Silicon Alley Insider is beating the old “Flash on the iPhone” drum again, and I’ve had a couple of private communications about the same. The claim is that Apple is missing out by not supporting (or even allowing) Flash.

Apple users may be missing out on a large chunk of the web, but is it an important chunk? Hardly.

Dan Frommer says, “Web sites aren’t being built with just HTML, CSS, Javascript, and H.264.”

Where has he been, stuck in the ’90s? Outside of YouTube (which is migrating to H.264), there’s nary a drop of Flash on Google or any of the major Web 2.0 properties out there. AJAX rules the roost. Actually, I can’t speak for Facebook; I don’t use it. Yahoo! has a smattering of Flash, but the Y!UI libraries show how a compelling DHTML (HTML, Javascript, and CSS) experience can be made. DHTML is more than adequate for the task; if your designer can’t get the job done without falling back on Flash, get a new designer.

Try surfing with the Flash plug-in disabled; you’ll find the experience much smoother than you would be led to believe by the Adobe marketing department. Flash was created to get around inconsistencies in browsers: fallout from the browser wars of the ’90s. Since Microsoft has recently back-tracked on their attempt to freeze standards at the (broken) IE7 level, expect far more progress in the consistency area.

Flash is good for only two things: games and ads (maybe video, but H.264 is much more efficient and video sharing sites need to squeeze out every drop of bandwidth). Apple is interested in neither for the iPhone, or even the desktop. As far as corporate navigation goes, any company that uses Flash for navigation beyond a worthless splash screen is more than likely only supporting Internet Explorer, so there’s no loss for Apple there.

Flash/AIR and Silverlight are both battling for control of the Rich Experience Web, and as the number of non-Flash, non-Silverlight web sites have shown, the Rich Experience Web does not need either one. Jobs is unlikely to cede control of his user experience to Adobe (which can barely get Flash to run on a full-fledged Macintosh) or to Microsoft (for obvious reasons).

In many ways, Apple is doing a stealth grab for the Rich Experience Web with WebKit: by providing a portable reference platform for HTML+AJAX+CSS+SVG, it can influence W3C standards in ways that benefit its needs. Even Adobe is controlled by Apple in that regard: Adobe uses WebKit as the rendering agent for AIR.

Do you really think a megalomaniac like Steve Jobs is going to leave the implementation of the user experience to another company, especially Microsoft? Do you?

Yeah, neither did I.

---

Hm, “HTML+AJAX+CSS+SVG.” “HACS.” I like that acronym. Web 2.1, anybody?

A funny thing happened at work today. Funny as in “troubling.”

I work at Yahoo! (exclamation point mandatory, sorry), and unless you’ve been under a rock for the last two months, you are aware that Yahoo! is fending off the unwilling advances of Microsoft.

Well, this appeared on the internal boards this week:

There are photos of someone on the walls of Bld A 1st and 2nd floors
(break-room, stairs etc). Why and who is this?

The response was:

I heard he is a new employee that has been planted into Y! by Microsoft.
Watch out what you say around him.

This exchange immediately brought to mind the final exchange from that story by Rod Serling:

“Understand the procedure now? Just stop a few of their machines, their telephones, their lawnmowers, throw them into darkness for a few hours, and then sit back and watch the pattern.”

“This pattern is always the same?”

“With few variations. They pick the most dangerous enemy they can find.... and it’s themselves. All we need do is sit back and watch.”

Indeed. In the immortal words of Walt Kelly, “We have met the enemy, and it is us.”

In summary:

#!/usr/bin/perl -l
@m = qw(mi cro soft);
@y = qw(ya hoo);

while (@m && @y) {
  $s = shift @{rand > .5 ? \@m : \@y};
  push @r, $s if !@r || rand > .5
}

$" = "";
print "\u@r!"';

Not fired yet (but considering leaving on my own).

Not fired yet.

Not fired yet.

Ted killed it. He attended the Crunchies, and like Tom Lehrer after seeing Henry Kissinger get the Nobel Peace Prize, felt no satire could top real life.

Not fired yet.

