Radley Marx

iPad/iPhone/iPod (iPOS) as Open Platform… Why Bother?

A friend asked me on Twitter this morning:

Why is flash such a contentious issue for Apple? licensing? processing overhead? them wanting to own everything?

Really it all boils down to this: the iPOS is Apple’s end-to-end platform from the processor to the hardware to the operating system, media and communication software, all the way up to the point of sale for music, video, books, and applications to the end users. All of it 100% Apple.

So why bother?

Why bother with partners, contracts, meetings, negotiations, testing, failures, support, and other BS? Why deal with any of that if you don’t have to. Instead, each part of the iPOS is deliberately optimized to work with the others without fail or debate. Apple pwns the chip, the device, the OS… Totally vertical.

Despite isolation, the iPOS platform has been wildly successful. Despite every nasty trick Apple pulls, from the 50% early-adopter tax on the first iPhone to forging Flash content in their promotional material and outright lying about “the entire internet on your device”, they’re kicking ass and we’re eating it up.

We’re buying their toys… along with overpriced specialized connectors and adapters (a tethered wireless-device???)

We’re creating and installing their apps… per approval and 30% cut.

We spread their rumors; We make-up their news.

We create and follow live-blogs and live pirate cell-phone video streams whenever Jobs speaks.

So seriously, from their perspective:

Why no Flash? Why no open platform? Really??? It already works, that’s why.

Why bother?

Uhm, Before You Fix Flash…

There’s a lot of talk bouncing around Twitter and Flash blogs on ways to improve the Flash Platform. The general consensus is that JIRA is the quick and easy solution that anyone can easily utilize to do something something something…

I’m writing this post as a reminder than not all Flash users are enterprise-based programmers and that many of us have little or no experience with JIRA.

I personally have had only limited experience with JIRA – usually with receiving / fixing bugs and never for reporting them. I don’t feel handicapped by this lack of knowledge; I spent my time in school learning design, animation, and multimedia which are a natural trajectory to Flash design and development. And I’m certainly not alone. I’ve pointed out many times that Flash continues to be taught in design and multimedia programs but almost never in computer science.

It’s natural for the platform programmers to connect and insulate themselves with other programmers in our field. Thus it’s easy for them to expect an inherent understanding of things like OOP, regular expressions, and JIRA, and overlook stuff like the timeline, tools, and the Creative Suite.

In fact, it seems that these programmers are all on the same path, moving towards the same goal. If I jump to the last page it would probably say: Java did it, in the lab, with Eclipse. [Update - in other words: you know Java, you use Java, so you won't rest until Flash is essentially Java. No timeline, no GUI interface, no "designer noobs".]

So to the programming L33T, I speak up for the creative side: JIRA is not an obvious choice. From my little exposure to Adobe’s JIRA system it’s clear that programmers are having a hard enough time getting heard in the Brazilian labyrinth… and they know the system! As outsiders, creatives don’t know the system or protocols, nor should they. That’s your job.

Instead of bug reports, I recommend adding a few creatives to the evangelism and product teams and get their feedback. And by creatives, I don’t mean marketing people. I mean former art directors who work with junior designers and developers and can suggest tools that are more instinctive and natural to people who can draw.

Why I use a cracked copy of Traktor

I’ve got a gig this next weekend. Nothing big, but I do have to play in front of a crowd. As part of that gig I expect to play digital tracks via TRAKTOR. But this afternoon, I was surprised to find I couldn’t actually run TRAKTOR.

The application (that I paid for) would only open as a demo. If I tried to reactivate TRAKTOR I was directed to the Native Instruments ServiceCenter software, which attempted to connect to their server to confirm my license and couldn’t. Not knowing what was going on I went to native-instruments.com and saw this message: 

Server Downtime

Dear Visitor,

Due to technical problems, our site is temporarily not available. We appreciate your patience and apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. Please try again in 30 minutes.

Your Native Instruments Online Team

 

Since the NI website is down, I can’t connect to confirm and actually use my software.

Two things struck me at this moment (i.e. 5pm PST). First, anyone who relied on the legitimate version of TRAKTOR for a live gig right now (i.e. it’s 1am in Europe) was just screwed. Second, I personally had a crack of TRAKTOR left over, so I’m in the clear and can journey on.

