Game development is a HUGE part of Flash, and mouse rollovers aren't exactly an integral part of most Flash games.
Video is also a huge part of what Flash is used for.
And even in terms of websites, the actual navigation is almost always done by clicking, which would mean that the core functionality of the site would be in tact for a touch screen device, unless you relied on most info being displayed soley by rollovers, but that would be bad design anyway.
Lots of HTML sites have rollovers too, whether it's a rollover effect or a pop up menu spawned from a rollover, it's no different.
I don't understand some of these replies I'm getting here... Do I come across as someone new to Flash and the web? This is my career - I don't model for video games, I design and program Flash. I understand the extent to which games and video are represented in the field.
Video, lets go with that one. Do me a favor and go to Hulu. Log in and watch a show. Notice that the instant your mouse moves off the screen, the navigation bar disappears. How are you going to activate that with a touch pad? If you touch the screen to raise the nav bar, it's going to drop back down the instant you raise your finger to move it to one of the nav buttons. You can't hold the nav open and click a button because you have no way to maintain a rollover state.
Hulu, the video site visited by millions of users, currently WILL NOT WORK on a touchscreen. It just isn't built for it. The developers at Hulu would have to rebuild the interface specifically to cater to touchscreen viewers. It doesn't matter what Apple allows, the burden is on individual developers to retrofit any mouse-specific content to make it work. That is a huge issue in getting effective Flash adoption on mobile web. If you don't see that...
My point, with my last post is a lot of people here are complaining, as well as straight up hating, on apple because there's no flash support. It reads like it's a major dealbreaker for a lot of people. But it seems that there are ways to get Flash to run, if it's ported to another format/language. I mean, there IS a way to do it, because Canabalt is a flash game, and it's available for the iPhone/Pod/Pad.
Should some of the blame be pointed at devs for not porting? Or is that not the issue here at all? :P Are people only pissed off because apple are denying them free internet shit on their mobile devices?
If you really take issue with the way apple, a business, choose to restrict their product line, surely the thing to do is just to not subscribe to their product line, and to not buy their devices?
Protest with your wallets - Buy google phones or HP/MS tablets.
Glynn, porting a game isn't that simple. There's a way to get anything into any other language, but it would mean essentially reprogramming it from scratch, which takes time and effort.
So no, there isn't a way to get Flash to run on the iPhone, you would have to reprogram your game/app into Objective C. Which would be the case in any other language.
That's like saying there's a way to get PS2 games on the DS. Yes, by reprogramming the entire game.
I don't understand some of these replies I'm getting here... Do I come across as someone new to Flash and the web? This is my career - I don't model for video games, I design and program Flash. I understand the extent to which games and video are represented in the field.
Video, lets go with that one. Do me a favor and go to Hulu. Log in and watch a show. Notice that the instant your mouse moves off the screen, the navigation bar disappears. How are you going to activate that with a touch pad? If you touch the screen to raise the nav bar, it's going to drop back down the instant you raise your finger to move it to one of the nav buttons. You can't hold the nav open and click a button because you have no way to maintain a rollover state.
Hulu, the video site visited by millions of users, currently WILL NOT WORK on a touchscreen. It just isn't built for it. The developers at Hulu would have to rebuild the interface specifically to cater to touchscreen viewers. It doesn't matter what Apple allows, the burden is on individual developers to retrofit any mouse-specific content to make it work. That is a huge issue in getting effective Flash adoption on mobile web. If you don't see that...
Tom, I'm also an AS3 programmer. The point is, there's a huge amount of Flash on the web that doesn't rely on rollovers.
Flash doesn't even really rely on rollovers any more than HTML/CSS/JS.
There's just as many html sites that have rollover effects AND menus that only appear on rollover.
As for video, you could still watch youtube videos no problem.
But seriously, using the excuse of the hover over buttons doesn't hold water. I'd rather have 70% (it could be more, it could be less... It could only be 10%) of my Flash content working and available to me on these apple devices than having no access at all.
If for whatever reason, the Flash content on the site is unplayable/unviewable then it would be no different to what it is now.
But for me, it goes much deeper than just Flash support. It's just that to use and maintain your Apple hardware, you HAVE to use only Apple's first party software. Unless of course you hack your device, which is a pain in the ass on a PC... But only a one click process on a Mac. Figures.
For what I think is the third time, I'll say again that my point isn't about Apple's motives. I haven't heard any Apple rep use Flash touchscreen incompatibility as a reason for not supporting it. What I'm saying is that nearly everyone clamoring for Flash on their iPhone/iPad doesn't realize they're going to get a broken experience. If you're fine with 30% broken Flash apps on your iPhone, that's cool. I don't think that opinion would be the majority, especially among the millions of users who are less tech savvy than you and don't understand the issues. In many cases, all they'll know is that the website they've gone to on their iPad is broken and they'll think that sucks.
Glynn, porting a game isn't that simple. There's a way to get anything into any other language, but it would mean essentially reprogramming it from scratch, which takes time and effort.
So no, there isn't a way to get Flash to run on the iPhone, you would have to reprogram your game/app into Objective C. Which would be the case in any other language.
That's like saying there's a way to get PS2 games on the DS. Yes, by reprogramming the entire game.
Canabalt for iPhone was based on a port of Semi Secret's freely available Flash game development API Flixeljust what was needed for it to runand ported in total in just under two weeks (based on a flash project that was completed in five days.).
Seeing the potential of a full port, Semi Secret are now nearing a public release of a complete version Flixel for iPhone which includes a rudimentary Actionscript 3 to Objective-C translator, intended to accelerate iPhone ports of Flash-based Flixel games.
It wont translate just any Flash game, explained Johnson, and it doesnt do 100% compatible code, but it gets you 90% of the way and will hopefully get the whole way soon.
To me - admittedly a code layman - it doesn't seem all that dramatic after reading the above quote. If 2 guys can develop something that can translate 90% of their engine/API/whatever, hopefully 100% soon, then surely anyone else can develop their own ways of doing it, too?
Anyways. I am out of my depth here. Just trying to offer a different perspective.
Tom, I'm also an AS3 programmer. The point is, there's a huge amount of Flash on the web that doesn't rely on rollovers.
Flash doesn't even really rely on rollovers any more than HTML/CSS/JS.
There's just as many html sites that have rollover effects AND menus that only appear on rollover.
As for video, you could still watch youtube videos no problem.
I know what you do, I've visited your site. The 3D stuff is nice.
Regardless, I disagree. I don't know what clients you have, but it's exceptionally common in my work. We could certainly deliver experiences that don't require rollovers, but they'd be far less colorful and robust than our clients expect. I'm not going to be able to tell a brand manager for Pringles or Healthy Choice that we're delivering a less immersive experience so that the incredibly small number of users who visit his site via a Droid can share the lesser Flash experience rather than just be routed to the HTML alternative. Good of the many trumps good of the few, and touchscreen mobile users are the very very few relative to traditional web browser users.
