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Apple has started a new browser war!


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With iPad, Apple has started a new browser war!

 

It seems that Apple wants to start a new 1990?s style browser war ? this really sucks!

 

Instead of the war being centered around HTML and the DOM, Apple has decided to make it about rich media delivery ? Apple does not like Adobe Flash and they are not supporting it on iPad and iPhone.

 

I wrote a quick article about the Apple iPad Flash war today.

 

Stefan

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Good thing Cheney is out of office or they would be claiming Apple has software of mass destruction... then we need an alliance made up of Windows, All Linux brands, FreeBSD, Solaris... all storming Apple headquarters with pitch forks and torches...

 

(maybe I should sell the isea to a political cartoonist. ;) )

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Good thing Cheney is out of office or they would be claiming Apple has software of mass destruction... then we need an alliance made up of Windows, All Linux brands, FreeBSD, Solaris... all storming Apple headquarters with pitch forks and torches...

 

[edited by me to keep politics out of it ... even if it's tongue-and-cheek.]

 

Stefan

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That sucks big time, so what are they proposing to use in the place of Flash. All my virtual tours are flv's, it is the best solution for cross platform, browser and the compression and file size are the best.

 

I am a big Mac fan and user, and I find this attitude extremely disappointing.

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I am a big Mac fan and user, and I find this attitude extremely disappointing.

 

It is indeed. And strangely, I don't think anyone else has spotted this danger to the Web. This can potentially be really bad for web designers/developers who have multimedia content on their sites (which 99% of the time is Flash) if the iPad and iPhone really become significant.

 

... It's the browser wars all over again.

 

:(

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Guest chip_108

hopefully there is a brilliant reason apple has for not supporting flash...ugh i hurts me to think that apple may be making a stupid mistake...leave the stupid mistakes for microsoft!!!

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I am a big fan of Apple (I use them along with PC) but this is not a mistake - this a deliberate on their part to corner some aspect of the market.

 

... They don't allow Flash on the iPhone either.

 

This might get bad, because all the accomplishments of the Web Standards movement could get hurt by this. Think about it, if iPhone and iPad capture a siginifant market share, and we want to display video in our pages ... we can't use Flash because Apple doesn't like it.

 

... So what do we use - Quicktime? Maybe, but the problem is:

 

- Flash is superior for Web video and audio.

- Quicktime may have a 40% penetration rate whereas Flash has 99%.

 

It's IE vs Netscape all over again.

 

Apple has the iPod, iPhone, iPad ...and now they are the iJerks.

 

Stefan

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I read the piece and I don't buy his arguments (they are academic and dogmatic - not reality based.) ... they are reminiscent of the the ones used by Microsoft and Netscape in the 1990's - all crap. I was there and had to deal first hand with divergent standards.

 

From what I gather from his article, he thinks we should all just wait for HTML 5 video support to come out (how many years will that take?) or use Quicktime embeds. What nonsense!

 

Quicktime has what ... 40% penetration? What do I do now with the other 60% who don't have QT? So now if I want to support iPhones and iPads I have to deliver media via Quicktime. And if I want to reach the majority of the Web, I have to use Flash. This sucks.

 

The facts are simple:

 

1. Millions of web pages with Flash content will break in iPhones and iPads.

2. Like it or not Flash is ubiquitous.

3. Flash is controlled by Adobe but free to anyone to write code against.

4. Apple is doing this to try and control content distribution - IMHO.

5. HTML 5's video support is years away from being an option to use on commercial web sites.

6. Java was controlled by Sun for most of it's life and it didn't seem to have a major negative affect on developers.

 

So now all our videos (which are delivered via Flash) will break on iPhones and iPods.

 

Buddy who wrote that piece, failed to mention in all of Apple's purity, they do support Youtube video (via a special app) which BTW, uses Flash.

 

 

Stefan

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You use "will" to often. iPhone does not now nor has it supported Flash, so this is nothing new... just a continuing situation. I often come across sites with Flash so all I see is a little blue box icon in the middle. I have honestly as of yet... 6-8 months, not found a Flash web site/or a flash web site without text versions.

