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Adobe Open Screen: Will Apple make their own Flash Player for the iPhone?

Adobe recently announced the ‘Open Screen‘ initiative which further opens up the SWF format along with the FLV / F4V video specifications along with . The Open Screen FAQ explains the core deal:

  • Removing restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications
  • Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player
  • Publishing the Adobe Flash® Cast? protocol and the AMF protocol for robust data services
  • Removing licensing fees ? making next major releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free

The FAQ also explains why Adobe is opening up these specifications:

Publication of an unrestricted SWF file format has long been requested by the Adobe Flash developer community. The longstanding publication of the SWF specification has fostered a vibrant ecosystem of companies and developers who create experiences with Adobe Flash technology and by removing the SWF licensing restrictions we are allowing that growing ecosystem to use the file format for any purpose, including the ability to playback SWF content

Additionally, Adobe intends to make Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free, starting with the next major releases for devices, along with publishing the device porting layer APIs. As a result of these moves, OEMs, software developers, and content owners will be able to deliver content and applications built with Adobe Flash and Adobe AIR technologies without concerns about device restrictions. By removing the licensing cost and restrictions, as well as opening up the protocols and porting layer, Adobe is making it easier for developers and partners to deliver more engaging experiences to more of their customers, and ensuring that audiences can engage with content no matter what device or medium they use.

So, with that background detail out of the way I’ll get onto my main question:

Will Apple get involved in the Open Screen project and provide support for Flash, or at least Flash video, on the iPhone / iPod Touch?

Steve Jobs was recently asked about Flash support on the iPhone by saying ?there?s this missing product in the middle?. What he was referring to is that you’ve got the full Flash Player which is very processor intensive and best suited for desktop PCs and laptops and then you’ve got the streamlined Flash Lite intended for mobile devices. Steve Jobs’ opinion is that the full version is too intense for the iPhone whilst Flash Lite lacks a lot of important functionality.

Could Apple provide at least some form of Flash support on the iPhone / iPod Touch by getting involved in Adobe’s Open Screen initiative and implementing only the parts they wish to have for Flash playback but all within the confines of the Quicktime framework itself I can see how this could fit in on regular Mac OSX as well as on the iPhone / iPod Touch too. I think it presents a really interesting possibility.

I have another reservation about Apple’s willingness to support Flash though, perhaps it’s not in Apple’s interest to further the spread of Adobe’s Flash platform? Apple certainly don’t intend to allow companies to develop runtime environments of their own for use on the iPhone / iPod Touch as the terms of the iPhone SDK specifically state:

"No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple?s Published APIs and builtin interpreter(s)…"

So, that certainly seems to close the door for Java, Flash, Silverlight, etc, etc. Despite this possible reason I still think it is possible that Apple could provide native support for Flash video playback, at the very least, on the iPhone / iPod Touch.

~Rick

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Getting Naked again – CSS Naked Day 2008

Dustin Diaz’ “CSS Naked Day 2008” is happening again on 9th April. So if you happen to be on this site on that day you may well get a bit of a different look than normal. Don’t panic, it’s just that my site is being displayed without the CSS files linked to it, baring it all in its naked HTML guts!

You will quite possibly find many other sites showing the same way, so far over 175 sites have signed up to take part by stripping out their CSS files on that day. If you’re wondering what this is all in aid of then this paragraph from Dustin’s site sums it up:

CSS Naked Day is a world-wide event that lasts for one international day (48 hours) where webmasters around the globe strip CSS from their websites to promote Web Standards with layered semantic markup, and a clear separation between content, and presentation to enhance accessbility.

Check out the CSS Naked Day site over at http://naked.dustindiaz.com/

~Rick

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How Google’s cache saved my bacon

The other day I was doing a bit of spring cleaning on my database server, I run frequent backups on database for client sites but I have a few that are hosted on their own server and they require me to connect via a VPN so I’ve no automated way of accessing the data.

I use my database server during the construction process of sites so I have a copy of all these client databases on my server too. I decided to make an up to date manual backup from one of the client databases over to the version of my database server. So I connected via the VPN, did a Data Transfer using Navicat and copied the client database over to my server and all was well.

All was well that is until the next day when I get a call from the client wondering what had happened to the site, it had suddenly gone back to an earlier version of the site complete with ‘Lorem Ipsum’ gobbledegook text and all. Immediately alarm bells were ringing in my head and the dreaded realisation came over me that I had somehow screwed up the database!

The alarm bells were right, it soon became apparent that the client site had been connected to my copy of the database ever since it launched. So rather than update their own database when they edited the site they had in fact been updating the copy on my server, so when I performed what I thought was a backup of the latest data from their server to mine I had in fact overwritten the data with 4 month old content! Even worse, I thought the site was connected to the client’s database server so I hadn’t had any backups running for the database on my server. So I had overwritten the database and I had no backup! Doh ;(

Google’s cache to the rescue

After panicking for a few minutes a solution came to me – maybe I could get the pages out of Google’s cache?