About the video... you're basically just shrugging your shoulders at Hulu's millions of users and saying "sorry about your luck." That's not a solution.
Tom - Imagine for a minute that Apple Was indeed in favor of Flash being accessible in the ipad/pod/phone version of Safari. All they would need to do is implement an alternate navigation scheme allowing the touch screen to work as a mouse pointer, and maybe something like tap the upper-left corner to left click, and tap the upper-right to right click.
I think thats the reason why it pisses off so many of us. It's totally doable, feels like it should be part of this 'magical best web browsing experience ever', the device has the guts to support it yet its not there.
Just my 2 cents!
Edit! As a matter of fact I happen to have a mini 7inch USB touch screen as a third monitor and just went to Hulu with it, and successfully searched for and started the episode of Fringe I am currently watching as I am typing this. I am not sure what would make it impossibe on an even better (apple) touchscreen ?
Tom - Imagine for a minute that Apple Was indeed in favor of Flash being accessible in the ipad/pod/phone version of Safari. All they would need to do is implement an alternate navigation scheme allowing the touch screen to work as a mouse pointer, and maybe something like tap the upper-left corner to left click, and tap the upper-right to right click.
I think thats the reason why it pisses off so many of us. It's totally doable, feels like it should be part of this 'magical best web browsing experience ever', the device has the guts to support it yet its not there.
Just my 2 cents!
That's actually a pretty interesting approach, but how would you handle it when a Flash app is embedded in a web page? Using Hulu again, it's a Flash video player that sits on a site. I think that for mouse effects to work, you'd need to permanently occupy a corner of your screen with a mouseOn/mouseOff toggle, so you could go between Flash interaction and regular interaction.
e.g. When you want to skip a chapter in a video, you'd have to click the mouseOn toggle, then finger drag your 'mouse' over the video player, hit your LeftMouse button in the upper left, drag your 'mouse' back out to hide the rollover nav, and then re-click the mouseOff toggle to return to normal touchscreen function. That's five interactions just to skip ahead one chapter in a video. Doable, but I think jumping through hoops like that would get really old in a hurry.
If you were thinking of a more elegant way to interact with it, please explain
no-ones suggesting people change their flash authoring process or remake stuff just for touchscreen input, just that apple invent some kind of cursor emulation system.
edit: we can probably come up with some specific suggestions in this thread for the way it'd work, but really with apple's resources i can't believe they would fail to find the best solution
you could for that scenario shrink the display slightly and provide a dedicated click area either side which doesn't overlap anything. Not the most elegant solution but..
edit2:
maybe when the user is touching the screen the two click areas follow nearby the cursor, so the cursor and click areas can never overlap
what if using a flick motion moved the click locations from upper to lower screen space (i can think of plenty problems with that one but..)
come to think of it, do we need 2 click locations? it's flash right, so right click normally just brings up a flash menu so that's not really an input. Click could simply be a 2nd touch on the screen
Well if we take the Hulu example, it really is very simple! Heres how it works on my touchscreen. With that one website you wouldnt even need any special input mode :
To fast forward/skip chapters, I simply tap the main video window. It pauses the vid, and bring up the thick scrubbing bar. From there I just clickdown-drag the timeline anywhere I want.
(note : the USB touchscreen makes the cursor appear just where the finger is put down. For scrolling I just use the scrolling bars, but obviously an ipad would have the multi-touch gesture for that, making it even easier).
Hulu case cracked!
Only thing to add to the i-stuff in order to make such websites work, is a visual cursor feedback, since they require more precision than regular 'fat finger' input. Simply shaking the device, or making some gesture, could make it appear and disappear. It could even fade away by itself after 5 seconds. As a matter of fact it would make the navigation of hyperlink intensive html websites much easier too...
Video, lets go with that one. Do me a favor and go to Hulu. Log in and watch a show. Notice that the instant your mouse moves off the screen, the navigation bar disappears. How are you going to activate that with a touch pad? If you touch the screen to raise the nav bar, it's going to drop back down the instant you raise your finger to move it to one of the nav buttons. You can't hold the nav open and click a button because you have no way to maintain a rollover state.
Seriously?
I assume you have an iPhone/iPod Touch... If not, you've done yourself a favour. If you do, use the YouTube app. It has that very functionality that you seem to think is not possible.
You touch the screen, it brings up the navigation, volume control, that sort of thing. If it's inactive for a short period of time, it fades away. There is no need to have a hover state and the same thing could be implamented on Hulu. End of story.
I don't think that opinion would be the majority, especially among the millions of users who are less tech savvy than you and don't understand the issues
I would almost beg to differ... It's the tech savvy that line up for weeks to get their hands the iPad before anyone else. We live in a modern age, just about every home has a personal computer. Those that you claim are in the minortiy have a facebook account, do internet banking, use e-mail, browse the internet, do internet shopping. About 10 years ago, doing those things was considered "tech savvy", now it's just common practice.
I honestly can't be bothered arguing because we are both stubbon, both have conflicting views, we will never agree and I have more important things to do like find a job.
I respect your opinion, I just don't agree with it.
Emil, thats a specific case here with the youtube app. Its an app tailored for the iphone native browsing restrictions (forcing the introduction of quite elegant solution by the way!), but it's not flash content in itself.
I don't know if I would recommend it tho. It IS handy, and I am still exploring what's doable with it (photoshop palettes maybe?) but some things works better than others on it. Video is fantastic on it, but for sensitive cases like the small photoshop there is an alternate navigation mode locking out click and drag. Also it has its own vidcard, but not compatible with every player (had some troubles with Gnomon chapter skipping)
Still testing it, might send it back might not. Don't expect apple quality touch feel tho. It's more like a thin layer of plastic overlaid on top of the screen - but thats exactly what I expected. The plus side is that it works with the wacom stylus for tapping. Not so much for dragging, it would damage it I think.
Feh, used a horribly expensive Mac once, tried photoshop and other apps and was used to PC. Hated it, it really didn't do anything "better". That combined with knowing some true Apple "geeks" whom swear to the brand as the only "real" type of computer has left me with a strong dislike for all Apple products. And stuff like this just enforces that dislike, that and the lack of proper 64-bit support for Quicktime on windows.
Well if we take the Hulu example, it really is very simple! Heres how it works on my touchscreen. With that one website you wouldnt even need any special input mode :
To fast forward/skip chapters, I simply tap the main video window. It pauses the vid, and bring up the thick scrubbing bar. From there I just clickdown-drag the timeline anywhere I want.
(note : the USB touchscreen makes the cursor appear just where the finger is put down. For scrolling I just use the scrolling bars, but obviously an ipad would have the multi-touch gesture for that, making it even easier).