 

Granted Juneau only has had 3G since the beginning of the year, so my surfing was limited to near the library at lunch and at home on my wi-fi. I can surf all day long now so odds are better I will come across a real issue. But there are so many sites out there... if I cannot use the one with Flash, I go to the next until I fgiond what I want not in Flash.

 

Those who will really be sweating are the adult sites that offer video (Hey, like them or not, they are big money and a large user base so they tend to be at the top of current trends and tools... great way to keep up with current trends... or if you like to read the articles :P ). There are some who have specialized iPhone and/or mobile content optimized for mobile units.

 

I guess I am not bothered by it for the same reasons I have harped on for years. Have alternative versions... text and other forms of media. There is no standard for mobile user agents. There is only one more widely used one, Opera has one but I have not had a phone yet I could put it on, Mozilla has not released their Firefox mini-browser for mobile units yet (I may have missed it of course) and iPhone only has Safri. So as far as mobile units go, the browser wars came back years ago and we have no more in the way of standards then we had in the 80's.

 

So this whole issue is nothing new, just a continuation of the way things currently stand. Most internet cell phones use their own house browser and in most cases you cannot change them. I think it less that no one has noticed as most simply say... Oh well, nothing new. I keep expecting an app to play flash... but it may not be possible.

 

That said, did you hear about the guy, I think from Alaska, who used his health app on his iPhone to save his life, giving himself 1st Aid after trapped in a building in Haiti? Dialed up the app and followed the directions for first aid for his injuries. Survived 60 hours or so. Yea, there is an app for that! :D

 

Also noticed no one has mentioned the existence of Silverlight which is a Microsoft product to battle Flash as a standard, so even on normal PC's there is a media "police action"... you, know, not a full blown war. ;)

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Those who will really be sweating are the adult sites that offer video

 

Well since they spread love across the Internet, shouldn't we support them too?

 

;)

 

There are some who have specialized iPhone and/or mobile content optimized for mobile units.

 

Yes, and wasn't that what the whole web standards movement was fighting against? Creating new versions of websites for different browsers (hardware or software) can quickly become a nightmare. That said, there are plenty of frameworks out there that can change things on the fly for you ... problem is that they don't work so well at times.

 

This yet ANOTHER example of why building static sites is old-school - you need to leverage the power of a CMS that can more easily have modules built-in, to reconfigure on the fly.

 

Yes, cell phones have been doing there own thing for years. But the iPod and iPad are not cell phones ... they are partly sold as being viable tools for browsing the Web is a complete way - unlike tiny cell phones. Steve Jobs keeps repeating in his presentation:

 

" ... the entire Internet in the palm of your hand."

 

... Not entirely complete.

 

Stefan

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Good thing Cheney is out of office or they would be claiming Apple has software of mass destruction... then we need an alliance made up of Windows' date=' All Linux brands, FreeBSD, Solaris... all storming Apple headquarters with pitch forks and torches...[/quote']

 

[edited to keep politics out of it.]

 

Stefan

 

Stefan, do you really want to pollute killersites with politics?

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I am guessing that those sites are in fact automatically sending the user to a separate version for the Mobile market. That is not wrong in and of itself. I was thinking more in the area that they have special mobile site for mobile media. I don't know the details but they sometimes offer the movies in something non-flash. Nor is Flash wide spread in mobile units. New media ones like Droid etc. may support it as well as those with true operating systems like that Microsoft hand held thing. Bot most of the average telephones do not support Flash either.

 

Versions should be offered, better media than the whole site... but RealPlayer, Quicktime, Flash... should be offered so I can watch it on MY chosen media Player as well as the standard speed versioning. High Speed High Dev for Broadband users and smaller low & medium band for other lowe bandwidth users.

 

The whole issue is worth keeping an eye on.

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I think the main point of the article is that Apple does what is good for Apple and what Apple thinks will be good for its customers. Flash even on the Mac sucks - as he pointed out it spikes the CPU and gets my fans going - and I really hate that.

 

Anyway I think that Apple providing a little competition to Adobe in that space is a good thing. At the end of the day folks will decide for themselves if they can live with a Flash-free iPhone or iPad. As the author of the article points out - it doesn't seem to have hurt apple so far.

