TheRealTimeWeb.com - Apple

Thoughts On Flash - Revisited

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 19:25:00 +0100

Thanks to @bryngfors for pointing out what we all suspected all along: Apple is all talk and little action when it comes to supporting open standards. Prime example: visit trailers.apple.com without the QuickTime plugin installed and you see... not much in form of video. A plugin. On Apple's website? Good grief.

Now I'm not particularly bothered about browser plugins - I am after all of Flash heritage - but what bothers me is dishonesty. I mean come on, it's almost 2012 and even I as a seasoned Flash developer can tell you that it is possible to serve up web video these days without plugins. Isn't that what Steve Jobs told us? Remember the 'Thoughts on Flash'?

"We strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open."

Hmm, either QuickTime is open (hint: it isn't), or it's not a standard (that's my guess) or it's not pertaining to the web.

Here's another gem: "When websites re-encode their videos using H.264, they can offer them without using Flash at all. They play perfectly in browsers like Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome without any plugins whatsoever [...]."

Let's put the fact that most Flash video is already encoded in H.264 aside - what's changed since April 2010 when Steve Jobs wrote those words? Adobe seems to have moved with the times quite substantially and are re-focusing efforts on open standards - but is Apple doing the same? If so, then why are they trying to prevent progress by teaming up with patent trolls? How come the W3C has an axe to grind with Apple?

Come on Apple, you can do better. I really want to like you more, but you don't make it easy.

The End for Adobe's Multi-Screen Strategy?

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:35:00 +0100

The End for Adobe's Multi-Screen Strategy? - This is a question that Tim Siglin asks in his recent article on the sudden death of the HP TouchPad and WebOS.

My initial reaction to reading that header was one of suspected link-baiting; but since I know Tim well enough I knew that his style of writing goes substantially deeper than that of an attention-grabbing headline (but hey, this didn't stop me from re-using it. You see my standards are far far lower and since you are now reading my post it clearly has paid off ;-).

So does Tim have a point? Does the demise of WebOS and the sluggish uptake of other (non-iOS) mobile operating systems outside of Android really spell bad news for Adobe and its multi-screen dream?
On some levels the answer is clearly yes as it cannot be argued that deploying to a lot of OSs from one codebase is better than to just a few. And Tim rightly points out that one cannot talk of a multi-screen strategy when there's only two major OSs left to play on (iOS and Android).
Tim goes on to point out:
"A full 80 percent of the tablet devices that Adobe showcased at last October's MAX event either never made it to market, made it to market and floundered, or made it to market and were killed off quickly."

Clearly he makes some good points, and those numbers sound grim. But as a developer who has dipped his toe into mobile development for PlayBook, Android and iOS I do wonder how important those 'other' OSs really are. The PlayBook did not take off in the way that RIM had hoped, in fact one can't even call it a take off at all. Sure, we may see a next revision or a PlayBook2 but whoever thinks that this device will give the iPad a run for its money must be smoking something that I'd like to try some of.

But is it really a loss for Adobe that the TouchPad is dead, that the PlayBook is not all it promised to be and that the iPad still outsells all other tablets put together? I'm not so sure, after all multi-screen is about so much more than mobile. Adobe is making its revenues from selling authoring tools, and with Flash Pro and Flash Builder (including some other HTML-centric tools) have got a decent offering when it comes to targeting not only Android but iOS as well. Flash Player may not be present on iOS, but the Flash ecosystem (which includes the development tools that many of us use daily) is present nonetheless. Developers are actively building and deploying Flash based games to all major mobile platforms - Terry Paton being one example - and even Flex-based applications have been climbing the iTunes chart lately (see Politifact for example which even made it to number 1 in the news app section).

In summary I think Tim is partly right, it would be better for Adobe to have a wider range of platforms it can support in the mobile space. On the flipside the entire mobile ecosystem is still in its infancy and it is unlikely that more than 2 or 3 major OSs will become and stay mainstream - not too dissimilar to what happened on the desktop.
I think that if Adobe can offer publishing tools and workflows that can target the main players in the mobile space (as well as on the desktop, and maybe on the TV as well) then they've got little to worry about. In 2010 Adobe could bank its first $1 billion quarter, with revenue up 33%. Q1 in 2011 was equally successful for Adobe and represented their sixth consecutive quarter of sequential revenue growth.
My oh my, I am starting to sound like an analyst now, but clearly they are doing something right. Could they do better? Of course, but considering all the bad press and Flash-hate that is making the rounds in these times of oh-so-fashionable Adobe bashing it sometimes helps to get some facts down and a reality-check from all the 'tech-news' that we're subjected to recently. I'm starting to get really bored of it - and I'm not including Tim's articles in that.

