Murphy's Law: Adobe, Chill. Apple, Chill. Let's See Some Benchmarks!
Murphy's Law: Adobe, Chill. Apple, Chill. Let's See Some Benchmarks!
Posted 05/02/2010 at 7:50pm
| by David Murphy
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Put on the boxing gloves!
It could be said that the ongoing battle between Adobe and Apple--the classic "friends turned enemies" grudge match--is like a giant digital version of an MMA fight. Or perhaps it's more appropriate to dub it a "boss battle."
Steve Jobs, Apple Overlord, has been tossing up jabs against the apparent disaster that is Adobe Flash for some time now, scattered across various quotes and interviews with the tech press. Various Adobe executive have stepped into the squared circle in an attempt to prove the sincerity (and usefulness) of Flash's existence, and it's been a relatively amusing, "you suck / no I don't / you suck / no I don't" back-and-forth.
Well, Jobs' comments finally got the best of Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, who summoned up such powerful counterarguments as follows: Flash's crashing on Apple's operating systems was something, "to do with the Apple operating system," and that Apple's iPad was, "a good first-generation device. I think you're going to see just tremendous innovation in terms of tablets."
Yep. You're going to need some ointment for that burn, Steve.
I love a good digital squabble as much as the next person, and it's kind of funny to watch the heads of huge corporations go at it in a public forum--finding the best way to nicely insult each other in a manner that doesn't open either up for the ol' friendly lawsuit. But come on.
At Maximum PC--much like any legitimate hardware-focused website or magazine--the team prides itself on the statistics-driven, repeatable tests that drive the reporting behind its reviews. It doesn't do anyone much good to hear blasé statements like, "oh, this product is super-fast" or "I don't think this product is very secure." Whether either statement is actually true or not is immaterial: To a reader, these are more opinions than straight-laced, tested facts.
There's one great way that either Apple or Adobe can really drive this simple squabble home. Does Adobe crash Apple devices to a great frequency? Okay, let's see the numbers, tested across a wide range of Apple's offered devices.
Does Flash really drain the battery life as much as Steve says? Fire up the stopwatch and start rubbing the screen--let's see what happens when Flash is tested across a number of devices and applications to see just how bad the situation may or may not be.
This won't fix the underlying issue that Flash and Apple are the oil and water of the digital world--thus preventing a multitude of consumers from accessing Flash-drive content on their handheld Apple devices of choice. However, it would be nice to see in a direct, example-driven fashion just how much of this fight has become hyperbole over realism.
And who knows; perhaps if, indeed, Jobs is wrong, a grassroots support movement in favor of Flash could curry some kind of favor from the Halls of Cupertino. But even that's wishful thinking--Apple dictates how you use its devices, not the other way around.
Were I in charge of Apple, not only would I hang out more with the Woz, but I would also wait until a critical mass of i-whatever users has voiced displeasure at the lack of Flash on my company's devices. I'd then investigate adding a slightly speedier processor (or thicker battery) to the next generation of i-whatevers and charge people an additional fee to pick up the latest iPhone 3F or iPad 3F models--for Flash support, of course.
That, or I--as Apple--could just borrow a page from the open-source manual and fork my own firmware. I'd charge consumers $50 (or whatever) for a special Flash-enabled version of the iPhone or iPad firmware that comes with no additional tech support beyond what's listed on the Web site. I'd inform consumers that they're installing the firmware at their own risk and that there will be sporadic updates--at best--to match the devices' future "normal firmware" updates. Then voila--users get Flash and Apple gets money (and the ability to wipe its hand clean of any alleged Flash issues on its devices).
Hey, I never said I was nice. Jobs, Narayen, and whomever are good at throwing down, but there's no reason why they can't think outside the box a little bit and give consumers exactly what they want--based on my interactions with Apple devotees thus far, who are more than happy to buy iterations of products and their slightly feature-enhanced models that get released a month later, I think they'd pay for it. Wouldn't you? And, if not, wouldn't you want to know who to really blame?
David Murphy (@ Acererak) is a technology journalist and former Maximum PC editor. He writes weekly columns about the wide world of open-source as well as weekly roundups of awesome, freebie software.
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Caboose
May 03, 2010 at 2:51pm
Apple isn't just the oil, but an oil fire, and as we all know, water makes oil fires worse! They burn their loyal followers, they burn those that want to try an iWasteofmoney. They burn everyone! Heck, wonder boy Steve-Oh was FIRED from Apple once already because he's out of his freaking mind. It looks like it's going to have to happen again, only this time he shouldn't be welcomed back at all...
