Jon Alper's probably insufficiently humble opinion

Many, many, many people have written about Apple excluding Flash from iOS and Adobe’s spin that Flash is ‘part of the web’ iOS users are being deprived of. The following note from my friend Kevin and a spate of Flash-induced browser crashes has me me itching to chime in:

I like to listen to internet radio streams when I work; stuff from grooveradio.com
has long been a favorite productivity boost for me, like caffeine for the ears.
More recently, thanks to Eric Konieczko, I’ve come to appreciate the more varietal
offerings from ibizasonica.com, but its flash-plugin player excessively and
consistently loads down my CPU: 50-70%! Not so productive, right? The choice of
browser is not a factor; Flash is a pig!

In contrast, I can use VLC on the source stream (http://stream2.wft.es:1025/) and
run at a cool 6% CPU, which could be even lower if videolan’s VLC package for Mac
included the cvlc binary (dispenses with the GUI). If you have any experience
compiling VLC and could share any helpful tips, please do; I’d appreciate it very
much.

If you have any ideas for Kevin, I’d be interested too and would welcome comments.

But it gets to the core point. Flash has enormous unique value. It’s very good for this kind of thing. (As an aside QuickTime used to be too but that’s a story for another day) and for this kind of thing.

What it’s not good for is how Adobe’s marketing has encouraged it to be used:

• As a way for a good visual designer to do sexy site navigation without learning to write code. If you want sexy and your coding talents aren’t able to execute your vision in HTML/CSS/Javascript, hire somebody who can. I know lots of talented people. Need help? Let me know.
• As a way to inflict, and note that I said inflict and not offer, an introductory splash page for your web site. Splash pages are for people who can’t organize their thoughts well enough to design and execute an inviting and easy to understand home page. Splash pages are a way to try (and fail) to force your users to pause and absorb your message as you hold them hostage before you give them what they came for. If you give them what they came for, you can make money off them.  Be nice.  If you find you can’t explain your site or offering well enough without imposing a linear experience as an introduction, that’s fine. It’s very hard. Get help. I can find you great people.
• As the only way you offer video and audio. There are multiple standards some supported on a particular computing platform (Windows Media and mp4 on  Windows and  MacOS/iOS  respectively). If you want a reliable experience, offer platform native formats.
• As a way to inflict (see above regards offer vs inflict) your advertising message in front of content.

Flash is not part of the web. Flash is a media type. The web is the interconnectedness of documents, html documents. If you can’t recognize that essential truth and then, from there, add styling, elegant and engaging navigation and, as needed, images, audio and video on top of that to benefit your users, you’re not making websites you’re limiting yourself and and your success.

Adobe, if you can’t sell Flash for the things it’s actually very, very good for, don’t keep trying to dupe people into misusing it in order to sell more. You, Adobe, make wonderful tools in Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects et al, get rich making those wonderful tools and stop trying to hammer home a doomed agenda.

One of the most common forms of comment spam I get are robot generated trackbacks. The two most common, and we’re talking hundreds of them, are trackbacks intended to benefit SEO ‘consultants’ and sell Yankee Candle Company candles.

I’d like to suggest that when your product is tackily packaged comprised of more air than substance, and exudes a potent odor that befouls the atmosphere even for  adjacent businesses, no amount of  fleetingly improved Google rank can help.

Oh, and I don’t much like being in the malodorous wing of a Mall near a Yankee Candle Company shop either.

Seriously? Why don’t I want an iPad? In fact, why don’t I want a tablet? I don’t want Android-based tablets because I don’t want the Android OS. Lots of reasons for that but it’s an active “not want” and a topic for another day. What baffles me is, why don’t I want an iPad?

My primary platform has been MacOS since System 6. Yes, I’ve owned Windows PC’s of various flavors to solve specific problems, I had a Solaris Workstation five years ago to learn some UNIX but the personal computers, the ones I use daily and for general purposes? Macs. So many personal Macs over the years that I’ve lost count. It’s more than a dozen. I have an iPhone, actually, I’ve owned the original iPhone, a 3GS and now iPhone 4. I love ’em. They’ve been more reliable as plain old phones than any other cell phones  (Samsungs, Motorolas and Sony-Ericssons) I’ve owned.

I’ve owned (or still own) a 1996 vintage Apple LaserWriter that’s my daily printer, two Newtons,  three generations of AirPort base stations,  a coupla-three StyleWriters, three or four iPods and numerous Apple widgets and geegaws. Buying Apple products is not something I have had any problem doing. Yet…  I don’t want an iPad.

Why?

I don’t get it. I should want one. I should really want an iPad 2.  It’s got the last two features that struck me as “oughta be there but ain’t” from the first iPad (the cameras and a multitasking iOS). It’s fast, light, responsive and looks like a lot of fun. I just don’t want one. I don’t not want one.  If I got gifted one, I’d surely enjoy having it rather than sell it.  I want but can’t justify buying an AppleTV but I don’t want an iPad. I don’t even want some mythical iPad that’s been changed in some way to meet some ideal in my head. There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with iPad. I just don’t want one and I can’t put my finger on why. No techno-lust for me at all for iPad.

Maybe I’ll want one later.