Could Steve Jobs be the Hero HTML5 Needs?

Fall out continues from Google’s announcement last week of dropping H.264 support from the Chrome browser.  It has become clear that while Google hides behind a veil of promoting openness on the internet and ending the codec schism, they are really making a move to promote WebM and even send support to their buddies at Adobe.  It’s bad people and every media outlet with some stake in the future of HTML5 has come out with near universal disapproval.  Of course, some support it in the genuine belief that we should not have royalties associated with HTML5.  While that is a completely valid belief, don’t think for a second that’s Google’s real intention.

So I’m going to suggest something pretty radical here, and bear with me as I explain.  We don’t need Google to be HTML5’s guardian.  Instead, I nominate Steve Jobs.  Over the past few years, Jobs has on rare occasions released manifestos of sorts on topics that he feels are worthy of an extended response beyond his usually terse emails.  It was Jobs who placed the last nail in the coffin on DRM for music downloads when he released his “Thoughts on Music” essay in 2007.  Few fully comprehend how much of a landmark effort that was by Jobs, unequivocally placing Apple is support of a world without DRM.  By later that year, EMI was offering DRM-free content and eventually the entire music industry folded in 2009.

Then, in 2010 Jobs provided another manifesto against the current state of web video with “Thoughts on Flash”.  While less ground breaking than ending DRM, the remarks about Flash laid down the law in Apple’s development community that they will do all in their power to move away from the plug-in that they only begrudgingly have to support.  Jobs alluded to HTML5 often in that essay, but I think he can guide HTML5 away from the damage that Google has created.  It may involve the “Reality Distortion Field” but HTML5 needs an enthusiastic leader.  Jobs and Apple was that leader for iOS, but they now need to lead the rest of the internet.

I’m not saying this because H.264 has to be the codec of choice, but because Google propping up Flash with their move towards WebM.  It’s no secret Google has gotten very cozy with Adobe over the years.  They bundle Flash 10.1 with Android 2.2, Youtube continues to be one of the largest repositories of Flash video on the net, and Chrome now has Flash player bundled in it.  In Google’s ideal world, you will have two options for video: Flash with H.264, and HTML5 with WebM.  Sure, Google may want to see HTML5 end Flash eventually, but not as long as they have such a rich relationship.  Think about it: clearly Adobe was very threatened by Apple’s refusal to adopt Flash video on iOS.  So they turned to Google as their trojan horse into the mobile space.  Google makes it clear they are ok with Flash continuing, this is a quote from their Chromium Blog post yesterday regarding the issue:

H.264 plays an important role in video and the vast majority of the H.264 videos on the web today are viewed in plug-ins such as Flash and Silverlight. These plug-ins are and will continue to be supported in Chrome.

See?  Google is saying that if you want H.264 video, just turn to Flash and Silverlight plug-ins.  Plugins like the WebM version arriving for Safari and IE9 soon.

Given that Adobe and Google are creating a power play against Apple and the rest of the MPEG, I think Jobs is the man to continue the support of H.264 as the preferred codec for HTML5.  There should be no compromise.  How does Jobs do this?  Apple extends an olive branch by forgoing the royalties they would get from their contribution to the H.264 standard.  The time is now for Apple to nail Flash’s coffin shut by ensuring that H.264, the best video codec on this damn earth, does not remain a jewel in Flash’s crown.  Help us Steve Jobs, you are our only hope.

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Starting to Hate Flash Player

Many moons ago I talked about the coming advent of HTML5 and its potential to usurp Flash as the dominant technology for delivering video on the internet.  Months later, I’m really hoping that happens faster.  For the past few months, I have found frustrations arising with Flash player that I never thought I would have.  I figured after the 10.1 release and with hardware acceleration now supported on the Mac, using Flash would be easy.  Guess not.

First, RockMelt.  I’ve ranted and raved about the browser before.  But one thing has been annoying me to hell: Flash continues to crash every single time I use the browser. I’m not sure who to blame: Adobe or Flash, but its annoying.  Especially because almost everything else in RockMelt works well.  I’m inclined to believe this is Flash’s fault because RockMelt is built on Chromium 7 – a proven browser design that handles Flash like a pro.  Clearly something this up with the player.

