1. The “full web” has less power to hurt Apple

In the short term, Apple’s competitors will lose the ability to beat consumers about the brow with talk of the “full web” experience that comes with Flash-supporting mobile operating systems like QNX and Android. That’s a good thing for consumers on both sides of the divide, since even mobile Flash support on most devices except the most current, most high-end ones amounted to an unpleasant, laggy, stuttering experience. But the real winner is Apple, since one of the competition’s most distinguishing traits, which is often used to try to make Apple’s platform appear weak by comparison, has now been taken away.

Existing versions of mobile Flash will remain available for devices, but without support from Adobe itself, it’s hard to tout that as much of an ecosystem advantage. Especially when Adobe admits the superiority of, and will support efforts to improve HTML5 technology for cross-platform content.

2. More content coming to an iOS device near you

Now that there’s only one game in town, companies who operate websites have no option but to make their content compatible with the most popular portable devices. For mobile browsing, iOS is the most-used platform. Now, there’s no excuse to wait and watch: Even if Android does eventually win out and take the lion’s share of mobile visits, HTML5 will be the content delivery vehicle of choice.

Since Adobe will also be actively promoting HTML5 as a solution for mobile devices, there’s also no one trying to work against development efforts in that direction. In fact, Adobe will likely work with content provider partners who’d been hanging on to Flash to upgrade to solutions that can deal with both technologies, depending on whether a user is on mobile or the desktop, like Flash Media Server 4.5.

3. A Flash-less desktop future

Apple no longer ships Flash pre-installed on its Mac systems, and some users find that installing it themselves can negatively affect battery life and performance. The full version of Flash might be the next to fall, however, now that its mobile cousin is no more.

As Aral Balkan pointed out on Twitter, “No Flash Player for mobile platforms means don’t use Flash on websites, period.” The statement makes sense, since mobile access is becoming an increasingly important way that users come to web content. Mobile Internet is predicted to eclipse wireline access by 2015, and mobile browsing is already overtaking desktop browsing in some markets.

Live streaming is another area where Adobe is losing out to Apple. Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) is becoming a popular option for connected televisions, as well as the default tech of most streaming content providers. That’s just one more reason users will soon be able to do without Flash, no matter the platform.

Long story short, Adobe’s capitulation is great news for Apple, since it no longer has to fend off accusations of presenting a “limited” version of the web, and for Apple users, since content providers would actually have to actively go out of their way to make content that doesn’t work on iOS devices going forward. Even Adobe wins, since it no longer has to devout resources to bailing out a boat with way too many holes in its rusty hull.

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Skyfire cost users $2.99 to download on the iPhone, even though the browser is available for free on other platforms. When it was initially made available in the App Store, it was downloaded more than 300,000 times by users anxious to get Flash access on their devices. I was one of them, and I wasn’t all that impressed with the experience Skyfire provided.

According to MobileCrunch, Skyfire’s take was between $600,000 and $700,000, after Apple’s 30 percent cut. That’s pretty good for an app that was only available for a few hours before it was pulled due to strain on Skyfire’s servers, which handle the conversion of Flash elements to HTML5, then beam that back to user devices. The browser is now being released in batches, so that Skyfire can better scale its back end to keep up with demand.

Steve Jobs has famously insisted that Flash will never appear natively on iOS devices. The reasons include resource management and power demands, among others, and while Jobs may be right that Flash isn’t all that great, or even necessary, it looks like the average user has yet to come around to his way of thinking. Skyfire’s success shows there’s still strong demand for Flash access on the iPhone, and no doubt if an iPad version arrives, we’ll see similar results.

But what’s driving demand? Skyfire doesn’t allow users to play Flash games, so that’s out, but it does offer access to lots of U.S. streaming TV video content, including The Daily Show and South Park. I think that’s where the real interest is coming from. Despite the fact that many sites are now offering video in both HTML5 and Flash format to ensure a uniform experience across devices, some of the last to act have been television networks, which provide content the average user wants to be able to watch.

Flash may be on its way out in the grand scheme of things, but for the time being, it still has the support of the average user. That’ll likely remain the case, too, at least until networks and network partners like Hulu opt to use something else instead.

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The Air is marketed around the idea of portability, of which battery life is a major component.  A “long-lasting battery” is one of the four major features mentioned in Apple’s advertisements for its slim notebook. Ars claims that they weren’t intending to test the notebook’s interaction with Flash, while investigating these claims, but couldn’t ignore the obvious problems when the plugin, not pre-installed on the MacBook Air, is added to the mix:

Having Flash installed can cut battery runtime considerably—as much as 33 percent in our testing. With a handful of websites loaded in Safari, Flash-based ads kept the CPU running far more than seemed necessary, and the best time I recorded with Flash installed was just 4 hours. After deleting Flash, however, the MacBook Air ran for 6:02—with the exact same set of websites reloaded in Safari, and with static ads replacing the CPU-sucking Flash versions.

