[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/maccast/MC20100228.mp3]
Download today’s show here! 
MC20100228.mp3 [30.0MB 01:02:20 64kbps]
A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Show 292. Apple takes some heat on supplier responsibility. The great Flash war of 2010. More reports of iPad’s impending sales doom. iPad’s A4 custom, but not PA Semi custom? A video player that remembers you spot. Sending an attachment from the iPhone. Review: OWLE Bubo. Running a Mac “sandbox”.
Special thanks to our sponsors:
Circus Ponies NoteBook – The Easy Way to Get Organized on the Mac. Try it FREE for 30 Days.
Path Finder 5, Path Finder is a comprehensive file browser for OS X that combines the best of Apple’s Finder with powerful, integrated utilities and some innovative ways of accessing and manipulating your files.
New music, Booty Voodoo by Lee Coulter (iTunes)
EOL: The TiPhone (via Cult of Mac)
Shownotes in: HTML or OPML
Subscribe to the Podcast Feed or Get the MP3 or Enhanced AAC
Hello Adam, Kudos from Panama, LatinAmerica for another great show!
I’ve been a follower for quite some months now (using iphone’s stitcher) and this is my first comment.
About your flash comments…
I think flash was the transitional element that allowed us to enhance the multimedia experience when there was no other option. Still, i´ve always hated the lack of content search-ability of the viewer, and the expensive cost of the developing tool, specially when you don´t use it with frequency.
In my opinion, Apple could enhance the Quicktime player to allow flash-like functionality, just as it does when you export your Pages projects to Quicktime for PC presentations. Maybe a pages project specifically intended for that would be interesting to see. I´m pretty sure the iPad browsing experience and apps could benefit form that. Still, there is the hovering functionality and such, that definitely is a concept more than viewer issue.
In any case, quicktime should be ready for enhanced interactivity, and the free tools we may have (either garageband, imove, pages(not so free)) could potentially become a complete solution for the mac Web developer…
Can´t wait for the next Podcast!
Just to correct something. I meant Keynote and not Pages in every referred sentence.
Adam,
I have been a fan of Apple and Steve Jobs since the very beginning of the Mac. I have listened to the MacCast almost since you began and I usually enjoy it very much.
I sent remarks to Leo LaPorte recently, to ask him and his MacBreak gang to try to refrain from their out of control Flash Bash Fest of late. I was getting to where I just don’t feel so inclined to tune into MacBreak… they have quieted down recently (I know Leo has read my email and would be happy to think that my comments were some part of that adjustment in their approach to the Apple v Adobe issue.)
…and then last night, I settle in for my weekly MacCast and… there you are Blasting Flash! I almost turned it off, but decided I should be aware of how influential people in the Mac community are talking about this issue. I will give you this much… at least you tried to be balanced… or at least you several times, said you were balance (more of the later, I think). You are certainly entitled to your opinion, as I am mine, but you are one of those “influential people in the Mac community” and you have a responsibility to be well informed when you speak of such matters.
I will loosely quote a few of your statements (I don’t really care to go back and listen to the podcast again to get accurate quotes, but I will do my best to recall your statements)
Quote(ish):
“Flash developers are lazy” (well you said something like that)…
I am a musician for children in New Orleans and am still trying to pick of the pieces since Katrina… and now the economy situation. I decided last spring to start moving toward becoming a Flash developer/designer to add to my work opportunities. for many years in order to promote my music for children I have done my own development for my websites. I chose to use Flash for this development because I quickly became tired of trying to develop for poorly implemented html especially on the IE browser… I found that Flash solved this problem and allowed me to have more complete control over the experience I wanted to present. Flash also allows me to present music, video and animation in a creative and effective manner. Until last spring I was just learning the Flash I needed to serve my own requirements. As I have begun to give a more serious focus to Flash development I have worked very hard to learn Adobe Flash IDE and Actionscript and I will tell you that it has been no lazy walk in the park. It is hard study and research and work and investment of time and money… just as much of a challenge as leaning HTML, CSS, Javascript and what have you, I would say. Now each project I do in Flash means more of the same, study, research and work… yes it has gotten easier but it is not where I go when I am feeling lazy. Adobe’s tools are excellent, and with CS5 around the corner, it seems a Flash developer’s work will become even better supported. What is wrong with have good tools for the job? I am moving into Html dev as well and I am exploring the best tools for that endeavor as well (Flux 2 for example… way cool!).
I see Flash out there that is overkill or poorly implemented… I hate flash banner adds (just as much as I hate animated gif ads etc…( I also see, even after Html has been around for a longer time than Flash, absolutely horrid Html sites! Site that are ugly, kludgy and insecure. But conscientious, professionally minded designers/programers are going to be committed to correct practices and efficient use of the technology whether it be html, Ruby, Ajax, Javascript and yes Flash. I have striven, as I am learning, to be of that camp… and there are many examples, major websites that present these best practices and extraordinary innovation through Flash… Many. And they don’t crash the browser (bad programing crashes browsers… typically not the Flash player itself… again apply this to any web technology, to be fair.) Again, it is hard work to learn and do Flash well.
Quote(ish):
“Flash is a processor hog… Adobe doesn’t support Flash on the Mac as well as Flash on Windows because there are so many more Windows machines out there and its about an economy of scale blah blah).