(Watch this space for bulletins)

#spinnwebe Goes to MacWorld ’08

Robot roll call:

Kyol

hah

wabewalkr

Hi

wabewalkr

Was thinking noone would show.

Kyol

why YES it's a STEVENOTE

bob

hey wabe, good to see ya

wabewalkr

You people had me worried.

bob

actually it's really rude of steve to have the keynote today. the magazine's getting boned by deadlines and i've got a meeting at 1 central.

bob

probably a short status meeting kinda deal but puhLEEZ it's my christmas

On the physiological effects of the keynote:

wabewalkr

Boners for all.

*** bob has changed the topic on channel #spinnwebe to <wabewalkr> Boners for all.

On Time Capsule:

Kyol

Saweet. Time capsule

wabewalkr

Wait -- wireless backups?

Kyol

FINALLY

wabewalkr

Wasn't that supposed to be part of Time Machine? Wireless backups to Airport Express + USB HD?

bob

oh good! a terabyte of data at 802.11g speeds!

On iPhone speculation:

bob

wonder how many of those iphones went straight to ebay

bob

and are still there

wabewalkr

Heh. $1200 for a $300 phone. It's a deal!

On Web2.0’s insidious infiltration of keynote coverage:

bob

looks like the ilounge 30-second autorefresh starts over every time i leave and then return to the page

wabewalkr

They're triggering a refresh on blur. How Web2.0-ish.

bob

what's blur, besides how fast my right hand is moving at the moment?

wabewalkr

window loses focus

wabewalkr

sorry, had to do some web 2.0 crap and it's rotting in the back of my brain.

bob

heheh, right this very minute i'm editing our march cover article, about how realtors can leverage web 2.0

wabewalkr

"Leave it out, and your users will love you."

bob

yeah, one of the sentences in the intro:

bob

"The tech world has dubbed tools like blogs and social network sites like Facebook as Web 2.0, enabling Web users to connect with one another rather than view content passively."

bob

so we can expect technical accuracy of oh, say, just about 0

wabewalkr

I stopped reading when I hit "Facebook," sorry.

bob

no, you did the right thing

On the cost of upgrading:

wabewalkr

Free update to phone.

wabewalkr

And coincidentally, free bricking to those foolish enough to unlock.

bob

wow, $20 for that upgrade

wabewalkr

Whu?

wabewalkr

Maps?

wabewalkr

Maps on a device that really shouldn't leave your house except to go to Starbucks?

wabewalkr

Unless Apple's launching a WiFi satellete...

wabewalkr

<sarcasm>Yeah, that's so worth $20</sarcasm>

On iTMS movie rentals:

wabewalkr

Rentals!

Kyol

yeah sure whatevers

bob

no fapping there for me either

wabewalkr

Don't want movie rentals?

bob

i don't even have a video store account, let alone netflix

wabewalkr

Well, not if they're 24-hour limited.

wabewalkr

What are the damn terms? If I have to give up my left nut to see "Spiderman 3" I might not be interested.

Kyol

I already have movie rentals, except they're free and permanent and DRM free, it's called UUCP.

wabewalkr

UUCP?

wabewalkr

Over FidoNet?

Kyol

er NNTP

On techno-Ludditism:

wabewalkr

And I thought bob was the Luddite.

Kyol

I'm still working at a dialup ISP, I think I carry the techno-Luddite crown.

On the immortal question:

wabewalkr

iPod Touch or iPhone?

bob

touch, i have a sidekick for a smartphone

bob

the touch will be my tablet for catching up on porn

On terms of service and thinking about baseball:

wabewalkr

Fuck you, Steve. 48 hours, yes; 24, no.

wabewalkr

I like to watch my movies over multiple days.

Kyol

More than 15 minutes at a shot and I'm spent

wabewalkr

Try ginseng for that, Kyol.

On bandwidth:

bob

i hope all this rental movie traffic doesn't slow down my torrents

On bandwidth, redux:

Kyol

apple tv mk deuce

bob

done a little closer to right, anyway

wabewalkr

Death of the mini, more like.

bob

there ya go, kyol, HD rentals add a buck

wabewalkr

Heh, HD rentals over dialup.

