up with a work-around.
This does NOT let Flash content, as we know it, run on iPhone! For once in your miserable lives, editors, (and maybe submitters, too), READ THE DAMN ARTICLE! [adobe.com] Last line of the first paragraph, IN BOLD: These aren't Flash SWF files, they're native iPhone apps.
Getting these into the app store might be tricky, though.
And I HATE this whiny editorializing BULLSHIT! Again from TFA, THIRD FUCKING PARAGRAPH, first sentence: As of today, participants in the Adobe pre-release program have submitted 8 applications and all of them have been accepted into the App Store.
Slashdot eds, this is the worst submission I've seen in a while. kdawson, do you know how to read, or click on a link?
For anyone who actually cares to know details, there's more info here. [adobe.com]
Re:Wrong wrong wrong wrong WRONG! (Score:2)
Not seeing the wood for the trees. (Score:2, Insightful)
Adobe have basically announced a way to compile Flash to native iPhone apps. This should mean that all their future product releases that author Flash should hopefully have similar functionality. (I'm being selfish and thinking Flex here.)
The next logical step is for Adobe to allow you to deploy natively to other Phone OS. So as a Flex(read Flash, well AS3 ) developer I should be able to write an application, and then deploy to Air, browser, iPhone, Android, Symbian and Windows Mobile. Do you realise the impact on development time? Bug fixing each target environment suddenly becomes a non-issue. Time to market is massively shortened. This is huge.
I don't know if Adobe realise the potential for this. I know they were trying to get around Apple's intransigence, but I think they may have something exceptionally useful here.
Re:Not seeing the wood for the trees. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, they completely see the potential... insofar as Adobe would love to see entire phones running with Flash as the front-end, and have demoed such devices (from Asia) already. Adobe wants to rule the smartphone market just like everybody else. The question is whether Adobe really has more clout than everybody else.
Re:Not seeing the wood for the trees. (Score:2)
Haxe (Score:2)
can do this too. Haxe is a pretty neat language, it can compile to swf, Windows exe and iPhone. Plus you can run the compiled iphone apps in the simulator. Haxe is also significantly better than Actionscript 3.0 even if you just use it to write for the flash player- it can access the fast memory functions you can get with Android, and supports inline functions.
Re:Hard vs. easy (Score:2)
Whilst they are not a monopoly supplier of mobile phones they can do what they like.
Re:Yaaay. (Score:2)
No worries, this is not about putting any sort of Flash-anything on the iPhone.
It's only about using the next Flash developer tool release to convert Flash apps into iPhone apps. They're using LLVM to compile ActionScript (Adobe's proprietary version of JavaScript) into ARM code, resulting in a standard iPhone app. There's no Flash runtime involved (nor could there be). So there's no problem with shoveling this into the App Store, apart from meeting basic quality requirements.
So this will turn shitty Flash game-lets into shitty iPhone apps. Not really news, apart from the fact that Adobe is scrambling to line up every phone vendor but can't get its Flash runtime on the phone that's soaking up half of the world's mobile Internet traffic.
HTML5 assault on Adobe Flash heats up with ClickToFlash [appleinsider.com]