Let’s talk about another thing: performance.  Adobe promised that Player 10.1 would bring noticeable improvements to performance on all platforms.  A later update for the Mac, known as Gala also finally brought GPU-acceleration to Flash video.  All these things combined with my very fast computer, should have made for an easy Flash experience.  So why isn’t it?  This is a technology that can supposedly run smoothly on Netbooks at full screen up to 720p, but when I run Hulu or Youtube at 480p in full-screen, I see a slide show of my video.  I have to switch from my Intel HD graphics to the Nvidia GT330 to end the nonsense slow down.  I’m was worried there was something wrong with my machine – it seemed ridiculous that a Core i5 with an integrated graphics core designed to handle 1080p would perform so slowly.

I put my flawed hardware theory to the test.  Disabling my discrete video card, I ran Vimeo videos at full screen and found the same staggered frame rate (I picked Vimeo for its extensive use of H.264 and optional HD videos for optimal testing).  I then compared this to the HTML5 Beta of Youtube (I’m in the opt-in version) which ran buttery smooth.  Disabling Hardware Acceleration, unfortunately, seems to fix this problem but that bounds the entirely of Flash processing to the CPU (not good for multitasking or battery life).  Re-enabling it afterwards seems to have limited improvements.  All of this internet video tom-foolery is complemented by trials with local content.  Running H.264 video on iTunes and Quicktime X was perfectly fine and never beckoned me to activate the discrete GPU.  I tried a variety of video qualities too: a low quality encoded video of Anchorman, a mainstream video downloaded from the iTunes store, a high bit-rate encoding of Iron Man 2 and even an HD video of Iron Man.  None of them had a single problem.

I’m convinced that Adobe is not doing enough for Flash.  The hardware acceleration implementation on the Mac is insufficient.  HTML5 video cannot come soon enough, because it runs far better on my computer than Flash probably ever will.

Witness the Power of HTML5!

Now imagine that title said with some intensity and you’ve got the kind of feeling Apple wants to convey to you.  Today Apple opened up a new section of their website for developers lauding and showing off the abilities of HTML5 with a few demos of the technology.  Included is an example of text manipulation using CSS3 and Javascript, slide transitions a la Powerpoint using HTML5 and CSS3, photo gallery animations using 3D effects, embedded video and audio, 360˚ image rotation, and virtual reality overlays.  Apple is really pushing the combined technology of javascript, CSS3 and HTML5 as an alternative to Flash and these examples do a lot to show the power of these standards.  One of the big pluses that Apple is focusing on with these little demos is that you don’t need plug-ins or even embedded images and files, everything is augmented by HTML5.  Take a look at the demos here: HTML5 Demos.

So how well does it work?  Pretty well.  Video was exceptionally clear and high quality, but then again it was on Apple’s website using highly optimized H.264 video.  Playback was choppy at higher resolutions, but I blame that on my slower computer.  All in all it performed just as well as Flash does.  All the demos are pretty impressive, but it remains to be seen if web developers will put that much effort into it as Apple has.  Also, keep in mind that not every browser full supports HTML5 and CSS3 + SVG, so these features may not all work exactly the same on Firefox, Chrome, or Internet Explorer (though the next version of all these browsers will probably fix that).  In a bit of irony, I actually could not run one of the demos (the VR segment) because it requires support for CSS3 3D animation, which Safari 4 on Leopard does not support.  I’ll have to revisit that one once I get my new computer for college.

So, what do you think?  This good enough to replace Flash?

Another Fight? Apple vs. Adobe

Jeez Louise!  It seems like Apple just can’t keep its hands to itself anymore.  Everyday I drop it off at daycare and only a few hours go by before the caretaker is calling me up at work to tell me that it got in another fight with one of the other kids.  It used to have this long feud with Microsoft, last month it was fighting Google, and this month it’s been stealing Adobe’s toys and putting clay in its hair.  Strained-extended-analogies-for-weak-comedic-effect-aside, it seems like only yesterday I was writing about the impending blood-bath between Apple and Google.  Well it looks like that massacre has subsided as a lot of nothing (I blame myself for fueling the flames on that one, but hey it makes good editorials) in exchange for another brewing war.  But this one is far different.  Instead of being a battle between two goliaths, the Apple-Adobe fight is something far different.  Apple and Google were fighting over the tangible and competitive mobile market.  But Apple and Adobe are not fighting over any market or specific products, they are fighting between two very different philosophies about what the internet and software platforms should be.  The funny thing is, neither of them are right.

