On Fri, September 15, 2006 11:00 am, Andy Cook wrote:
> Do web pages have to use Flash to be "interactive?" - I think the
> answer is a definitive "no." You can use bit-mapped images, text
> hrefs, etc. INMHO, neither do QuickTime movies. In a wired movie you
> can still have lots of interactivity with bitmaps, text, QTVR,
> chapter tracks, etc. Flash is nice, but isn't a requirement for
> interactivity. You make it sound like without Flash there can't be
> interactivity, and that simply is not true. Authoring tools like
> eZedia QTi, LiveStage, GoLive and Metadata Hootenany all support
> these capabilities without any requirement for Flash.
That's nice, and I'm certain everyone here expressing concern knows about
all the other methods of interactivity, but Flash is highly appealing for
many, and for good reason. And most importantly, these people have
*already* developed content, which is deployed out in the wild, that is
suddenly broken.
The complaint is the lack of options going forward (though that would be
quite valid too) as much as the total screwup for existing content.
> As mentioned on this thread already, there is a decent chance that
> Flash was disabled not to "kill off Quicktime except for .mp4 / AAC
> movies for iTunes" but because of security issues. Would you rather
> have a potential security hole?
This is a false dichotomy... since I was the one who raised this
possibility (pure speculation, mind you), I'd like to make sure everyone
understands my position:
- Of course, security is important; that said, Apple has managed to fix
other (theoretical) security problems without removing functionality.
- The major complaint is that even if this was a security-related issue,
Apple has stranded a lot of developers, has not been forthcoming with any
information, and in general handled this quite poorly.
> There is also potential for beefing up the nascent interactive
> features in mpeg-4/3gp in QT. There is already support for clickable
> urls, chapters and text (via 3gpp text). I would be encouraged by
> continued development of interactivity in mpeg-4/3gp in the future.
Potential, sure, but that does nothing to:
1) Address the huge problem of existing content; who's going to pay for
re-authoring everything, if it's even practical/possible at all?
2) Address the immediate needs, since you're only talking about
hypothetical new features.
This just sounds like apologism to me, which is certainly not the tone I
was trying to strike earlier. I am in no way excusing Apple on this, and
am certainly not blaming the content developers for being upset. This was
a minor point release, with no one given even an opportunity to prepare
for this huge regression. It really gives another good example to those
who complain that Apple really doesn't respect it's third-party
developers. Certainly in this case they haven't been treated as they
should be.
-R
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