evan

I agree with the sentiments of this article. The new features in HTML 5 won’t oust Flash as a platform, but they will remove the need for Flash on the iPhone, because for the most part, iPhone users want Flash to watch videos. From the research I’ve done, the iPhone will play an H264 Mp4 video clip through the tag, which is incidentally fine for Flash player 10 as well. Ergo, you don’t need to re-encode your clips, just add a tiny bit of extra code.

I’ve yet to experiment with video on the iPhone, but I will be in the next couple of days. I’ll post the results on my blog for anyone wanting to see how I got on, but you can probably search online and find the same information I’ve found as well and come to the same conclusions I did.

see:http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk/blog/whats-new-in-flash-cs5-iphone/

“…apple doesn’t want to support flash, just like they saw mms as not useful in their iphone.”

b1a, where do you get your information? please cite legitimate sources for your claim that apple “saw mms as not useful.” actually, never mind — because you don’t have any sources. you’re a typical, internet dweeb just shooting off at the mouth, regarding things about which you know absolutely nothing.

it wasn’t apple who didn’t want mms, it was at&t who didn’t want their networks bogged down by the amount of additional data that would have been generated by mms on iphones — devices which were already data-intensive.

next time, try researching a subject instead of making things up. (and no, i’m not affiliated with apple.)

If HTML5 video is significantly less processing intensive, it would bode well for it to be the “preferred” solution for smartphones, since less processing translates to more battery life.

I believe HTML5 is a big step, but we need to rethink how websites are made and organize things better, CSS has some very annoying issues for layout creation, HTML is old and doesn’t suit webapps very well (even this new version), and JavaScript is a mess (using functions inside function to create classes?).

I don’t like Flash, but I don’t think it’s going down like this. You can do things with it that you simply can’t under HTML, like obscure the code (in a way no SWF decompiler can read it).

But wouldn’t it be nice to build a site and say “this site works in every browser I’ve ever heard of”? That’s the promise of an open, standards-compliant web.

As a developer you might care about standards, but as a developer who has clients I couldn’t care less. What I care about is satisfying my clients. If I go to my clients and say “your website is 100% HTML4 and CSS 2.1 compliant” I’ll get a “what does that mean?” when I tell my client “you have interactive Flash content” they say “great!” If I say “Oh I don’t use Flash because it’s not standard” or “Oh I don’t support IE6 because it doesn’t follow the standards” that’s a lost sale.

From this standpoint, the fewer browsers that support Flash the better – regardless of their motives.

My primary concerns at the moment are:

1) Flash cookies. These just aren’t good. Hard to turn off, can re-instate deleted browser cookies, etc. makes them user hostile.

2) Lack of an optimized OS X build of Flash. It’s been years. Really. Nothing kills my MacBook batter faster than Flash. That’s not acceptable on OS X on the iPhone.

3) Malware attack vectors. Neither Acrobat nor Flash need to be data-partition executing code interpreters. We know it makes them faster and offers increased functionality, but I’ve had to re-install a PC twice now after PDF-based infections. Not fun.

Right night in the battle between good and convenient, convenient is winning way too much of the time

The iPhone will have no problem with the Flash runtime but has no chance at supporting all of the behemoth flash sites out there.

And who cares if just the iPhone supports HTML5? No one invests serious money into a website unless it can work cross browswer. I’m looking at you, RIM.

… or perhaps you’re saying you don’t want other people to use it for websites you might want to visit, might that be it? If so, then posting with your real name, so that people don’t wonder whether you’re Steve Jobs writing in under multiple names, might add a little persuasiveness to the pitch, just a thought….

(Adobe’s goal here is to make it easy to publish to any screen. Most manufacturers are on board, and are working to see this happen. Apple’s story is for them to tell.)

jd/adobe

No, Joe, you miss the whole point of the thread. I don’t like Flash anywhere, and I certainly don’t miss it on my iPhone.

Yes, HTML5 has a lot to do with Flash on the iPhone, or more importantly the elimination of the need for Flash.

Flash came on very fast, it went from nowhere to everywhere in less than two years, and was basically unavoidable in the first year.

With a FREE platform to develop on, how many sites would drop Flash and its buggy expensive CPU hogging ways? My bet is that in three years, Flash will be about as common as animated gif images. Still there, but passe and disfavored.

Yes there are sites you can’t visit on the iphone. Send them email and complain. Go to Ford.com on a computer you get a faceload of Flash. Go there in the iphone and it works just as well. In this economy, Ford can’t afford to turn off any customers.

Come on, HTML5 has nothing to do with Flash on the iPhone issue.

In fact I wouldn’t mind if Flash were totally obsoleted everywhere.

With HTML5, you will at least have options to stop it dead in its tracks without totally eliminating it. Adobe’s refusal to add end-user control features to Flash while handing advertisers total control of my browser earns them a ticket to oblivion IMHO.