MacBook Air ships without Flash

http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/20/macbook-air-all-substance-no-flash/

by jankassens • 16 years ago

62 57 16 years ago

borism• 16 years ago

dudes, WTF?

cletus• 16 years ago

This is quite a shot across the bow by Apple. As the post says, all previous (and existing!) laptops and desktops ship with Flash preinstalled. Whereas I can understand the motivation for it missing from iDevices, this makes far less sense.

This comes at about the same time that Apple deprecates Oracle's Java from OS X. Is this a general move against preinstalling third party libraries or unrelated?

Perhaps it signals Apple's belief that both technologies are moribund, if not dying outright.

Perhaps it stems from Apple's claim that Flash is bad for battery life. This can matter even when there aren't obvious Flash widgets on pages you visit. Flash is used for ads and any number of tracking processes.

As much as some will love to pour hate on Apple for this move I think the real failure here belongs to Adobe who has been satisfied to sit on their laurels blaming Apple for victimizing them rather than delivering a compelling Flash experience on mobile devices or OS X (3+ years after the iPhone's release only now is full Flash running on mobile (Android) devices and reports are mixed on the experience).

sigzero• 16 years ago

"This comes at about the same time that Apple deprecates Oracle's Java from OS X."

That isn't what they are doing at all. You read whatever you read incorrectly. Apple is deprecating their own version of Java on OSX.

nir2• 16 years ago

> Apple is deprecating their own version of Java on OSX

Isn't it also the only version of Java known to run reliably on OSX?

rmc• 16 years ago

> Perhaps it stems from Apple's claim that Flash is bad for battery life. This can matter even when there aren't obvious Flash widgets on pages you visit. Flash is used for ads and any number of tracking processes.

If that's true, it still doesn't help mot users. I would guess that most users will install Flash pretty quickly after getting their laptop. They will then be subject to flash on all webpages, negating any battery savings.

Someone• 16 years ago

"Perhaps it stems from Apple's claim that Flash is bad for battery life"

Supporting multiple similar runtimes (HTML+JavaScript vs Flash vs Java vs SilverLight vs somebody else's kitchen sink) may make sense, but eats disk space, and, once people start using them, RAM and CPU bandwidth (due to less sharing of code between programs).

Including Flash and Java made sense a couple of years ago on the Mac, but when designing the iPhone, Apple, as they always do, revisited earlier decisions, and decided they should go. Given RAM constraints, I can see why.

On these new MacBooks, I guess Flash was dropped not because of RAM constraints, but because the disk is relatively small. It is but a tiny part of that 64 GB, but they probably must make many small cuts to give the user as much space as possible for his own stuff.

cosmicray• 16 years ago

> Whereas I can understand the motivation for it missing from iDevices, this makes far less sense.

How about support costs. If Apple doesn't supply it, and you install it, then have problems, who ya gonna call ?

I'd say, call Adobe. Let their support call numbers spike off the chart.

cale• 16 years ago

Adobe needs a good kick in the ass. Spend a day in any of their flagship design apps and let the pain begin. Inconsistant UI, constant errors... their products have gone down hill and Flash is no exception.

Adobe needs product leaders that care. I think Apple is not so subtly trying to send them that message.

calloc• 16 years ago

You might even be looking into it to far ... the last time Apple shipped Flash with their OS they pressed a vulnerable version onto their DVD's that were used to install the OS and that made them look bad. This time around that just won't be possible.

malandrew4• 16 years ago

I use Click-to-Flash on my laptop and it's not until you install a plugin like that that you realize how inappropriately overused flash is.

My biggest complaint is sIFR text replacement. Seriously, using Flash just to serve up a certain font for your H1 or H2 titles is complete and utter crap.

While I do think that this is bad user experience for those buying the MacBook Air, it should help foster an overall better user experience for the Internet.

With Flash not coming standard and Apple gaining so much market share, it will only be a matter of time before the percent of Flash enabled browsers falls enough that web developers need to start using more appropriate standards-based techniques.

Adobe claims that Flash reaches 99% of browsers: http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/

Once that hits 95%, I think we'll start seeing a tipping point. About 68% of web browsers worldwide currently have partial HTML5 support (IE8+, Firefox 3.5+, Chrome 6.0+, Safari 5.0+, Opera 10+). That number is 72% in the US.

I give it two years until Flash and HTML5 are at parity with one another.

jacquesm• 16 years ago

I've heard - and seen - the same argument made with respect to Flash on one side and HTML4 + JavaScript on the other side.

I'm the biggest flash hater there is, I only started using it November last year for one specific feature that we no longer could talk our way around (video+audio) and it is really amusing to see history repeat like this.

