Dont want Flash

The first FormSpring question.

If Farmville wants to hit the mobile market it could. If I was them I would build a web application built for mobiles. Using Javascript for animations and any basic effects. Although its worth remembering the device we are dealing with here.

Mobiles dont have a lot of graphical ompfh nor not a lot of memory. So Farmville Lite would be a good option.

It’s up to the developers and owners of Farmville to decide what they want to do. But making a light and mainly text based option would be best for them to start from. Then as graphics and memory is improved, so can their application.

I did a test to see how consuming Flash was on a computer.

Now it would be wrong of me to just blatantly say “You’re battery will die before the video ends” when using Flash on a mobile device. I know Flash would have a cut down version for mobile, I know that.

So we cant really compare these results outright. But lets not totally throw out the test. It’s an indication.

But there is one thing I have to point out, its obvious but overlooked. Flash is made by Adobe, the iPhone and iPad are made by Apple. Apple knows how to get the best efficiency out of their device, Adobe doesn’t.

It’s like getting a mechanic that specialises in Ferrari’s to go and do maintenance on a Porsche. Sure the job would be done but it wouldn’t be efficient.

Using Flash on mobile would chew through your battery. Watching video’s would be worse because of the fetching via cellular network and outputting of the video itself. It’s just not right. So at the end of a day you would go to ring your mates only to find your iDevice has powered down because its flat.

Devices cant be compact and fast when they need a bigger battery and have to run a plugin on every web page.

I did a test. A test to measure the usage of energy comparing Flash and Quicktime (native OS player).

Test Environment:

Macbook Pro 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo (early 2007)
3 GB RAM
128MB ATI Radeon X1600
Snow Leopard 10.6

Using iStat Menu’s as a source for the live values.

Starting Values:

CPU Amps: 4A
CPU Watts: 3.68W
CPU Temp: 58˚C

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If you have an iPhone think about this. How much personal data is on that device? All your Contacts, SMS’s, Call Records, Emails, Notes, Photos, Videos, Web History, Passwords?

Now what would happen if someone got access to all that information? Well you would have your identity stolen. All of that information is more than enough for someone to create a duplicate of you and start taking out loans in your name.

Yep it’s a scary thought. If my iPhone was stolen I would run to the nearest computer to perform a remote wipe from MobileMe.

So what happens when you introduce a platform that anyone can develop or publish some code into an executable/SWF file put it on the web (by hacking it onto a popular site) and then have your device then browse that page. Yep, if an exploit exists your device will be owned.

This is the issue that Flash can not overcome. And a reason we can speculate of why Apple is not adding it to their devices.

So what if Flash actually made it onto the iPhone. We’ll you would have 42.48 million devices walking around with all this personal information ready, waiting. Hackers and Identity Theif’s would jump at the chance to be apart of the biggest gold rush of available personal information. So where would you target?

A native application? Nope. Apple checks every one before shipping and to get an App on the store you need to be verified and have a CCard.

By stealing the device? Plausible although MobileMe with its tracking and remote wipe (also available on MS Exchange for business) can stop the theifs in their tracks.

Flash, easy to develop and no moderation required? YES. There is no Apple filter here and anything could waltz in and get what they want, without you even knowing!

So there is a very big case on why Flash should NEVER EVER be on a personal mobile device.

The web has grown up in terms of multimedia. It started off with video files just rawly linked in a page, download to view.

Then came the in-browser plug-ins and depending on what you did or didn’t have plugged in you may or may not have been able to see what the website had to offer. I particularly remember stupidvideos.com and having to use the Quicktime plug-in.

Enter Flash. Although it was around for a while it didn’t enter the video space until it was mature enough. Soon every site was serving up our hilarious cat videos with a Flash video player.

Now this is where we stand. Flash is serving up our video content. Being pushed from a variety of different services. Services like the Adobe Flash Streaming Server and others using FLV files stored in CDN’s. It’s probably the best media distribution that has reached the majority of web users to date…

HOWEVER…

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