OK, I have to win some kind of award for most inflammatory (and misleading) post title for this one. Like many of you, I have been reading the numerous posts (see links below) following the anti-Flash position Steve Jobs presented at a recent Apple shareholder meeting. I had considered writing about it, or at least commenting, but seeing how polar the issue is, decided to sit back and let others fight this battle.

Then, this afternoon I was contacted by a friend who was curious about my opinion on the matter and my response ended up being much of what I’d originally considered posting. So, since the bulk of the work is already done, I am going to go ahead and paraphrase what I wrote:

…

There is no lack of controversy whenever Apple does/says anything. People tend to be so fanatical on both sides of any Apple related issue, i.e. Mac/PC, and now Apple/Adobe.

The funny thing is so many (most?) Flash designers/developers are using Macs now - I was amazed to see how many folks were carrying around their silver notebooks at FITC last week. For a moment I was actually a little embarrassed when I pulled out my Toshiba TabletPC ( I should have flipped the screen around and started taking notes - heh! ). I feel kind of like Donald Sutherland in ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ (I’ll probably be the 2nd to last person to ’switch’).

As for my take on the dispute, I think the real issue is the same as with iTunes/iPod/iShuffle/iTouch(?)/etc. Apple’s mission is to control and monetize the user’s access to media. They do this by locking down the hardware and preventing 3rd party access to the application stack. The Flash player is a doorway that would allow access to content, media and functionality that Apple wouldn’t control.

In the short term, this probably makes sound business sense - after all, how many people didn’t buy an iPhone because it lacked a number of common features? Now compare that to the number who would use Flash to bypass iTunes and other partner controlled channels if they could. Other companies do this as well. Sony, for instance, limited the functionality of Flash on the PSP to prevent competition from 3rd party game manufacturers.

In the long term, Apple’s closed, anti-competitive stance may come back to haunt them. They have played the ‘underdog’ role for so long, they seem oblivious to the fact that they are now as much or more of a mono-culture than Microsoft ever was. This opens the door for the next underdog. As for the iPhone, there are a number of soon to be released devices that could fill the void (and a few suitable alternatives in the meantime). Mobile devices are short lived anyway, 6 months from now we may all be drooling over an Android based device with WiMax, 64 GB SSD, removable battery, A2DP, 10 MP video, 5x optical zoom and plays any damn format you choose including Flash. “Yes, I have a dream.”

…

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/03/05/steve_jobs_pans_flash_on_the_iphone.html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/?p=777
http://www.news.com/8301-10787_3-9886265-60.html?tag=nefd.top
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206901923

Returned from FITC Amsterdam a few days ago and finally feel like I’ve recovered from the 9 hour time difference (among other things). Definitely had a good time and learned a few things I’ll likely apply in future projects. Specifically, the Papervision3D workshop, though a bit disorganized, was a nice precursor to P3D development. I came away with a better appreciation for the value of the Papervision3D library, particularly for projects you wouldn’t think of as ‘3D’. Seb Lee-Delisle’s demonstration of particles was also quite inspiring. Perhaps the highlight of the conference for me was André Michelle’s experiments with audio generation/manipulation in Flash. He and Joa Ebert have built a suite of analog-era inspired audio processors (now part of Hobnox) that are amazing. But what resonated the most with me (pun sort of intended) was his use of non-graphical particles (and filtered byte arrays) to generate sound (PopforgeLibrary). Who said there were no more undiscovered frontiers in Flash? If it was me, then I was wrong (thankfully). André also asks for our help in petitioning Adobe to add native audio support to Flash, so ‘Make some noise!’.

A while back I wrote about the potential of the Mozilla framework as a platform for RIA development. Today, I found the first of what promises to be an interesting series of articles from Ben Longoria over at InsideRIA. He mentions the (relatively) new offering from Mozilla Labs - Prism (formerly ‘WebRunner’) - which attracted so much attention a few months ago (currently over 200 comments and 500 track-backs). I am definitely curious to see how the Prism project is coming along and am looking forward to Ben’s next installment.

Well, it seems that the ‘end’ of 3Guppies is now a matter of public record:

3Guppies on the ropes, cuts staff
VantagePoint Venture Partners kills 3Guppies, a $20M investment
VCs Push 3Guppies Into The Deadpool
3Guppies Loses Funding, Cuts Staff

I mention it here because this (3Guppies.com) is where I’ve been hanging my hat for the last six months.

Too bad, really - good people - so much potential. I guess sometimes (talent && capital) !== $uccess;

In case you missed the announcement earlier today… amidst the hubbub from Google (’Gears’) and Microsoft (’Surface’), Palm finally introduced the device so many have speculated about in recent months. As it turns out, this new device dubbed ‘Palm Folēo’ is a mobile companion not only for the Trēo smartphone, but other smartphones as well. It looks pretty sweet, and it runs Linux and offers a host of connectivity features. As a long-time Trēo user, this is one UMPC-like device I may actually invest in - especially given the announced un-UMPC-like price of $499 (after $100 rebate). Could this be the device that resuscitates the concept of a Personal Area Network?

The details of the announcement can be found over at MyTreo.net and the device itself is featured over at Palm.com along with a nifty Flash presentation from Jeff Hawkins.