Adobe isn't going anywhere, and, unfortunately, neither is flash. 'just' video is not going to suddenly make everybody drop flash.

> While I do think that this is bad user experience for those buying the MacBook Air, it should help foster an overall better user experience for the Internet.

Reducing the user experience for any group does not increase the user experience for the whole.

What it might do is foster standardization in the long run. But don't forget that Apple is not doing this from the good of their heart to help open standards, but simply because flash competes with the App store.

It is no coincidence that flash gets dropped from the MBA at the same time that the app store for the Mac gets launched.

brownleej• 16 years ago

How does Flash compete with the App Store more than HTML5? Since Apple has been promoting HTML5 web apps, especially those targeting Mobile Safari, I find it hard to believe that their hatred of Flash comes from a desire to protect the App Store. I take Apple at their word that it's because of Flash's atrocious performance, which as a Mac user I can attest to.

I don't agree with this decision, though. I think the best way to handle Flash is to build ClickToFlash functionality directly into the browser.

chroma2• 16 years ago

...flash competes with the App store.

I don't think that's at all the case. Flash is mostly used for rich content on web pages. If it competes with anything, it's new browser features like HTML5. One could make the argument that Apple is trying to discourage the use of flash-based competitors to iTunes such as Amazon VOD and Hulu. Though that's a bit of a stretch.

It is no coincidence that flash gets dropped from the MBA at the same time that the app store for the Mac gets launched.

I think the coincidence is more mundane. According to Jobs, Apple made a more realistic battery benchmark for the Air. It now involves browsing 25 popular websites over wifi. Killing flash would almost certainly improve battery life in that benchmark.

chroma2• 16 years ago

...it will only be a matter of time before the percent of Flash enabled browsers falls enough that web developers need to start using more appropriate standards-based techniques.

I agree with your prediction, but I'm not sure it will be a good thing. With the exception of a few popular domains, I'd say 90% of flash content serves to annoy me and waste my computer's resources. I love using clicktoflash because it filters so much. Imagine if band websites started using HTML5 instead of flash. Instead of a big gray box with a "skip intro" link below it, you'd get bombarded with loud noises and stuff flashing on your screen.

I say this half-jokingly: How long until someone makes clicktoHTML5?

malandrew4• 16 years ago

Good point.

Although this doesn't solve the issue you raised, one change I would like to see made on the browser side is sandboxed tabs. As far as I know only Chrome is sandboxing tabs at the moment. I'd like to see Firefox and Safari do the same so one bad javascript doesn't kill the browser entirely.

One way those issues could be addressed is by Google page ranking. If certain abusive practices were highlighted as universally obnoxious, I'm sure Google could create filters to reduce the search ranking of those pages using obnoxious HTML5 and JS. My reasoning here is that the same executives and elements of corporate culture responsible for obnoxious uses of Flash and other technologies today are the same ones that push the hardest for SEO. At least at the HTML5 and JS level, Google could parse for obnoxious code, which AFAIK is something they can't do today with Flash. It's a bit of a stretch but certainly a possible solution.

jpravetz• 16 years ago

This last comment is exactly right. People are quick to blame Flash, but it's what Flash enables and what runs on Flash that is the problem, which is 90% ads. And that can just as easily become annoying in HTML5/javascript, minus the sandboxing of Flash.

mattmanser• 16 years ago

For the sIFR thing don't blame the website designers, blame the browsers and HTML group.

And as for 'more appropriate standards-based techniques', the phrase gives me the creeps.

We're living in an age of a range of wonderful languages, fantastic form markup languages, superb IDEs.

Apart from in web applications.

Languages? Javascript. One choice. And a very odd one at that. Markup? HTML. Yuck, no extensibility, barely updated for 10 years, way, way, way behind flash or xaml, it hasn't even got close to what's available to us on desktops yet. Javascript IDEs? None of any note that I've come across.

Wouldn't it be great if Chrome, Safari or Firefox added in python or ruby client-side support. Or all of them, really kill off IE...

It's a dire state of affairs, Microsoft are to blame, but I wouldn't celebrate 'standards-based' techniques. They're frustratingly constricting and old fashioned.

slantyyz3• 16 years ago

I thought designers had free will. Some choose not to accept the limitations of browsers and use sIFR to get past those limitations.

How can they not bear any responsibility for an implementation choice?

jokermatt999• 16 years ago

>Languages? Javascript. One choice. And a very odd one at that. Markup? HTML. Yuck, no extensibility, barely updated for 10 years, way, way, way behind flash or xaml, it hasn't even got close to what's available to us on desktops yet.