Hulu case cracked!
Only thing to add to the i-stuff in order to make such websites work, is a visual cursor feedback, since they require more precision than regular 'fat finger' input. Simply shaking the device, or making some gesture, could make it appear and disappear. It could even fade away by itself after 5 seconds. As a matter of fact it would make the navigation of hyperlink intensive html websites much easier too...
Okay, that IS a more elegant way to do it, but pausing the video requires sending a command through the Flash app. If Apple had some sort of wrapper around all of the Flash they served, they might be able to send a pause command to the video, but I think that would require Hulu's devs to rebuild the player to accept play/pause commands from some external source. I can't think of any way to intercept the video playback without using Flash to do it.
Really, that's what it comes down to, the guys at Hulu adapting the player to be more mobile/touch friendly. I don't honestly think that's a problem for them, as they're a huge operation, but for tiny sites with one-off video projects, that's where I think it breaks down. I really like the approach you suggest (shaking it to play would be awesome), but I don't think it can work purely at Apple's end.
If Adobe created a new version of Flash Player that allowed Apple to directly interface with, that might do it, but I think Hell will freeze over before that happens
I think I misunderstood the example scenario. In that rollover case, you could have a cursor active at all times not just when the user is touching the screen. Touching moves the cursor, not touching leaves it where it was, the same as using your wacom for PC input
Emil, thats a specific case here with the youtube app. Its an app tailored for the iphone native browsing restrictions (forcing the introduction of quite elegant solution by the way!), but it's not flash content in itself.
Haha, I know. Just countering the Hulu won't work on a touch-screen arguement citing how the YouTube app works which I'm sure Hulu would adopt in the case of Flash content being available on the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch.
We're on the same side here! Quit picking on me! :P
Seriously?
I assume you have an iPhone/iPod Touch... If not, you've done yourself a favour. If you do, use the YouTube app. It has that very functionality that you seem to think is not possible.
You touch the screen, it brings up the navigation, volume control, that sort of thing. If it's inactive for a short period of time, it fades away. There is no need to have a hover state and the same thing could be implamented on Hulu. End of story.
Pior covered this below - YouTube on the iPhone is a custom app, built at Apple's request, and it doesn't use Flash. Hulu could likely make an app for that as well and give it away free in the App Store, but that doesn't fix the issue of the Flash player on Hulu.com not working (and it again creates more work for the Hulu devs to make it happen.)
I have an iPhone
I would almost beg to differ... It's the tech savvy that line up for weeks to get their hands the iPad before anyone else. We live in a modern age, just about every home has a personal computer. Those that you claim are in the minortiy have a facebook account, do internet banking, use e-mail, browse the internet, do internet shopping. About 10 years ago, doing those things was considered "tech savvy", now it's just common practice.
Right, but those people aren't going to understand why Flash works fine at home but is busted on their iPhone, when the rest of the mobile websites they visit work just fine. My wife's 31, very smart, works in PR/social media and obviously is married to someone who lives and breathes this stuff. She's still not going to understand why she can watch shows at Hulu.com on her laptop but can't get the buttons to work on an iPad without my explaining it. She'll just decide something's screwed up and probably be annoyed with Hulu, even though it's not their fault.
I honestly can't be bothered arguing because we are both stubbon, both have conflicting views, we will never agree and I have more important things to do like find a job.
I respect your opinion, I just don't agree with it.
no-ones suggesting people change their flash authoring process or remake stuff just for touchscreen input, just that apple invent some kind of cursor emulation system.
edit: we can probably come up with some specific suggestions in this thread for the way it'd work, but really with apple's resources i can't believe they would fail to find the best solution
you could for that scenario shrink the display slightly and provide a dedicated click area either side which doesn't overlap anything. Not the most elegant solution but..
edit2:
maybe when the user is touching the screen the two click areas follow nearby the cursor, so the cursor and click areas can never overlap
what if using a flick motion moved the click locations from upper to lower screen space (i can think of plenty problems with that one but..)
come to think of it, do we need 2 click locations? it's flash right, so right click normally just brings up a flash menu so that's not really an input. Click could simply be a 2nd touch on the screen
What you're describing works fine for multi-touch, which the iPhone supports, but lots of mobile devices can only register one touch input at a time. Since you'd need to 'mouse' with one finger and click with another, you'd still be unable to make things work on a goodly number of mobile devices.
True about the two buttons. In rare cases, I'll do something that requires a right-click, but that's generally not the rule. There are cases where the keyboard is necessary, though, with arrow keys used to move around, spacebars to jump, etc. All that stuff would have to be rebuilt for mobiel Flash, no way to emulate that.
Haha, I know. Just countering the Hulu won't work on a touch-screen arguement citing how the YouTube app works which I'm sure Hulu would adopt in the case of Flash content being available on the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch.
We're on the same side here! Quit picking on me! :P
Not sure to understand the play/pause problem ? Hulu is setup to simple see 'click on the video screen' as 'pause'. On my (single-touch) screen, if I tap there it brings the cursor under my finger AND clicks all at the same time. Simple!
I agree about the potential confusion, but I dont think folks are that dumb ? As a matter of fact I think that such websites wouldn't be harder to click than regular hyperlinks that no one has problem with ?
As for keyboard inputs for games like DinoRun. I think the devs would be more than happy to add ubersimple arrow/action buttons somewhere on the game screen to make the game playable on an extremely widespread device!
Feh, used a horribly expensive Mac once, tried photoshop and other apps and was used to PC. Hated it, it really didn't do anything "better". That combined with knowing some true Apple "geeks" whom swear to the brand as the only "real" type of computer has left me with a strong dislike for all Apple products. And stuff like this just enforces that dislike, that and the lack of proper 64-bit support for Quicktime on windows.
The best thing about Apple is the hardware. I think most people agree that their stuff is always incredibly well designed. Even though it's expensive and they rarely have cutting edge tech, a MacBook Pro is so much more appealing to handle than most PC laptops. Same with the phones - an iPhone looks goddamn sexy compared to a blocky Droid or Blackberry.
Not sure to understand the play/pause problem ? Hulu is setup to simple see 'click on the video screen' as 'pause'. On my (single-touch) screen, if I tap there it brings the cursor under my finger AND clicks all at the same time. Simple!
I agree about the potential confusion, but I dont think folks are that dumb ? As a matter of fact I think that such websites wouldn't be harder to click than regular hyperlinks that no one has problem with ?
As for keyboard inputs for games like DinoRun. I think the devs would be more than happy to add ubersimple arrow/action buttons somewhere on the game screen to make the game playable on an extremely widespread device!