Ars is clear to state that, with light web surfing, users should be able to enjoy a full workday on a single charge. But heavy Flash usage, such as gaming and video, will usually require carrying your power adapter. In fact, many won’t encounter enough Flash through regular usage to merit a major problem if they don’t have the plugin installed, not with the success of HTML5.

As web developers debate over whether to use HTML5 (suggested by Jobs & widely considered more efficient) or stick with Flash, Apple continues to make the decision easier by not including Flash in its new machines, and now we see why. Adobe can’t be enjoying the media attention this latest development will bring to its web video and interactive media platform. Now that I’ve seen that it might actually impede performance, I’m going to try going without Flash entirely. Who else is jumping ship?

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UPDATE: Skyfire has been pulled from the App Store by Skyfire, not Apple, due to high demand. Skyfire’s current server capacity can’t handle the load, but the company is planning to retool and reintroduce the app.

You can now get the much-hyped Skyfire browser for your iPhone, which brings the ability to watch Flash content. You won’t get that for free, though, as the price is $2.99 at launch, which is described as an “early adopter price.” So is it worth it?

Skyfire works by sending Flash content to its servers, transcoding it using a proxy and sending it back to your device as HTML5. However, it has its limitations. If you were planning on watching Hulu on your device through its website, for instance, you’re out of luck, since it isn’t supported. It also won’t work with Flash games.

It does, however, play Flash video without issue on many sites, and provides audio, too. In my experience, it worked often, but when it didn’t, I was very disappointed. For example, streaming video from network sites here in Canada didn’t work at all. Other sites, like Current TV worked fine, albeit with some slowdowns likely caused by strain on Skyfire’s servers.

Is it worth $2.99? Well, it also offers a private browsing mode, related search terms automatically combed from every site you visit, the ability to select whether pages load mobile or standard versions by default and a Facebook quick view feature that makes posting to and viewing your account while browsing easy. So as a Safari alternative, it isn’t without merit.

Even with all these features, though, and with Flash capabilities, I’m not sure the app is a good buy. It seems to run slowly, and video conversion quality can vary greatly depending on the quality of your connection. Finally, it seems most are warming up to HTML5, so iOS incompatibility with Flash may not even be an issue for much longer.

If this app had been around two years ago, it might have been worthwhile. Then again, the only reason Apple approved it now is probably because it knows it pretty much won the HTML5/Flash video war at this point, anyway.

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“MacBook Air. The next generation of MacBooks.”

This is Apple’s tagline for the new MacBook Air. I believe it means everything that’s good about the Air will make its way into the MacBook and MacBook Pro within the next year. Let’s look at what’s next for Apple’s notebooks.

Battery Life

The older Air I own has a claimed battery life of five hours, but I never see more than three and a half with brightness all the way down and Wi-Fi off. The new Air claims seven hours of battery life in Apple’s “Web-test” which, according to the company’s performance page, “measures battery life by wirelessly browsing 25 popular websites with display brightness set to 50%.”

We can expect this new test to become the standard for how Apple measures battery life specs across the board going forward and I expect seven hours to be the new minimum standard for the rest of the lineup. Most Macs meet this now, in fact, so 10-12 hours may be a more realistic expectation from next year’s MacBook Pro, as long as Intel continues increasing the efficiency of its chips at the current rate.

SSD As a Standard

Solid State Drives (SSD) enable quick booting, instant on and faster launch times of applications. I believe every new MacBook Pro sold will come standard with an SSD, with an option to drop down to an HDD for $200 less if you just needs lots of storage (500GB+). For most users, 256GB is all they’ll ever need, and for huge media libraries, an external drive is always an option.

SSD is great, and it’s finally achieving a price point where Apple can include it as part of a base configuration. Remember, only a little over two years ago, a 128GB SSD add-on for the MacBook Air cost an additional $999. Now, the $1699 model comes with a 256GB drive standard.

Sorry, No Optical

I’ve talked to a lot of people in coffee shops, at conferences and even my less-techie friends and they all come to the same conclusion: Optical drives are kind of pointless. If all software manufacturers provided direct downloads or flash drives for physical installs, there’s be absolutely no issue.

The optical drive, as far as Apple is concerned, is dead. The company has the largest collection of digital media available for sale, and with the Mac App Store, Front Row and Apple TV, why would you ever need to burn content to a disc? The external Air Superdrive is still available, and it’ll probably gain compatibility with the rest of Apple’s notebooks as the internal drives disappear.

Thinner and Lighter

SSD and the lack of an optical drive will mean thinner cases across the board. The MacBook Air’s logic board in 2008 was a thing of beauty: smaller than the length of a pencil, and it powered the entire computer. I think the move to SSD flash storage that’s soldered to the logic board, paired with removing those gigantic optical drives, will mean most Mac laptops will slim down. We’ll see this in new revisions that come out in 2011.

