Apple : Opinion: Why is Flash video so awful?

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Why is Flash video so awful?

Can we have Flash now? So went the tasteless internet meme just moments after he who was once known as his Jobsness passed from 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino California to, well, the infinite loop.

As a pretty PC-centric computing enthusiast it would be all too easy to sneer knowingly at Jobs' fundamental refusal to allow Flash video onto his iPads and iPhones.

It's certainly hard to square Jobs' claim that the iPad offered the best possible browsing experience with the fact that he'd locked users out a massive chunk of the web.

As it happens, the lack of Flash video support is the only reason why I don't own an iPad. But I don't want to get into an argument about that. Instead, I'm going to contradict myself and say that Jobs had it right. In fact, I'd like Flash banned on PCs with immediate effect. Because Flash video is by far and away and without a shadow of a doubt the worst thing about using a modern PC.

At this point I probably need to qualify things a little. Casual PC users probably won't have a major issue with Flash. Light web browsing with one or two browser windows or tabs open isn't enough to out Flash's awfulness. Not most of the time, anyway.

Per-tab threading

As a proper web junky, however, I've finally and comprehensively lost my rag with Flash. For the record I'm a Chrome user. It ain't perfect, but for better or worse it's my favourite browser. But it pretty much perfectly showcases how awful Flash video is.

Chrome is threaded, of course, which should mean that your general browsing session just keeps on trucking, no matter what. But Flash isn't threaded. So when it bombs out, it's brings your entire browsing world down, all 68 tabs of it.

You could argue it's my tendency to have a ton of tabs open that causes a lot of the problem. But even if that were true and it wasn't the case that it's about time Adobe coded it for efficient per-tab threading, Flash has plenty of other problems.

Can HTML5 save the day?

As I sit and write this, the Daily Show stream on 4oD I'm half watching has just hung. For the third time. If I want to pick up where I left off, I'm going to have to sit through no fewer than five full length ads. Again, for the third time.

Meanwhile, over on my laptop, the video turns green after five seconds in iPlayer. I can fix that by turning off hardware acceleration, but then my CPU gets hammered and my battery life goes south. A graphics driver update might do the trick, but why should I have to bother when I rarely going on never have any issues with other video formats? It's just Flash.

I used to think Jobs was being a bit of a bully in his dealings with Adobe regards Flash. But I've had enough now and as far as I'm concerned Adobe got no more than it deserved for allowing Flash to remain so shonky.

Of course, HTML5 is coming to save the day. But it's taking its sweet time. Until it has entirely taken over, Flash will be my number one computing enemy.

Week in Tech: Texting while walking, Samsung and stalking

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Week in tech

There's been so much happening this week that we've been moved to rhyme. We discovered that the Galaxy S3 is perfect for stalking, New Jersey's banned people texting while walking, we've seen new phones from ZTE and LG and the Beeb says we'll all get Olympics in HD.

iPhone 5 rumours are awfully trendy, Samsung's screens are going all bendy, Sony's got new lenses and a new camera too, Facebook fraud was a blunder by Yahoo. Lenovo's new ultrabook is awfully thin, and we test the HP Envy to see if it will win.

Okay, we'll stop now — which is what we hope Samsung will do with its creepy ads for the Galaxy S3. According to Kate Solomon it ""shares what's in your heart", "keeps track of loved ones", "recognises who you are" and "waits till you're asleep". "Before what, Samsung?" she types in terror. "BEFORE WHAT?"

Meanwhile in America, a New Jersey town has responded to the menace of people walking and texting simultaneously by digging bear traps in sidewalks and covering lamposts and other street furniture in broken glass. Not really, but it has introduced $85 fines for the offence. It's no joke: as Scott Nichols reports, the town in question, Fort Lee, has "suffered three fatal texting accidents so far this year".

When it comes to testing phones we prefer to stay in the office rather than walk under buses, and this week we've looked at loads of new devices including the ZTE Tania Windows Phone, which is pretty good, and the LG Optimus L3 Android phone, which isn't.

Still, you'll be able to use it to watch the Olympics, which the BBC promises to stream in up to 24 channels of glorious HD via phone, tablet and mobile device apps. You'll even be able to watch it on TV!

Olympics 2012

We're hardly into summer time and already tech watcher's thoughts are turning to autumn, when the iPhone 5 is due to appear. With months to go the rumour factory's throwing out all kinds of ideas, but the rumours of a bigger screen are becoming deafening — and they've reached the Wall Street Journal, Apple's favourite leak-receiver. You just know that "sources familiar with the situation" work for a firm whose name begins with A. And we don't mean Argos.

Could the iPhone 5 have a bendy screen? We very much doubt it, but screen supplier Samsung says it's received "huge" orders for its bendy OLED displays, which it'll be manufacturing in bulk from the second half of this year. A bendy iPhone isn't out of the question, but we think it's still some way off.

Remember Sony, the Apple of the 70s and 80s? It's still going, we're told, and its camera division has unveiled some tasty new kit. There's the new Sony NEX-F3 compact system camera, a new DSLT (Digital Single Lens Translucent) called the Sony Alpha a37, and a bunch of new lenses for both NEX and A-mount cameras.

There's been lots of red hot ultrabook action this week, with Lenovo launching the super-thin and super-desirable Thinkpad X1 Carbon and HP letting us get up close and personal with the HP Envy 6. Our man Dan Grabham was impressed, suggesting that "these will be among the very best value Ultrabooks on the market when they go on sale".

HP Envy

Last but not least, the patent wars between rival tech firms continued in all their tedium this week — but Yahoo livened things up with an almighty cock-up when it wrongly accused Facebook of fraud. To be honest, we're only including it in Week in Tech so we can say YAHOOPS!

Yahuui Blog

Friday, May 18, 2012