On social networks and closet cases:

bob

OMG spyware!

bob

"Can preview movies from the interface, and see what other users who have rented that movie have rented"

wabewalkr

Damnit, Steve, don't get on the Web2.0 bandwagon!

Kyol

"get on"?

wabewalkr

If you offer a Facebook plugin, I'm coming over to Moscone with a bat.

Kyol

have you SEEN itunes?

wabewalkr

Sigh, yes.

wabewalkr

I've also used Amazon's recommendation service.

wabewalkr

National Coming Out day has passed, otherwise I would be ready to admit I'm in the social networking closet.

On wealth through negligence, or making money the AOL way:

bob

they oughtta let me rent songs for a quarter

wabewalkr

For 24 hours?

bob

yeah, why not

bob

they've got the infrastructure, it's a coupla hours of coding for an intern

bob

call it "apple party" or something, if you don't own some music and want to play it, put it in a playlist, we'll charge you a quarter each

wabewalkr

Ah, smart.

wabewalkr

People will forget it's rented, end up with a $2500 bill at the end of the month.

On the inevitable approach of the alien CEO:

bob

sigh, now the third-party ceos parade out to see how jobs' cock tastes

bob

BATHROOM BREAK

On privateering:

bob

only pirates want to own optical media readers

wabewalkr

I thought they want to own optical media writers?

On website stability, and more baseball thoughts:

wabewalkr

Engadget can't stop using the word "excited."

bob

oh yeah baby

wabewalkr

They got too excited... "Please refresh this page in a few minutes."

On the MacBook Air:

wabewalkr

OK, and so...

wabewalkr

Same screen dimensions as the regular MacBook...

Kyol

Yeah, it's an aluminum macbook, just real thin.

Kyol

whoop-tee-doo

bob

not a touchscreen, just a big touchpad

wabewalkr

"How did we fit it all in there? Answer: we didn't. It's really a dumb terminal that connects to your Mac at home. So you have to buy two!"

bob

"Your choice of green or amber!"

Kyol

Huh, it's actually not horribly specced, either.

Kyol

"Because this fucker is going to break. A lot.

wabewalkr

Fits in an envelope, for easy shipping!

wabewalkr

"Do not fold, spindle or mutilate."

bob

it won't be safe to just carry a manila envelope on the street anymore

wabewalkr

On the other hand, the MacBook Air doubles as a large shuriken. Hack up bad guys with ease and style.

bob

and a ramp so you can do stunts with your sweet hot wheels collection!

On the loss of legacy copper:

wabewalkr

No FireWire. Dealbreaker.

bob

apple's trying to kill firewire i think

wabewalkr

Yeah, I suspect so.

Kyol

I wonder if they've figure out how to do the whole mac transfer thing over usb somehow.

bob

which sucks what with it being fast and reliable unlike usb

Kyol

That shit is THE number onf reason I'll slobber apple knob as long as I live.

wabewalkr

Actually, I think they'll kill USB next.

wabewalkr

Steve spurts for wireless.

wabewalkr

There's your answer, Kyol: MBA uses WiFi for transfer.

wabewalkr

No Firewire, no USB.

bob

yeah it has usb

wabewalkr

No, I meant no USB transfer.

bob

sure! copy stuff from one mac onto your usb drive, then bring it over to the air

wabewalkr

Sneakernet 2.0

On Remote Disk:

bob

ooooh, you can see what CDs and DVDs people have mounted around you

Kyol

porn porn porn porn office 2007 porn

On beautiful things that you heathens refuse to buy:

wabewalkr

I'm calling "Cube" right now. Who's with me?

wabewalkr

Beautiful, droolworthy, but ultimately a sales flop.

bob

maybe

Kyol

eh, the laptop market is actually viable, though.

bob

maybe they learned from their mistakes and next macbook air is good, though

wabewalkr

Can't see it... what does it bring to the table that the current MB and MBP don't?

Kyol

x-treme portability for the mini PC crowd.

Kyol

only $1800!

Kyol

versus the $350 eee hrm

wabewalkr

Still, it doesn't "fit" into the lineup, unless they're going to introduce the iMac Air as "one more thing."

