Steve Jobs about flash technology. Applied rhetoric

It turned out that I was following the situation around Apple's criticism of the flash, so I can not fail to pay attention to another open letter from Steve Jobs about the refusal to support flash.

The argument method used in this letter can serve as a good collection of sophisms . It seemed to me strange that the texts of this level contain almost classic examples of tricks.

Sophism (from the Greek. Σόφισμα, "skill, skill, cunning invention, trick, wisdom") is a false conclusion, which, however, on superficial examination seems to be correct.
')
Historically, the concept of "sophism" has always been associated with the idea of ​​deliberate falsification. The task of the sophist is to present the worst argument as the best by ingenious tricks in speech, in reasoning, taking care not of truth, but of success in a dispute or of practical advantage.

The main goal of the rhetorician is not the revelation of truth, but clarity and persuasiveness with the help of probable (εἰκός), for which all sorts of sophisms are extremely useful.

In his essay, Jobs puts forward the following thesis:

Apple blocks flash not for business reasons, protecting its App Store, but for technological reasons

I would like to get a little bit more understanding. It is based on technology issues.

Let us see what arguments he gives in proof of this thesis.

Argument number 1: Flash - closed system

Associated with flash software is 100% quotient. These products are only available in Adobe, and Adobe has a monopoly on their development, pricing, etc. Their widespread occurrence does not mean their openness, since They are manufactured and controlled by Adobe. Almost by all indications, flush is a closed system.

In this argument, the arguments are:

• private flash ownership
• monopolistic (100%) right to pricing products related to this technology
• exclusive control of technology by Adobe

Ownership, pricing, exclusive control are not technological reasons. Therefore, even formally this argument does not prove the thesis advanced.

In terms of content, it is generally not true, since Runtime for ActionScript 3 is Tamarin (an open source virtual machine), the Flex SDK is open , there are alternative adobe development environments , RTMP servers and the players themselves.

True, Adobe made available not all the code. For example, it can not publish all the sources, because The flash player contains the H.264 codec, the rights to which belong to Apple itself.

Next Jobs talks about the creation of Apple Open WebKit, all this is true, but it is not proof of the closed flash. If something is open, it does not mean that the other is closed.

Argument number 2: The user does not lose the completeness of the web

2.1 Video Access Restriction

Adobe is constantly talking about the inaccessibility of the "full web" on Apple mobile devices, because 75% of the videos on the Internet are flash. What they are silent about is that almost all of this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and can be viewed on iPhones, iPods and iPads. YouTube, with its 40% share of video on the web, is presented on Apple's mobile devices as a great, possibly the world's best app. Add to this video from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic and many, many others. services. Users of iPhones, iPods and iPads do not lose a lot.

Jobs objects: "users are not deprived of much." Even in his objection there is a statement that something is still being deprived, how, then, to preserve the “usefulness of the web”? What is this objection? If you undertake to object, then prove that all the content is available, and the argument “they don’t need it” is invalid here as an argument. This is another independent statement, which, by the way, also needs to be proved.

The classic sign of the trick in this objection is the following sign (directly from the book on rhetoric): Adobe’s accusation that they are silent that almost all videos are in H.264 format.

This sophistic device is called a “hidden statement” and, unfortunately, is intended only for the public. The listener must understand it this way: if Adobe does not say something, it means that he has something to hide, it means that he is wrong in something. Therefore, the opponent is right (in the eyes of the listener). The reception is calculated on the fact that the listener does not want to understand the details of the “proof” (well, if it contains a lot of numbers) and simply “counts” the sophist's win.

By the way, about the given figures. The fact that almost everything from a flash video is in H.264 format does not mean at all that it will work on an iPhone, since according to the specification on the Apple website, the device supports only the Low-Complexity version of H.264.

And what Adobe has supposedly kept silent about specifically, and the fact that 40% of video on the web is focused on YouTube, for which there is a separate application on the iPhone, does not refute the loss of the completeness of the web for iPhone users.

As a small digression, I must add here that the loss of the “fullness of the web” is not associated only with the flash. In the web there is such a thing as "file". Sites can upload files to the user or take them from him. But not an iPhone user. You will understand what it is about by looking at the file form field in a safari.

2.2 Restricting access to games

Another Adobe claim is that flash games are not available on Apple devices. It's true. Fortunately, more than 50,000 items in the “games” and “entertainment” sections of the App Store, and many of them are free. This is more than any other platform.

Here it is directly written: This is true. It is true that existing flash games are not available.

The mention of the 50,000 headers in the relevant sections of the App Store, the publication of statistics of winnings in Las Vegas casinos and fluctuations in the dollar in Honduras will not be able to do this wrong. There is no objection in this argument.

The second argument resounded, but the thesis is still not yet proven.

Argument # 3: Reliability, Security, and Performance

Symantec identified flash as a technology with one of the worst vulnerabilities in 2009.

We have not forgotten that this is an argument that must prove that the flash is not supported for technological reasons. Why, then, is pdf supported, because Adobe Reader has the same vulnerability rank as Adobe Flash Player?

So, there must be some other clarifying argument, where is he? Unclear. You'll have to watch Symantec Global Internet Security Threat Report yourself.

But what is it? Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash Player are really in second place in the total number of attacks against them. But the number of vulnerabilities found in a flash player is less than, for example, Apple QuickTime (p. 41).



Blaming others for the silence of the facts, Jobs himself uses this technique, quite skillfully. But if the specification of the number of videos in H.264 format did not change the essence of the claim, then Steve is silent about the facts that are more significant.

