Le Morte de Flash: Gone in a Flash

I am tired of Adobe Flash. Since I have been trying to transition a substantial portion of my work to a laptop, I have become more painfully aware of how inefficient this bloated plugin is (and I was already quite aware!). Never mind the slow performance, when battery life drops in half because of a window open in the background that has Flash in it, something is really wrong.

So, I am seeing how I like the web with Click for Flash installed in Safari. Eduardo got me thinking about using a flash blocker when he mentioned the Firefox-oriented FlashBlock in his blog post on web ads.

When the big brouhaha over the iPad's lack of flash started, that made me think even more seriously about Flash and ask a question: would I miss Flash if it were gone? Since I bought my first iPhone two and a half years ago, I have done a lot of web surfing on it and I have never really missed Flash when doing so. In preparing OFB Labs reviews I have also spent a lot of time with other smartphones such as the Motorola Droid and have found I can do everything I normally want to do on the web and never really even think about the lack of Flash.

Really, the only thing I use Flash for is viewing the occasional YouTube video. Now that YouTube is implementing HTML5-based video (which is doubly great since H.264 is hardware accelerated on modern Macs), there is virtually no Flash content out there that I use on an even semi-regular basis. So, why bother with it loading all the time?

I can hear folks saying, “Tim, aren't you being inconsistent with your stance on ad blocking?” The answer is “no.” Click to Flash blocks all Flash on the pages I view — it is not set up to distinguish between ads and normal content. To the extent this is true, using Click to Flash is similar to choices such as not to install Flash at all or choosing to use a text-based web browser.

Similarly, I have always argued blocking popups is appropriate because it is not my duty to provide the ability for sites to jump out of their box (doubly so to hide something beneath my browser as they do with pop-unders). I have blocked popups for years. Likewise, while I choose to use a graphical browser, I have no qualms with those who think using a text-only browser to avoid all graphics is a good idea.

Key principle: I do not believe I have to provide software to allow people to sell me stuff; I can choose to disable any part of my browser I feel like. But, when I disable it, it should not be in a way that intelligently disables it only for ads, but for all uses of the content method the ads use. If I don't want animated GIF ads, I should disable all animated GIFs. If I don't want popup ads, I should disable all unrequested popups. If I don't want Flash ads, I should disable Flash wholesale.

If I continued to have the system download non-advertising related Flash, that would be a different story. After all, I would be using up the web site's bandwidth without at least viewing the stuff they use to subsidize that bandwidth. Bandwidth is very expensive. In agreeing to quid pro quo concerning web viewing, it is no different than how if I want a subsidized price on a phone, I do not try to get out of having a two year contract.

I digress. I am Flash free now. I like it so far — my browsing experience is running faster and I am hopefully doing my part to send a clear message to other web developers: drop the proprietary plugins and use HTML5. The momentum is already there with the HTML5-friendly Mobile Safari/WebKit has engine becoming the lingua franca of mobile web browsing.

Who knows? Maybe by Mac OS X 10.7, Flash will not even come pre-installed on desktop systems. If that happens, I can't say I would be the least bit sad.

Alas, Poor Flash

Engadget reports,

Now Adobe has issued a statement apparently confirming what we've already heard: Windows Mobile 7 will not support Flash.

I am hoping this is Microsoft jumping on the same bandwagon as Apple and pushing forward with HTML5 as an alternative to Flash. Rumors have already suggested that Windows Phone 7 will have a more iPhone-like web browsing experience; if Redmond can get its web standards support closer to Safari/WebKit, the idea of leaving Flash out to dry would make a lot of sense. HTML5 over Flash results in better performance for the end user and more direct control over development for Microsoft. Everybody wins.

Gruber has already speculated (accurately, I believe) that control of development direction is a major component of Apple's refusal to support Flash on its mobile platform.

Google Launches Buzz

News.com reports,

“It has become a core belief of ours that organizing the social information on the Web is a Google-scale problem,” said Todd Jackson, Gmail product manager, demonstrating Google Buzz at the company's headquarters a day before Tuesday's event. An astounding amount of social-media content is produced every day, across Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and personal blogs, and Google's faith that it could one day index and organize the entire Internet has been shaken by this explosion in Web content.

The second social initiative with that name, the third major social push by Google. Pencil me in as intrigued but “dubious.”

Tabula Rasa

OK, everyone has their predictions filed for the Apple Tablet, iPad or whatever. Oh, and the Verizon iPhone, too, which I am increasingly convinced will be announced, if not actually launched, tomorrow. Let's say that all happens at high noon tomorrow. Then what? I'm glad you asked.

My Predictions

Apple is announcing something Wednesday. That much is official. So, the question is, what will they announce? I'm going to follow David Weiss's score card items just for fun. Feel free to play along.