On greener Apples:

Kyol

Oh it's a GREEN laptop I see

bob

Environmental highlights: fully aluminum case (good for recycling), first fully mercury and lead free display, circuit boards are BFR free, retail packaging are 56% less volume than MacBook.

wabewalkr

That's because it's shipped in a manila envelope.

wabewalkr

And Gladys from accounting hand-writes the address label, because she took caligraphy at night school.

wabewalkr

"Next, the gMac, as in 'green.' The case is 100% cornstarch."

The final analysis:

Kyol

they're doing highlights of 2008 SO FAR I dunno steve

bob

is it time for... one more thing?

wabewalkr

Yep, boners on standby.

bob

shit, i got excited for a second when i saw "steve jobs retaking stage" on macrumorslive, then it turned out the refresh munged the scroll

bob

nope, not if the music's starting

Kyol

RANDY NEWMAN

Kyol

short people.. doot dootle dee doot

bob

maybe they'll announce manila envelope 2.0 that randy newman can fit into

wabewalkr

Thin people... got no one to love.

wabewalkr

I give this keynote a 4. Nice beat, but you couldn't dance to it.

bob

heh, ilounge: "10:36 Continued political/economic diatribe, how media is focusing on the companies but not the poeple who are being hurt."

bob

ars technica isn't where i expect to see "rofl"

wabewalkr

They just reported on "Tight ass"

wabewalkr

Oh well, might as well ooze off to work.

My friend Brandon had to debug some code, and it contained some horrible atrocities. He eventually tracked the source of the stupidity to the manual page for the PHP function abs.

Do we need to have some mandatory licensing in place before one is allowed to code? It seems that stupidity isn't limited to commenters on PHP manual pages: Pownce is full of it.

Attention People of the Internet: if I ever make pathetic statements like those uttered by the moguls in this article, you have my pre-authorization to whop me on the back of my head, preferably with a baseball bat:

They're Single, Ambitious, Worth Millions, But Can New York Women Download Their Megabyte Egos?

Whoo. Glow-in-the-dark kittens.

We need more bioengineering like this.

Ethics be damned. Glow-in-the-dark kittens would be good for the kittens: there would be less chance of them getting hit by a car at night if they fluoresced.

In fact, I would bet dollars to donuts that if you injected 1% of the cats today with jellyfish DNA, by the end of the century 90% of the cats would glow. It’s evolution in action: getting hit by cars at night kill a lot of cats. (I've lost three that way.) Glow-in-the-dark cats would live longer and breed more.

Damn it, if God didn't want cats to glow, he wouldn't give us DNA recombination technology in the first place!

Had the talk today at work (tick tick tick...), and as usual, this has made me introspective on software management.

Why do so many managers believe that if you officially end-of-life a product (that is, stop active enhancement), that product will suddenly stop working?

“We can’t stop development on that product! It’s vital to our revenue stream!”

“But if you stop working on it, it still will run, right?”

“That doesn’t matter! We have to keep that product alive!”

Attention Managers: since the majority of you are members of the Managerial Cult of Steve Jobs, here’s a little factoid: Jobs killed MacOS 9 five years ago, but I still run it for some old games and unported applications. A handful of businesses still run on it. Yet by refusing to enhance it further, Jobs released needed resources to move forward with MacOS X.

I’m quoting uncov far too much, but I must preserve this gem for posterity:

Credibility? Bloggers have no credibility — we are just a bunch of assholes who write this stuff from our living rooms. Once we leave the internet, we come to the stark realization that nobody cares.

ret•req |'ret ,rek| noun a bizarre behavior from software explained post facto by editing the wiki holding the requirements document once said behavior is discovered.

Origin early 21st cent.: blend of retroactive and requirement.

See Also CYA

While doing maintenance, I found the following atrocity:

inline void fast_strncpy(char *dest, const char *src, int nbytes) {
  if (nbytes <= 10) {
    switch (nbytes) {
      case 1:
        dest[0] = '\0';
        break;
      case 2:
        dest[0] = src[0];
        dest[1] = '\0';
        break;
      case 3:
        dest[0] = src[0];
        dest[1] = src[1];
        dest[2] = '\0';
        break;
      case 4:
        dest[0] = src[0];
        dest[1] = src[1];
        dest[2] = src[2];
        dest[3] = '\0';
        break;
        // AND SO ON FOR AN OBSCENE NUMBER OF CASES...
  }
  else {
    memcpy(dest, src, nbytes - 1);
    dest[nbytes] = '\0'; // WHAT’S WRONG HERE, KIDS?
  }
}

“Why does our performance suck compared to the competitors?”

