No Boundaries

I must admit that I’m getting more and more exasperated with the Apple v Adobe war that has been raging for about a half of a year now. I’m sure that I don’t have any idea as to the direction that the Internet may be taking in the near future and I’m equally sure that no-one else does either. I think that the original scheme was that the internet would become a set of pipes which delivered expensive curated content to a few walled-gardens where those loyal to the particular hotel-keep would consume in contented oblivion while shelling out a considerable sum on a monthly basis for devices, connections, apps, emags and eshows, bumpers and all other necessary appurtenances. Beyond the walled gardens would be a virus-ridden, porn-infested, aesthetically-unappealing hell that best be left alone by any of any common sense. The internet would be third-world in character, as if crafted by the likes of Joan Didion or Somerset Maugham.

Google and it’s Android have busted this all wide open, sending Palm into the arms of HP and everybody else back to the drawing board. Long live liberation.

This would be good and nice, were it true, but it is complicated by Apple’s success in widely distributing both the iPad and the iPhone, the failure to launch, thus far, of all but a few Android devices which can hope to rival Apple’s creations, and Adobe’s failure to fully grasp the true condition that it’s condition is in.

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Here we are again. Sorry. It is a hot topic that has already warn thin to those who are less intrigued by all things digital. I just have a few thoughts about it, which I must spew, and then I will leave it be until the next thing happens. I’m tempted to promise that I will drop the subject entirely. But I cannot. Like a hardened viewer of Lost or the Celebrity Apprentice, I have no free will in the matter any longer and must only follow the “story” as it unwinds.

Since my last post on Flash and the Ipad a few things have come up. First I’ve spent a fair amount of time working in the Adobe CS5 environment and am prepared to declare it a success, if not a riotous success. The changes from CS4 to CS5 are substantial compared with those from CS3 to CS4. Second, I’ve spent several hours in the Adobe developer week online seminars which mainly pertained to all matters of Flash, Flex and, in my case PHP.  Third, and most importantly, I’ve watched the Google IO developer conference both via the two keynote addresses on YouTube and through zeitgeist monitoring of the phrase Android in the twittisphere. All of these lead me to believe that Flash is off-the-mat and in a much stronger position than I had formerly thought.

Regarding CS5, there are major improvements in every program and the new Flash Builder would be an enormous success if it weren’t for the Apple debacle and the inability of many other devices to handle the bulky files for which Flex is famous. Also the InDesign features which enable Flash handling of interactive InDesign documents work. This is a big deal because it opens the web, or at least the portion of the web which is open to Flash, to a myriad of print designers. The feature was promised in CS4 and was bungled severely. Flash Professional/Flash Builder integration is also happening. Though I’ve encountered a few serious glitches in the hand-off between programs. This is probably me just stumbling about without an appropriate reference book.

Regarding the Adobe developer week seminars, I left with a sense of the power of the Flash Professional IDE in particular for the development of mobile applications.  The oft-repeated statement that Flash is a non-starter for mobile devices because it is dependent on the mouse-over property is patently false. The opposite is, in fact, now true, where Flash is a much better platform for programing hand gestures and so forth than are other approaches. The only potential barrier to this is the possibility of Apple litigation — Apple recently patented a large number of hand gestures used on mobile devices and the Adobe methods for programatically implementing these were developed with the iPhone in mind. I left the seminars generally joyous but disappointed in two major areas: one was that a rumored feature for copying Flash files as HTML5 for pasting into Dreamweaver isn’t present.  The second is that PHP support remains poor, or at least confusing, particularly in the case of AMF. I found myself chasing the same 2.0 version of AMFPHP that didn’t exist a while ago and doesn’t appear to exist still today.

I watched the two Google keynotes with a growing sense of horror — like watching a huge, all powerful Oprah capable of devastating everything in it’s path, but, because of general benevolence, not doing so. These are, without question, the smartest guys and gals in the room. I could go into a lengthy outline of what they are working on for Android, their alternative to the Apple OS for mobile devices, but it would be better to direct the reader to both keynotes on YouTube ( the second being the more significant). The thing that I find most shocking about Google is the amount of progress that they have made in only a year, and the breadth of areas in which they have made progress.

The big take-aways, in my opinion, beyond the simple one that Google is really very scary, is that Android will become a dominant player in the mobile space, that it runs Flash extremely well, and that Flash will almost certainly be the dominant development environment for both sites and apps optimized for Android. The second Google keynote concluded with a confab of CEO’s (Google, Adobe, Intel, Logitech, Sony, BestBuy and DishTV). They collectively ridiculed Apple’s closed-garden approach and laid out plans for  Android-driven Google TV and the coming interplay between web, tv and mobile Android environments. Given Apple’s current litigation with HTC and Nokia, the battle lines in the mobile wars are now drawn: Apple versus pretty much everyone else with the exception of a Switzerland in Microsoft.

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It’s been a while.  A few small projects have jumped up here and there and I’ve been busy redoing my own site. Please excuse the mess. I’m at a stage now where I like having it both up and under construction at the same time. It may be a while before I get around to finishing things up completely (separate style sheet for the iPad). I have a lot of galleries to tend to and will be in fairly substantial trouble if I get busy with other things — having put stuff up while only partially complete.

Much has happened in the  feud, war, imbroglio or whatever between Apple and Adobe since my last post.  I hesitate to use the word amazing, but it does seem appropriate. This morning NPR mentioned that the Feds are getting involved. It would be good, I think, for a few enlightening rays of sunshine to find some way into the story. That may be what the Federal government can provide. On the other hand I hate to see things come down to Federal investigations and the lawsuits that often ensue thereafter.

