Apple relaxes restrictions on apps, opening door to Flash

[cal04]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-relaxes-app-restrictions-adobe-shares-jump-2010-09-09

Apple Inc. said Thursday that it has relaxed many of the restrictions placed on mobile-app developers, which will allow the use of third-party tools such as Flash in applications on the company's popular iOS mobile operating system.

In a statement, Apple said it has relaxed all its restrictions on what tools developers can use to create iOS apps, so long as those apps do not download code. The company said it is also publishing its App Store Review Guidelines in order to help developers better understand how the company reviews apps submitted for the online marketplace.

"We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart," the statement read.

The news gave a particular boost to Adobe Systems Inc., which has seen its popular Flash software tools banned from Apple's mobile devices because of concerns about security and battery use.

[onehandle]

1. That doesn't mean Flash will run on iOS. That would be horrible.

Real world tests of Flash on Android devices have proven how slow and battery consuming it is.

It's an old technology. Let it die.

This story is just about how apps are developed.

[wtmusic]

2. Then YouTube is naking a lot of money on "old technology".

FLASH, and specifically the .FLV video format, literally made YouTube possible.

What's there to take FLASH's place? Do you have a link to these real world tests?

[Billy Burnett]

3. Apple is now about new stuff.

Never mind fixing the stuff (as in: fixing defective and buggy software/OSs and defective hardware) that made them what they once were.

Stockholders now rule.

Just don't do it ...

[SnakeEyes]

4. html5

youtube already has a beta player.

[wtmusic]

5. Have you tried it?

If so, what's your take? :shrug:

[SnakeEyes]

6. Well it's a beta

So things are not fully implemented but it does what it's supposed to do at this point. Anyone can have a look at it:

http://www.youtube.com/html5

[wtmusic]

7. Looks like I'd have to install a beta version of Firefox

to get it to run, not ready to go there now. Here is something I found comparing h264 (HTML5 format) with FLV:

"H.264, a subset of mpeg4, is clearly a decent codec offering good quality at low files sizes. Its support on a range of platforms is good, and some see it as the future of web video.

H264 appears to be broadly equivalent to flv / VP6 in the quality versus filesize tradeoff, with Apple users often seeing more of a slight advantage to H264 than other users report. For most non-technical viewers the quality advantage will be unnoticeable, and is likely to be overwhelmed by differing choices in data rate and picture size, alongside original programme quality.

Flash video support for transparency (and I think cue points) currently requires flv / VP6.

H264 is a complex codec making significant hardware demands. While H264 is good on newer and faster machines doing one thing at a time, on the "long tail" of systems out in the wild it seems likely that more users will experience problems from the greater demands of h.264. Older test systems here that play flv / vp6 smoothly sometimes struggle to decode h.264

If high definition video becomes more prominent on the web, this issue may become more pressing. On2 are already offering (in their proprietary encoders) a simplified version of vp6, to make for easier playback of high definition video (at the price of a little quality loss.)

Apple does seem to have made a surprising choice, with no Flash support in the iPad (like the iPhone), given Flash's near-omnipresence on the web just now."

http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/190/866643

I'm going to bet FLASH video's demise has been greatly exaggerated, based on:

1) The W3C has a great record for cataloging and documenting, and a crappy record for innovation
2) FLASH player already is compatible with h264
3) Apple's move to be FLASH-compatible removes the largest remaining hurdle for wireless playback