Basic Features

An Apple tablet computer will be the centerpiece of the event and I'm going to put myself in the camp thinking it will be called Canvas (runner up: iSlate, honorable mention: iPad). I'm going to peg the price at or below $800 for release in March of this year. I think the rumored $1,000 price point will only work if it can replace a full fledged secondary computer (e.g. notebook or small laptop). I think it will have a 10” screen, which will position it nicely against the Kindle DX (assuming it does aim at the e-Reader market — I think it will). If they opted for the previously rumored 7” screen, closer to the normal Kindle size, I can't imagine it being close enough to a laptop replacement to justify the surely steep price.

I think it will have WWAN (cellular) connectivity, but it will be optional, unless they offer some kind of way to bundle it with existing iPhone services to keep costs realistic. My wager would be that it will support both AT&T and Verizon, either as different options at purchase, or through inclusion of both CDMA/GSM in some sort of dual-mode chipset. The latter is reasonable enough since I think Apple is anxious to distance itself from AT&T. But, if it throws its fortunes in with Verizon alone for the tablet while leaving the iPhone at AT&T, that doesn't seem like it will work out very well for getting people to buy both devices. A dual-mode arrangement could allow Apple to deemphasize carriers, perhaps to an even greater extent than Google is trying to do with the Nexus One.

If Apple is going to put the tablet on Verizon, I'm going to guess that AT&T exclusivity on the iPhone will also be announced as being over. Probably, it will become clear, the AT&T exclusivity term began counting down in January 2007 when the iPhone was unveiled, and not when it was launched as was previously believed. This only makes sense: Apple won't want to launch a new wireless device that isn't a cell phone on a carrier that cannot (yet) offer an iPhone. If they did, people might go to Verizon for the tablet but — still wanting a smartphone — become part of the Android ecosystem. That'd be bad (in Apple's book, at least).

Apple will likely announce, but not have ready, a native SDK. Whether it will only use apps from the app store is anyone's guess, but I'll say no. Apple has used the justification that people need cell phones just to work as a rationale for tight control on the iPhone. While the App Store has worked well enough to likely justify pushing out the App Store for the tablet computer, I'm thinking the tablet is going to come closer to being a full fledged computer and looser controls go hand in hand with that. Nevertheless, I will be unsurprised if Apple thinks otherwise.

I'm going to say no to the “existing iPhone apps run on the tablet” rumor. I think there may be a way in the future for developers to support both platforms with one codebase, but running apps meant for a tiny screen on a much larger one seems uncharacteristically messy for Apple. The one code base, two platforms strategy though will be available for new or updated apps, however, because the tablet will use Cocoa Touch as its framework.

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Writing and Typing Speed Comparison

This is a rather ingenious comparison of major methods of outputting text: pen-and-paper, normal QWERTY keyboard, and several different mobile input methods.

HT: John Gruber.

Happy New Year

Hope everyone had a great New Year's Day. I'm finishing it off right now by finally trying out Haiku's alpha release inside Parallels Desktop.

Merry Seventh Day of Christmas!

The DROID Has Landed

In my initial testing, it looks really promising.

iDon't Know

Verizon is, without a question, making some really strong decisions in recent times — not the least being the decision to go to LTE for its 4G network (a truly impressive technology). I also think the choice to move away from its long time ties to BREW phones, by putting a lot of its emphasis on Blackberry, Windows and now Android phones is brilliant and clearly the wave of the future.

I'm still not so sure of this campaign. While I don't advocate Dan Hesse's answer as a good way to compete, I think it is pretty bold to put a phone up as doing what the iPhone cannot do.

The trouble is that for as limited as the iPhone is in things such as multitasking, it is doubly ahead in ways most users actually care about: a huge ecosystem of first rate, beautiful, touch oriented apps; desktop class web browsing on a small screen; integration with the iTunes/iPod digital hub, etc.

It's significant that, for example, Apple clearly sees its consumer-level iPhone OS competitors more as Sony and Nintendo than Microsoft or Blackberry. Apple is also trying to play the enterprise card, but in this case, the consumer offers a far more lucrative market.

I think those iPhone advantages can be overcome for many users, and phones like the impressive HTC Imagio that I'm presently reviewing make a very good value/functionality argument for certain market segments. However, in sheer average user functionality, the iPhone has managed to rocket from out of nowhere to become the device to beat in mindshare and, in some segments, marketshare.

If I were Verizon I'd probably stick with the network tact and bide my time until the inevitable iPhone LTE shows up on their network.

Happy iPhone Day!

If you haven't already had a chance to enjoy an unboxing of an iPhone 3G S, I've put some up for you, right here. The 3G S seems to deliver on its promise: apps load even faster and more smoothly while the 3G radio is amazingly fast compared to 2.5G EDGE.

In early tests, it seems that the AT&T UTMS/HSDPA network is indeed as fast as they claim, competing ably against Verizon's Ev-DO network. On the other hand, it is always tricky to judge handsets' performance from two different carriers, since there are so many variables.

I don't have a lot of other observations just yet, but I did write about the launch event itself today on Open for Business