Adobe doesn’t get paid every time a person uses the Flash Player. They get paid whenever people use their production, development software. Truth is Adobe typically, and for many years now, releases Flash Player updates simultaneously for both Windows and Mac OS’s. The reason…. and this is important… and you were in error on this issue… the reason that Flash runs better on Windows is that Apple will not support Adobe accessing the GPU APIs were in Windows Adobe can readily do so. Adobe has worked around this as best they could and continues to seek more support from Apple…
And Adobe’s work arounds are making positive gains… You mention 10.1 and stated that it is supposed to be much better and that it is even supposed to run well on mobile platforms… then you stated that Adobe say it is present on many devises… then you said that was not true, it is only on a few… Can you say the word BETA!?! It is a fact that Flash Player 10.1 is Beta and yes Adobe is promoting it and demonstrating it on the Nexus One and other mobile devices (it runs quite well) but Adobe isn’t say that 10.1 is pervasive yet. You may do well to read about the Open Screen Project http://www.openscreenproject.org/ Adobe’s Moble Flash/open standards effort which is supported by just about all of the major mobile platform developer with one arrogant exception. I am using Flash Player 10.1 BETA and it is the best Flash performance I have ever seen.
An aside about Flash being a processor hog… ever notice that when you see a flash ad or site that is tilting your processor that the type of animation is something like a waving flag (Art Institute Ad) or particles flying around… this, in Flash is Particle Effects (Not a construct from Adobe, but an add-on feature by flash dev folks… Particle effects can be major processor hogs and should be used sparingly… I am very careful when I am developing in the Particle Effects realm and so should everyone else (Hello Art Institute Ad Developer!!!)
For the most part Flash is no more heavy than any other Web technology out there. I bet my Flash sites are smaller that many Html sites, they run smoothly when an animation is running and quietly behave when nothing is happening… Well programed Flash user very little processor, memory or bandwidth when idle.
Quote(ish):
“I won’t yet say that Flash is a dying technology but it will eventually fade… well maybe, I am not sure, but it probably will…”
My grandfather used to say “Sometimes if you don’t really know something it is just best not to say something.” He was a wise man.
Flash is everywhere. Major companies have full flash websites. Flash delivers the best experiences when it comes to interaction, animation, audio, video etc… hands down. Flash is the same crossbrowser! I am not saying that Flash should be the only web technology but it is far from fading. And there is so much movement by other technologies to try to do what Flash already does so well… transitions, animations, play video, effects… good for Javascript, good for all of them please do that, because that is what people like to see when they are on the web… otherwise we wouldn’t see such and effort by developers to provide such things. HTML 5 will never catch up with the power of Flash for two realistic reasons. One: HTML 5 is being developed in a Committee! Two: Adobe and the Flash community are smart, creative hard working folks who are not sitting back wringing their hands.
I have been a big fan of Apple since the first Mac came out. I have admired Steve Jobs. But I am so disappointed that after all the struggle that Apple has endured, being the underdog, and how we the Mac community have shared Apples struggle and Steve’s as well… and defended Apple and Steve Jobs… for Apple and Jobs to be acting with such hubris now is deeply disappointing. “Adobe is Lazy… Google is Evil…” WUT?! His choice not to allow Flash in the IPad is not rational, It’s protectionist and an underhanded, dishonest manipulation of the marketplace (that used to be MicroSoft’s job)… What has gotten into Jobs. Showing a broken plugin icon at the IPad release… how arrogant. as much as I still love my Apple products and look forward to the IPad I just wish Jobs would not taint Apple with his hubris and personal vendettas toward Adobe, Google and others… (it’s a dangerous direction for any company). And I for many reasons will not be supportive of Jobs and Apple in this matter… part of my reasoning is about Flash but the bigger part is that I have a great distaste for arrogance… I would never go over to MicroSoft and windows … though it feels like Apple is becoming more Microsoft every day. I will still use the better machine, but I am not as much of a fan of Apples as I used to be.
Long I know… I could call out a few more but I won’t spend anymore time. I know you do want to be balanced, so do consider some of my comments. I thank you for you time and your typically great MacCasts.
Papillion
P.S. Sorry I had a couple links that I forgot to include.
Adobe’s side…Yes it would only be fair to know what they are saying as well.
http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/executive-perspectives/2010/02/ Adobe’s response to Apple
http://theflashblog.com/?paged=2 Lee Brimelow of Adobe
By the way… Flash and Security… the Flash player is relatively quite secure… most exploits which Adobe attends to rather quickly are hackers using the flash player to exploit a vulnerability in the browser or os… the issues are typically with these other vulnerabilities that should be fixed by the browser or OS developer not Adobe.
Apple is not a “private company”, it is publicly traded on the NASDAQ. I’m sure you knew that.
I’m not sure what you were intending when you said private company, but in common usage it means that it is privately held, i.e., not publicly traded.
Victor, Im right on with you.
Quicktime needs to be enhanced to allow a more “multimedia interactive ” experience.
I am pretty sure that it actually has this in older versions, but got somehow dropped off.
As much as i like this idea, I would like to see developers make websites that dont require plugins and code with open standards, an not rely on plugins.
Papillon has some valid points, but I still think websites should not be engineered around plugins.
Hello Adam,
About the question from listener Phil who wants to email his resume from his iPhone. Unless I am mistaken, there is a very easy way to do this. If he emails his resume to himself from his computer, all he has to do is forward the email to the prospective employee(s). When you forward the email with the attachment, the mail app (Apple) will ask you if want to include attachments from your original message. And there you go.
Enjoy you show immensely.
Andre
I don’t know anything about Flash or programing. I only know that awhile ago I found something that keeps Flash from loading in Safari (maybe all browsers). Now every page I go to that has Flash, the Flash only shows up as a gray box with “Flash” in it. If I want it to load, I need to click on it. I can’t remember what it’s called. It also remained after upgrading to Snow. Personally, I like it.
Is Apple can find a way to make a code to convert flash video or animations in quicktime or a html5 format so, it never runs Flash but you can see thouse videos anyway? or anyone can make that kind of hack? it is possible??? thanx