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
Cruzg10
May 03, 2010 at 11:53am
Maybe this is all some sort of elaborate publicity stunt where the two companies trade public jabs at each other and shit-talk like boxers do only to sell some sort of product thats mutually beneficial to both companies; like if the next gen ipad or iphone was flash compatible. then everyone will midnlessly throw money at them and think they have the best of both worlds with their new gadget that now "MAGICALLY" supports flash
LatiosXT
May 03, 2010 at 7:25am
I love how Apple is giving the illusion that they embrace open standards and open source (supposedly a lot of OS X is open source), but in reality they just want, as people have said, you locked down in their world. The one thing that kills all of their openess is their EULA. I figure a way I see it is "It's all open!... *under the breath* To Apple's hardware"
And while having Flash controlled solely by one entity probably isn't the best thing for computers, neither is Apple trying to shape the world to its benefit... which it's currently getting an upper hand in. How many people want to bet that the reason why major news and media streaming outlets were quickly trying to roll out HTML5 (IIRC, the standard was standard just last year) just because Apple refused Flash?
And Apple wants to talk about bloaty crashy software? Look at their Windows versions of their software. iTunes is bloaty. Quicktime is bloaty. And Safari is buggy.. at least that was my initial impression back in 3.0 Beta (the browser would crash if you tried to bookmark something. If Apple couldn't get a simple thing down, then I lost all confidence they'd get it right).
Would I still be in a right mind to say Apple is similar to... scientology?
Carbon
May 03, 2010 at 12:12am
Back it up with Benchmarks??
If Steve did that he'd loose just about every battle.Remember the ultra-tall lie about how the "Chips in the G5 were twice as fast as a PC" and in real world benchmarks the G5 got stomped and they were forced to pull the ads in many countries??
Same lies different day.
I will never buy an Apple made product because of things like that.
Apple is NOT a software company!
They are a HARDWARE company and only make software to lock you into their hardware eco-system.
If they can't control it, they can't force you to buy their products in the future.
They want you to pay for 250 apps so you will never want to leave the iPad/Pod/Phone world cuz you will loose those apps.
If you can play Flash Games for free they can't lock you in.
aviaggio
May 02, 2010 at 9:18pm
It has nothing to do with security or performance. It all comes down to control. Jobs won't touch Flash cause he can't control it. Adobe knows Flash is the de facto standard and is going to fight tooth and nail to keep it that way.
Flash is bloated and horribly inefficient, but so is Quicktime.
"Apple dictates how you use its devices, not the other way around"
And this is exactly why Apple products will *never* have Flash, no matter how much users complain.
And com'n Murph, you guys are MaximumPC! Do the benchmarks, man! Grab a netbook and loop a video encoded in Flash, Theora, and H264, and see which one drains the battery first. Isn't this what you guys do? Not a perfect test as to how Flash would run on an Apple device, but it's a start.
TheMurph
May 02, 2010 at 10:44pm
"It has nothing to do with security or performance. It all comes down to control. Jobs won't touch Flash cause he can't control it."
Bingo.
I'd be happy to donate my iPhone to a Flash test, for what it's worth. ; )
Danthrax66
May 02, 2010 at 8:58pm
Another apple article blah. I will always back adobe because the cause macs to fail adobe ftw! And why does this site suck so much for mobile browsers the damn italics button won't un-selct but at least the spam filter is gone?
Live, Learn, and Shut the Fuck Up.
TheMurph
May 02, 2010 at 10:43pm
Well, how often do you see two CEOs go toe-to-toe like these guys? And given that half of Jobs' argument relates to the idea of open versus proprietary software... seems fair game for a column, no?
PCIV
May 02, 2010 at 8:31pm
Flash's crashing on Apple's operating systems was something, "to do with
the Apple operating system,"Hm... I do recall reading something to this effect lately...
This is where it gets good, because he literally repeats one of Jobs' six
pillars of Flash hate: "reliability, security, and performance" are
not as good as Microsoft would like them.Oh wait, it's the opposite.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/30/microsoft-weighs-in-the-future-of-the-web-is-html5/
Dant
May 02, 2010 at 8:26pm
Fun Fact: That screenshot is from the Arcade game Primal Rage, it was essentialy a Mortal Kombat clone, but with animals
IMHO, it suits this article quite well
Cruzg10
May 03, 2010 at 9:17am
I played with Vertigo and won the majority of the time! aside from that the game was crappy
TheMurph
May 02, 2010 at 10:42pm
I'm glad you like it. I almost 'shopped the various CEOs heads on said dinosaurs, but, well... I thought that might be too much. ; )
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