My take on the flash debate

Most people think I'm a heavy Mac user. I'm not. My computer of choice? The Asus 1201N. Dual core Atom N330, Nvidia ION 1, windows 7 and 2GB of RAM. This machine is pretty quick - it has no problem with 1080p video and I've benchmarked a variety of 2008, 2009 games with surprisingly good results.

It's weakness? Flash. Flash sucks. Netbooks, those machine designed to explore the web-on-the-go, suck because flash exists. For some reason, Intel puts these run-of-the mill Atom processors in these things. Their power-requirements are pretty much equivalent to the 1.3GHz CULV (Consumer Ultra Low Voltage) Core 2 Duo processors we're seeing in CULV laptops, but the Core 2 Duos absolutely PANTS the Atom!

Flash is a fantastic tool for developing content - it ruins the web-experience. I don't think I was the only one disappointed with GPU enabled flash 10.1. Does flash still have a chance? 

One thing for certain, Intel is making a splash with it's new 32nm CULV processor designs. Maybe I'm due for an upgrade sooner then I thought - maybe adobe will get's it's junk in gear and build a competitive and satisfying platform. It's interesting how monopoly's fall so hard so fast due to lack of innovation.

-Mike

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No more Flash. It's proprietary and hence there become battles like Adobe vs. Apple that reduce its effectiveness as a content medium. I hate to take Apple's side on this one, but you can't rely on one company to improve the user experience of the internet.

Flash is created by a company whose entire practice is to overbloat its software. How long does Adobe Reader take to load for you? How long did it take 10 years ago? Shouldn't this have improved?

I believe netbooks to be a very promising market and a great direction for computing to expand. As the internet becomes more friendly to mobile devices, it will eventually scale properly for devices as low-power as mobile phones to as high-power as desktop computers, and netbooks will fit nicely as a half-way medium in between those extremes. In order to expand, the infrastructure has to be written in a scalable way, not the way that Adobe's products make everything over-featured and cripple the low-power range.

— Bryan Eyler
Interesting Perspective. My thoughts have always been that netbooks will address a short lived market requirement. With the advent of "slates", tablets and pads - and the increasingly powerful and cost-effective designs of Integrated HW solutions - their consumer appeal will start to drift toward either end of the spectrum.

Apple clearly has a monopoly on the slate market. Their decision to cut ties with adobe flash will undoubtedly make things difficult for the software provider.

— Michael Litt
I think the slate/tablet/pad market won't be as large as expected. They're just not comfortable to use, and I have my doubts that a software keyboard will ever be preferred to a hardware one. I just can't see email being all that fun on a soft keyboard. And from what I've heard and seen, you always have to find something to prop up a tablet, whereas that's built into a netbook already. How do you watch videos on your bed with a tablet? You hold it up.
— Bryan Eyler