avablog

HUH? Could we go back to talking about $700 purchases? I have no clue what you're talking about here….way to technical. Leah bought any new shoes recently? I'm more intersted in that.

Nice sentiment, but stupid. That's like saying, “IE is a resource hog full of security holes….IE is dying and the existence of Firefox and Chrome and other alternative browsers shows that people are getting sick of the bloat and horrible performance.”

Just because he speaketh the truth about the technology doesn't mean that it isn't pervasive and will stick around for a long time yet and is currently used in SCORES of websites that people want to use. Plus, talk to a normal computer user. They don't give a rat's ass about the technicalities of Flash, how good or bad it is, etc. — they want the damned website to work. And if it doesn't, they get pissed.

Apple's playing a dick-waving game and frankly, folks are tired of THAT.

Oh, I agree, HTML5 should be the logical replacement. And hopefully it will be. But for them to go, “Nah. I'd rather not.” is just…asinine.

Yeah, I realize it chews battery, but c'mon. Everyone knows that if you sit there playing videos on your iPhone on a 3G network with a Bluetooth headset you'd better plug it in every 5 minutes or it'll just sigh and melt into a small puddle of very warm, black goo. Having the *option* to stress my lithiums is what would be nice.

My shoes are actually steel-toed Rustler work boots. They ran me about $30 at Kmart.

Your IE example is actually a good one. After years of browser market dominance (well over 90% share), IE 6 was getting stale and Microsoft too content. Competitors emerged and what happened? MS got off their rear ends and returned to releasing IE on a regular schedule (IE 9 BTW is offering full HTML 5 support) implementing features their competitors had like tabs and extensions support. But their market share continues to drop despite inclusion as the default browser on the world's most powerful desktop OS and much improved releases.

Adobe is in the same situation with Flash and competing technologies are now emerging and thanks to Apple's stand against substandard plug-ins content developers are adopting these competitors. And Adobe Flash doesn't have the benefit of being installed by default in Windows (it is included with Mac OS X). The ball is now in Adobe's court to improve plug in performance or go the way of RealMedia's Realplayer and frames…abject irrelevance. Will it happen overnight? Of course not. Will it happen? In my opinion yes. Mozilla and Microsoft have already committed to HTML 5 support which doesn't require plug ins (making HTML 5 supported by default). And Google has demonstrated the power of HTML 5 being beyond video with their HTML 5 Quake II demo. So developers will have a new choice. Develop in Flash for legacy platforms and HTML 5 for newer ones or only HTML 5 which will be universally supported on everything from handsets to desktops. Obviously they will do the latter.

Normal computer users do give a rat's ass when a plug in crash brings down their browser or they have to pop their portable back on the charger after an hour of video use. And when they do have a problem, the platform gets the blame, not flash. We see with with Microsoft, and their platform getting the blame for BSODs caused by substandard 3d party drivers or software.

It is great that Apple has finally released hardware APIs so that Adobe can offer HW acceleration in Gala but still Adobe can't get flash efficient enough for mobile, ANY mobile. Adobe has had flash running in iOS simulation for 2 years now but can't get the performance and battery life up to par. And it isn't Apple. Android is as open as you can get and still Adobe only has flash running buggy betas in Android. Perhaps they will simply have to wait until handset speeds catch up to the bloat. But by then 100+ million iOS devices like iPhone and Touch will compel content developers to support non-flash methods of content delivery.

So here we are in 2 camps. One that says a substandard app or plug-in is better than none and another that says do it right or don't do it at all. Apple is in the latter.

In the meantime yes, some users may be frustrated by not being able to access some bloated flash powered sites in iOS devices, but in the long run users, all users, will be much better off for Apple, Google, Mozilla and Microsoft pushing forward with HTML 5.

While a PR blunder of epic proportion, sales of iPhone 4 remain extremely robust and the attenuation issue isn't affecting a majority of users otherwise we would be seeing massive returns.

It will be interesting to see if the reality distortion machine in Cupertino can spin their way out of this disaster caused in no small part by Steve's big yap. My prediction is a free bumper case program similar to Nintendo's Wii-Mote rubber cover program (introduced after people started smashing their TVs slinging Wii-motes).

Insulating the area solves the attenuation problem for left handed people who cup the phone during use (thus grounding the 2 antennas) and while Apple charges a massive $30 for that plastic bumper it has been reported that actual manufacturing and distribution cost is closer to $1-$2.

That would make a bumper program an extremely “cheap fix”. A recall would cost in the neighborhood of $1-$2B and while huge in monetary terms is does not pose an insurmountable problem for a company sitting on $30B in cash or cash equivalents.

As a long time subscriber of Consumer Reports, this is quite surprising. I do not recall a time where an item not getting a recommendation warranted a full article with video along with 2 follow ups; especially when the iPhone 4 did top their smartphone review list (from which the recommendations are derived) with 76 points, ahead of the iPhone 3GS and Evo tied for 2nd with 74 points). Even the Camry recommendation drop in 2007-2008 wasn't met with fanfare by CR.

Ah, the drama.