Heh - I wish I could be that positive as well, but I've sat through meetings with reams of market research telling me just how dumb some folks can be. We always aim for the lowest common denominator, just in case. I still have to build web banners in Flash 8/AS2, just in case some hillbilly in the Ozarks hasn't updated his browser yet but would love a coupon for various consumer goods
Anyway, your description does make more sense than what I was thinking. That might work, if the Apple emulator thingy just automatically created a cursor wherever you touched, tipping off the rollover state at the same time you pause the show. Well done, sir - I'll use my secret Apple hotline and pass that idea along!
Glynn - Flash CS5 beta actually has an automatic solution to compile AS3 to iPhone ready Objective C.
That is meaningless though in this context, that doesn't allow iPhone users to experience the enourmous amount of Flash that already exists on the internet, it simply allows Flash developers to publish work to iPhone, in a lazy, hacky way.
And as per the link you posted, it's something that doesn't work particularly well or reliably, and wouldn't compete with the performance of developing a native iPhone app.
For something very basic, it could be useful, but if I want to publish something to iPhone, I'll re construct it in Object C, optimise the shit out of it, and benchmark it dilligently to get max performance.
It would be just as easy for Apple to get the flash player running on their hardware, the reason they don't want to is simple - profit. It would have an impact on their app store revenue, simple as that.
Tom - I don't develop websites anymore, but I do have years of experience developing 100% Flash sites, including work for some big clients, starting in the Flash MX days, AS1 days, about 9 years ago. I'm moving into game development now, which is why I built my own 3D engine.
I know that almost every Flash site has rollover functionality of some kind, but my point is so do most html sites, what's the difference?
Rollovers generally aren't necessary for navigation, and even in the cases that they are, there is ALWAYS a way round it. Pior has made some great posts.
A simple toggle would suffice, to emulate mouse movement or dragging/clicking etc for most cases, and a virtual keyboard.
Pior has even illustrated how his touch screen device works on these potential problems.
My point is simple - make no mistake, this is not a technical issue, it's a profit issue. They could easily allow iPhone users to experience the expanse of Flash online, but they choose not to because of profit. Of course - they are a company, their objective is to make money, but there is no other reason they don't have Flash on the iPhone.
I think performance would be a bigger issue. There's so much awful Flash online, that runs at 10 frames a second even on a Core 2 Duo. Luckily the low resolution would at least go some way in dramatically reducing fill rate to help performance, but what would be optimal is if Apple stopped being arseholes and asked Adobe to release a custom Flash Player on the iPhone that used the GPU for the rendering. One would imagine Adobe wouldn't have a problem with that, seeing as their reason for not having GPU support on web based Flash is "stability" - ie different graphics producing different results, conflicting drivers, unpredictable performance etc. The iPhone is closed platform, so it would easier and more "stable". Unfortunately it won't happen though
Rumble: Are you sure that's not part of what Apple's blocking now with iPhone OS4?
From what Apple's announced, it looks like Unity apps won't be allowed on the app store anymore, either.
“We’ve been there before, and intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform.”
-Steve Jobs
Rumble: Are you sure that's not part of what Apple's blocking now with iPhone OS4?
From what Apple's announced, it looks like Unity apps won't be allowed on the app store anymore, either.
Hey Pea - it seems so, so the CS5 RC probably won't even have that functionality.
What I'd like to know is why, and with Unity too?
People who have recently purchased Unity iPhone must feel pretty shafted. Not by Unity of course, by Apple.
http://blogs.unity3d.com/
the official message from Unity is they're confident this won't be a problem, but can't guarantee that just yet. My guess is that since they're not the true targets of this move, Apple will decide to interperate their clause in a way that lets Unity projects through.
My guess is that since they're not the true targets of this move, Apple will decide to interperate their clause in a way that lets Unity projects through.
Which, I imagine, might pave the way for some kind of legal battle with Adobe, no? Discrimination and all that, or something?
The hilarious thing about all this, is Apple needs Adobe to some degree, yet they have a big fuck you attitude towards them, treating them like scrubs. It's weird in the same way that Activision's attitude was weird and illogical towards an elite developer like IW.
What if Adobe thought, ok fuck this, we just won't release any software at all on Macs anymore, PC only. I wonder what Apple would do then.
Adobe would lose some sales, but so would Apple. Macs have always been known as the machine of choice for graphic artists, illustrators etc. They've become more mainstream now, but it would still be significant if Adobe stopped releasing software on Macs.
I can't see Adobe releasing their monopoly on graphics software. That might pave the way for a new round of graphics editing software on the mac from fresh companies. If one became successful they would become potential competitors on the PC market too
http://blogs.unity3d.com/
the official message from Unity is they're confident this won't be a problem, but can't guarantee that just yet. My guess is that since they're not the true targets of this move, Apple will decide to interperate their clause in a way that lets Unity projects through.
I posted that two pages back, I think. I'm beginning to suspect no one reads my posts because they're too long, or I have accidentally enabled a cloaking device in my web browser
I can't see Adobe releasing their monopoly on graphics software. That might pave the way for a new round of graphics editing software on the mac from fresh companies. If one became successful they would become potential competitors on the PC market too
Good point rooster, a slight oversight on my part, caused by Apple induced rage :P
You're absolutely right though, it would be too much of a risk, and would open the doors for competitors immediately. Whether Apple are pricks about some things or not, Adobe have a rock solid monopoly for graphics software, they are not going to jeopardise that.
By the way Tom, I can't believe you still have to publish work in AS2. I don't know anyone who still has to target AVM1 actually.
In major countries, the difference in installation rate between FP8 and FP9 is 0.1 percent. 99% for FP8, and 98.9% for FP9.
Brother, you are preaching to the choir. I've been pushing back on this for over a year, and even citing those exact numbers from Adobe, but the resistance is always the same - there may be one user out there that we reach who has Flash 8, and we don't want him to miss out on a banner ad. We can use newer versions with actual sites, since we can implement version checking in the preloader and redirect them to upgrade, but banner ads don't allow for that.
The hardest part for me is retaining a separate working knowledge of both AS2 and AS3, depending on the media I'm creating. I'll be writing an AS3 app and accidentally drop in an AS2 GetURL call, and then spend ten minutes trying to figure why in the hell it's not working. On the upside, being required to deliver 15-second banners in 40kb and using AS2 has made me a bad motherfucker at file optimization
I have both an iPhone and a Droid here in front of me... I love the physical keyboard on the Droid but it generally stops there. The Droid is a bit ugly. The iPhone is insanely intuitive. A child can use it. Which is great! It doesn't make anyone a technophobe. It's just quality design.
The price points are much lower in the Apple App store which is good for consumers. But sucks for developers that have a $5 application selling it for $1. However... there are many many more users for the Apple store than the Android store. This may change as the Android user base grows. But then the prices will drop there as well as more applications enter the marketplace.
