Hippogriff
From Better Practices
Flash was the rage at the Better Practices Workshop. A few years ago Java was the rage. Apple's iPod Touch hit the stores just a few days ago. Most of us are early adopters -- we love technology, we love living on the edge, and our email already includes screenshots from the iPod Touch. BUT this is getting ridiculous. Read the following quotes from David Pogue's BLOG http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/13/ultimate-iphone-faqs-list-part-2/
Markoff: “What about all those plugins that live within Safari now, like Flash or like Java or like JavaScript?”
Jobs: “Well, JavaScript’s built into the Phone. Sure.”
Markoff: “And what are you thinking about Flash and Java?”
Jobs: “Java’s not worth building in. Nobody uses Java anymore. It’s this big heavyweight ball and chain.”
Markoff: “Flash?”
Jobs: “Well, you might see that.”
Markoff: “What about YouTube–”
Jobs: “Yeah, YouTube—of course. But you don’t need to have Flash to show YouTube. All you need to do is deal with YouTube. And plus, we could get ‘em to up their video resolution at the same time, by using h.264 instead of the old codec.”
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So the DEFINITIVE answer now is: NO Java, MAYBE Flash.
Well some of us, notably Kyle Siegrist and Joe Yanik, invested a lot of very productive time and effort in Java-based interactive materials -- Sorry, Joe!! Sorry Kyle!! Steve has spoken!! The market moves on!!
Several of us are investing time and effort using Flash but we're obviously luddites -- Steve really cares about YouTube!!. The iPod Touch hit the market last week with YouTube and conspicuous silence about Flash. And the market moves on!!!
Please see and contribute to the Discussion Tab for more about the iPod touch.
Meanwhile, the real point of the deliberately provocative words above is that progress comes by building on what has gone before and new platforms that do not support legacy applications force us to waste time with endless rewrites that could better be spent on real progress. Years ago this author remarked that "digital library" was a misleading term because we are really building a "digital zoo" with care and feeding as important as acquisitions. In fact, the iPod touch is in many ways a step in the right direction with a robust browser. Its current lack of support for Flash is unfortunate but as noted in the discussion tab there is some reason to hope that it is a temporary failing. Apple and Google are still way better than he who must not be named.
