[JRSCCivic98]

iPad roundup: New York Times and others get HTML5 video, iPad app store demo, and more -- Engadget

If things go as Apple plans, it seems that by the time RIM comes out with a browser that has Flash support, there's a good chance that most places will either be migrated to HTML5 support or intending on migrating to it. Current big name places like YouTube and Hulu haven't talked about the proposed change to the industry being driven by Apple and their platform, but what would happen if they did make the move away from Flash? Can you imagine how much wind that would take out of the new RIM browser's sails? I'm not saying the new browser is being released just to solve the Flash issue, but it's certainly something that users are looking forward to. Obviously if RIM made the new browser support proper HTML5 functions, this will be moot, but the added development time they took to get Flash working and caused us to wait so long might end up being a waste.


If Apple is really successful in making the industry change direction on this, RIM needs to take some notes on this. This sort of thing from a company shows the "real" power someone or an entity can have over the entire industry... something that RIM is lacking, even with their own carrier partners. When I think of who really drives the rig, RIM is never in my mind as the alpha dog in any of their contracts. lol

[Reed McLay]

Opinion: HTML 5: Less than it's cracked up to be

Opinion: HTML 5: Less than it's cracked up to be
By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
March 29, 2010 11:41 AM ET

Computerworld - The core idea behind HTML 5, the latest proposed version of the Web's foundation markup language, is to make all resources, not just text and links, widely and uniformly usable across all platforms. Well, that was the theory. In practice, things aren't going to change that much from today's Web, with its reliance on proprietary media formats and methods.

...

HTML 5 is years away from becoming a real standard. Indeed, Dave Story, Adobe's vice president of developer tools, has pointed out that "the HTML 5 time-line states that it will be at least a decade before the evolving HTML 5/CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) 3 efforts are finalized, ...

For the foreseeable future, the Web is going to stay the way it is now: a mix of open standards with the most interesting parts locked away by exclusive or proprietary formats or methods.

I wouldn't be holding my breath waiting on that.

[Skeevecr]

...

Just a minor point, but the webkit browser is full compliant with html5 standards as was seen at the mwc demo:

New WebKit BlackBerry Browser Demoed At Mobile World Congress 2010 [News] | News & Rumors | BlackBerry Rocks!

The simple fact of the matter is that wider use of html5 is a good thing, but while flash is currently far more commonly used then having the option of using either flash or html5 is clearly the superior one.

[Blacklac]

I suppose RIM would be the only company hurt by this, right? (extreme sarcasm)

[qbnkelt]

Yup....it takes a great deal of coordination to change platforms from one to the other in an efficient manner. Witness the U.S.' attempt at the metric system. Never happened.
Witness how long it took to go from analog to digital TV and the delays that arose.
Witness the attempt to either "bring" or "force" health care to the U.S., whatever your political reasoning may be.

Fact is...it would be a disservice to the consumer to halt all progress towards one technology because another is being developed. With that logic we would simply stand still, since there is always development.

Just because one CEO (by the way, did you see him get the award today? Steve Jobs Named 'World's Most Valuable CEO') decides he doesn't like Flash doesn't mean that he can force the issue with all websites across the planet in six months. By all means, develop HTML5 - but until that is fully developed and launched, I want to be able to access everything I want to access, and for the moment it means Flash.

So - give me Flash now, and have a separate development team working on HTML5 support.

[Username00089]

Just because one CEO (by the way, did you see him get the award today? Steve Jobs Named 'World's Most Valuable CEO') decides he doesn't like Flash doesn't mean that he can force the issue with all websites across the planet in six months.

Didn't you know Steve Jobs is God?

[GlitchZero]

It doesn't seem to be discussed here much, but didn't Adobe sign with like 7 or 8 major manufacturers to incorporate Flash into their devices? I know RIM was one, and I thought Motorola was another, but I could be wrong.

Regardless, the fact that Steve Jobs literally threw a hissy fit because Adobe wouldn't do what he told them to do, after such a lucrative partnership between Apple and Adobe for so long (if you had a graphics department, you had a mac with adobe photoshop on it in the 90's somewhere), completely blows my mind. For someone so valuable, he made an incredibly stupid decision breaking that partnership.

This is the equivalent of the whole HD-DVD / BluRay crap that Sony did with the PS3.

I hope HTML5 goes the way of the dinosaurs and Steve Jobs is left looking pretty stupid, personally. It really annoys me when I see stuff like this from Apple. I feel sorry for iPhone users that are getting screwed out of upcoming things like universal chargers, Flash, etc. all because of one stubborn CEO that knows better than anyone else and refuses to be anything but the sparkly individual in the spotlight.

[qbnkelt]

Didn't you know Steve Jobs is God?

Steve? Nah!!!! Just a minor deity....

[Skeevecr]

Html5 isn't going anywhere, its the next step in the html standard so it will be widely used eventually, the obvious issues are whether it is even going to be a better option than flash for things like video and why users should have to choose when logically supporting both would suit them best.

[ragnarokx]

It may be time to put that less-stable resource hog Adobe Flash out to pasteur - Apple and Google may just have the influence to do it too.

[infamyx]

Not this again.

Apple won't support flash because it competes with their App Store and everything in their iTunes catalog simple as that.

If Apple is so awesome to promote HTML5 video maybe they should use open source OGG instead of H.264, another PROPRIETARY FORMAT partially owned by Apple that has to be licensed (just like Adobe).

This is one of the things where Apple can kiss my , and the people chanting HTML5 who don't know any better make me just as sick.

[qbnkelt]

Probably - but....it doesn't happen at the flick of Steve's God-like (ok, forever!) finger....my take on it is that you need to fill the vacuum and while doing that look to the future. You best utilize resources by overlapping, not expecting development to run concurrently with something else. You have your 3-6-9-12-18-24 month plans...that way it's always going with whatever applicable dependencies factored in the timeline.