The reason for no flash on the iPhone is obvious. There are already millions of flash games and applications on the web. It would either obliterate the tidy App store or make it obsolete as people browse to their free games.
I'm sad that they didn't do more with the iPad. It would have to be more like a laptop light for me. With a stylus. I'm glad they're adding multitasking.. how ridiculous not to have it. I'm more interested in the Kindle now as well since they halved the price in response to the iPad.
The reason Apple blocks things is because they want total control over everything, and if you don't like it go screw yourself. This is nothing new. They do it with everything they make. Ipod, iphone, Macs. Apple makes Microsoft bs look like a blessing.
It's important to remember about a lot of mac users that they actually ENJOY paying for everything. When you actually pay for a service, in some odd way, it is better, even just psychologically. You feel invested to the service and having that investment makes that service more enjoyable, we like seeing our hard earned money do something productive. Actually paying for all this stuff that's usually free does bring more professionalism to the products as well. If something isn't shiny and flashy, it simply wont sell, so in a way forcing this rigid development platform and imposing monetary control does keep the quality level high as far as keeping the ipad flashy, which at its core is the only thing it really excels at to begin with. It's pure consumerism. Apple does exactly what their consumers wants, takes their money and gives them something for it. If Apple released a cheap product with lots of free apps, i can't help but think they would actually let their fans down! Think about that. It's easy to view apple as a big evil company, selling a little bit of flash and intuitiveness for mucho bucks, but their fans love this.
A company that's able to create such a perfect consumer climate i think is entitled to be a bit picky and controlling, that's how it got that way to begin with. And there's only one reason why people want to develope for the ipad that i can see, to make money off of impuslive buyers, so getting all high and mighty against Apple seems a bit funny. Apple put this whole cash cow together, of course you're going to have to play by their rules, they don't owe you anything. They've created a big money making machine, all they need is cogs in it. If you want to have full control and and program what you want without restriction there are plenty of platforms to consider that have little to no restrictions... none of which will make you nearly as much money as a successful ipad app
Don't get me wrong though, I've never been a fan of Apple and probably never will be, but i do respect their ability to make a ton of money of people who often tend tend to have more of it than I do. They don't exactly take from the poor.
It's important to remember about a lot of mac users that they actually ENJOY paying for everything. When you actually pay for a service, in some odd way, it is better, even just psychologically. You feel invested to the service and having that investment makes that service more enjoyable, we like seeing our hard earned money do something productive. Actually paying for all this stuff that's usually free does bring more professionalism to the products as well. If something isn't shiny and flashy, it simply wont sell, so in a way forcing this rigid development platform and imposing monetary control does keep the quality level high as far as keeping the ipad flashy, .
That doesn't deal with money. What you speak of psychologically is personal investment. People can be invested in "free" things as well. Especially if they are accepted as part of a community.
hahaha nothing new.. jobs is lying outta his ass and well the only time Apple will submit to a level playing field is when they start losing market share..
the only time Apple will submit to a level playing field is when they start losing market share..
With over 85 MILLION (holy tits!) iPhones/Touches sold, and with over 64% of the US mobile usage market, with Android being second at 19%, we might be in for a long wait before Jobs starts loosening his iron grip.
With over 85 MILLION (holy tits!) iPhones/Touches sold, and with over 64% of the US mobile usage market, with Android being second at 19%, we might be in for a long wait before Jobs starts loosening his iron grip.
No doubt it is a big market share and its rise to popularity has been quick, but it can also go the other way just as quick..
It's funny, not long ago we were laughing at this device, but what if the ipad does take off?, and not in a small way but a huge sweeping "everyone who never really understood computers buys one and loves it" kind of way? A two in 5 kind of way.
Apple could do to the computer market what the wii did to the console market. Or to scare you, what the ipod did to the online music market. Here's the thing, they don't need to win the war with straight up with numbers. They simply need to out profit mainstream computing and suddenly everyone jumps ship to their side and suddenly everything landslides into monopoly and "casual computing". They might be closer than we think to doing so.
Here's how it might go down: They partner with facebook release some interesting new apps that makes interacting with your friends interesting and new to the vast majority of users (people who never figured out how to get their webcam to work, more people than you think). People talk through the social networks about how great the ipad is, becomes another dick waving status symbol for the mega popular site, maybe an icon shows if you have an ipad and if you can cam to cam through facebook among other cool exclusive ipad crap. Some games start coming out exclusive to the ipad, and some or them are actually pretty good...
6 months later the ipad has done to the computer what the ipod did to music. What we thought was already a big industry is suddenly "mainstream" and people are using their ipad all the time to play depressingly simple games and do stuff on computers we all think is ridiculous and simple. Minesweeper suddenly gets its own show hosted by Wayne Brady and is now hip. Stupid sh*t like this happens. There's an incredibly large amount of money being made, but only by executive types monopolizing the entire affair since the the programming skill required to make an ipad app for Rachel Ray's cooking show isn't very high considering it's just a clone of Emeril's cooking app with her face photoshopped onto the front of it.
I'm not usualy one for far off theories (well sometimes), but the above COULD possibly happen. Rampant commercialism and rampant capitalism has been ruining plenty in this country for the past few decades. The commercialized/casual wave of computing is finally upon us.
It's funny, not long ago we were laughing at this device, but what if the ipad does take off?, and not in a small way but a huge sweeping "everyone who never really understood computers buys one and loves it" kind of way? A two in 5 kind of way.
See this would have a much wider response than you would imagine.
Did you ever read about all the high end laptop makers hating on of the netbooks because they were causing people to care less about processing power? When netbooks started to come out they all freaked out(and still are just less so) because they saw a world where people wouldn't care about having the fastest chip, but the cheapest chips. The chip makers were also worried because they would have to move RnD funding from the next power house to finding ways to make chips for less. Thankfully people don't love netbooks as much as they feared, because of this most laptops are still 15in+ with nice CPU's. If they reached the numbers your talking about then you wouldn't be able to find a fast mobile computer any more.
So if the ipad does take and get a 2/5ths market share of all mobile computing then you would see the death of the laptop PC's. They would be replaced in stores with tablets with closed systems just like the ipad. No more downloading things you want from the web, just from "app stores". Its a very bad thing for the consumer as the devices would all be dumbed down for kid usability. I dont know about you but my iphone already feels too closed for my tastes, and its just a phone!
With over 85 MILLION (holy tits!) iPhones/Touches sold, and with over 64% of the US mobile usage market, with Android being second at 19%, we might be in for a long wait before Jobs starts loosening his iron grip.
Replies
I don't understand some of these replies I'm getting here... Do I come across as someone new to Flash and the web? This is my career - I don't model for video games, I design and program Flash. I understand the extent to which games and video are represented in the field.
