Worship Tech Web Tools Blog
This is an ongoing blog of web tools and technology related to worship, music and church. The idea is to give you good web points and resources that you can go to. Some of it is just me cruising the net, others are favorites of friends.
Enjoy what you see here. If you find an interesting, useful and technology related site or resource that deals with helping worship or musicians in general, please send us a note and we will check it out. Perhaps we can feature it here.
Thanks!
Enjoy! - Kim Gentes
Entries in HTML5 (2)
Apple's Blatant Lie about the iPad (Kim Gentes Worship/Tech Blog)
Friday, June 4, 2010 at 11:18AM 
I own an iPad. I love using it. I use Netflix and stream movies when I am sitting on the couch. I check my mail, calendar, and even write notes in some meetings. I use a Bible application for following along in church and I access maps for quick references. I have already written two articles about the iPad- one a positive review of it, the other a critique of Apple's decision to exclude flash technology from the platform. Check either of those articles to see that I love the positive attributes of the device, but remain skeptical of some aspects of the device.
That said, nothing burns me more than to see someone fly completely against reason and logic with an outright lie. Apple recently did this with their new advertizement for the iPad. So that you can review it for yourself, I encourage you to view the ad on Apple's website here:
http://www.apple.com/ipad/gallery/#ad
What you will see is a brilliant marketing and visual story. Compelling and fresh. I love it. Except that while it is listing the sparkling features of the iPad, at 0:17 through 0:20, the commercial says this:
"All the world's websites in your hands"
This is simply not true. Literally millions of websites run either completely or partially based on Adobe Flash. This is not a guess, this is a fact. Any website using Flash will not be able to function on iPad. In fact, a huge number or them won't even be visible at all, except for a "not supported" message.
According to several studies, approximately 1/3 of all websites will be useless on the iPad. In one of the largest online reviews of website technology, Opera Software surveyed 3.5 million web pages and about 33% of them used Flash. That number gets even larger in developing technology regions of the world, such as China (at 67%) and Turkey (at 60%). You can see the results of this survey data at http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/mama-key-findings/#flash
Admittedly the report is 1.5 years old, which is a long time on the web. But with the web following its trends, Flash implementation actually could reasonably be believed to be higher now than it was 1.5 years ago. With the iPad coming out just weeks ago, any change in that strategy would not have embedded itself in the majority of websites. Those websites that are working to accommodate both Flash and HTML5 (iPad's only online web media player solution, except iTunes and Quicktime of course), such as Youtube.com have done so only very recently and have provided both options (Flash and HTML5) in deference to the vast hundreds of millions of users who use Flash as their web media player.
Back to the original point. Apple clearly says "All the world's websites in your hands". Why lie? Why not spin the commercial to say something complimentary about the browsing experience. Why lie blatantly in the face of undisputed facts? I won't answer the question, but I hope Apple does do something.
My hope is that Apple will listen to my request to them:
Apple, change the commercial. Advertise honestly. You didn't want to put Flash on your device. That is fine. Your call. But don't lie about the capabilities of the iPad in the face of the decision you made.
Here's hoping someone cares about "truth in advertizing" these days... we'll see.
Happy iPad-ding and web surfing...
Kim Gentes
Reality Check- "Apple vs Adobe: real reasons Flash is banned from iPads"
Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 2:52PM 
After posting my iPad review, I was surprised how many people responded to me thankful for the update on the new technology and my thoughts on it. I was also a little surprised that a small, but vocal group of Apple acolytes demanded that I rescind anything but love towards Apple's decision to block Flash from being allowed on the iPad platform.
- The vast majority of web 2.0 audio and video is delivered on/within web sites via Flash. It is the defacto standard on hundreds of thousands of sites, including MOST of the major sites dealing with media.
- Not supporting flash (as a media player) does NOT necessarily mean you are using less CPU! What it means is that you are running ANOTHER media player. Any site that uses flash for audio delivery (just about every one online) will now spew out mp3's that must be played by another application that can handle a stream, decode it and produce the audio. The same goes for video. What is going to happen- sites are going to just spew mp3s out, and they will be picked up (in the iPad) by Quicktime. Oh glory... imagine how much CPU load and battery life you will save using Quicktime instead of Flash for audio. And it gets even worse for video. Flash as a media player actually very good performance and load comparisons, that simply are far exceeded by Quicktime.
- HTML5 is a nice thought, but when tested in scenarios of true "pear-to-pear" (hate to use the "apples-to-apples" terminology and biased our results in this particular discussion) it is not guaranteed to be faster, lower CPU load or better battery use than Flash. In some cases, it is actually slower and more cumbersome than Flash for media right now. A good comparison testing evaluation has been done and posted online, which you can review for yourself at http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/does_html5_really_beat_flash_surprising_results_of_new_tests.php Clearly, there are times when Flash performs worse than HTML5, and times when the reverse is true. Don't take my word for it. Go to YouTube. They now support viewing videos on either their standard flash or new HTML5 formats. Test it out yourself. In defense of HTML5, it is new technology and should get faster as browsers optimize their engines, but saying carte blanch that HTML5 is more efficient and lower load at delivering audio/video content than flash just isn't true.
- Apple itself has purposefully handcuffed Flash on its OS platforms, so that the software can't compete fairly for performance against its embedded media presentation solutions. Simply put, one of the primary ways you gain efficiencies on media play on devices (laptop, desktop or mobile) is to utilize hardware acceleration for decoding. Apple allows its own Quicktime and Safari applications to access hardware acceleration through the OS directly, but does NOT allow access to the required APIs for that same hardware acceleration to be made useful by Adobe Flash or other media rendering applications. This is a simple technical issue, and since Apple controls it, they are blocking any other software companies from competing with them in the media play space to maintain their monopoly on the iPhone/iPad OS and advantage on the OSx/Safari platform.
- The other significant problem with Apple's refusal to let Flash run on iPad is that Apple loses monopoly access to a huge revenue area- media streaming. If Flash is allowed to run on iPads, the access to Hulu, and other services negates the need to buy episodes of programming or video off of iTunes video. Oh really?! Ya, exactly. Strangely enough, Apple wants to make more money for itself. Maybe the "net neutrality" mantra doesn't apply when Apple can't take its share of the money that might be had. This point is well articulated on Cult of Mac's editor blog at http://www.cultofmac.com/adobe-theres-no-flash-on-ipad-because-apple-is-protecting-content-revenue/28564
- It is about CONTROL and business strategy that Apple has started the conflict between Flash and HTML5, by not allowing Flash on the iPad. It is not a technical issue, and to say so flies in the face of both technical realities, and the obvious nature of free-market competition that drives all parties to improve. This is a brief summary claim, and please don't accept it without doing some research. I encourage you to read this good article from expert Jeremy Allaire at TechCrunch. http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/05/the-future-of-web-content-html5-flash-mobile-apps/ Jeremy has definitive understanding of both Flash and HTML5 that fuels his current work, and his explanation of the controversy is refreshingly non-partisan.