My Answers To Gruber's Questions

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:35:00 +0100

Argh, Tim Anderson tricked me into reading a post on daringfireball... As expected, what I saw wound me up. In the post John Gruber has some 'questions', and since I highly doubt that Google feels that they owe him a personal explanation I'll take a stab at the answers here (Gruber's blog does not allow comments).

Q 1. In addition to supporting H.264, Chrome currently bundles an embedded version of Adobe's closed source and proprietary Flash Player plugin. If H.264 support is being removed to 'enable open innovation', will Flash Player support be dropped as well? If not, why?

A: No, it won't. Flash does not hinder open innovation, quite the opposite. H.264 on the other hand does, and someone, somewhere has to pay if you and me want to consume H.264 content. In the case of Flash, Adobe pays some of the fees for us, but the future licensing terms are quite uncertain
The Flash community is one of the most highly creative collection of people I have ever had the joy of being a part of. I could go on and list 100 examples here, but just take a look at the most recent thing that comes to mind:
Use Kinect to Control Adobe Flash Using Node.js

That's open innovation in my book. Blitz didn't have to ask anyone for permission to build this application - compare that to iOS. They did not have to pay Adobe to either author or play Flash content - compare that to Apple's developer program. Large parts of Adobe's Flash Platform are open source, but the Player is closed - and rightly so in my opinion. Flash does not hinder innovation, it encourages it. Can the same be said for H.264?

Q 2.Android currently supports H.264. Will this support be removed from Android? If not, why not?

A: Who cares really? Are you calling Google a hypocrite if they don't? If so, where is your criticism of Apple for championing closed source codecs such as H.264 and calling their platform open? Maybe Google is hiding behind 'open' too?
And since the fallback technology for video playback in the browser is Flash anyway you can simply use that - Android has great support for Flash.

Q 3. YouTube uses H.264 to encode video. Presumably, YouTube will be re-encoding its entire library using WebM. When this happens, will YouTube's support for H.264 be dropped, to 'enable open innovation'? If not, why not?

A. It won't matter either way. I have a feeling that YouTube will ensure that their videos can be played back. Did things break when YouTube transitioned to H.264? Actually, transitioning is the wrong term here. Contrary to popular belief there was never such a thing as a 'Flash video codec'. Flash has supported H.264 for years, alongside other codecs. Adding WebM to the mix is a formality now.

4.Do you expect companies like Netflix, Amazon, Vimeo, Major League Baseball, and anyone else who currently streams H.264 to dual-encode all of their video using WebM? If not, how will Chrome users watch this content other than by resorting to Flash Player's support for H.264 playback?

A: Maybe like so: Chrome user navigates to video page. Site detects Chrome. Chrome plays video using Flash which is bundled into Chrome, using an H.264 or WebM version of the content, whichever is available. User is happy.
What am I missing here? Is there something inherently wrong with playing a video in Flash?

Q 5. Who is happy about this?

Google I guess for taking a swipe at Apple. And I know who isn't happy: you aren't, quite clearly. One's own medicine can taste bitter.

Using 'Air Display' iPad App To Aid Flash iOS Development

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 11:55:00 +0100

A few days ago my mini-display to DVI adapter that connects my external display to my iMac stopped working. Whilst waiting for a replacement I wondered if my iPad could act as a secondary display in the meantime. If you are like me then you will feel as if one of your arms has been cut off when you have to work on a single display - it feels totally inadequate despite a size of 27" :-)

A few minutes after posting a question about such a setup on Twitter I had received several recommendations for an app called Air Display (not to be confused with Adobe AIR, it has nothing to do with that at all). I bought the app and tried it - it turns out that it works very well indeed and is also great to test some basic touch screen interactions, especially if you develop Flash applications for mobile. I also recorded the following short video to quickly demo the setup. If you have any questions please post them below in the comments.

Having Fun With Flash and iPad

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 11:43:00 +0100

I know I should be doing 'proper' work but right now I am having way too much fun playing with the Flash CS5 iOS packager. Two days ago I started porting my Just Letters game (yes, that old chestnut) to iPad and I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was, even after deciding to rewrite the game in plain AS3 (plus a few graphical assets which I packaged into a .swc file). In total it must have taken me only 4 - 6 hours before the game was running on the iPad, and this included the logic for the NetConnection and ShareObject syncs.

But the point of this post isn't about the game, it's about how much fun Flash suddenly is again. The combination of AS3, RTMP and a tablet form factor is ~~magical~~ just great, and I've already got a few ideas for some further, more useful applications.