Video, lets go with that one. Do me a favor and go to Hulu. Log in and watch a show. Notice that the instant your mouse moves off the screen, the navigation bar disappears. How are you going to activate that with a touch pad? If you touch the screen to raise the nav bar, it's going to drop back down the instant you raise your finger to move it to one of the nav buttons. You can't hold the nav open and click a button because you have no way to maintain a rollover state.
Hulu, the video site visited by millions of users, currently WILL NOT WORK on a touchscreen. It just isn't built for it. The developers at Hulu would have to rebuild the interface specifically to cater to touchscreen viewers. It doesn't matter what Apple allows, the burden is on individual developers to retrofit any mouse-specific content to make it work. That is a huge issue in getting effective Flash adoption on mobile web. If you don't see that...
Glynn, porting a game isn't that simple. There's a way to get anything into any other language, but it would mean essentially reprogramming it from scratch, which takes time and effort.
So no, there isn't a way to get Flash to run on the iPhone, you would have to reprogram your game/app into Objective C. Which would be the case in any other language.
That's like saying there's a way to get PS2 games on the DS. Yes, by reprogramming the entire game.
Tom, I'm also an AS3 programmer. The point is, there's a huge amount of Flash on the web that doesn't rely on rollovers.
Flash doesn't even really rely on rollovers any more than HTML/CSS/JS.
There's just as many html sites that have rollover effects AND menus that only appear on rollover.
As for video, you could still watch youtube videos no problem.
http://www.bridgeworldwide.com/
http://daap.uc.edu/stories/Digital_Design_Alum_Helps_Local_Firm_Win_at_Cannes_Advertising_Festival
For what I think is the third time, I'll say again that my point isn't about Apple's motives. I haven't heard any Apple rep use Flash touchscreen incompatibility as a reason for not supporting it. What I'm saying is that nearly everyone clamoring for Flash on their iPhone/iPad doesn't realize they're going to get a broken experience. If you're fine with 30% broken Flash apps on your iPhone, that's cool. I don't think that opinion would be the majority, especially among the millions of users who are less tech savvy than you and don't understand the issues. In many cases, all they'll know is that the website they've gone to on their iPad is broken and they'll think that sucks.
Source - http://www.edge-online.com/features/gdc-semi-secret-talk-canabalt-flixel
To me - admittedly a code layman - it doesn't seem all that dramatic after reading the above quote. If 2 guys can develop something that can translate 90% of their engine/API/whatever, hopefully 100% soon, then surely anyone else can develop their own ways of doing it, too?
Anyways. I am out of my depth here. Just trying to offer a different perspective.
I know what you do, I've visited your site. The 3D stuff is nice.
Regardless, I disagree. I don't know what clients you have, but it's exceptionally common in my work. We could certainly deliver experiences that don't require rollovers, but they'd be far less colorful and robust than our clients expect. I'm not going to be able to tell a brand manager for Pringles or Healthy Choice that we're delivering a less immersive experience so that the incredibly small number of users who visit his site via a Droid can share the lesser Flash experience rather than just be routed to the HTML alternative. Good of the many trumps good of the few, and touchscreen mobile users are the very very few relative to traditional web browser users.
About the video... you're basically just shrugging your shoulders at Hulu's millions of users and saying "sorry about your luck." That's not a solution.
I think thats the reason why it pisses off so many of us. It's totally doable, feels like it should be part of this 'magical best web browsing experience ever', the device has the guts to support it yet its not there.
Just my 2 cents!
Edit! As a matter of fact I happen to have a mini 7inch USB touch screen as a third monitor and just went to Hulu with it, and successfully searched for and started the episode of Fringe I am currently watching as I am typing this. I am not sure what would make it impossibe on an even better (apple) touchscreen ?
That's actually a pretty interesting approach, but how would you handle it when a Flash app is embedded in a web page? Using Hulu again, it's a Flash video player that sits on a site. I think that for mouse effects to work, you'd need to permanently occupy a corner of your screen with a mouseOn/mouseOff toggle, so you could go between Flash interaction and regular interaction.
e.g. When you want to skip a chapter in a video, you'd have to click the mouseOn toggle, then finger drag your 'mouse' over the video player, hit your LeftMouse button in the upper left, drag your 'mouse' back out to hide the rollover nav, and then re-click the mouseOff toggle to return to normal touchscreen function. That's five interactions just to skip ahead one chapter in a video. Doable, but I think jumping through hoops like that would get really old in a hurry.
If you were thinking of a more elegant way to interact with it, please explain
edit: we can probably come up with some specific suggestions in this thread for the way it'd work, but really with apple's resources i can't believe they would fail to find the best solution
you could for that scenario shrink the display slightly and provide a dedicated click area either side which doesn't overlap anything. Not the most elegant solution but..
edit2:
maybe when the user is touching the screen the two click areas follow nearby the cursor, so the cursor and click areas can never overlap
what if using a flick motion moved the click locations from upper to lower screen space (i can think of plenty problems with that one but..)
come to think of it, do we need 2 click locations? it's flash right, so right click normally just brings up a flash menu so that's not really an input. Click could simply be a 2nd touch on the screen
To fast forward/skip chapters, I simply tap the main video window. It pauses the vid, and bring up the thick scrubbing bar. From there I just clickdown-drag the timeline anywhere I want.
(note : the USB touchscreen makes the cursor appear just where the finger is put down. For scrolling I just use the scrolling bars, but obviously an ipad would have the multi-touch gesture for that, making it even easier).
Hulu case cracked!
Only thing to add to the i-stuff in order to make such websites work, is a visual cursor feedback, since they require more precision than regular 'fat finger' input. Simply shaking the device, or making some gesture, could make it appear and disappear. It could even fade away by itself after 5 seconds. As a matter of fact it would make the navigation of hyperlink intensive html websites much easier too...
Apple has never played nice, and never will. Apple is smart though and makes their products convenient enough for rich people to want to buy them.
I assume you have an iPhone/iPod Touch... If not, you've done yourself a favour. If you do, use the YouTube app. It has that very functionality that you seem to think is not possible.
You touch the screen, it brings up the navigation, volume control, that sort of thing. If it's inactive for a short period of time, it fades away. There is no need to have a hover state and the same thing could be implamented on Hulu. End of story.
I would almost beg to differ... It's the tech savvy that line up for weeks to get their hands the iPad before anyone else. We live in a modern age, just about every home has a personal computer. Those that you claim are in the minortiy have a facebook account, do internet banking, use e-mail, browse the internet, do internet shopping. About 10 years ago, doing those things was considered "tech savvy", now it's just common practice.
I honestly can't be bothered arguing because we are both stubbon, both have conflicting views, we will never agree and I have more important things to do like find a job.
I respect your opinion, I just don't agree with it.