Because maybe, just maybe, your engineers can’t program worth crap?

The Internet Brings You to God.

Disabling comments to prevent positive feedback cycle of spam appreciation.

Image stolen from uncov without permission.
Please don’t sue.

Gah, just tried to use the company’s new Web 2.0-ish map program and found that, because of Flash, I could not cut-n-paste an address.

In the words of TED, of uncov fame:

FAIL

On the new hardware:

Kyol

128-bit

Kyol

vector engine

Kyol

replaces

Kyol

altivec

bob

... they're shipping with 256 megs of RAM

On the new software:

bob

YES STEVE I WILL ENJOY BOOTING THE LEOPARD KERNEL AND PERHAPS FSCK

On Apple’s endemic supply chain problem:

bob

whoa. available today.

Kyol

2 or 3 of them, sure. Otherwise 4 week shipping delay.

bob

well, yeah, there's only one stock config, everything after that is BTO

On the rumor mill:

Kyol

Yeah yeah, none of this is news though.

Kyol

"They redid the powermacs? Whoda thunkit?"

Kyol

I'm waiting for the mysterious touchscreen full display video ipod that has been rumored.

On the intrusion of the real world:

wabewalkr

Friggen hell.

bob

ooooh i always loved it when you talked dirty

wabewalkr

I wanted to get all the fun stuff, and then my damn junior programmer called me away for "five minutes."

bob

the real erotica comes with the leopard

On instant gratification:

Kyol

I miss the streamed stevenotes, though.

wabewalkr

Yeah, it's like hearing someone describe a delicious steak.

bob

yeah, it's gonna suck not seeing the screen shots

Kyol

They'll pop up the stream later today though.

bob

but then it'll be... old.

On intermittent site updates:

wabewalkr

Steve returns, and all the rumor sites go dead.

wabewalkr

Did all the onsite reporters die of a heart attack?

wabewalkr

"You may be here to hear about Leopard. Well, Leopard's dead; we're going Vista!"

On the absence of details:

wabewalkr

"top secret features not being shown, just not letting you know what they are"

wabewalkr

Translation: they're not done yet.

bob

s/done/specced/

bob

although don't let that imply they haven't started coding them

bob

guess it won't be a very stable OS

wabewalkr

Return to the OS 8 era! For nostalgia! And so Ars Technica will stop bitching about our inconsistent user interface guidelines!

On “Time Machine”:

wabewalkr

Oh dear, speaking of Retrospect...

wabewalkr

I can hear Dantz pulling the plug on it right now.

bob

well, apple does basic stuff, but i think time machine would hurt retrospect as much as font book hurt suitcase

On the “stimulating” effect of the keynote:

bob

why do spammers waste time with v14g®a ads when jobs' keynotes are the only thing that works for me

wabewalkr

C!l#i#c#k H33R 4 H0T WWDC D!SC'NTS

On the power of “Time Machine”:

bob

"And we back up everything. All of your files, folders, applications, operating system, which means we can restore everything. If your hard drive dies, you can buy a new one and be right back where you were."

wabewalkr

"We own you. Bow to ZOD."

bob

i've got hard drives that aren't ever coming back to life and how would time machine get that back

On the storage support of “Time Machine”:

bob

well, i wonder if they're using .mac

Kyol

"That gets maybe 10k/s _tops_ to most macs, no matter what speed your connection is."

wabewalkr

"You can back up everything to one of the most unreliable internet services on the planet!"

The most-obvious-statement-of-the-day award goes to:

Kyol

Microsoft can do some really neat shit, but they're kind of lax on pushing it in your face in the way Apple does.

On networked “Spotlight”:

wabewalkr

Eh, LAN searches.

Kyol

Oooh, networked spotlight.

