As HTML5 Gets 2014 Final Date, Flash Floods Mobile 221
CWmike writes "Those curious about the final release date for the hotly debated HTML5 need wonder no more: the W3C plans to finalize the standard by July 2014, the consortium said on Monday. 'This is the first time we've been able to answer people's questions of when it will be done,' said W3C's Ian Jacobs. 'More and more people from more and more industries are asking when it will be done. They require stability in the standard and very high levels of interoperability.' Meanwhile, as Apple dismisses the value of the Flash Player in favor of HTML5 for its smartphones and tablets, Adobe said on Monday that it predicts 600% growth in the number of smartphones having the Flash 10.1 Player installed in 2011, reaching 132 million smartphones and more than 50 tablet models with either the player installed or available for download. For the six months following the launch of Flash 10.1, more than 20 million smartphones were shipped or upgraded with it."
... and Statistics (Score:4, Insightful)
... with either the player installed or available for download.
Gee, I wish that I could announce my application usage statistics using that metric and get press coverage.
Internet Time (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, though -- wouldn't we be that much better off if they would release the standard right now as, "final pending revisions for bugs", or similar, so the world can move on and not fall into 14 different camps of what is official and what isn't?
(I realize in a lot of ways this is all about terminology, but terminology matters, too. )
Re:Shame about flash (Score:1, Insightful)
>>>preentation should be dealt with via the browser and not a plugin (via HTML5)
Plugins have existed since the earliest days of browsers (like quicktime plugin to view embedded movies)(or wav plugin to deal with sounds). Why do you think that is an inferior method?
Personally I'd rather have the lightweight browser and then add features (like video) only as I need them.
It'll be obsolete by then... (Score:4, Insightful)
3 years is an eternity in web time. By 2014, the web will have evolved once again into something nobody can foresee today.
It's a BAD thing when standards bodies cannot keep up with the technology they're attempting to regulate. Fortunately, the only outcome is that the standards body becomes irrelevant, which is what should happen to most of them.
Re:Licensing (Score:4, Insightful)
Having flash is useful in certain legacy cases(if you must have StrongBad on the go, that was running fine on 600MHz P3s, a decade ago...) or just plain maldesigned websites(Hey! instead of providing an HTML link on our useless flash-splash page, let's embed the link in the flash!), or use cases that just dump a video stream right to the hardware decoder(though using flash to do this is comparatively pointless).
For things like games, though, (or even just ghastly banner ads), your battery life and system responsiveness will quickly inform you that most Flash out there was really designed for a much more powerful system.
Re:Shame about flash (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. This move truly shows the advantage of technologies from the future over tech that has been live and working for about ten years now.
Flash is bulky. And it should never be used for cases where base HTML would do. But it revolutionized both casual games and independent animation. And, unlike HTML 5, it actually exists.
Re:Shame about flash (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, I see, so the browser couldn't use some scheme whereby it would support whatever video codecs are supported natively by your OS, allowing you to simply update a playback library when/if a codec changes, or install a new library to support a new codec?
What is it with people having some sort of fetish for putting EVERYTHING into the frigging browser?
Re:Shame about flash (Score:4, Insightful)
> Plugins have existed since the earliest days of browsers (like quicktime plugin to
> view embedded movies)(or wav plugin to deal with sounds). Why do you think
> that is an inferior method?
Because the Web is hardware and platform independent, and plugins are not. Because there is a way now to give the browser the audio or video via HTML and the browser renders it, cutting out the middleman. Because today's Web user is a consumer who doesn't know what a plugin is and doesn't want to manually update it or install a collection of them or be told they don't have the right one. Because there is an almost 10 year old ISO/IEC video standard that is available in the hardware of every PC and mobile, so that they can play the same video that FlashPlayer and QuickTime player play but without having to have the software players. Because hardware playback takes much less battery power and less expensive hardware than software playback. Because little plugin makers like Adobe become tin pot dictators and they to play gatekeeper with Web content that should be universally accessible. Because plugins are an accessibility nightmare compared to HTML. Because plugins are a security nightmare compared to HTML. Because plugins limit hardware innovation, for example, the "smartbook" ARM notebook was rejected by PC makers because it did not have a FlashPlayer, furthering Intel's hegemony. driving up hardware prices and reducing battery life.
That is just off the top of my head. I'm sure I missed some.
> Personally I'd rather have the lightweight browser and then add features (like video)
> only as I need them.
Video is a feature of your operating system and hardware. Your lightweight browser just passes the HTML video to the OS. HTML5 just standardizes how to do this. It's more lightweight than plugins.