Higher Resolution Displays

As I said in July’s post about iPhone 4′s Retina Display, Apple will be beefing up the resolution of all of its displays, starting with notebooks. The MacBook Air already has an improved display; the MacBook Pro is next. How high a resolution is too high? We’ll see how Apple navigates the line between display quality and the concerns of users with weaker vision or older eyes. Unlike on the iPhone, you can always change the resolution on your Mac if it makes for a better reading experience.

Conclusion

I’ve always been sure that the MacBook Air was a test bed for innovation, and a peek at what’s to come from Apple portables. Cupertino’s clearly gone “all in” techs like flash storage and battery improvements that it pioneered with the Air, and it’ll be genuinely exciting to see those developments trickle down to the rest of the line.

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The Business of Play

First, note that even RIM is reluctant to frame the device as a direct iPad competitor. The press release for the PlayBook emphasizes its business appeal, citing “advanced security features, out-of-the-box enterprise support” and a brand new development platform aimed at IT departments. BlackBerry knows where its real strength lies, and it seems to know to avoid Apple’s, too.

RIM didn’t create the PlayBook to storm the consumer market. It did it because it had to, or face losing enterprise customers to iOS. Since a tablet is definitely useful in a business setting, people are already buying iPads for enterprise purposes, basically because they don’t have a choice. It’s probably true that most would prefer a BlackBerry option, so that’s what RIM’s providing. That also accounts for the timing of the announcement. RIM showed its hand early, but it’ll stop some businesses from making an IT buying decision until it can bring a device to market.

Early to Rise, Early to Bed

RIM may be retaining some customers on the enterprise side by announcing early, but it definitely isn’t doing itself any favors in the consumer market. First, Apple and other competitors know exactly what’s coming in six or so months, making it very easy to plan product updates that surpass the PlayBook’s hardware specs. Second, savvy consumers can tell that the PlayBook’s specs are on par with the iPad now, and perhaps beat it in some areas, but they also know Apple updates its devices at least yearly.

That means consumers are expecting an iPad with Retina Display and probably at least a front-facing camera with FaceTime at around the time the PlayBook arrives. The iPad revision’s upgrades will probably make the BlackBerry look decidedly last-gen.

The App Lead

Even if the BlackBerry PlayBook launches with a terrific development framework, and App World gets a significant update that makes it much more appealing to users, Apple’s lead in the app game is basically insurmountable at this point. That’s bad news for RIM’s hopes in both the consumer and the enterprise arena.

Forced to Follow

So is the PlayBook revolutionary? No, it’s a bitter pill RIM CEO Lazardis and Co. were forced to swallow, and it’s being rushed to market to defend a market segment that’s traditionally belonged to the BlackBerry maker. But RIM will continue to succeed in business, for the same reasons that it always has.

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The incomplete plans, known as the Digital Agenda, not only aim to redefine how antitrust rules are practiced, but also hope to see an overall improved digital economy in place by 2020. In order to reach this goal, the EU plans to work with a number of individual companies, relevant organizations and governments. The efforts carried out with these various groups will involve working through seven key points. The second point of this seven-part plan is one which may be of concern to Apple.

Point two of the Digital Agenda highlights the need for set standards and interoperability between devices. It specifically states:

The internet is a great example of interoperability — numerous devices and applications working together anywhere in the world. Europe must ensure that new IT devices, applications, data repositories and services interact seamlessly anywhere — just like the internet. The Digital Agenda identifies improved standard-setting procedures and increased interoperability as the keys to success

How This Could Affect Apple

It’s no secret that the European Union isn’t shy to flex its muscle when it comes to competition rules. In the past, it has fined various industry heavyweights including Intel and Microsoft. In fact Microsoft has found itself in the firing line on multiple occasions.

[inline-ad align="right"]But what could the Digital Agenda truly mean for Apple? Comments from European Union commissioner Neelie Kroes hint that she is giving Apple’s business practices a serious review. According to a report from Rethink Wireless, the commissioner has concerns that the current smartphone market is too closed, detailing that consumers are currently limited when coming to choose what software is present on their selected handset.

With the Digital Agenda in place, dominant market figures, such as RIM and Nokia, will not be the only ones to receive official practice reviews. Figures that are deemed significant, such as Apple, will also be called upon. Kroes detailed that:

“…significant market players cannot just choose to deny interoperability with their product. This is particularly important in cases where standards don’t exist. This is not just about Microsoft or any big company like Apple, IBM or Intel. The main challenge is that consumers need choice when it comes to software or hardware products.”