Why exactly do I have a crack? Because when I purchased TRAKTOR I experienced a very similar problem: ServiceCenter wouldn’t let me create a user account, without which I couldn’t get whatever prerequisites. It was a Saturday and I had just paid $500 for this software and wasn’t allowed to play with it for more that 30 minutes at a time, until this problem could be resolved.

To add insult, Native Instruments only provides live support Monday through Friday 9-5pm (PST). That means no night and weekend support (which ironically is when most people are using their product). I’d have to wait until Monday morning until I could actually use my software and try again that night. But if there were any more problems, wait again until the next morning etc.

So now I use a cracked copy of TRAKTOR.

My advise – get the crack. It’s available everywhere, is more reliable, and isn’t handicapped by bad DRM.

 

[Update 6pm] looks like the website is back up. But TRAKTOR still needs to be reactivated and ServiceCenter wants my Serial Number before I can play. For me, I just have to dig into the closet to find my TRAKTOR box that has the card. But for those of you trying to perform right now, I recommend a couple of kamakazis to kill the pain. Hopefully you’ll still get paid.

Flash is Dead, Long Live Flex (as Flash)

I’m writing as a response to Kevin Suttle’s post Found and Lost: The Flash IDE which asks the question: what happened to the Flash IDE?

Over the past few years, Flash Professional has been marginalized more and more to make room for Flex Builder and the upcoming Flash Catalyst. As a professional Flash developer/designer I’ve ranted many times about these changes and decided to throw my opinion into the debate.

The life of Flash (as we used to know it) peaked with the rise of Actionscript 2 and Flash video. Prior to this time, Flash was exciting, artistic, experimental media for delivering websites, animations, and the occasional ad banner. When Flash video became mainstream, internet and media teams jumped to the Flash platform.

With the jump came very talented programmers who produced a lot of great stuff in Flash. At the same time they looked upon AS2 and declared “this is not optimal” and looked upon the timeline and exclaimed “WTF!?” 

So something natural happened: a coup d’etat. Regime change. Unfamiliar with what Flash was, these talented programmers started replacing Flash with what they knew: Java and Eclipse. Around the time of the release of CS3 emerged Actionscript 3 (Java) and a new IDE (Flex/Eclipse) that enabled programmers to do Flash in their old familiar environment, using their native language.

No longer necessary for “real projects”, Flash Professional got tossed in with Creative Suite. As such Flash Pro became one of many aging creative apps downshifted to semi-annual maintenance updates and half-baked features. I say half-baked simply because bugs are no longer seriously addressed in periodic updates. Instead they are released in concert as part of a paid upgrade every 18 months. So half-complete features such as Flash’s new Motion Editor won’t be updated until the release of CS5. In contrast, Flex programmers can grab nightly builds of Flex 4 (long before it even goes beta) to use with their free Flex SDK.

Despite that rant, I’m pretty much past the point of being shocked or upset. The fact is Flash Professional is going the way of Director, and Flex has risen to be the center of the Flash Platform. Programming is center stage and creative media has been left alone, coasting along from it’s own inertia (for now).

So how should Adobe fix the Flash IDE and make it creative and media savvy again?

I’ll save that for my next post.

Muggle Free

It won’t be obvious here on my personal blog, but I’ve been somewhat slacking in cyberspace. I’ve only posted a few entries on vj.tv in the last couple of months, I barely twitted, and this personal blog has been little more than a rant board.

I was a muggle for the last 2 months – I worked from 9:30am to 6:30pm weekdays. My commute was short, but it still involved a complex on-off-on freeway drive (to avoid the Maze) along with the blahs of “commuter traffic.”

This period was partly about making up for lost personal time along with managing transaction from start-up #1 to start-up #2. Mixwit took up most of my time and resources this year, leaving me in an uncomfortable position by the end of summer. By the end of the year, it was clear that we had to shut down the project if we were to ever get to phase 2.

From October to last week, I worked full time as a consultant for a well known music start-up. The pay way very good and a took advantage of the new income to make significant personal upgrades which I will talk about more over the next few weeks.

But anyways, I’m back. Muggle free. I’m my own self again!