The absolute number of attacks on the player indicates its popularity, the number of vulnerabilities found indicates the degree of protection. And here he is just on top.

This is juggling, sifting facts, what most newspapers do.

We also know not by hearsay that the flash is the number one cause of Macs crashes. We collaborated with Adobe to solve this problem, but it still persists for several years. We do not want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by installing a flash there.

Flash - the root cause of the fall of Macs. We have worked with Adobe to combat this problem, but it still exists for several years now.

The argument contains Adobe’s unstable work, but for some reason, not a flash player, but Mac. Okay, the player would display the contents incorrectly, but then the system itself falls.

A person unfamiliar with kitchen programming may ask: if Adobe thinks so destructively that their product destabilizes the system, then why does the Mac just crash from a flash, and for Windows or Linux it isn’t declared to be the cause of crashes? Yes, and the main one? Android why also does not complain?

A person familiar with the mechanisms of the systems, there are other questions. For example, how can a browser developer not take measures to protect against unstable plugins? This is someone else's code, anything can be written there, errors can occur, it is a foreign territory. And we know that Apple in Safari is taking such measures.

The next question is: if even the browser failed to cope with the plugin and crashed, with what frightened the operating system suddenly crashes?

Why is Mac OS, which at other times focuses on its stability compared to Windows, is now recognized in the inability to resist the flash player, despite the fact that Apple, in collaboration with Adobe, has been trying to solve "problem number 1" for many years? These questions need to be answered so that the argument of instability generated by the flash is considered seriously.

In addition, flash does not work well enough on mobile devices. Over and over again, we asked Adobe to show us the good performance of the flash on a mobile device, anyone, for many years. We did not see anything. Adobe announced the release of a mobile flash in early 2009, then in the second half of 2009, then in early 2010, then in the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually come out, but we are glad that we did not wait. Who knows how it will work?

To see the flash on any mobile device, I just go to YouTube . But everything is not so simple.

Jobs says: flash does not work well on any mobile device. Here the reservation is “good” (well), it is repeated in every necessary sentence. Despite the categorical statements "we have never seen anything like this", which should impress the listener of the dispute, this does not mean that Adobe did not show Jobs a flash on mobiles.

Just because of the reservation, you can always say: "Yes, it works, but not well enough." And what “good” is, defines Jobs himself, having the opportunity each time to add new criteria. Here we are.

This is a classic example of the “narrowing down” trick. With the help of reservations, the thesis or argument is narrowed down in order to make it harder to refute them.

Argument number 4: battery life

In order for the battery when playing video is enough for a long time, gadgets must decode the video hardware, software decoding is too power-consuming. Many modern devices contain a hardware H.264 decoder — an industry standard used in Blu-ray DVD players adopted by Apple, Google (YouTube), Vimeo, Netflix, and many other companies.

Although the flash has recently supported H.264, on almost all flash sites, video requires a past-generation decoder that is not implemented in hardware and is decoded by software. The difference is astounding: on an iPhone, H.264 video plays up to 10 hours, while in software decoding it takes less than 5 hours on a single battery charge.

When video services recode their video materials to H.264, the flash will not be needed for viewing at all. Everything will be great to play in a browser like Safari or Chrome without plug-ins, incl. on iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Suddenly, it turns out that almost all flash sites store video in the old flash format, which can only be viewed in a flash. Hey, and who just said that almost all video content is also available in H.264 format? We have not forgotten about it yet!

It turns out that without a flash, the user does not have the opportunity to see it at all, even programmatically. But the battery is not discharged.

Sites must recode all existing video in the desired format, and it will be available to the user without any flash.

This argument point shows the toughness of the methods by which Apple contributes to progress. But it does not prove the technological disadvantages of flash technology, since here it is clearly confirmed that the technology supports H.264.

Argument # 5: Finger control

Flash was coined for PC with mouse, not for finger control. For example. Many flash sites are based on a “hover” event, from which menus and other elements work. Epple's revolutionary multi-touch interface does not use a mouse, so there is no equivalent for point-and-take events. Most flash sites should be rewritten to support the touch interface, why not rewrite them immediately in HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?

Even if we supported flash, it would not solve the problem of flash sites not working on the touch screen.

Here, without tricks, just facts that do not correspond to reality. If you navigate the control, it will receive a MouseEvent.ROLL_OVER event.

The properties of the event will simply be flagged that the mouse button is pressed. And the handler for this event will work.

Argument number 6: Flash is not suitable for applications

In a nutshell: the flash is needed not only for video and games, but also for creating applications. Apple does not add flash because it cares about developers. Since the flash application is cross-platform, inside it, it has access to a set of functions common to all target systems, without specific cool chips. Flash separates the developer from the advanced system, as an interlayer, and Adobe will surely slowly adapt this interlayer for new features. Flash applications will not meet operating system standards.

Apple’s task is to provide a developer with a platform for creating the best applications in the world, so we don’t allow flash.

This seems like a real technological argument. If only now there was not a single non-standard application in the App Store and all applications would use only the full set of iPhone OS functions.

And this, as we know, unfortunately is not so.

PS I sometimes get scared because sometimes in a dispute, we are ready to use ready-made paragraphs from a similar training manual compiled by authority, while believing ourselves to be participants in the discussion.

I do not need a flash on the iPhone. But I want people around to recognize situations where opinion is simply imposed. So that someday they do not impose a more dangerous opinion. As it happened in history many times.