With Kroes’ comments in mind, it seems that Apple’s banning of Flash could come under serious investigation from the EU. Other blogs have speculated on how the Digital Agenda’s rules may apply beyond Apple’s Flash ban. Some have suggested that this digital strategy could be applied to change the closed nature of iPhone development via Xcode, whereas others have expressed thoughts on how iTunes’ restrictive style could be an issue — especially considering the whole Palm Pre syncing drama.

With the U.S. Fair Trade Commission looking into Apple’s ban on Flash and the European Union also casting an authoritative eye over the issue, it will be interesting to see how Apple would handle the Flash ban if any official body were to make a move.

Whatever happens, with both Apple and Adobe picking and choosing both open and closed formats and practices, one thing is clear: nobody’s perfect.

Related GigaOM Pro Research (subscription required): A Brighter Week Ahead for Flash

I grabbed my iPad, fired up the YouTube app and did a search. Nothing.  Now I was getting mad. I went to Google on the iPad and did a search. I found the YouTube video on a dozen or so sites but YouTube didn’t have an Apple-friendly version available. Other sites had their own videos but they were all flash versions.

I’m now about 45 minutes into this and I’m loosing it. I use DownloadHelper and Firefox to grab a mp4 version of the trailer off of YouTube and save it to my desktop. I open it up in QuickTime and created an Apple TV version. I then synced it to my iPad in iTunes. After finally being able to show my wife the trailer I throw my Apple friendly version up on YouTube.Why didn’t I just sit her down at my desktop to watch it? Well, I don’t have external speakers and it’s not as casual as watching it on a big TV or an iPad.

[inline-ad]This seems to happen to me quite a bit on the iPad. I see a video at work, I want to show it to someone when I get home, only to find out I can’t, without using a desktop or notebook. If I could just watch flash videos, 90 percent of these issues would be avoided. I usually try the TiVo route first but that’s only because it’s connected to the big screen. With all the different gadgets I own, I still have to use my Mac Pro to watch a simple flash video. There has to be a better way.

This got me to thinking about what I really want in an Apple TV. If Apple would make its device just a 1080p video unit that could have videos thrown to it using an iPad or iPhone as the remote, that would be a good start. Next, give me flash video. I don’t want games or flashy website intros, just flash-based videos. I fear Apple is too proud to ever back-peddle on this and that may force me to seriously look into Google TV. HTML 5 may be the future but I’m stuck here with my device in my hand, waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

If you are losing sleep over it, or if you’re just curious about what Flash on an iDevice would even look and feel like, there’s a couple ways to try it out, one of which is available right now as an app that doesn’t require jailbreaking. The other, which is actually much cooler, is only in preview release right now, but  runs in your Safari browser natively without any extra steps required on a user’s part.

Cloud Browse is your first option. It’s an app that connects you to a remote computer running on servers maintained by the Cloud Browse developers, AlwaysOn. The app lets you then control the browsing on the remote computer from your iDevice, and see any type of web content, including Flash. The sites you visit are streamed to your phone, but there is some trade off as you might expect.

Video framerate is quite slow, and if you’re not a paying subscriber, you only have a limited number of spots to connect. Free users can also get bumped by paying customers, as in unceremoniously disconnected mid-session. You can get a paid account for $9.99 a month that would give you 30 FPS video and 1GB of storage for saving offline data. Plus you can only use it in the U.S. and Canada, and it only works over Wi-Fi. Finally, playing Flash games with the iPhone’s on-screen keyboard is absolutely no fun.

The other alternative is Smokescreen, which is a web-end tech that developers and designers could use to make their Flash content visible on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. That means that it’s currently far more limited (you can only see it in action in some demos released by the original developer), but that it has much more potential in terms of long-term usability.

Smokescreen operates by a workaround process that isn’t actually a plugin, so it there’s really nothing Apple can do to stop it. Here’s how the process works, as described by its creator Simon Willison:

It runs entirely in the browser, reads in SWF binaries, unzips them (in native JS), extracts images and embedded audio and turns them in to base64 encoded data:uris, then stitches the vector graphics back together as animated SVG.

The experience so far is somewhat hit or miss, with simple animations like those found in Flash banners working very well, but with more advanced things (like a Strongbad email animation) it runs rather slow. Also there was no sound when I tested it on my iPhone 3GS, which I assume is a limitation of the method used.

Smokescreen is definitely off to an impressive start, though, and things will probably improve since it will soon be open sourced. It’s compiled in JavaScript, and works perfectly in non-mobile browsers as well, which means you could be viewing Flash-based content on your computer without ever having to install the actual Flash plugin. I have a feeling that this tech will catch on far faster with advertisers looking to cut corners rather than redesign their ads from the ground up for iPhone OS consumption. You can view all the demos currently available here.

Both these workarounds are a prime example of how if people really want their device to do something, they’ll figure out a way.