TGZ, its called Mimo 720
[ame]http://www.amazon.com/UM-720S-Screen-Powered-Swivel-Display/dp/B002QFP4Z8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1270944252&sr=8-1[/ame]
I don't know if I would recommend it tho. It IS handy, and I am still exploring what's doable with it (photoshop palettes maybe?) but some things works better than others on it. Video is fantastic on it, but for sensitive cases like the small photoshop there is an alternate navigation mode locking out click and drag. Also it has its own vidcard, but not compatible with every player (had some troubles with Gnomon chapter skipping)
Still testing it, might send it back might not. Don't expect apple quality touch feel tho. It's more like a thin layer of plastic overlaid on top of the screen - but thats exactly what I expected. The plus side is that it works with the wacom stylus for tapping. Not so much for dragging, it would damage it I think.
Sorry for the derail!
Okay, that IS a more elegant way to do it, but pausing the video requires sending a command through the Flash app. If Apple had some sort of wrapper around all of the Flash they served, they might be able to send a pause command to the video, but I think that would require Hulu's devs to rebuild the player to accept play/pause commands from some external source. I can't think of any way to intercept the video playback without using Flash to do it.
Really, that's what it comes down to, the guys at Hulu adapting the player to be more mobile/touch friendly. I don't honestly think that's a problem for them, as they're a huge operation, but for tiny sites with one-off video projects, that's where I think it breaks down. I really like the approach you suggest (shaking it to play would be awesome), but I don't think it can work purely at Apple's end.
If Adobe created a new version of Flash Player that allowed Apple to directly interface with, that might do it, but I think Hell will freeze over before that happens
We're on the same side here! Quit picking on me! :P
Pior covered this below - YouTube on the iPhone is a custom app, built at Apple's request, and it doesn't use Flash. Hulu could likely make an app for that as well and give it away free in the App Store, but that doesn't fix the issue of the Flash player on Hulu.com not working (and it again creates more work for the Hulu devs to make it happen.)
I have an iPhone
Right, but those people aren't going to understand why Flash works fine at home but is busted on their iPhone, when the rest of the mobile websites they visit work just fine. My wife's 31, very smart, works in PR/social media and obviously is married to someone who lives and breathes this stuff. She's still not going to understand why she can watch shows at Hulu.com on her laptop but can't get the buttons to work on an iPad without my explaining it. She'll just decide something's screwed up and probably be annoyed with Hulu, even though it's not their fault.
No problem - good luck with the hunt!
What you're describing works fine for multi-touch, which the iPhone supports, but lots of mobile devices can only register one touch input at a time. Since you'd need to 'mouse' with one finger and click with another, you'd still be unable to make things work on a goodly number of mobile devices.
True about the two buttons. In rare cases, I'll do something that requires a right-click, but that's generally not the rule. There are cases where the keyboard is necessary, though, with arrow keys used to move around, spacebars to jump, etc. All that stuff would have to be rebuilt for mobiel Flash, no way to emulate that.
Fight! Fight! Fight!
I agree about the potential confusion, but I dont think folks are that dumb ? As a matter of fact I think that such websites wouldn't be harder to click than regular hyperlinks that no one has problem with ?
As for keyboard inputs for games like DinoRun. I think the devs would be more than happy to add ubersimple arrow/action buttons somewhere on the game screen to make the game playable on an extremely widespread device!
The best thing about Apple is the hardware. I think most people agree that their stuff is always incredibly well designed. Even though it's expensive and they rarely have cutting edge tech, a MacBook Pro is so much more appealing to handle than most PC laptops. Same with the phones - an iPhone looks goddamn sexy compared to a blocky Droid or Blackberry.
Heh - I wish I could be that positive as well, but I've sat through meetings with reams of market research telling me just how dumb some folks can be. We always aim for the lowest common denominator, just in case. I still have to build web banners in Flash 8/AS2, just in case some hillbilly in the Ozarks hasn't updated his browser yet but would love a coupon for various consumer goods
Anyway, your description does make more sense than what I was thinking. That might work, if the Apple emulator thingy just automatically created a cursor wherever you touched, tipping off the rollover state at the same time you pause the show. Well done, sir - I'll use my secret Apple hotline and pass that idea along!
(btw just tried the regular Netflix website, works fantastic on a single-touch too!)
That is meaningless though in this context, that doesn't allow iPhone users to experience the enourmous amount of Flash that already exists on the internet, it simply allows Flash developers to publish work to iPhone, in a lazy, hacky way.
And as per the link you posted, it's something that doesn't work particularly well or reliably, and wouldn't compete with the performance of developing a native iPhone app.
For something very basic, it could be useful, but if I want to publish something to iPhone, I'll re construct it in Object C, optimise the shit out of it, and benchmark it dilligently to get max performance.
It would be just as easy for Apple to get the flash player running on their hardware, the reason they don't want to is simple - profit. It would have an impact on their app store revenue, simple as that.
Tom - I don't develop websites anymore, but I do have years of experience developing 100% Flash sites, including work for some big clients, starting in the Flash MX days, AS1 days, about 9 years ago. I'm moving into game development now, which is why I built my own 3D engine.
I know that almost every Flash site has rollover functionality of some kind, but my point is so do most html sites, what's the difference?
Rollovers generally aren't necessary for navigation, and even in the cases that they are, there is ALWAYS a way round it. Pior has made some great posts.
A simple toggle would suffice, to emulate mouse movement or dragging/clicking etc for most cases, and a virtual keyboard.
Pior has even illustrated how his touch screen device works on these potential problems.
My point is simple - make no mistake, this is not a technical issue, it's a profit issue. They could easily allow iPhone users to experience the expanse of Flash online, but they choose not to because of profit. Of course - they are a company, their objective is to make money, but there is no other reason they don't have Flash on the iPhone.
I think performance would be a bigger issue. There's so much awful Flash online, that runs at 10 frames a second even on a Core 2 Duo. Luckily the low resolution would at least go some way in dramatically reducing fill rate to help performance, but what would be optimal is if Apple stopped being arseholes and asked Adobe to release a custom Flash Player on the iPhone that used the GPU for the rendering. One would imagine Adobe wouldn't have a problem with that, seeing as their reason for not having GPU support on web based Flash is "stability" - ie different graphics producing different results, conflicting drivers, unpredictable performance etc. The iPhone is closed platform, so it would easier and more "stable". Unfortunately it won't happen though
From what Apple's announced, it looks like Unity apps won't be allowed on the app store anymore, either.
http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/10/steve-jobs-responds-to-iphone-sdk-complaints-intermediate-layers-produce-sub-standard-apps/
Sure, Steve. All those fart apps and other bullshit apps flooding the store are clearly highwater-mark examples of quality apps. Prick.
Hey Pea - it seems so, so the CS5 RC probably won't even have that functionality.
What I'd like to know is why, and with Unity too?