Last month Steve Jobs posted a constructive letter about why he believes that Flash, Adobe’s multimedia video, animation, and application language, is not conducive to the mobile strategy of Apple’s iPhone and iPad.  To revisit those points, you can read my article on the letter.  Suffice to say, Jobs believes that the poor performance of Flash on mobile hardware, combined with the inherent limitations of building applications in Flash that cannot leverage the full power of the iPhone SDK APIs makes the entire technology a burden.  Jobs would rather that the internet move towards the open-source HTML5, which allows for rich interactivity and video integration without the use of Adobe’s proprietary plug-in.  But that is a horn Apple has only been tooting for a few months.  The way I see it is this: Apple would have originally placed Flash on the iPhone once Adobe could prove that they could get it to run efficiently on the platform.  But once HTML5 debuted, Apple instead felt it was more prudent to move to this open standard instead of continuing to support Adobe’s closed platform.  While that hypothesis makes Apple seem like a crusading force for open-source platforms, on the internet that is not too far from the truth.  While Apple cannot be called open-source in their offline software by any stretch of the imagination, Apple has contributed several new technologies to the internet arena that are all available as free and open technology.  The Webkit browser engine, their proliferation of the SproutCore application framework, and the development of Gianduia – a possible open-source replacement for Flash built on top of HTML5 – are all indications that Apple does really believe in open source technology for the internet.  All of these technologies are built on existing technology and languages and are free to use, unlike Adobe’s Flash.  So if we are to believe Apple, they want us to move away from Flash not just because it can’t work well on the iPhone, but because the internet cannot be ruled by a proprietary and closed technology.

Steve Jobs Talks About Flash

It’s no secret that the relationship between Adobe and Apple has become very strained over this year.  What started as Apple’s simple design choice to not support Flash has become a war of words between the two companies.  Adobe had been trying extensively to find a way around Apple’s refusal to support Flash, going so far as to support an iPhone code compiler in Flash CS5 so that developers can build applications in Flash and then port them over to iPhone code.  Apple placed the kibosh on this, however, when they modified their SDK in iPhone OS 4 by limiting app development to only Javascript, Objective-C, C/ C++ and C# – these are all very common code languages but they are not ubiquitous.  Apple argues that these are the core languages of the iPhone and ensure maximum support to make the best apps possible.  Having Adobe’s Flash creates a third party layer which can’t support all functions of the iPhone SDK and lead to sub-par applications.  Adobe has become frustrated and many have complained about Apple’s lack of Flash in either their iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.  Apparently Steve Jobs felt it was time to descend from his heaven-like existence and provide a constructive response and explanation to Apple’s feud with Adobe.

Is Flash’s Future Bleak?

When Apple unveiled the iPad in January, among the many complaints the device garnered was its lack of support for Adobe’s Flash browser plug-in.  Instead of staying relatively mum on the subject as per usual, Steve Jobs decided to instead throw more volleys at Adobe.  He criticized Adobe’s efforts to make an efficient Flash plug-in for the iPhone, mentioning that Flash Lite is too feature-deficient and regular Flash is a resource hog.  Jobs went on to criticize Flash’s stability, citing that a large portion of crashes on the Mac platform stem from failures with the plug-in on the browser (this prompted Apple to include independent processes in Safari tabs in-order to prevent a plug-in crash from taking down the entire application).  Job’s ended his criticism by stating that, in general, Adobe was lazy and was not putting nearly enough effort into optimizing Flash for the iPhone.  This article is not about that, though I will address towards the end whether Flash is possible on the iPhone.  This is about if Flash has a future in general.  Particularly because Jobs did make one very good comment in his Adobe hate-fest: in the future, we won’t need Flash with HTML5.

What is Flash, anyway?  Originally developed by Macromedia and then bought by Adobe, Flash is a video container file that allows for live action and animation video to be placed in websites with the Flash Player.  You use Flash every single day.  Youtube videos are formatted in Flash, online advertisements are usually Flash-based, Hulu is a Flash player, even the animated stats for who visits my site are done in Flash animation (speaking of which, I could use more traffic).  In general, it’s one of the most popular plug-ins around and vitally important to the internet.  Why is it so popular?  Essentially, it’s a case of being in the right place at the right time.  Technologically, there was little available in the 90s that could efficiently create animations or display video on a website and the basis for the internet, HTML, lacked that function inherently.  Flash was there when little else was and grew in popularity because there seemed no other alternative.  I don’t mean to sound like Flash was simply the lesser of two evils, it is indeed a strong file format and video player today.  But it’s adoption was done out of necessity, not through evaluation against other options.  It became the de facto standard.