[qbnkelt]

Not this again.

Apple won't support flash because it competes with their App Store and everything in their iTunes catalog simple as that.

If Apple is so awesome to promote HTML5 video maybe they should use open source OGG instead of H.264, another PROPRIETARY FORMAT partially owned by Apple that has to be licensed (just like Adobe).

This is one of the things where Apple can kiss my, and the people chanting HTML5 who don't know any better make me just as sick.

OK, then don't support it! That's cool!!! One less 4G sold isn't going to break them!

[infamyx]

OK, then don't support it! That's cool!!! One less 4G sold isn't going to break them!

Implying I would buy the next gen iPhone with WP7S coming out

[sivan]

I'm not looking forward to seeing Flash ads on my phone. Adobe has always been hostile to users by not providing an option to turn Flash off in service of their advertising customers.

I see this as Adobe's problem, not RIM. I do know one thing, that RIM is touting Flash just to placate the screaming on sites like this from the likes of Civic about the need to be cutting edge. If anything, it demonstrates why the screaming should be ignored because fads change all the time.

[Skeevecr]

It may be time to put that less-stable resource hog Adobe Flash out to pasteur - Apple and Google may just have the influence to do it too.

It has nothing to do with stability, security or even a desire to comply with open standards with apple, as shown by them still being more than happy to have all their walkthru videos for the ipad use the less stable, less secure and no less proprietary quicktime.

As far as google, what makes you think they are anti-flash, they have devices that support (will support soon?) flash already.

[qbnkelt]

Implying I would buy the next gen iPhone with WP7S coming out

You just killed me, man...really, you have no clue how you just killed me!!!

[Skeevecr]

I see this as Adobe's problem, not RIM. I do know one thing, that RIM is touting Flash just to placate the screaming on sites like this from the likes of Civic about the need to be cutting edge. If anything, it demonstrates why the screaming should be ignored because fads change all the time.

RIM intends to include flash because they seem to intend the new browser to be fully-featured and at this time that does mean supporting both flash and html5.

[qbnkelt]

RIM intends to include flash because they seem to intend the new browser to be fully-featured and at this time that does mean supporting both flash and html5.

If that's the case, I'm going to be one happy female puppy!!!!

[stuaw11]

It has nothing to do with stability, security or even a desire to comply with open standards with apple, as shown by them still being more than happy to have all their walkthru videos for the ipad use the less stable, less secure and no less proprietary quicktime.

As far as google, what makes you think they are anti-flash, they have devices that support (will support soon?) flash already.

Im sure it has something to to do with stability, Flash is a known resource hog, its no secret on PCs or mobiles. I certainly also wouldnt want even less battery life on something like an iphone or Nexus to see some flash mobile ads.

Apple isnt one to release a product that crashes and is a bad user experience. Ive had my iphone crash ONE time since June (beyond the jailbreak crashing and mubilesubstrate saving it which is a different story). The iphone has had the #1 consumer satisfaction ratings the past few times through. Why jeopardize it with something as resource hungry and instable as Flash?

Also gesturing on an iphone with a touchscreen may prove difficult compared to a mouse over and such to program. It may not as easy to program for as some think.

Sure there might be an App Store conflict, but I truly believe its more the performance than the App Store, its not exactly hurting for sales.

[MrObvious]

HTML5 I think is gonna be less resource dependent and less insecure. Flash is just a security hodgepodge.

[K Bear]

HTML is well known to be a better code for writing web pages and editing code. It's simple to learn and takes little effort to write good, clean code for a web page. Flash is more dependent on a good editor and other Adobe programs to execute good code. But, all competent web designers write code for HTML and utilize Flash.

Relying solely on one code does not cut it in the web design world. This also applies to designing pages for web browsers. No good designer will design only for Explorer. Pages are designed to be friendly to all browsers. Its what the industry demands. Gone are the days of choosing your portal to a site depending upon your preference.

For Apple to alienate Flash does not make sense. I see this majorly backfiring on Apple as this will limit users from viewing many sites to their fullest potential.

[Prospekt#IM]

Personally I wouldn't even mind if flash was never incorporated into my browser. It slows my computer down enough, I can only imagine what it would do to my storm 2 with eh-specs.

[qbnkelt]

HTML is well known to be a better code for writing web pages and editing code. It's simple to learn and takes little effort to write good, clean code for a web page. Flash is more dependent on a good editor and other Adobe programs to execute good code. But, all competent web designers write code for HTML and utilize Flash.

Relying solely on one code does not cut it in the web design world. This also applies to designing pages for web browsers. No good designer will design only for Explorer. Pages are designed to be friendly to all browsers. Its what the industry demands. Gone are the days of choosing your portal to a site depending upon your preference.

For Apple to alienate Flash does not make sense. I see this majorly backfiring on Apple as this will limit users from viewing many sites to their fullest potential.

I love you for the reasons highlighted above.

[Skeevecr]

Im sure it has something to to do with stability, Flash is a known resource hog, its no secret on PCs or mobiles. I certainly also wouldnt want even less battery life on something like an iphone or Nexus to see some flash mobile ads.

Apple isnt one to release a product that crashes and is a bad user experience. Ive had my iphone crash ONE time since June (beyond the jailbreak crashing and mubilesubstrate saving it which is a different story). The iphone has had the #1 consumer satisfaction ratings the past few times through. Why jeopardize it with something as resource hungry and instable as Flash?

The thing is that streaming h264 video using html5 is not magically going to be light on the resources, if you look at the unbiased comparisons a number of sites did in response to the FUD from the apple ceo about flash you would see the numbers are pretty even.

Incidentally, if this issue was simply about resources and stability then you would see apple taking quicktime out of use too.