“I hope everyone will quickly come to accept Steve Jobs’ dominion over the mobile Web so that we can all truly enjoy our Apple experience,” Hall writes. “With a million iPads sold in just a month on the market, it’s clear that the mobile Web user is siding with Jobs.”
“Not even Google has this kind of power,” Hall writes. “Google may shape the way we gather and store information, but Apple is controlling the presentation — and that’s the way to win the hearts and souls of consumers.”
MacDailyNews Take: Actually, we find ourselves using Google less and less the more we use our iPhone and iPad apps. Which is precisely why Google is trying to sell people on their own mobile operating systems (patent litigation will determine just how much of them are actually their own), branded handsets, etc.
Hall continues, “Resistance is futile. Jobs will win this war with Adobe because he’s offering such an incredible user experience that everyone will rebuild their Web sites and create new apps to meet Apple’s standards.”
“Adobe will have to take Jobs’ advice and shift to ‘open’ standards such as HTML5 or its presence on the Web may be just a ‘Flash’ in the pan,” Hall writes. “The way it looks today, it’s Steve Jobs way or you’re off the Internet highway.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Note to advertisers: (including those who advertise via third-party ad networks and become, in effect, our advertisers): Your Flash-based ads are no longer reaching the most well-heeled customers online: 50+ million iPhone owners. They’re also not hitting 35+ million iPod touch users or 1+ million brand new iPad users. If you care about reaching people with discretionary income, you might want to consider dumping your flash-based ads and moving to a more open format that people with money and the will to spend it can actually see.
Help kill Adobe’s Flash:
• Ask MarketWatch to offer HTML5 video via the customer support web form here.
• Ask CNBC to offer HTML5 video via the customer support web form here.
• Contact Hulu and ask them to offer HTML5 video via email:
• Ask ESPN360 to offer HTML5 video instead Flash via their feedback page here.
• Join YouTube’s HTML5 beta here.
• On Vimeo, click the “Switch to HTML5 player” link below any video.
By the way, do not buy Adobe’s Photoshop Elements until you have tried Pixelmator’s free 30-day trial. We use Pixelmator daily.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dominick P.” for the heads up.]
Don, you are hilarious. “Millions of websites use Flash” – ever get tired of using that same old excuse? Websites that give people bad experience will lose users, no matter what technology. Millions of sites that do not use Flash are visited billions times a day too.
Right now there is only Flash Lite that is used on a handful of smart phones, and the experience is lacking. That is the fact. Many mobile platforms may eventually get some kind of Flash support, and whether it will run well at all, are still only assumptions.
Acid, there are benchmark demos out there of Flash vs HTML on mobile devices that clearly outshine HTML 5. No assumptions. By the same token, the HMTL 5 demos are sub-par on the iPad and they screech to a halt on the iPhone/Touch. Flash has its place and HTML has its place. They are both part of the web and they are here to stay.
So far Apple has three titans apposing them – Google, MS, and Adobe. JavaFx, yet another RIA dev tool (like Adobe Flex) is starting to make light. Neither of which are going away. It’s funny how people stand by Jobs as if he’s a god. Pls ppl! Get real! He almost died for crying out loud!
Let the user decide what he wants on his iGadget. If he wants to disable Flash, so be it. Most iPhone users are pretty savvy – noh?
Don Williams,
That argument is incredibly weak. Today, we have fairly decent variety of mobile devices out there that supposedly can browser ‘full’ web. Out of those devices, some 85 million are Apple’s (iPod/iPhone/iPad). More importantly, neither Apple’s, nor any other mobile device renders Flash content today. We are still holding our breath for Android, Symbian, WebOS, WinMob and all other platforms that seem to have no objection to Flash plug-ins.
Current Flash content falls roughly into two categories. First, there is video, wrapped into FLV. Second, it is interactive content of ‘Playhouse DIsney’ type (online games of all sorts and similar). Practically NONE of this second category can be properly accessed on mouseless, touch-screen device (requires mouse-over functionality for everything). As for video wrapped inside FLV, well, iPad has been out for barely four weeks, and major content providers are already rapidly re-wrapping their FLV video into MPEG-4, QuickTime or other open-standard format that can be easily embedded using ordinary HTML (including HTML5).
We can debate the merits, advantages and disadvantages of HTML5 or Flash for the next twenty years; however, if the first four weeks are any indication, it is clear that there will be at least 100 million Flash-free mobile devices very, very soon. If you are a content owner, you simply cannot choose to ignore those users.
MidWest Mac hit the nail on the head, BATTERY LIFE!
In the age where people are constantly on the move but still wanting to be in touch with everything that is going on around them it’s the only thing that matters to them.
If you’re out of battery you’re out of action, thus the importance of honing other products to give you what you crave, an all day experience without screaming “My battery just died!”
@b
“what would happen if Google bought Adobe?”
They would Photoshop a different head on Eric Schmidt!
Adobe drug their ass when the transition to OS X started- essentially betting on M$ instead of standing by Apple. Strike 1.
Adobe treated Mac users like 2nd Class citizens with updates for Photoshop Elements. Strike 2.
Adobe bought Macromedia for one purpose- to get Flash and stick their nose into the format war between QuickTime, Windoze Media, UnReal Player & Flash. Again, they chose to support Windoze and treat the Mac user like trash. Strike 3.
Adobe has been saying eff you to Apple & Mac users long enough and deserved the b-itch slap Jobs put on them in his letter.
ClickToFlash
I know you’re pushing Pixelmator MDN, but have you found that it struggles with large images?
– it crawls along for me on the latest MacBook Pro 17″ i7 …
Cheers.
How would flash work on an iPhone or iPad anyway? They’re touch based OS’s, not mouse based. The mouseover doesn’t exist. There’s not a button to “click” like on a trackpad or a mouse. The code wouldn’t work… right?
Besides, I just don’t get why Adobe is so hung up on Flash. They didn’t invent it, and managed to survive writing creative applications (pretty well back then) before they absorbed Macromedia. Now, they’re staking their future on an old technology they didn’t even develop… sad indeed.
But Flash isn’t just for video playback. Flash is also used for games, animations, RIAs and other ways of interactivity. Although they might not be essential, they would still be worth taking into account.
The standard for HTML5 video is not closed yet. H.264 seems to work slightly better than Theora. But H.264 is patented, which can be a real problem for developers in the future.
So if you want to take a closer look at the current landscape of connections between Adobe, Apple and the different video codecs and standards, I would suggest you to take a look at these infographics.