The iPad is revealed. And there is a wave of whining, excitement, confusion and PR spin like you’ve never seen.
Like it’s older and smaller brothers, the iPhone and iPod Touch, the iPad doesn’t allow the Flash plug-in to run within the included Mobile Safari browser. This was a hot topic with the iPhone, but it’s even hotter with the iPad largely because Steve Jobs hailed the device as the “best browsing experience” and also because more folks seem to understand that the Flash overhead wouldn’t make sense on the iPhone; the iPad is a faster beast thanks to Apple’s new A4 chip after all.
The amount of arguing and discussion on this is still snowballing as I write this, but in summary here are the better posts that have come up so far:
The iPad provides the ultimate browsing experience? – a visual point well-made from Adobe Flash Evangelist Lee Brimelow.
Sympathy For The Devil – Adobe Photoshop PM John Nack’s excellent post on the subject
Adobe, Apple, Flash and Flash on iPhone Political Calculus by Daring Fireball’s John Gruber
Flash Headed The Way of Director – by Michael Pinto
What If Flash Were An Open Standard – John Gruber again
Adobe isn’t in the Flash business, again by John Nack (as a rebuttal)
The Withering Away of Flash – by Nathan Peretic
Flash, iPad, and Standards – by Jeffrey Zeldman
And finally, but not least check out these bonus post from Steven Frank, who needs to talk to you about computers and also The Failure of Empathy by Mike Monteiro.
I personally believe that no matter what happens to Flash, we are seeing the turbulence that comes with the next evolution of personal computing (hence my link to Steven Frank’s article).
Flash may become a casualty. It may not. Folks will have to move on and learn new skills. As Michael Pinto points out, it could fizzle the way Director/Shockwave did. Boy, do I remember the loads of Shockwave developers in college, many of whom did indeed go on to working with the stuff professionally, for a little while. It went downhill fast once Flash really took hold. Director (and therefore Shockwave) was really huge. I don’t think anyone expected it to fizzle.
What could replace Flash? Web standards (specifically CSS3 and Javascript served with HTML5). Probably not Silverlight, Microsoft’s “Flash Killer” that nobody really asked for. Although Silverlight has DRM support that Flash couldn’t handle, so Netflix streams their videos through it.
Probably not another plug-in either. I really do think we’re moving past that.
My point is that this huge explosion of naysayers and pundits is proof that something big is going to happen. We’ll look back on this years from now and hopefully laugh.
Update: see also this more technical but interesting post over at Diary of an X264 Developer.
The always excellent A List Apart published what has so far been an excellent summary of the debate so far: Flash and Standards: The Cold War of the Web.
Gift Cards Are Evil
Since my wedding in 2007, I’ve decided that gift cash cards are evil.
I’m not talking about product-specific gift certificates like iTunes cards, Home Depot, Amazon Gift Cards, etc. I’m talking about generic Visa/MasterCard cash cards like the Vanilla Visa or others.
Why the hate? These cards have limited use and are frustrating to spend. Often the cards can only be used for a limited time before fees are charged and God help you if you have to deal with customer service for anything.
Also, the giver and recipient of these cards lose some of principal when the card is used for stuff like online shopping (bet you’ve never done that). So that $100 (or whatever) you gave someone is probably going to be less and you paid a fee to buy the card in some cases.
You’d be better off writing a check or maybe even using PayPal to shoot money to someone. And cash is sometimes just more personal though I know you did the gift card because it was convenient. Convenient for you, not your recipient.
Gift cards are highly profitable to credit card companies, etc. because most people leave small or even large balances on them because it’s such a hassle to keep track of them. I’ve been there and learned this the hard way and have more or less become a master of squeezing out every last penny I can – and you can’t get it all.
Guess what? It’s a real hassle and not worth it for the few dollars that end up left on the card after trying to spend it. And remember you can’t use these things when a PIN is needed, so for example gas has to be paid for inside, not at the pump. Basically any transaction you do without a savvy real living breathing cashier is going to bring the pain.
The best solution if you get a gift card is to blow it all in one purchase. Do it as soon as you can and get the card out of your life. The instructions on many of the cards I get actually say this. This might be best done anywhere that deals with paying with two cards (not so much online). Often that means dealing with a person and explaining that you need two charges for X amounts.
My recent solution to this has simply been to convert whatever card I get to an Amazon Gift Card. That means I can buy whatever online and Amazon tends to sell rather a lot.
If you want to do this read the following carefully, because it’s trickier than you think.
Congratulations! You’ve lost a dollar, but you’re done and free of the cursed gift card and can buy that new BBQ, PS3 or whatever using a credit card mixed with your gift card number!