People who have recently purchased Unity iPhone must feel pretty shafted. Not by Unity of course, by Apple.
the official message from Unity is they're confident this won't be a problem, but can't guarantee that just yet. My guess is that since they're not the true targets of this move, Apple will decide to interperate their clause in a way that lets Unity projects through.
Which, I imagine, might pave the way for some kind of legal battle with Adobe, no? Discrimination and all that, or something?
What if Adobe thought, ok fuck this, we just won't release any software at all on Macs anymore, PC only. I wonder what Apple would do then.
Adobe would lose some sales, but so would Apple. Macs have always been known as the machine of choice for graphic artists, illustrators etc. They've become more mainstream now, but it would still be significant if Adobe stopped releasing software on Macs.
I posted that two pages back, I think. I'm beginning to suspect no one reads my posts because they're too long, or I have accidentally enabled a cloaking device in my web browser
Good point rooster, a slight oversight on my part, caused by Apple induced rage :P
You're absolutely right though, it would be too much of a risk, and would open the doors for competitors immediately. Whether Apple are pricks about some things or not, Adobe have a rock solid monopoly for graphics software, they are not going to jeopardise that.
By the way Tom, I can't believe you still have to publish work in AS2. I don't know anyone who still has to target AVM1 actually.
Take a look at these stats.
http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html
In major countries, the difference in installation rate between FP8 and FP9 is 0.1 percent. 99% for FP8, and 98.9% for FP9.
Brother, you are preaching to the choir. I've been pushing back on this for over a year, and even citing those exact numbers from Adobe, but the resistance is always the same - there may be one user out there that we reach who has Flash 8, and we don't want him to miss out on a banner ad. We can use newer versions with actual sites, since we can implement version checking in the preloader and redirect them to upgrade, but banner ads don't allow for that.
The hardest part for me is retaining a separate working knowledge of both AS2 and AS3, depending on the media I'm creating. I'll be writing an AS3 app and accidentally drop in an AS2 GetURL call, and then spend ten minutes trying to figure why in the hell it's not working. On the upside, being required to deliver 15-second banners in 40kb and using AS2 has made me a bad motherfucker at file optimization
The price points are much lower in the Apple App store which is good for consumers. But sucks for developers that have a $5 application selling it for $1. However... there are many many more users for the Apple store than the Android store. This may change as the Android user base grows. But then the prices will drop there as well as more applications enter the marketplace.
The reason for no flash on the iPhone is obvious. There are already millions of flash games and applications on the web. It would either obliterate the tidy App store or make it obsolete as people browse to their free games.
I'm sad that they didn't do more with the iPad. It would have to be more like a laptop light for me. With a stylus. I'm glad they're adding multitasking.. how ridiculous not to have it. I'm more interested in the Kindle now as well since they halved the price in response to the iPad.
A company that's able to create such a perfect consumer climate i think is entitled to be a bit picky and controlling, that's how it got that way to begin with. And there's only one reason why people want to develope for the ipad that i can see, to make money off of impuslive buyers, so getting all high and mighty against Apple seems a bit funny. Apple put this whole cash cow together, of course you're going to have to play by their rules, they don't owe you anything. They've created a big money making machine, all they need is cogs in it. If you want to have full control and and program what you want without restriction there are plenty of platforms to consider that have little to no restrictions... none of which will make you nearly as much money as a successful ipad app
Don't get me wrong though, I've never been a fan of Apple and probably never will be, but i do respect their ability to make a ton of money of people who often tend tend to have more of it than I do. They don't exactly take from the poor.
That doesn't deal with money. What you speak of psychologically is personal investment. People can be invested in "free" things as well. Especially if they are accepted as part of a community.
Just look at PC.
No doubt it is a big market share and its rise to popularity has been quick, but it can also go the other way just as quick..
People have paid money for their devices, and would probably be inclined to stick with it, rather than binning it and moving to something else.
Plus, people are not going to stop consuming these new devices in record numbers when the next, new generation of their model line starts to ship.
For all their caveats, this is apple - Love them or hate them, they're very, very clever in both creating and capitalising on product lust.
Apple could do to the computer market what the wii did to the console market. Or to scare you, what the ipod did to the online music market. Here's the thing, they don't need to win the war with straight up with numbers. They simply need to out profit mainstream computing and suddenly everyone jumps ship to their side and suddenly everything landslides into monopoly and "casual computing". They might be closer than we think to doing so.
Here's how it might go down: They partner with facebook release some interesting new apps that makes interacting with your friends interesting and new to the vast majority of users (people who never figured out how to get their webcam to work, more people than you think). People talk through the social networks about how great the ipad is, becomes another dick waving status symbol for the mega popular site, maybe an icon shows if you have an ipad and if you can cam to cam through facebook among other cool exclusive ipad crap. Some games start coming out exclusive to the ipad, and some or them are actually pretty good...
6 months later the ipad has done to the computer what the ipod did to music. What we thought was already a big industry is suddenly "mainstream" and people are using their ipad all the time to play depressingly simple games and do stuff on computers we all think is ridiculous and simple. Minesweeper suddenly gets its own show hosted by Wayne Brady and is now hip. Stupid sh*t like this happens. There's an incredibly large amount of money being made, but only by executive types monopolizing the entire affair since the the programming skill required to make an ipad app for Rachel Ray's cooking show isn't very high considering it's just a clone of Emeril's cooking app with her face photoshopped onto the front of it.
I'm not usualy one for far off theories (well sometimes), but the above COULD possibly happen. Rampant commercialism and rampant capitalism has been ruining plenty in this country for the past few decades. The commercialized/casual wave of computing is finally upon us.
This is my hell. Sounds like Idiocracy.
If I was Adobe, I wouldn't release any future CS versions on Mac. Let the hipsters use Gimp.
See this would have a much wider response than you would imagine.
Did you ever read about all the high end laptop makers hating on of the netbooks because they were causing people to care less about processing power? When netbooks started to come out they all freaked out(and still are just less so) because they saw a world where people wouldn't care about having the fastest chip, but the cheapest chips. The chip makers were also worried because they would have to move RnD funding from the next power house to finding ways to make chips for less. Thankfully people don't love netbooks as much as they feared, because of this most laptops are still 15in+ with nice CPU's. If they reached the numbers your talking about then you wouldn't be able to find a fast mobile computer any more.
So if the ipad does take and get a 2/5ths market share of all mobile computing then you would see the death of the laptop PC's. They would be replaced in stores with tablets with closed systems just like the ipad. No more downloading things you want from the web, just from "app stores". Its a very bad thing for the consumer as the devices would all be dumbed down for kid usability. I dont know about you but my iphone already feels too closed for my tastes, and its just a phone!
Uh...
450,000 iPads, and 50 million iPhones to date.