Since my last post, the Wall Street Journal has reported that modifications to the Apple OS, made by Apple, are likely responsible for many of the problems that Apple users are encountering with Flash; Apple, in an out-of-nowhere unilateral swipe has excluded Flash developers from the iPhone/iPad platform via language in the developer’s agreement; Google has responded by jumping right into bed with all of the spurned Flash developers (May 20th should be an exciting day as the Flash – Android marriage is formally announced); Apple has patented pretty much every conceivable hand gesture; Steve Jobs penned a really long letter about Flash; Microsoft has canned the Courier; HP has dropped the Slate and picked up Palm; Adobe’s top Flash evangelist has used the “screw” word in formal reference to Apple; Adobe has released CS5; and now rumors of the Federal inquiry into Apple. Wow. These are exciting times. I’m thinking that Adobe  has the upper hand at present, but it all is starting to look like a lengthy prize fight where the lead changes every other round and both combatants leave in worse shape than they began.

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Here we go. The calendar has rolled around again to the beginning of yet another baseball season. It is the all-too-often-way-too-brief period when those of us, who are faithful to the mighty Chicago Cubs, can truly believe that all will go well and that this year is, indeed, the year of Cubby Blue and not the Cubby blues. Those who can’t comprehend should contemplate Camus’ “The Myth of Sisyphus”. He understood what it is to be a Cub’s fan: that there is an absurd pleasure in the act of rolling of the rock to the top of the hill, only to somehow find it at the bottom again, and begin the process anew. As a child of sunny summer places, he knew that: if you are under the open afternoon sky and it is summer and you are alive, things can’t really be all that bad.

This new year finds us in heady and important days for the late-middle parts of a rather nasty recession. Apple has, perhaps, forced an enormous change in the way we consume our, well, everything; a new iteration of Adobe’s Creative Suite is about to appear as if from nowhere; and, at least where I live, Spring has suffered an enormous setback. A whole passel of nasty storms, over a five-day period, has dumped 30 to 50 inches of fresh whiteness all over the Wasatch Mountains at the close of what had been a snow-depleted Winter. This results in a temporary suspension of belief in the concept of Spring which can only be relieved with the onset of televised baseball from distant lands.

The assault on Flash by Apple and the belief that this will result in a resurgence of an economically-viable old media in modified form is the really big story: a thing that may make a difference in the way people go about their lives five-years hence.  Whether this will all pan out remains to be seen. The success of the “magical device” and pending tablets of similar functionality is undeniable. That this will resuscitate old media is a much dicier question. The answer is probably no and this last hopeful emergence is a bit of a sad ghost-dance. It would be a very good thing if everyone who watches kittens-flushing-toilets on YouTube suddenly switched to reading lengthy articles, full of thought, complicated sentence structure and good design, on their portable devices. Unfortunately this great hope for a new world order relies on a certain sensibility on the part of the public which has, long ago, left the building. Free is difficult to beat as well. If the accumulators of others work could just disappear before those who actually do the work which is accumulated, that would be a small step in the right direction.

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The Big Fella

Today’s the big day. I just love the Oscars. This, because I love the movies and am drawn to thought-provoking film; over-represented in the Oscars. Let me preface by saying that I haven’t seen either of the two films which are going to sweep the whole shabang. These being: Precious and The Hurt Locker. The first deals with the subject of incest which is a topic that I just don’t want to visit. I’m sure it is a splendid film that I would benefit from seeing. But it’s just not my cup of tea. Not a place where I’d enjoy spending any time. The second deals with men who deal with explosives, and I’ve spent a fair amount of my life as a professional dealing with explosives, and this is a place that, for personal emotional reasons, I don’t want to revisit.

So, having said all that, here’s my take on this evening’s proceedings:

• Best Picture: District 9,
• Best Actor: Colin Firth,
• Best Supporting Actor: Matt Damon,
• Best Actress: Meryl Streep,
• Best Supporting Actress: Maggie Gyllenhaal,
• Best Animated Feature: Up,
• Best Art Direction: Avatar,
• Cinematography: Avatar,
• Best Directing: Avatar,
• Best Documentary Feature: The Cove,
• Best Writing: District 9,
• Best Original Screenplay: A Serious Man.

All of that goes out the window, of course, because some combination of Precious and The Hurt Locker is likely to steal the show.

There are a few gross oversights, I think, in the omission of the films Sunshine Cleaning (entirely) and Julia & Juliet (from most categories).  I would have tossed nominations to Sunshine Cleaning for best picture, writing, supporting actress and supporting actor, and Julia & Juliet should have gotten nods for best picture, writing, directing and supporting actor.   I would have gone with Sunshine for taking best writing and Stanley Tucci for best supporting actor (in J&J). He is brilliant in this picture and out-shows even Meryl streep, who is a tad overdone (pun intended). There are also a whole passel of documentaries that I think should have received greater consideration, as a lover of that particular genre.

I give District 9 more credit than it is due because I think it a courageous film, in unusual ways and on many levels. I’m curious with the inclusion of Blind Side and Inglorious Basterds in some of the categories.

When viewed through the prism of the Oscars, this past year in film was perhaps a bit of let-down. There are many good films but nothing outstanding. Avatar complicates this because it is absolutely brilliant when considered technically and fairly mediocre when considered otherwise. This is another year and, with tomorrow, we can all look forward again.

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