Say what you like about Flash, but Adobe is onto something here with AIR and Flash Player for devices, and that even includes TVs now. I cannot help but get excited about that.
The purists amongst you may point to performance issues and advocate native apps above all else. Sure, packaged Flash apps do not perform as well as native applications, but they sure become attractive when it comes to price. Also usually often perform well enough, and are likely to get better as time goes on. AIR for Android is showing what's possible, and I am sure the iOS packager will catch up.
As yourself this: How many companies really have the budget to build an iPhone app, an Android app, port those to tablet factor, and then possibly throw in a BlackBerry app for good measure? And how many developers can afford the time to learn all the native languages involved? Sure, you can get so far pretty quickly, after all AS3 has taught us many useful programming concepts, but to reach the level of expertise that you may already have in AS3 will take serious time - ever heard of the 10,000 hour rule?

I'm not advocating against native apps though, far from it, it's more a feeling of empowerment that anyone with some decent AS3 skills can now roll out a mobile app. This can and will translate into some new revenue opportunities, no doubt about it.

I'm also happy that the workflow as I see it does not limit you to an installable app. After all, why build a native app if a web app will do the job? Want to publish a SWF at the same time and serve that to browsers? Go ahead. For Just Letters the SWF that is produced during the compilation to iOS's .ipa is ready to deploy to the web as is, no further actions needed. For other form factors you may need to re-jig the view of your application, but we all know that that is (often) easily done, especially for simple apps such as this game. But then, most mobile apps must be simple by default, concentrate on one specific task and try to accomplish that task well. Whether they succeed or not is down to the developer, but let me push the boat out here and say that the underlying development platform plays only a small role in any failure or success.
An application is judged by its users, and looking back at the only iPhone application I have released to date I can say that I could have done a lot worse, and have done a lot better than thousands of native applications in the store. And you know what: Just like the tools I use I'm bound to get better too as I work hard on putting in those 10,000 hours - not necessarily learning new programming languages but gaining new experience on new platforms in using the tools I know best.

Rock on Flash. More to come.

Downgrading Apple iPhone OS 4.0 to 3.1.3

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:01:00 +0100

I've had major performance issues on my iPhone 3G (which is over 2 years old) after upgrading to the new iOS 4.0. Apps took much longer to launch, password entry forms did not respond quickly enough and the whole experience was just much much worse than using the 3.1.3 firmware version. Unfortunately I quickly found out that Apple does not like you to downgrade the OS and firmware for reasons that are only known to them, regardless of the fact that the new OS clearly does not perform well on a 3G model.
I tried the 'normal' downgrade process using iTunes 9.2, a 3.1.3 firmware file which I downloaded from this site and entering the phone into DFU mode as described in various guides. However at the end of the restore process I always got Error 1015 which basically translates to 'Nice try my boy'.

Fortunately after unsuccessfully trying a few different approaches I came across this guide which uses the iRecovery tool after Error 1015 has manifested itself and this worked a treat. I managed to downgrade to 3.1.3 without issues following the steps described. So if you too are stuck at Error 1015 then give that guide a try - but you do so at your own risk of course.

Hope this helps someone.

My First iPhone Game - Built with Flash!

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:11:00 +0100

The time has finally come to lift the lid on this. As you've probably all heard by now, Adobe today announced a brand new feature for the upcoming Flash Professional CS5: Export as iPhone app. Insane! Essentially what this feature will allow you to do is a cross-compilation from SWF to Objective-C - the resulting app is a totally legit iPhone/iPod Touch app which can be submitted to the Apple app Store. In my case that process has already happened, and the app has been approved!

I will post more details about the development process when things have calmed down a little, but for now I'm super exited to announce the immediate availability of my first application for iPhone and iPod Touch: my good old Just Letters game.
I figured this Flash game of mine which stems back from around 2005 would make an ideal candidate for a touch screen device, and I think I haven't been completely wrong with that assumption. Not only is Just Letters one of the first games built in Flash to ever hit the App Store but I have a feeling it is the very first game that use Flash Media Server to provide the real-time features.

In celebration of the launch I am distributing 10 free voucher codes for the US App Store (sorry, the vouchers do not work on App Stores outside the US). The game normally retails for $0.99. Just leave a comment below and I will pick a random 10 later today (leave your email too!).

Please help me spread the word about this game by blogging about it, tweeting or getting your grandma to buy a copy. Don't forget to review and rate it on the App Store too. please point people to the following age when you link to the game: http://www.muchosmedia.com/justletters (muchosmedia is my company, the 'official' developer behind the game).
Last but not least, if you need the game's icon or some screenshots then you can grab a small zip (1MB) from here. It also contains the game description in text format.

Thanks for your support!