A quick Google search and I came up with a blog post titled “Easier Google cache hacking“, this posted showed that it was very easy to access pages in Google’s cache:

http://google.com/search?q=cache:www.suburbia.org.uk

Thankfully I was able to find every page of the client’s site that was no more than a couple of weeks old, fortunately the site hadn’t been updated much in that time so it was pretty much up to date. I simply saved out the HTML source from the browser for each page in the cache, then copied and pasted the content back into the database. I then made sure that the client site was pointing to their own database and not my server!

So, a major disaster was averted thanks to Google’s cache!

~Rick

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Intel chips do not a virus-magnet make!

Browsing around the BBC website the other day (enjoying their new updated customisable homepage!) when I came across a Blog post titled: "Mac virus alarm is sounded – again". The author, Derren Waters, begins warily:

I hesitate to write this, mainly because I fear the response, but does anyone who owns a Mac actually use any anti-virus software?

It’s an interesting question and one which a friend asked me at work recently as he had just purchased his first Mac – a nice shiny MacBook. Derren’s blog post received a lot of comments ranging from "Macs are not real technology", "Mac users are so smug", "I use anti-virus just to be safe" and the perennial favourite "Macs don’t get viruses because they have a much smaller market share so virus writers don’t see them as much of a target"!

I don’t think these comments are surprising, no harm in running antivirus software if you want to (although much antivirus software on both Windows and Mac is renowned for causing performance issues, cough, mcafee…).

Amongst the many comments one stood out to me in particular as it suggested that as Macs now use Intel chips they are somehow more vulnerable than when they were running on PPC chips:

Yes, I use Macs and I do use antivirus software. It is only a matter of time before we users get hit with viruses; even more so now with the Intel processors being used in more and more Macs

There’s not really any logic to this suggestion, it’s the operating system and not the chip that presents the vulnerabilities, Windows wouldn’t be any more or less secure whether it was on PPC or Intel. I do appreciate there are perhaps specific functions in processors that could in theory be a gateway for malware of viruses but it would still have to get past a piece of software in the form of an operating system or at least firmware.

Personally I don’t run antivirus on my Macs as I don’t see it as necessary. Running a Firewall is a good idea and going online via a router with a firewall is also a great way to remove your computer from port scanning script kiddies too. Obviously it’s important not to be naive (or smug!) but OSX’s UNIX heritage provides a very secure base to the operating system, the biggest risk a Mac user faces is themselves as the closest thing out there to any kind of malware or trojan for OSX involves the user being duped into running something because they didn’t expect.

If you’re a Mac user and you’re concerned about security then I’d suggest the following simple steps:

  • Disable the ‘Open "safe" files after downloading’ preference in Safari – this stops images, movies, sounds, text from opening and disk images from mounting automatically after downloading. This alone is a simple way to stay in control of files being opened.
  • Make sure your firewall is enabled
  • Enable software update to automatically download updates, and make it check at least weekly if not daily for any available updates. Apple release software updates fairly frequently including a fairly regular Security update.

I tried to post a comment on the aforementioned blog post but the blog tool behind seems to be faulty, so I thought I’d just write a post instead :) As I write, this comic on XKCD.com comes to mind:

~Rick

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AIR Vs Silverlight? Adobe Vs Microsoft? Open Source Vs Proprietary?

TechCrunch ran an article on 26th February titled ‘Adobe AIR Vs Microsoft Silverlight: It?s All About Numbers‘ which kind of compared them both as being quite similar, but it struck me that it’s really not a fair comparison.

There’s a big difference between AIR and Silverlight at the moment. It’s fair to say Microsoft will push Silverlight forwards quickly but there’s no fair comparison between them just now, it’s far closer to compare Flash and Silverlight for the time being as AIR features a lot more than Silverlight.

Flash and PDF have huge market share and AIR brings those plus regular HTML/CSS/JS web development into one runtime as well making easy cross-platform offline / online application development.

Competition = good

It’s certainly good that there’s some competition in the market but AIR’s incorporation of various open source projects such as Webkit as well as the fact that Adobe have open sourced a lot of their own code such as Flex and Flash Player code will hold a lot of mindshare of developers. While AIR is not 100% open source it’s certainly a lot more attractive on several levels, not least being able to create Apps whether you’re used to HTML/JS, Flash or Flex.

Competition is good, and the fact the MS are developing web development apps to challenge Dreamweaver is a good thing. Dreamweaver is a great program but it needs to keep progressing to provide the tools that developers need.

One aspect that Dreamweaver (Adobe / Macromedia) has done a good job with is support for multiple server platforms such as their own ColdFusion but also PHP and JSP development. I’m not sure we’ll see any of Microsoft’s ‘Expression’ development apps support PHP and JSP any time soon! This multiple server platform support is something Adobe need to keep supporting as it’s definitely one thing that will separate their tools from Microsoft’s offerings.

