On 8/1/07, Ted Gould <ted@gould.cx> wrote:
> Technologically, Flash will work as the flash player is relatively
> simple, portable, and lightweight. And these features are central to
> the Flash standard.
I wouldn't say that at all. The Flash player is relatively complex, but
the fact that you can buy it from Adobe as a binary blob makes it easy
for OEMs to integrate. If nothing else, choosing flash player requires
you to have two ECMA Script implementations in your device.
fair enough!
> Flash is inheritly more compressed in its format, SVG is huge (those
> long sets of coordinate pairs).
SVG is designed for Gzip. I think anyone seriously using it for a
mobile platform gzips their files. When Gzip'd, the files are about the
same size. Plus, the W3C is finishing up a standard for XML Schema
based binary file compression that should get even smaller.
Specifically, this is designed for the mobile market.
are there any serious studies done on this? If I remember correctly I did run across something like this on the SVG list...
> People are constantly arguing over what the standards will be for
> the mobile world, they forget that the important standards for ie.
> wide area networks didn't come from the commercial sector, and until
> we get some action from the FCC, these 'standards' are likely to come
> in and out with the tide.
Well, until the FCC regulates HTML I'm not going to use this new fangled
interweb thing! ;)
But its got <blink> tags!
Remember, that HTTP did not come from the commercial sector, and more importantly, the ethernet standard came from government research. The interweb was not hatched at some factory. If these mobile companies think any of these crazy proprietary technologies are going to become a permanent part of the technology foundation for the mobile world, they've got a screw loose. What I see going on is a lot of greed and quick moves.
Seriously though, defacto standards are real and something designers and
content producers need to watch. Yes, it's likely things will change,
but there will eventually be some stability in a changing market. I
doubt most people design their websites for HTML 1 today, though many
still do for non-CSS browsers.
Microsoft has yet to manage to get any of their embracements or extensions of HTML to take hold. They have made the javascript DOM quite annoying to manage however, and managed to set back dynamic client side web applications by 5 years (extinguishing Java applets).
> I personally see a lot of potential for SVG in 'rich apps' for the
> web. Its 'viewport' system is really powerful and when used in
> conjunction with video would be a powerful platform for artists and
> 'creative people'. SVG will, without a doubt, continue to act as an
> interchange format for graphic design.
I think there is a lot of potential there too. In general, I'm excited
about SVG as a tool. We'll see where it ends up going, but that's the
case with any standard. I think that SVG is at the point today where
you can start using in on your website.
I think thats a bit of a stretch. Maybe for academic sites or hobby sites, but its not really something I would feel comfortable charging for unless it was specifically requested.
> Ted, I know youve done a lot of really great stuff with SVG and I
> applaud you for it... but lets be realistic in our estimations here.
I don't think SVG has 'won' or anything like that. But, I don't think
Flash has either. I'm still cheering for SVG to come out of this battle
as the victor. I think that any fan of open standards should. If
nothing else specs like JSR-226 help that a lot:
They are not quite head-to-head competitors. SVG has more to it, but Flash is more streamlined and lightweight. Given trends in processing power and bandwidth usage, the advantages to Flash decrease over time. Thanks for your input, Ted!
-jmz
http://wiki.svg.org/index.php?title=JSR_226
> So if you want to do
> something cool on an iPhone, you can't use Flash.
>
> Are you sure Flash does not run on the Iphone? -jmz
It doesn't now, but it is rumored to be coming:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/iphone/iphone-adobe-flash-support-coming-275317.php
Personally, I hope they leave it out :)
--Ted
