The iPad’s browsing experience
My fellow evangelist Lee Brimelow created an accurate view of the browsing experience on Apple’s new iPad. Sometimes a picture does say more than a thousand words… Go check it out on Lee’s blog.
Open letter from a Mac-head
Dear Steve,
After working on Windows PCs for over 15 years, I switched to Mac about 6 years ago. I was sick and tired of spending more time keeping my system up and running than being creative. I remember it well. I actually borrowed a G5 to test both Mac and Windows head to head… and I never looked back. I immediately fell in love with OS X and the simplicity of using a Mac. Everything just worked and I could finally be creative again without worrying about crashes or driver conflicts. It wasn’t long before every single PC in the house was replaced by a Mac. I got a G5 to work on, bought a Power Book for work on the road, an iMac for my girlfriend and even an eMac for my mom.
When you announced the iPhone, I had my credit card in my hand somewhere halfway through your presentation. Sadly you only released it in the US at first and so I had to wait a little bit. I’m not ashamed to say that I “imported” one and hacked it so I could use it in Europe. You did a fantastic job with the iPhone and you truly changed the mobile industry. I could even live with the fact that the first version did not have the Flash plugin in the mobile Safari browser. I didn’t think I would, but I was standing in line the day you launched the iPhone 3G in Belgium and yes… I was also in waiting in line the day you launched the iPhone 3GS.
It was definitely harder to swallow that you still didn’t allow Flash on the 3GS. I totally found it plausible that the original iPhone’s CPU was struggling with Flash content but you said that the 3GS was a lot faster than the original iPhone. Add to that that Flash runs just fine on Android, WebOS, WinMo and Symbian smartphones… Together with the Open Screen Project partners, Adobe is working very hard on making sure that Flash Player 10.1 runs smoothly on these devices.
Yesterday, you announced the iPad. I recently bought an HP TouchSmart TX2 tablet (running Windows 7, which allows me to install both Flash Player, AIR and any other plugin) because you are right. There is room for something between the iPhone and my MacBook Pro. There definitely is room for a tablet to browse the web, play games, watch movies or read books on. However… this time you failed to enthuse me.
While the iPad’s form factor seems spot on, the limited operating system isn’t. When you demonstrated the web browser, it was very obvious that the browser did not support Flash (or any other plugins). When you showed the New York Times website, the video player was missing and a big missing plugin icon showed up on screen. Surely this is not the experience you wanted to demonstrate. You said you can browse the full web on the iPad but it clearly isn’t the full web… Isn’t that exactly why you would use a beautiful device like this? To watch video on sites like Facebook, CNN, ESPN, ABC, Fox, Hulu, MSNBC, Epix, … while you’re on the road? But it’s not just about video. What about those hundreds –maybe thousands– of sites that rely on advertisers to pay their bills? Sure… web ads can be really annoying but the reality is that advertisers like to use Flash for their ads. And what about games? Millions of people play Flash games on sites like Facebook, Miniclip, Kongregate and Disney every single day. Flash is a big part of the web today and when you promise “the best way to experience the web” I expect it to be the full web and not the crippled version you demonstrated on stage yesterday.
I’m sure Adobe would welcome you with open arms if you decided to join the Open Screen Project and help us to build an optimized version of Flash Player for the iPad. Some of our OSP partners have already demonstrated full HD 1080P Flash Video on a netbook so I see no reason why it wouldn’t work on the iPad.
I’m sorry to say that even though I am a Mac-head, I won’t be standing in line to get an iPad if I can’t browse the full web on it.
Serge
To anyone reading this: Make sure you blog your thoughts and/or leave a comment.
Update: Also read Ralph Hauwert’s and Mike Chambers’ post.
Flex: The Ecosystem
The Flex family extends far beyond the Flex Framework and the Flash Builder IDE. A lot of third party vendors have created applications, frameworks, components and tools to help you be successful in your application development. There are tools for functional, performance and security testing, third party components, AMF products, licensing and encryption tools and even plugins for Visual Studio.
To make it easier for you to find these third party tools, we’ve just posted a comprehensive list of products and projects that provide support for the Flex framework.
Upcoming events: WIF, MWC, FITC, FFK10
While the next coming months are going to be a little bit hectic, I am really looking forward to it. I’m especially looking forward to seeing you guys at these events.
WIF – February 5th & 6th – Namur, Belgium – http://www.wif-dogstudio.be/
WIF (Webdesign International Festival) is a worldwide event and this will be the first one in Belgium. It may sound strange to some of you, but I don’t speak at events in my backyard that much. Even though I live in Belgium, the majority of my speaking engagements are abroad. So it’s obvious that I am looking forward to this one. Maybe this one even more as it is the first event (to my knowledge) in the French speaking part of Belgium. I’ll be doing a keynote session at the end of the first day… right before the bar opens up ;-)
Mobile World Congress – February 15th-18th, Barcelona, Spain – http://www.mobileworldcongress.com
I already talked about MWC last week but let me repeat that I am very excited about MWC this year. If you’re a developer interested in mobile application development and interested in checking out MWC, then visit http://www.adobe.com/go/mwc2010. We’re offering Flash Platform developers a limited number of complimentary exhibition visitor passes (a value of € 599 per person) on a first-come, first-served basis.
FITC – February 22nd-23rd – Amsterdam, The Netherlands – http://www.fitc.ca
FITC starts just a few days after MWC so it’s obvious you can expect some cool mobile demos in the FITC keynote (along with other cool stuff of course ;-)). I’m also doing a session on AIR 2 and all the new features it has to offer. I will show a bunch of code snippets and how to use them in real applications.
FFK10 – April 13th-16th – Cologne, Germany – http://ffk10.flashforum.de
This event is three months from now, but tickets are going fast! This will be my third year at FFK10 and it’s always great fun. Sascha and Marc always do a great job putting this event together. This year will be their 10th anniversary and I promise to bring something cool to the keynote ;-)
If you’re going to be at one of these events, feel free to ping me and to come and say “Hi”. Hope to see you there!
Haiti needs your help! Show your support and help raise awareness!
I know this is extremely off topic but nonetheless I think it’s well worth pointing your attention to. I’m sure you’ve heard about the devastating earthquake in Haiti. According to the Red Cross, 3 million people (1 in 3 Haitians) are affected by the earthquake.
While Haiti is definitely not around the corner for most of us, you too can help. You can help by donating to the Red Cross, Unicef, Oxfam or other help organizations. Even the smallest amount can help. I’ve donated €25/$36 to the Red Cross which will be matched by Adobe.
You can also help raise awareness by adding this little widget (as seen on the right) I created this morning to your site. It’s extremely easy! Just click on the “grab and share button” and add it to your social network page, blog or site. After you’ve added it to your site, ask your friends to do the same.
Feel free to follow me on: 
