The battle over Apple’s decision to keep Flash of its iPad and iPhone devices has taken a new turn this week, with the CEOs of the companies slugging it out with rant posts.
Over the course of a few months, the niceties between Apple and Adobe have broken down, with Apple practically saying Flash is not good enough to be on the iPad and one Adobe developer going as far as to tell Apple to screw itself.
This week, round two of the “epic” battle began, with Apple CEO Steve Jobs posting a 1700 word rant with his thoughts on Adobe and Flash, and why HTML5 is better. He also takes aim at Flash by saying it affects battery life negatively, is hard to use on touchscreen devices, and is not secure. I will post the letter at the end of the article, but Jobs concludes his post by saying:
“Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short. The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games. New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.”
[More]>>
Result for: media outlets
New York state officials are preparing to use Xbox Live to broadcast emergency alerts such as natural disasters and terrorist attacks.
The New York state Emergency Management Office says they are planning to test alerts over TV, radio, the Internet and the gaming consoles in an effort to “reach younger residents who spend more time on the Xbox, PlayStation,” then on traditional media outlets.
New York state deputy chief information officer Rico Singleton added (via IW): The decision was made mainly “considering the amount of time our youth spend on video games.”
Additional details are scarce but Singleton did say the technology is ready and being tested.
The Xbox online service was the only one mentioned by name but it is extremely likely the alerts will be broadcast via the PlayStation 3 and Wii as well.
Result for: media outlets
This week it was reported that NBC was sending out broadcast flags with its Monday night programming thus blocking Vista Media Center users from recording the programming. At the time both Microsoft and the broadcaster argued they did not know what had cause the interference but were investigating.
The incidents caused uproar on the internet especially considering that broadcast flag laws were thrown out and therefore no software needs to abide by them, even if they are sent out by the broadcaster. NBC has made a new statement today, saying the interference were purely a mistake.
“We made an inadvertent mistake,” an NBC spokeswoman explained, “We’re not aware of any other complaints, and we believe we have addressed the problem.”
Because DRM flagging is no longer mandatory, it seems that Microsoft is voluntarily having its Vista Media Center restrict recording. It could also be a monetary deal with the TV broadcasters. Microsoft has said however that it is “working with media outlets to cut down on the number of false DRM flags.”
