You ask if I’ve never visited a site on my iPhone where there was Flash content I’ve wanted to view? There have been a few cases where I’ve visited a site where the content was locked away in Flash. But my reaction is never “I wish I had Flash so I could view this” – it’s *always* “I wish the developer would put this in standards-based HTML so I could view this.”

Because I’ve never liked Flash as a web development tool, and this goes back to when it first started showing up in the late 90’s. Bugs and poor performance are part of it, but only a part. Just as important, if not more so, are the ways Flash-based design fundamentally breaks web navigation.

If I see an item on a Flash-designed website that I want to point out, I can’t link directly to it; I have to use a ridiculously roundabout description, like “visit this URL, click button [Y], scroll through the resulting list, pick the 15th item, click OK, then look at the picture four rows down in the fifth column.” By the same token, I can’t bookmark a section of interest; I can only bookmark a homepage, then be forced to navigate back each and every time. (This was a real hassle when I worked at a wholesale distributor and had to maintain their specimen label and MSDS collection; one of our major suppliers had a Flash-based homepage that prevented me from linking directly to their label/MSDS page.) Flash navigation breaks the browser’s history cache – both for navigating and for searching. And to quote the often-used reducto ad absurdum, you can’t even use the Back button on a Flash-based website. Where you claim “useful, interesting and beautiful things,” far more often I see ‘developers more in love with their own elaborate stylistic vision than with making things simply accessible to users.’

(Not to mention the problem of non-standard controls mentioned previously in the thread. Using non-standard controls, like custom scroll bars, means that things like mouse scroll wheels aren’t guaranteed to work – and if new behaviors/control methods are developed, Flash-based apps don’t get them for free when the browser is updated, but must wait until they’re implemented in Flash proper – or worse, have to be implemented by the developer in numerous inconsistent ways. Using native HTML elements, these things Just Work, and I’ve lost track of the number of Flash apps that use their own crappy control system. The screen reader issue is a perfect example of this; if you design your site well in standard HTML, screen reader support isn’t something you have to *add*, you get it for free. And the same will be true for anything new coming down the pike.)

So yes, I’m cheering on the move to standard HTML5 and away from Flash. Because in the end, the users are more important than the developers.

Flash or Unity 3D or other plugins should be a choice of the device owner. And handled properly, made easy to turn on and off. Especially if said device is doing similar things (browsing the web) like other devices put out by the same company. If it’s gonna be slow or crash prone then make it easy for me to shut off. simple!

Many or most Flash movies run well on Macbooks, Macbook Airs on different browsers. I actually can’t recall my Firefox really crashing at all with Flash. Probably it has, but not more than anything else. Very seldom. When Jobs says Flash causes Macs to crash? That’s a lie. Flash is NOT crashing entire computers, requiring a reboot. It MAY be the most REPORTED crash via the browser crash report, but Flash / Browser would also be the most used program too. Flash is overused on sites and the user doesn’t even know it, probably on their ESPN and news sites (I’ve never seen a news site with video properly implemented. It’s always shit.)

Perhaps Flash should be allowed via an on/off switch, as Firefox can with an extension. But it won’t even be given that chance because Jobs knows all the great games and other special apps done in flash and Air will hurt his business. Why not tell the truth? I mean if he can do whatever he wants and people still buy, why not just say the f—ing truth then?

He has been lying and/or telling the wrong story about Flash the whole time. He acts like Flash and video don’t go together when it’s been the major way video has worked over the past years. HTML5 shows up, what in the past few months on some of the most recent browsers and suddenly Flash is this horrible thing? I’m sorry, companies with investments in special playlist players, hyperlinked objects with ads and whatever need a little more proof that HTML5 can help them do everything the had been doing. Sure I hate ads, but the ads pay for the sites that show the videos. Tell them to do it without ads and see how long they want to pay for bandwidth.

Who cares if Flash 10.X hasn’t been ready when they stated? iPad apps launching now weren’t ready for the device release. Why not allow the add-on later? Using Mike Davidson’s analogy, we could call Flash the taco stand that wants to set up at the country club in front of the elegant lunch buffet. The gaudy taco stand that would eat into the sales of the restaurant. BUT if the members either didn’t care about the taco stand or WANTED tacos once in a while, maybe the club MEMBERS should make that decision even if when the taco stand was in operation it might affect their battery life.

My experience with Adobe for years. Sometimes slow, such as Bridge and Photoshop. I hate the way Illustrator works, but I have NEVER had Photoshop crash on Mac or PC. Only a couple times Premiere crashed and it appeared to be an install issue with an earlier version. As much as I want other programs to compete better, few do. Xara for Windows kicks ass, but Gimp, Inkscape, Scribus, Corel? Not doing it for me so much. Adobe is expensive. I think their pricing should be maybe 900 for the entire Master Collection and down from there, but the market still buys it.

My main problems with Apple. My little nephew can’t take a programming class and make an iPhone game and let me try it on my iPhone while in progress. He can’t share his stuff that way, so he’s supposed to learn these superior lean programming methods HOW??

Oh with only 10 times as many hoops to jump through at age 13. And the companies I work for can’t make on cross-platform app (like flash enables) with animation or certain features that will work on all devices. Yes FLASH does do things other web technologies can’t do. (some without requiring a lot of programming knowledge or compiling). From the perspective of many, FLASH JUST WORKS. Again I know the arguments, but I can beat all of them because well-done flash proggys are everywhere. That’s why it exists. It enables certain things that in fact just WON’T be there. You think it takes a long time for a new Flash player! We are just seeing partially completed HTML5 specs partially implemented. When were standards boards ever known for speed??

This whole scene about Apple has opened up a big bitch session about Adobe, people saying, good riddance to Flash. It’s 99% hot air, people not knowing what they’re talking about. They narrow the discussion excluding the important things of Flash and cross platform development. Many are ignorant of the swf file format as well. And they take the comments of Scribd and Opera as reasons Flash shouldn’t be there. Hello, it’s worked well for a while now, so has Youtube. They can do what they want that way, but Flash has given the ability to make a completely cross platform identical look even down to font embedding. Now the CSS3 font stuff is sort of happening in 2010. Color me impressed! Can’t wait to pay those fees to use fonts on my sites, when a great number of people still can’t see them.

See I’m the person who thinks Apple designs are just kinda good. The winning designs for me, the ones that really kill it are the magic mouse (might mouse sucked balls) and the big apple touchpad. I hear the airport is a great router too. Other than that, I’d rather have a different companies product, and I’d save money in most cases doing that.

“It complicates my life.”

“I’m rolling with it, but it sucks. That’s all I’m saying.”

These things may be true. You seem heavily invested in Flash. It might be time to diversify.

The decision to exclude flash from iPhone OS may indeed suck for you, but it’s good for Apple. And mobile devices sans Flash are good enough for users, because they’re flocking to the iPhone and iPad.

“But it doesn’t make it any less juvenile and frustrating. I’m just trying to make useful, interesting and beautiful things. Why does that make me a second-class citizen to Apple, whose products I love?”

Apple would love you to make “interesting and beautiful” things. They just want you to do it with tools (Xcode) and/or technologies (HTML5, Javascript, Objective-C) over which they have influence – or complete control. That is actually good long-term thinking for Apple – they don’t want to have to rely on anyone else the way they did in the past (Metrowerks, IBM, Microsoft, etc.)