~Rick

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MWSF 2008: Why is Apple charging for iPod Touch application updates?

Well Macworld San Francisco was upon us again, as usual Apple didn’t disappoint in delivering some cool things.

MacBook Air, iTunes video rentals, Apple TV V2, Time Capsule WIFI backup drive to name a few. There was also an update for applications for the iPhone and new applications for the iPod Touch. The update for the iPod Touch brings Mail, Weather, Maps, Notes and Stocks apps to iPod Touch users, however there was a slight sting in the tail for existing iPod Touch users as the update will cost you £12.99 / $20!!! Ouch.

As annoying as this is (especially as these can be had for free if you jailbreak your iPod Touch!) I’m wondering if this is not just a matter of accounting requirements on Apple’s part?

A while back Apple introduced new MacBook Pros which had support for the new 802.11n WiFi networking but which wasn’t enabled to begin with. Apple then brought out new Airport Extreme base stations which supported 802.11n, anyone who had one of the new MacBook Pros had to pay a small fee for a bit of software to enable this functionality. I wonder if the upgrade charge for the iPod Touch applications is down to the same GAAP accounting policy that was at the heart of the 802.11N WiFi enabler? It seems odd to charge existing users for this but give it free to new purchasers otherwise.

As far as the iPhone app updates are concerned they are free as the iPhone purchases are accounted in a subscription method so these kind of updates can be provided free of charge. So, good news for iPhone users but slightly annoying for people like me who have an iPod Touch!

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Happy New Year!

It’s been a fun year blogging here on Suburbia, if any of my ramblings have been in the least helpful to people reading it then that’s great. Overall I just enjoy writing about various tech things that interest me.

As I end the year 2007 I’ve enjoyed an interesting year of work and I’m excited about the year to come in that area. I’m also excited about the impending birth of my second child any day now!

I wish a Happy New Year to all those on the ‘InterWebs’!!!

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BBC iPlayer launches for Mac / Linux using streaming Flash format

This week the BBC launched a version of the iPlayer that is compatible with Mac and Linux by allowing viewing of streamed movies via the Flash player rather than the Windows-only DRM based download method.

Screen shot of BBC's Stremaing iPlayer interface

First impressions are pretty good although I would have liked the quality to be a little bit better, or at least the video to be a larger dimension. The player uses a 512 x 288 pixel video format and offer the fullscreen playback option, however, playing full screen on my 1680 x 1050 pixel monitor resulted in fairly pixellated video. That’s a pretty extreme example of zooming I’ll admit but if the video was larger to begin with it would make the zooming feature much better. The recent addition of support for H.264 video within Flash Player 9 would potentially offer an big improvement if the video could be offered using that format instead of FLV video files.

Share iPlayer videos with other people

Nope, it’s not what you might think by reading that heading, you can’t share the actual files but there’s a nice little feature available via the ‘SHARE’ link in the player menu.

Picture of sharing features of the streaming BBC iPlayer

This offers the ability to either send a link to a friend via email:

Link to iPlayer 'Send to a friend' page

You can also post a link to the Social Networking sites Stumbleupon, del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook and Reddit:

Link to sharing page of BBC iPlayer

It’s nice to see those links to these sites, it would be great to see a larger range though to include sites such as Ma.gnolia, MySpace etc but perhaps these can be added.

All in all it’s a good start towards better cross platform support by the BBC. My daughter was especially pleased to be able to watch kids shows whenever she wanted! Like many people though I would still like to be able to download shows and watch these on other devices such as iPods etc, I’m looking forward to finding out more about the BBC’s plans for providing cross-platform downloads.

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Mac OS 10.5 Leopard – Part 3: My weird Mail.app dialog box pondering

I’ve previously posted pictures in my Flickr account of the dialog boxes that appear when erasing Junk mail and erasing deleted messages in Tiger’s Mail.app. Interestingly in Leopard they’ve been updated to make the text clearer but there’s still an inconsistency in the naming of these dialog boxes and also the type of dialog boxes used for each.

Erasing junk messages uses a modal dialog box with buttons with the words ‘Cancel’ and ‘Erase’ on them, Tiger’s Mail.app used buttons with the words ‘No’ and ‘Yes’ on them instead. I still don’t see why these dialog boxes aren’t the same type and why they don’t use the same buttons and wording.

Erase Junk messages:

Picture of Leopard erase junk mail dialogue box

Erase Deleted Messages dialog box

Picture of Leopard erase deleted messages dialogue box

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Mac OS 10.5 Leopard – Part 4: Software update

Here’s another thing I noticed about Leopard since running it for a couple of weeks.

Software update – Postpone reboot

It’s nice that Leopard’s Software Update gives you the chance to postpone rebooting after installations that require it. On Tiger and previous versions you would always have the windows hanging around until you made it reboot. I’ve also noticed that when you do reboot that the computer gives you more feedback on the installation as it proceeds which is cool too. It’s nice to be kept informed!

Picture of Leopard Software update reboot dialogue box