Kyol

That's kindasorta convenient.

wabewalkr

Not sure I'd want my mom finding all of my pr0n.

On the other operating system choices:

Kyol

I just with the OSS community would step up to the plate and make FOSS clones of this shit.

wabewalkr

Nah, they're too busy making their apps skinnable.

Kyol

I was happy that rhythmbox supports itunes music sharing, which makes up for the fact that it's a steaming pile of crap in oh so many other ways.

The most-obvious-statement-of-the-day award (honorable mention) goes to:

wabewalkr

Animations is a feature? That's like having "interactive menus" a feature on a DVD.

On the dangers of easy eye candy:

wabewalkr

Oh, crap.

wabewalkr

Core Animation.

wabewalkr

I see why they're going nuts.

wabewalkr

You can get effects in your own apps.

Kyol

Yeah, I think the thing to remember is this is a DC, not a macworld.

wabewalkr

God, there's going to be some butt-ugly overanimated freeware out there.

bob

well, the real danger comes in jan., when the new imovie and idvd support it

wabewalkr

"My four-function calculator has ripple effects when you press the buttons! I call it LiquiCalc!"

bob

"look! the tape falls off and rolls around the bottom of the monitor!"

On the improvements to “Spotlight”:

bob

oh yay, booleans for spotlight, maybe it'll be useful someday

Kyol

porn and not tranny

On the enhancements to “Mail.app”:

bob

heh. 10:57 am next up: the big one and 10:58 am major enhancements - mail

bob

yeah, POP3 enhancements r00l

bob

oh, i get it, they turned mail into lotus notes

bob

bleh mail is boring

On the sideshow:

wabewalkr

Oh, he said "boom." Another box on the bingo card.

On the other time machine:

wabewalkr

Remember back in Sys 8 where there was an AppleScript to pop up a very simple dialog to send mail?

wabewalkr

I'm getting deja vu.

wabewalkr

If the one-more-thing turns out to be dotMac becoming iTools and going free...

On showing your age:

Kyol

Dashboard needs.. Screens or something.

Kyol

Virtual desktops.

bob

a swift death would be OK with me

bob

ain't 1984 and i don't need desk accessories anymore

Kyol

I like the concept, but there's just too much to put on my screen.

bob

eh, even the concept doesn't make sense to me

Kyol

CSS/HTML elements? Yeah, I could find that on the web, or I could type the element into the applet and have it do it for me. Weather forcast? Yeah, I could bring up weather.com, or I could hit F12 and hey, firey balls!

bob

well, really, the only thing i ever used DAs for was to play yahtzee when ZTerm was downloading something

wabewalkr

Bob, you are so old school, it's impressive.

bob

thanks! and get off my lawn!

On showing your age, part deux:

wabewalkr

2500 widgets. Remember when you could go to info-mac and download 2500 HyperCard stacks?

bob

heheheh wabe

bob

the real joke is, you still can

On the sad, sad state of Wabewalker’s employment:

bob

yeah, i was riffing

wabewalkr

Sorry, my sarcasm gland is severly shriveled from my over-literal work environment.

On the Jay Leno look:

wabewalkr

WTF is a "jay leno look"?

Kyol

Big chin?

On the lack of appeal:

bob

i don't think i've ever used ichat

bob

i use dashboard once every four or five months when i accidentally click on the icon

On ars gratia artis:

bob

heh, ok, that's cool, ichat does automatic greenscreening

wabewalkr

I can see a lot of potential for abuse/fun with that.

bob

oh, nice, not just static backgrounds

bob

yeah, suddenly i want to buy iporn.com iporn.net iporn.us and any others

Kyol

Ever get the impression even apple isn't entirely sure what to do with their core elements?

Kyol

I mean, that's a pretty straightforward application of the core video and graphics stuff they've had for a few years.

wabewalkr

"We've got UNIX!" *yawn* "We've got GPU offloading!" *yawn* "Chat from the moon!" *applause*

On getting your grubby hands on it:

wabewalkr

Ow, get Leopard today (if you attended WWDC).

bob

tonight if you have bittorrent

On disappointing dénouement:

bob

I'm afraid this speech jumped the shark for me back around the spotlight part