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Ian Bogost: Flash is not a Right

Ian Bogost: Flash is not a Right

If you care at all about the whole iPhone/Flash kerfuffle, you have to read the whole thing; but I can’t help but jump to the end here, because its one of those great “that’s what I’ve been trying to say” moments for me:

The computational ecosystem is burgeoning. We have more platforms today than ever before, from mobile devices to microcomputers to game consoles to specialized embedded systems. Yet, a prevailing attitude about making computational creativity longs for uniformity: game engines that target multiple platforms to produce the same plain-vanilla experience, authoring tools that export to every popular device at the lowest common denominator; and, of course, the tyranny of the web, where everything that once worked well on a particular platform is remade to work poorly everywhere.

It is a kind of computational extirpation, where everything unique is crippled or cleansed in order to service a perverted belief in universality. I consider it a kind of jingoism, and I hope we can outgrow or destroy it.

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The long term goal is to support the long-term migration of Apple from being a hardware company with a software arm into being a cloud computing company with a hardware subsidiary — almost like Google, if you squint at the Google Nexus One in the right light. The alternative is to join the PC industry in a long death spiral into irrelevance.

Charlie Stross, The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash
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Vintage-style DC Character Posters by Michael Blaine Myers, Jr. [via curvedwhite]

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New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

Steve Jobs, Thoughts on Flash. It is kind of funny that it’s all about open standards in the war with Adobe, then dismissing openness as a porn wasteland in the case of Android, right? One of the many fun things you get away with when you’re Steve Freakin’ Jobs. [via Ian]