ipad ponderings

But there’s another reason why Apple created this new external process architecture for web content plugins in Snow Leopard: it was the only way they could ship Safari and the WebKit framework as 64-bit binaries. Flash Player is only available as a 32-bit binary. (This is true for other third-party web content plugins, like Silverlight, but Flash is the only one that ships as part of the system.) 64-bit apps cannot run 32-bit plugins. Apple doesn’t have the source code to Flash, so only Adobe can make Flash Player 64-bit compatible. They haven’t yet. So if Apple wanted Safari to be 64-bit in Snow Leopard (and they did), they needed to run 32-bit plugins like Flash in a separate process.

according to Apple's PR hack the majority of crash reports related to internet browsing actually sent to the techs from regular jack-offs involve plugin bombs: the flash programs freeze up the OS and your browser has no choice but to puke and die. if this is happening fairly commonly on higher powered laptops and desktops, how can we expect a phone or a tablet, with a fraction of the processing power of your 48-core tower, to run any smoother. and these little devices are, for the general public, purpose built for internet browsing when on the tube, on your couch or on your toilet. how sad would it be if your new $600 toy kept crashing everytime you tried to watch lenny loosejocks retrieve his beloved donga from the depths of some australian cave? pretty sad, really.

because it's a new apple product, the ipad has come under an intense firestorm of cosmically large pro-con lists. at least there are those out there still giving it the benefit of the doubt (i.e. the quote above, the link for which is below), unlike responses to recent microsoft releases - it seems if they were able to make their operating systems as reliable as their xbox 360s they might actually move some product. but, i suppose, they would require every Vista machine to have a little red LED somewhere visible and demoralizing. but i digress.

one of the major complaints against the ipad/phone/touch is the absence of that wonderful little internet plugin, Flash. this plugin runs most internet streaming video (read: most) so, for example, i can't watch much of footytube or play my lenny loosejocks walkabout game. sad stuff. this was my biggest complaint regarding the mobile iproducts but, after some help from angela, i actually learned what is behind much of this apple/flash debate.

here are some pretty cool articles (again, thx ang):

http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/apple_adobe_flash (for the explanation of what is going on behind the ongoing apple/flash conflict)
http://kitsunenoir.com/2010/01/28/apples-new-ipad/ (a neat article just throwing out some interesting pro-pad points)

-e