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As the author of the article points out - it doesn't seem to have hurt apple so far.

 

Nor did IE4 doing its' own thing' date=' hurt MS ... but it hurt us developers.

 

Stefan[/quote']

Let's not forget the customers/clients. In the end they are the one that pays for all this.

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As the author of the article points out - it doesn't seem to have hurt apple so far.

 

Nor did IE4 doing its' own thing' date=' hurt MS ... but it hurt us developers.

 

Stefan[/quote']

Let's not forget the customers/clients. In the end they are the one that pays for all this.

 

I think there may be a slight difference here in that supporting different video formats is (I think) easier than supporting browser quirks. On the web front it means providing access to different versions of the video file (flash, quicktime, etc...). On the content production front it means taking the extra time to spit those files out from your video editing software or converting files. I admit it's extra work but I think it's worth it when the pay-off is a competitive eco-system for video formats and preventing another monopoly situation a la MS Wndows or Apple iTunes.

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I will concede that having to parse/sniff for supported video players is easier .. but nonetheless, it is still more branching.

 

Right now, we have to provide different css rules for IE users vs. the other browsers. And now, if we have rich media (video and audio) on our sites, we have to test for iPod and iPad and deliver a different player.

 

Stef

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Guest centered effect

I actually applaud Apple for not supporting Flash. The Flash standard remains proprietary and the editor remains closed source. I also hope mobile system do not support Silverlight as well. Anything that is not helping the web continue to be an open format that everyone can develop and access, shouldn't be used or supported. Period.

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Flash does not stop anyone from developing anything ... heck, the player's specification is open and you can even create your own Flash creating program.

 

My main point:

 

Any device or piece of software that disables an ubiquitous technology that is used on millions of web pages (Flash in this case) should not be. Period.

 

Stefan

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Guest seosouthafrica

On Job's announcement of the iPad, within hours it was reviewed as a complete dud as users concentrated on its list of pitfalls. This permeated the internet community very quickly and Apple's shares dropped over three per cent as a result.

 

The financial press, however, the Economist in particular, ran a cover story, with Jobs robed with an asinine grin, and a halo placed above him like some latter-day Christ. Their argument went that News Corp have, for many months now, spurned the free content available on newspaper and magazine websites and want paywalls installed. The iPad, their thinking went, would solve the problems of newspapers going to the wall and enable online advertising to grow.

 

Apple has already attracted some blue-chip media brands, with leading publishers such as Murdoch's News Corp, Penguin and Simon & Schuster, and with consumers highly reluctant to pay for online content together with advertisers being hamstrung by eReaders that cannot display their ads, Jobs was elevated on high as the iPad is said to offer this and more and give multi-industries the opportunity to benefit from it.

 

Of course, the Economist has a vested interest in getting paid-for content into people's heads, but it seems as if consumers don't entirely share their blind optimism. On the contrary, TechCrunch slayed it, commenting: "Is it a must have? The quick and dirty answer is: for many people, right now, no. Unlike the iPhone, which filled an already well-established need, there is no existing need the iPad fills."

 

While the iPad certainly makes sense for those that could benefit from it and are keen to see resolution in the newspaper and magazine industries, certainly in my opinion at least it has limited appeal and a browser war is highly unlikely.

Edited by seosouthafrica
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Cool.

 

The problem is:

 

Supported Browsers

 

Right now we support browsers that support both the video tag in HTML5 and the h.264 video codec. These include:

 

* Google Chrome

* Apple Safari (version 4+)

* Microsoft Internet Explorer with Google Chrome Frame installed (Get Google Chrome Frame)

 

 

Sigh ... eventually IE will support HTML 5 and eventually the majority of web surfers will upgrade to that browser and so in about 3-5 years we can safely move over.

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Yes but do you really want people who are IE user's as customers? I say NO :) From now on I am designing all of my sites to serve pages up to IPads-only.

 

So there....

 

What's funny about the above is that there are a lot of people/nerds out there who have that attitude!

 

Well for IE users, there is always Chromeframe

 

Stefan

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