Choice is a wonderful thing, but take a look at how different the browsers are at implementing these basic, single languages. Imagine if you had to worry about cross browser support for another language. You might not just have to write your webpage to support IE6, but have to rewrite it in another language. It'd be great if we had multiple web languages, but it'd also be great if we had one single web language that actually worked 100% consistently cross platform.

code_duck• 16 years ago

Firefox and Chrome will install Flash for you quite easily (or actually, Chrome has it built in, doesn't it?). However, I suppose 60% of Mac users prefer Safari. Does Safari have a plug in finder service like Firefox, if so, does it locate Flash for you?

Oh, as the article notes, Windows doesn't ship with Flash installed, either. Does this mean anything at all? No.

WalterGR• 16 years ago

Oh, as the article notes, Windows doesn't ship with Flash installed, either.

XP does. I don't know about Vista and 7.

Presumably some large percentage of Windows desktops and laptops are sold with Flash pre-installed.

Keyframe• 16 years ago

7 also doesn't ship with Flash.

slantyyz3• 16 years ago

At the very least, I was forced to perform an annoying upgrade of a painfully outdated version of Flash that came on the XP install media. In that case, it's the same effort as an install.

kj12345• 16 years ago

The main way to get Flash is through alternative content placed inside an <object> tag which should be displayed when a player is not found. So normally a download button would appear, in the screenshot though it looks like Engadget just wrote bad embedding code.

ZeroGravitas• 16 years ago

On Safari market share, maybe the Mac OS X App store will have the unintended effect of promoting free (non-pay) software such as Firefox, Chrome and Opera, assuming there isn't some convenient rule that prevents including them.

Samuel_Michon• 16 years ago

"Oh, as the article notes, Windows doesn't ship with Flash installed, either."

Why Microsoft doesn't ship Windows with Flash anymore might have something to do with the fact that they're trying to push Silverlight (even though that's not a standard install either).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverlight#Relationship_to_exi...

jbrennan• 16 years ago

Flash had never come in-the-box for Windows, even long before Microsoft had Silverlight.

forensic• 16 years ago

Apple is getting power drunk :[ They might be the next evil empire.

What they really should do is ship with both flash and Click-To-Flash. That would be serving the users best.

adolph• 16 years ago

That is a pretty hilarious/interesting idea. If Apple doesn't do that maybe Adobe will license and start packaging Click-To-Flash with the Flash plugin. That would be very nice and pro-consumer on Adobe's part.

redrobot50502• 16 years ago

Apple wouldn't do it because making the user's have to click to load content without an intuitive explanation isn't "easy to use".

Adobe wouldn't do it, because a large majority of their customers build annoying flash ads.

GHFigs• 16 years ago

Another way of saying this is "MacBook Air ships without common cause of poor browser performance and crashes."

lutorm• 16 years ago

I thought the headline meant that the now HD-less Air also shipped without flash memory. That seemed a tad more serious...

smackfu• 16 years ago

How does this help the consumer?

uriel• 16 years ago

Anythings that helps people stay away from Flash should be very welcome.

protomyth3• 16 years ago

This might go back to the problems with the Flash plug-in that shipped with OS X 10.6. At the time, due to needing to get the discs made, 10.6 ended up shipping with a Flash plug-in with a security problem. If I remember correctly, the patch Apple shipped was shortly vulnerable too due to another security problem.

I wonder if they've made a judgement that the basic installs of OS X will be like iOS and not contain 3rd party software that they can't control.

tvon2• 16 years ago

Yup, there was a big fuss and all the headlines were sure to focus on "security vulnerability" and "Apple". Color me unsurprised at this move...

b3b0p• 16 years ago

I don't see the problem.

Flash is 3rd party add-on.

It doesn't perform wonderful and has some issues. More users are using Apple products and have noticed it's not the best experience.

It has been stated and somewhat emphasized by Apple and the media to the general public that HTML5 embedded video is the future. See for example: http://www.apple.com/ipad/ready-for-ipad/

The way I see it this is just your typical forward looking / future innovation push move by Apple.

rbranson• 16 years ago

I read this as "MacBook Air ships without Flash [Memory]" as if someone got a MacBook Air without an SSD inside.

jankassens• 16 years ago

Sorry, I should have added Adobe.

Unfortunately, I can't edit the title.

emehrkay• 16 years ago

Funny because I watched the video of them talking about the air (white bkg, shots of machining etc) and they kept mentioning how much that they loved flash. They were talking about flash memory

oomkiller• 16 years ago

This will probably improve security. If they shipped Flash on the device, there is a very good chance that it would be out of date (and insecure) by the time someone buys it.

wzdd• 16 years ago

And in fact this has happened in the past: http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA07-192A.html

Seems like a good reason not to ship it with the OS.

YooLi• 16 years ago

Not true, the MacBook Air ships with plenty of Flash :)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1816749

MacBook Air ships without Flash

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