[opendtv] Re: Apple dashes hopes of Flash on iPhone
- From: Kon Wilms <konfoo@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 11:08:04 -0700
On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 8:32 AM, Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I simply pointed out that there are was to work around the licensing issue
> with h.264. QuickTime is NOT just for Apple products - in fact it is used
> more on PCs than Macs because there are so many PCs running iTunes.
And it doesn't integrate into the OS. Other Apple apps, sure. OS, no.
You may as well be pushing a Java app.
>> > Support for h.264 on PCs is a bit more chaotic, since Microsoft chose
>> to
>>> promote its own codec technologies via the Windows Media player (.WMV
>>> and
>>> VC-1). IT is a bit ironic that in Apple versus Adobe flame wars,
>>> Microsoft
>>
>> They have seen the light and are pushing H264 now.
>
> So in other words, All Microsoft has to do is spend a paltry $5 million per
> year for the h.264 license and they too can provide OS level support...
>
> Last time I looked, Microsoft was still pushing Windows media and
> Silverlight...
And H.264 plays in both of those.
>> Firefox for example is an open source project. They charge *nothing*.
>> They are non-profit. They have larger market share than Safari (even
>> Chrome has larger market share than Safari). You expect them to fork
>> out money for licensing a codec when they could use a free
>
> alternative?
>
> If there is a free alternative. But Firefox and Chrome "could" use QuickTime
> to get around this issue.
No they couldn't. You don't understand how HTML5 works. Quicktime
would be a fallback decoder if HTML5 video tags could not decode the
content, via page embed.
And no app developer in their right minds would tie their application
to a 3rd party application as a prerequisite for installation.
> In general I agree. But there is no reason why an open source standard
> cannot also support other non-open source technologies. As we have been
> discussing, FLASH is not open source, yet it is considered to be vital to
> the web today. Thus it is being called from HTML browsers.
Actually a lot being done these days by Adobe for Flash *is* open source.
But I still don't get your argument. You may as well argue that Java
is not open source.
And regardless, saying that open source should support closed source,
well, I'm dumbfounded. You just don't get the mindset behind open
source.
>>
>>> As I already mentioned, Apple pays these license fees for QuickTime for
>>> both
>>> the Mac and PC platforms. Thus a browser manufacturer could avoid any
>>> liability by simply using QuickTime to support dynamic media playback.
>>
>> The world doesn't revolve around Apple. Quicktime doesn't do
>> directshow. Quicktime doesn't do Gstreamer. Should I go on? Long and
>> short it isn't a solution on any platform except Apple's.
>
> We disagree.
At least we can agree then in terms of me stating facts and you
stating unfounded opinion.
>> No they didn't. That is an outright lie. Flash developers develop on
>> Flash because they know their code will work on any Flash player.
>
> Adobe relies on QuickTime support for MANY of its applications. Adobe chose
> to develop the Flash plug-in as an alternative to QuickTime for dynamic
> media authoring and play out. I have no argument that developers like the
> ability to author FLASH and run it on multiple platforms.
This paragraph is complete nonsense - one can't develop any sort of
RIA with Quicktime. Clutching at straws.
> And this is precisely the reason that Apple rejected their cross compiler.
> It means that Apple would be at the mercy of Adobe to provide support for
> new features in each iOS upgrade; and the risk that many new features might
> not be supported at all. It would limit platform differentiation. Thus
> Apple prefers to promote its own tools and the use of standards based
> technologies.
Nice try. If that were the case then (as I stated before) every
application developer would be required to recompile their code. What
you are attempting to assert is that Apple can at any time change
their API and SDK, and more importantly function calls may randomly
change. That's complete nonsense. Unless they wanted to destroy their
own market, that is.
>> We don't disagree. You're saying HTML5 playing H264 is easy. It is, if
>> you don't care about costs, performance or bandwidth consumption,
>> period. I say that is the amateur hour approach to authoring for the
>> web.
>
> We've discussed costs and I think this is a non-issue. I'm not sure what you
> are getting at with respect to performance, and I don;t think there is much
> difference in bandwidth consumption for h.264 versus VP8.
The codec isn't the issue. Delivering the content, that is the issue.
>>> the Mac content authoring community. But to be fair, the tools provided
>>> for
>>> building iPhone OS apps do include many if not most of the frameworks
>>> needed
>>> for dynamic media content.
>>
>> ... without the development environment to match it.
>
> ????
>
> Where did 150,000 apps come from?
90% of which look the same.
Don't play games, you know exactly what I mean. XCode is not a RIA
environment the same way Flash is.
> From what I have seen, it has been relatively easy to move code developed
> for other platforms into the iPhone OS environment. This has been especially
> true for game developers.
Game developers use engines.
> Apple has no problem with using its iDevices to access standards based
> content via the web. They have stated the reasons they do not want to
> support FLASH on these devices (bugginess, memory hogs, crashes and battery
> life).
Heh. Standards based. Like iTunes, right?
> They DO have a problem with allowing apps developed using FLASH to be sold
> or given away via the Apps store. As I stated above, this is because they do
> not want lowest common denominator apps that put competitors on an equal
> footing. They want developers to innovate on their platform to make it
> better than competitors; and they do not want Adobe, or any other
> competitor, to become a bottleneck to support for new features.
Innovate? Lowest common denominator? Are you kidding me? Have you seen
the amount of shovelware available on the app store? Sorry Craig, you
can't win this argument.
> Flash alone is useless, except perhaps for animating type. You need
More proof you know absolutely nothing about Flash.
> Making technology work without a ton of hassles...
... like an iPad without a USB or SD port. Gotcha.
Cheers
Kon
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